RTHK: Baldwin hands over phone to 'Rust' investigators

American actor Alec Baldwin has handed his cell phone to authorities as they investigate the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the "Rust" movie set, almost a month after a warrant was issued for the device.

Baldwin was holding a Colt gun during a rehearsal for the Western being filmed in New Mexico in October when it discharged a live round, killing Halyna Hutchins.

Police are investigating why live ammunition was present on set, and requested Baldwin's phone in mid-December on the grounds "there may be evidence on the phone" that could be "material and relevant to this investigation".

Baldwin's iPhone was turned over to law enforcement in New York state's Suffolk County, where he has a home.

They will gather information off the device and provide their findings to New Mexico officials, a Santa Fe Sheriff's Office spokesman said.

The sheriff's office has not yet received the data to be retrieved off Baldwin's phone, said the spokesman.

Investigators have said they wanted to view text messages and emails sent to and from Baldwin  a producer and actor on "Rust"  regarding the project.

The search warrant for his phone said Baldwin had exchanged emails with the film's armourer about the type of gun to be used in the scene.

Correspondence with Baldwin's lawyer and his wife contained on the phone will not be handed over, under an agreement between Baldwin and the Santa Fe district attorney.

The sheriff's office earlier said negotiations over "jurisdictional concerns" had held up the transfer of the phone.

Baldwin posted a rambling video over the weekend in which he insisted claims he was not complying with the investigation were "a lie".

Prosecutors have not yet filed criminal charges over the tragedy, and have refused to rule out charges against anyone involved, including Baldwin.

Baldwin has said he was told the gun contained no live ammunition, had been instructed by Hutchins to point the gun in her direction, and did not pull the trigger. (AFP)

This story has been published on: 2022-01-16. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
China, Iran jointly announce implementation of bilateral comprehensive cooperation plan

Xinhua) 09:43, January 16, 2022

Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi holds talks with visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian in Wuxi, east China's Jiangsu Province, Jan. 14, 2022. (Xinhua/Ji Chunpeng)

NANJING, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks on Friday with visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian in Wuxi, east China's Jiangsu Province.

The two sides announced the launch of the implementation of a comprehensive cooperation plan.

Wang said China is ready to work with Iran to implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state, strengthen communication and coordinate actions, constantly enrich the connotation of China-Iran comprehensive strategic partnership and open a new era for the development of bilateral ties for the next 50 years.

Abdollahian, on behalf of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, said that Iran firmly supports China in safeguarding its core interests and firmly adheres to the one-China policy.

Iran highly appreciates and will actively participate in the joint building of the Belt and Road, said Abdollahian, adding that developing relations with China is Iran's top decision. The Iranian side is firmly committed to advancing Iran-China cooperation and staunchly supports the Beijing Winter Olympics.

The two sides jointly announced the launch of the implementation of the 25-year comprehensive cooperation plan and conducted in-depth discussions. Both sides agreed to step up cooperation on energy, infrastructure, production capacity, science and technology, and medical and health care.

They also agreed to expand cooperation in agriculture, fisheries and cyber security as well as promote tripartite cooperation, and deepen people-to-people and cultural exchanges in education, film and personnel training.

The two sides also exchanged views on the Iranian nuclear situation.

Wang said that the right and wrong of the Iranian nuclear issue is clear. The U.S. unilateral withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) has directly created the current difficult situation. The United States should bear the major responsibility and rectify its mistake as soon as possible

China will firmly support the resumption of negotiations on the implementation of the JCPOA and will continue to participate constructively in follow-up negotiations, he said.

It is hoped that all parties will overcome difficulties and meet each other halfway to advance the political and diplomatic settlement process, Wang said.

Lauding the constructive role played by the Chinese side, Abdollahian said Iran is committed to reaching a set of stable guarantee agreements through serious negotiations and is willing to maintain close communication with China.

(Web editor: Peng Yukai, Liang Jun)
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its public advisory on masks, recommending the use of types that offer the best protection against COVID-19.

In a statement, the CDC advised the wearing of N95 and KN95 masks that are approved by the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health (NIOSH) for such "provide the highest level of protection from particles, including the virus that causes Covid-19" when properly and regularly worn, as per NBC.

However, the CDC also noted that wearing a mask is a "critical public health tool" to prevent transmission of COVID-19. "It is important to remember that any mask is better than no mask," it said.

The agency also underscored the importance of having a comfortable and well-fitted mask or respirator so people can wear it consistently.

Updated guidelines also recommend the use of highly protective masks in higher-risk situations, including long travel via public transportation or airplane; when working in a crowded job environment; if one has a risk factor for severe illness, certain health condition and weakened immune system; and when one's vaccination is not updated, as per CNN.

The CDC also advised teachers, students, staff, and visitors to K-12 schools to wear masks indoors regardless of their vaccination status or the transmission rates in the area. Though, masks are still not recommended for children under two years old.

Earlier, the CDC did not endorse the wearing of N95 to the general public for concerns of scarcity in hospitals due to a demand for higher-quality masks. Shortages, according to the CDC, are no longer a problem.

Read Also: Biden Urges Americans To Get COVID-19 Jabs, Says Omicron Should 'Alarm' The Unvaccinated

Biden Announces Free Masks For Everyone

On Thursday, President Joe Biden announced that his administration would produce high-quality masks that would be distributed as he acknowledged that many Americans face the challenge of purchasing the best quality masks.

Biden announced as the US government struggles to contain the surge of COVID-19 cases due to the highly-transmissible but mild Omicron variant, as per New York Times.

The President also proclaimed the government's purchasing of 500 million COVID-19 tests in addition to the 500 million tests he previously announced. Furthermore, the website where US residents can process the delivery of their free test kits will be launched this coming week.

High-Quality Masks Not Accessible To All

Biden was prompted to initiate the distribution of masks because he understands that there are people who could not afford to buy masks and those who are already tired of wearing them. But he emphasized that mask-wearing is necessary at this point.

"I know we all wish could finally be done with wearing masks, I get it, but they are a really important tool to stop the spread, especially of the highly transmissible Omicron variant," Biden announced in the White House.

Last month, President Biden announced plans to deploy 1,000 military medical workers to assist overburdened hospitals amid the Omicron outbreak. According to a White House official, the current mobilizations are only part of the first round of deployments. Over the following weeks, health teams from the military will continue to be mobilized and deployed where they are needed to address COVID-19 cases.

Related Article: New Normal: How Long Will We Need to Wear Face Masks?

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According to information available in the public space, Russian forces are currently surrounding Ukraine from three sides

This handout picture taken and released by the Russian Defence Ministry on January 14, 2022 shows Russian troops unboarding a military cargo plane upon landing in Ivanovo after compleeting their mission in Kazakhstan. (AFP)

Two events have focussed attention on Russia once again as the New Year dawned. The first being the ostensible military build-up on its borders with Ukraine. Once a part of the erstwhile Soviet Union, Ukraine is a nation with whom Russia has a lightning rod history now stretching back into antiquity.

Second is the intervention to stabilise the domestic unrest in Kazakhstan albeit in a multilateral format. It begs the obvious question. Is Russia repositioning itself post the US withdrawal from Afghanistan that has seriously undermined the global credibility and reliability of that nation. If so, towards what endgame?

According to information available in the public space, Russian forces are currently surrounding Ukraine from three sides. A report published in the New York Times illustrates that soldiers, heavy armour and medium to long range artillery have been deployed in a manner that seek to subserve the ends of broadening the theatre of conflict with Ukraine, were the situation to escalate. Both on Ukraines eastern and northern borders in close proximity to its capital Kyiv substantial Russian military assets stand arrayed.

Russia has been paranoid since the early 1990s itself about Ukraine and Georgia becoming members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato).

Strategic experts have long believed that Russia had commenced putting in place the requisite building blocks focussed on a momentous armed intrusion into Ukraine way back in 2014 itself when it had annexed Crimea. The continuing conflict since then in the heavily industrialised regions of Donetsk and Luhansk also known as Donbas is yet another manifestation of that desire.

The deployment of Russian troops on its borders with Ukraine appears to be in the range of a hundred thousand personal or more, according to analysts who closely track developments in that part of the world. Europe and Russia focussed Western think tanks estimate that Moscow may have drawn up operational plans for military manoeuvres that would take its forces deep into Ukraine involving upwards of two hundred thousand personnel. An operation may well be in the works before the winter ends.

However, there is ambiguity and no real clarity as to why the Kremlin has decided to go down this risky road of confrontation in Ukraine that could spark off unintended consequences not limited too Eastern Europe alone. It could draw Nato into the arc of conflict if the continuing negotiations between the US and Russia in Geneva do not arrive at a modus vivendi leading to a rapid de-escalation.

There would be economic implications as well as Europe is already reeling under the scourge of very high natural gas prices as Gazprom has been withholding gas flows to Europe. Europes miseries have been compounded by the non-certification and sanctions imposed by the US on a new gas pipeline Nord Stream-2.

What today are the nations of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus were between the ninth and the 13th centuries a part of Kievan Rus, a medieval superpower that also subsumed huge swathes of Eastern Europe in its embrace. All these three countries trace their cultural ancestry to the Kievan Rus. However, Russians and Ukrainians parted ways linguistically, historically aeons ago and politically once again in August 1991 in the death throes of the erstwhile Soviet Union.

Russian nationalists, however, claim ad-nauseam that Russians and Ukrainians are one people  an integral part of the Russian civilisation. They also take within their cuddle adjoining Belarus. However, Ukrainians are not too enthused by this embrace of the Russian bear.

Moving east to the erstwhile Asiatic region of the former Soviet Union an unexpected inflection point has erupted in the resource-rich Kazakhstan. This former republic of the Soviet Union lies between Russia and China. It is the largest landlocked Westphalian state in the world with a sparse population of 19 million people only.

It was ruled by the erstwhile Communist apparatchik turned strongman Nursultan Nazarbayev for over three decades since it became independent on December 16, 1991. Nazarbayev demitted office in March 2019 but continued to wield substantive power as he continued to control Kazakhstans KGB styled security apparatus.

On January 2, 2022, thousands of Kazakhs took to the streets. The ostensible trigger was the lifting of the upper ceiling on LPG prices by the government. However, the bile is far more deep-seated including ire at social and economic inequalities accentuated further by the unremitting pandemic coupled of course with serious anger against a deeply authoritarian one-party state subterfuging as a democracy. Government buildings were torched as angry mobs took control of the airport and other public utilities compelling the current President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev  a protegee of Nazarbayev to turn to Moscow for help.

The evolving situation in Kazakhstan presents itself as yet another dare to Moscow. For it represents the third revolt against a totalitarian Kremlin affiliated oligarchy in less than eight years. There were vigorous pro-democracy protests in Ukraine in 2014 followed by Belarus in 2020. The unfolding turmoil portends to undercut Moscows economic and geo-political heft as it once again attempts to project power in its near abroad.

Coincidentally, Kazakhstan also matters both to the United States and China, albeit for different reasons. US oil majors like Exxon Mobil and Chevron have invested tens of billions of dollars in the western part Kazakhstan, the epicentre of the current protests. China is also concerned because any serious upsurge in neighboring Kazakhstan with whom it shares a 1,782-kilometre-long border could lead to a seeding of ideas of protest in China that itself today is a capitalist authoritarian regime masquerading as a communist state.

Russias intervention in Kazakhstan is exceptional in many senses of the word. For it is under the aegis of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), a military alliance composed of Russia and its strongest security confederates in the post-Soviet world. The pact includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The transnational character of the intercession is noteworthy, for it constitutes the first-ever combined deployment of CSTO military personnel in three decades since the inception of this military bloc.

Is Russia, therefore, making a renewed global play beginning in its erstwhile sphere of influence? Given that the US is retreating into a Jeffersonian phase in its history. Only time will tell. However, the pirouetting moves of the Russian bear are worth observing closely in the next few months and years ahead.
This year the Council of Churches of the Middle East has been tasked with preparing the texts for the Week of Prayer that is celebrated around the world from 18 to 25 January. For its part, the Taize community is calling on young people to come to the Holy Land in May for the new stage of its Pilgrimage of Trust on Earth".

Milan (AsiaNews)  The Middle East is one of the corners of the world where the wounds of history have created very deep divisions among Christians. Yet, it is also a unique laboratory for the Churches, where they are called to try to truly live everyday the challenges of walking together.

This is one of the reasons that the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Commission on Faith and Order of the World Council of Churches tasked the Council of Churches of the Middle East with preparing the texts that will guide the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity this year, which will be celebrated between 18 and 25 January around the world.

It is no accident that the Gospel verse chosen as the theme, Matthew 2:2, focuses on the East as the place where the star appeared prompting the Magi to travel to Bethlehem to worship Jesus.

Set up in 1962 as the Council of Churches of the Near East, the Beirut-based Council of Churches of the Middle East brings together Christian communities from countries as different as Egypt and Iran. The regions Catholic Churches joined the Council in 1990.

As the introduction says: The star rose in the east (Mt 2:2). It is from the east that the sun rises, and from what is called the Middle East that salvation appeared by the mercy of our God who blessed us with the dawn from on high (Lk 1:78). But the history of the Middle East was, and still is, characterized by conflict and strife, tainted with blood and darkened by injustice and oppression.

The Christians of the Middle East offer these resources for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity conscious that the world shares many of the travails and difficulties that they experience, and yearns for a light to lead the way to the Saviour who can overcome darkness.

The COVID-19 global pandemic, the ensuing economic crisis, and the failure of political, economic and social structures to protect the weakest and most vulnerable, have underlined the global need for a light to shine in the darkness.

The star that shone in the east, the Middle East, two thousand years ago still calls us to the manger, to where Christ is born. It draws us to where the Spirit of God is alive and active, to the reality of our baptism, and to the transformation of our hearts.

After encountering the Saviour and worshipping him together, the Magi return to their countries by a different way, having been warned in a dream. Similarly, the communion we share in our prayer together must inspire us to return to our lives, our churches and our world by new ways. Travelling by new ways is an invitation to repentance and renewal in our personal lives, in our churches and in our societies.

Following Christ is our new path, and in a volatile and changing world Christians must remain as fixed and determined as the constellations and the shining planets. But what does this mean in practice? Serving the Gospel today requires a commitment to defending human dignity, especially in the poorest, the weakest and those marginalized.

It requires from the churches transparency and accountability in dealing with the world, and with each other. This means churches need to cooperate to provide relief to the afflicted, to welcome the displaced, to relieve the burdened, and to build a just and honest society.

This is a call for churches to work together so that young people can build a future that accords to Gods heart, a future in which all human beings can experience life, peace, justice, and love. The new way between the churches is the way of visible unity that we sacrificially seek with courage and audacity so that, day after day, God may be all in all (1 Cor 15:28).

Another small sign is pointing towards this corner of the world. The ecumenical community of Taize has decided to undertake in the Holy Land the next stage of its Pilgrimage of Trust on Earth that its founder Brother Roger began.

The initiative, promoted in collaboration with the Churches of the Holy Land and the Tantur Ecumenical Institute (created in Bethlehem following Paul VIs historic journey in 1964), will involve young people of all confessions, aged 18 to 35 between 8 and 15 May.

As is the style of the meetings promoted by the Taize community, young people will be welcomed by Christian families of the Holy Land into their homes. This is particularly important since the pandemic brought to halt almost all pilgrimages to Jerusalem in the past two years. Hopefully, the recent lifting of travel restrictions by Israel will make them easier.

One of the brothers of the Taize community has been in the Holy Land for a few weeks to prepare the event. He writes: Meeting many people in this complex part of the world, one is struck by this fact: they all speak of the urgency of supporting each other by going together to sources of hope and trust. Is this not what we wish to experience in our pilgrimage of trust across the earth?

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Athens, TX (75751)

Today

Generally cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High around 75F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy early followed by cloudy skies overnight. Low 67F. Winds light and variable.




By Kwak Yeon-soo







This year's Jeonju International Film Festival, scheduled from April 28 to May 7, will host physical screenings and bring its number of selected films back to pre-pandemic levels.







The film festival organizing committee announced Friday that it plans to resume normal operations with strict safety regulations in place.







The 23rd edition of the festival plans to present around 230 films with 500 screenings in theaters. Last year, it had 186 films in 356 offline screenings.







The festival is also planning a showcase of Taehung Pictures films to commemorate the legendary production house and its former CEO Lee Tae-won, who died in October of last year.







The retrospective of eight films will include: Im Kwon-taek's "Chihwaseon" (2002), Song Neung-han's "Fin De Siecle" (1999), Kim Yoo-jin's "My Dear Keumhong" (1995), Kim Hong-jun's "Rosy Life" (1994) and Jang Sun-woo's "The Road to Racetrack" (1991).







"It's too early to feel a sense of relief, as we are still struggling with COVID-19, but we will prepare various scenarios according to what level of quarantine measures will be required. I believe that opportunities come to those who are prepared. Since the pandemic, the JIFF has been at the forefront in setting out measures for holding film festivals in Korea. We hope to meet with more audience members than in previous years," the festival director, Lee Joon-dong, said in a statement.


Due to rising demand for sensibly-priced cars in the late 1960s, the Biscione manufacturer decided that it was its high time for a front-wheel-drive econobox.Chief executive officer Giuseppe Luraghi approached the Italian government for much-needed funding during a time when young workers looking for better-paying jobs moved north. Obviously enough, the government was genuinely interested in slowing down this exodus, which is why the loan that made the Alfasud possible came with one string attached.More specifically, Alfa Romeo had to manufacture the new vehicle in the economically-deprived Italian south. And just like that, the Italian automaker agreed to erect a brand-new factory in Pomigliano d'Arco.No fewer than 360 billion lire were loaned, and part of that money was used to poach Rudolf Hruska from Turin-based Fiat. Born in Vienna, the Austrian designer and engineer that deserves to be called Mr. Alfasud had previously worked on the Volkswagen Beetle, Porsche Tiger VK 4501 tank, Alfa Romeo Giulietta, and the Fiat 128 that cannibalized with the Alfasud.Even for a guy this talented, the timing was extremely tight because the foundation stone of the Pomigliano facility was laid in 1968, and the car had to be ready in 1971. Happily, for him, Hruska was joined by a crack team of experts that included project leader and engineer Domenico Chirico, design legend Giorgetto Giugiaro, and Italdesign wingman Aldo Mantovani.The boxer engine of the Alfasud was fired up on the bench stand for the first time in July 1968. That November, the very first prototype was tested at Circuito di Balocco in the Vercelli province of the Piedmont region.Publicly introduced in November 1971 at the Turin Motor Show, the Alfasud achieved excellent handling for that era by lowering the center of gravity with the help of front-wheel drive and the horizontally-opposed engine that was originally rated at 63 metric ponies. For a car that weighs 830 kilograms (1,830 pounds), thats pretty good by 70s standards.The Alfasud was offered in a multitude of body styles, including two- and four-door sedans, three- and five-door hatchbacks, a three-door coupe dubbed Sprint, and a three-door wagon marketed as the Giardinetta.July 1977 is when the Alfasud became a sporty car with the introduction of a larger engine, a 1.3-liter boxer that cranked out 76 PS. Later on, Alfa Romeo upgraded the four-cylinder powerplant to 1.4 and 1.5 liters.From the innovative packaging to the spirited handling and pleasurable styling, the Alfasud had a lot going for it. Motoring publications couldnt stop waxing lyrical, praising the aforementioned traits like there was no tomorrow. But tomorrow eventually came, and the Alfasud proved to be a rotter that would make the Lancia Beta smile with a face-wide grin.Alfa Romeo used low-quality steel, and the rustproofing left much to be desired as well. Corrosion would build up within a matter of months, ruining the Alfasuds reputation forever. We also have to remember that build quality wasnt exactly great. Worse still, the Pomigliano d'Arco workforce had this bad habit of striking every Thursday or so. Its estimated the production line ground to a halt a simply staggering 700 times until 1989.Awarded Car of the Decade by CAR Magazine in 1980, this fellow cant be considered a commercial flop because Alfa Romeo sold more than one million units. Replaced by the Arna and 33, the Alfasud is revered to this day because it dared to defy the twin-cam RWD formula we often associate with the Italian automakers greatest hits from 1954 through 1994.
On the one hand, we have the F-22 Raptor , a Lockheed Martin-Boeing stealth tactical fighter that was designed to be Americas first true foray into 21st century aerial combat. It started rolling off the assembly lines in 1996, but only 15 years later it was discontinued, on account of a variety of factors, making it one of the shortest-lived machines of its kind.On the other hand, theres the F-35 Lighting , made by the same Lockheed Martin starting 2006, and pretty much doubling down on the same needs of the American military. Unlike the Raptor, this one is still in production, but some say it will never match an F-22 when it comes to air superiority.Both of them are currently used by the American armed forces, although there will never be more F-22s than the under 200 made a decade ago. This isnt stopping the pilots flying these planes from showing off every chance they get, hoping to put a dent in the arguments of those advocating for the F-35.And the photo we have here, released by the USAF as part of the Year in Photos release, is a perfect example of that.It shows a Raptor uncomfortably close to the Canon camera used to snap a pic of it, banking to the right over the desert around the Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. The plane, deployed with the 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron, was flying back in March 2021, when the picture was taken, on a mission for the Orange Flag exercise.Whereas as far as capabilities go the Raptor fights the F-35, in the case of this particular maneuvers wow factor, the battle is against the second lieutenant who snapped the pic.We are not being told what airplane she was flying in, but one has to admire the perfect timing when it comes to pressing the shutter, and the ability of keeping cool with a wonderful beast in such close proximity.
The twin-engined fighter-bomber that became the MiG-19 comes from a line of Soviet fighters that gained notoriety for savage maneuverability and a deadly mix of weapons. A famously ill-sighted gift of British jet technology at the end of the Second World War to the Soviets prompted the MiG-15 to spawn this iconic lineage.The Achilles heel of both the MiG-15 and MiG-17 that preceded the 19 was their inability to maintain high speeds in level flight. Meanwhile, the North American F-100 Super Sabre a supersonic interceptor prepared to deploy across the globe, was a menace. The Soviets knew something drastic and new had to be done. The end result was a twin-engined, often radar-equipped, all-weather interceptor capable of supersonic speeds in level flight.This was thanks to the state-of-the-art Turmansky RD-9B afterburning turbojet engines good for 25.5 kN (5,700 lbs) of thrust each and 31.8 kN (7,100 lbs) with afterburner. The package was rated to as high as Mach 1.3 in a dive. The MiG-19's wings were remarkably more streamlined and swept-back than any MiG before it, as were the large parallel spoilers on each wing. It's as if the MiG-19 was designed via bio-mechanical natural selection that pronounced prominent features on previous MiG aircraft to their natural apex.The MiG-19 made its operational debut in March of 1955. Soon after, the Chinese began to clandestinely develop their own reverse-engineered copy of the MiG-19, the Shenyang J-6. This in tune would be developed into the Nanchang Q-5 ground attack aircraft. The last of these would retire as recently as 2017. But the MiG-19 itself would need to wait before it could see combat. Far too late to make a difference in the skies over Korea, the 19 would need to wait for the next major war.The American War in Vietnam was a crucible for some of the most iconic jet fighters ever to fly. So it was this when the MiG-19 could finally flex its muscles against American Air Force. It was thought that the long-awaited meeting between the F-100 Super Saber and the MiG-19 Fargo had come at last. But instead, North Vietnamese forces found the Super Saber had been relegated to ground attack duties.The mainline American fighters of the period were different beasts entirely. The McDonnell-Douglas F4E Phantom II and the Republic F-105 Thunderchief are aircraft that aviation's top engineers could have never dreamed of only a decade previously. Both were Mach two-capable fighter-bombers ready to devastate ground targets and hold their own in a dogfight. As cumbersome as they may have been, especially in the case of the Thunderchief, they performed admirably in the air to air combat.Against these more powerful adversaries, it was ultimately up to the skills of the individual pilot to determine the winner in a dogfight. Safe to say, it wasn't the downright thrashing the Fargo's designers had hoped for in the case the Korean War had extended a few more years. Russian and Chinese Fargo variants downed five American aircraft according to the data we could collect. This included three Phantom IIs, two Grumman A-6 Intruders, and one Lockheed F-104 Starfighter.Even so, the MiG 19 was all but overshadowed over Vietnam by its iconic and far superior MiG-21 (NATO Codename: Fishbed). The 21 was superior to the 19 in just about every conceivable measure. It could crack Mach two, carry advanced air to air missiles, and deadly rocket pods to become a multi-role fighter in every sense of the word.The MiG-21 relegated the 19 to training and other lesser duties, until the variant's general retirement in the late 1990s and 2000s. Today, you can marvel at the dark sheep of the MiG family at the National Museum of the United States Air Force. Check out pictures from our visit in the gallery above.
SUV

CFRP

Frankly, if our own two cents are allowed on the matter, this new flagship trim for Toyota's third-generation Tundra is as much a rival for GMC's Sierra Denali (among others) as well as a clever substitute for their shortcomings in the groupsline. Which kind of sounds odd in an automotive age thats virtually obsessed with everything crossover, SUV, and truck-related, right?Still, lets check up on the past weeks facts. Over at ANCAP, which is the shortened form of Australasian New Car Assessment Program, the legendary Toyota Land Cruiser  in its brand-new J300 iteration  demonstrated that its not just an off-road icon, but also a safety one.It was allegedly the first such organization to get its hands on the new generation and destroy it for the sake of science . A five-star safety rating is starting to become hard to come by in this day and age. Add that to the piling reasons why Americans should be sad that Toyota deserted them and axed the 300-series' potential sales success.Over at home in Japan, Lexus just introduced a neat little collaboration project it has with Jaos Corporation. It is a custom-tuned 2022 Lexus LX600 dubbed simply Offroad. Probably merely a one-off to be shown at the JDM tuning-intensive Tokyo Auto Salon 2022 thats going on right this very weekend (January 14th to 16th). But a very enticing one, with additionalelements for enhanced protection and a neat set of Titanium Gold 20-inch Jaos Tribe Cross wheels.Thus, one can say that a lot of cool things are going on across the Toyota SUV realm, just that none of them are within reach for its American fans. No worries, though, because the Japanese company has cooked up a pickup truck alternative. So, we arrive at the all-new Tundra Capstone premium-focused grade.No chance to snatch an LC 300 or not enough cash to play around in the LX600? At least there is a truck solution to all those woes. And Toyota promises to provide (pricing and availability will be revealed at a later date) a plush, yet still tough third-generation Tundra. One riddled with a near-luxury collection of features and perks, as well as upgrades that will bring customers as close as possible to the ultimate pickup truck experience.Naturally, there are quite a few highlights to account for. Toyota will only sell Tundra Capstones with a standard i-Force Max hybrid V6 powertrain, rated at 437 horsepower and 538 lb-ft (790 Nm) of torque. More than enough to duke it out with Silverados ZR2 and Fords F-150 hybrid. While also trying to outmaneuver them as far as premium credentials are concerned.Huge 22-inch chrome wheels  which just yesterday were the panache of luxury aftermarket SUV whips  also come standard, along with semi-aniline leather seat upholstery, powered running boards and bed step, or a 10-inch color HUD, among others. And remember that we said this Tundra is going to be just as tough as always.So, it also has a free Towing Technology Package to complement its maximum payload capacity of 1,485 pounds (674 kg) and towing rating of 10,340 lbs. This equates to no less than 4,690 kg for anyone not speaking imperial (units). But its inside where most luxury features reside.Such as the exclusive black-and-white seats, authentic Dark American Walnut with an open-pore finish and illuminated Capstone logo, panoramic moonroof, acoustic glass on the front doors, as well as a barrage of technology features Among them, a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster, a 14-inch touchscreen for Toyotas Audio Multimedia system with Wi-Fi and connected capabilities, or a 12-speaker JBL premium audio system. Overall, not a bad substitute package, if only the pricing will also be the right one...
LE CASTELLET, FRANCE - Scuderia AlphaTauri sidepod with new Honda logo during final practice ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of France at Circuit Paul Ricard on June 19, 2021 in Le Castellet, France. (Photo : Peter Fox/Getty Images)

The next phase in the development of hydrogen-powered trucks is set to go underway, with Isuzu Motors and Honda Motor planning to test their joint project on Japanese public roads this year. The Japanese companies have joined forces to develop a large fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV), which can run for about 600 kilometers on just a single tank of hydrogen.

Honda, Isuzu join forces for FCEV

FCEVs are considered to be the ultimate eco-vehicle because of their non-emission of carbon dioxide. This is made possible by the eco-friendly motors found in FCEVs that rely on the electricity generated from the chemical reaction between oxygen and hydrogen. When hydrogen and oxygen combine, water is discharged from the vehicle, which is environment-friendly.

Isuzu, Honda to test hydrogen-powered trucks on public roadshttps://t.co/0TA2rk8dBH pic.twitter.com/Z9k0To3fMM  The Japan News (@The_Japan_News) January 13, 2022

Honda and Isuzu started work on this project back in 2020, with the Japanese companies concluding that fuel cell technology would be better served in commercial vehicles than passenger cars. It was the first time in Honda's history that the Japanese company provided an outside firm access to its fuel cells. Honda knew the partnership was worthwhile as hydrogen-powered automobiles are the future when it comes to eco-friendly transport.

Japanese companies have been at the forefront in developing hydrogen-powered vehicles. Toyota Motor was the first automaker to launch a hydrogen-powered automobile, releasing the historic Mirai in 2014. Honda followed suit two years later with the launch of Clarity in 2016. However, the technology behind these vehicles was complex, leading to high prices for the automobiles. For instance, the Clarity was priced at a staggering 7.83 million yen ($71,000).

According to British research firm IHS Markit, only about 4,000 hydrogen-powered vehicles were in the global market back in 2018. That is far off from the 1.4 million electric vehicles sold during that period. Since then, demand for electric vehicles has risen, further extending the divide between these two products.

Related Article: Urus Helps Lamborghini Set Sales Record in 2021: Global Sales Jump 13% With 8,405 Units Sold

Honda, Isuzu target 2030 for release of FCEV

Given the high costs, Honda deemed hydrogen power to be more suitable for commercial vehicles, given that they need batteries that not only add weight but also take time to charge. After two years of testing, Honda and Isuzu are ready to take the next step with their project.

The plan now is for the 23-tonne FCEV to be tested in Japan's expressways and roads to see the vehicle's performance and safety over long distances in Tokyo's metropolitan area. If tests go as planned, Honda and Isuzu aim to launch the much-awaited vehicle in 2030 at the earliest.

The hope now is that lower manufacturing costs will transpire in the coming years to make mass production more feasible. Having a network of hydrogen refueling stations will also help the production of hydrogen-powered commercial vehicles go into overdrive.

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British national Malik Faisal Akram took four people hostage at a Texas synagogue outside Fort Worth on Saturday, the FBI said in a statement.

The latest: Greater Manchester Police, in Northwest England, tweeted on Sunday night that officers had arrested and detained two teenagers in South Manchester for questioning in relation to the siege in Colleyville, Texas, "as part of the ongoing investigation into the attack."

For the record: Authorities had initially declined to release the name of the 44-year-old suspect or identify the hostages, all adults, though police chief Michael Miller confirmed that one of those held was Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, who leads the congregation.

Cytron-Walker said in a statement Sunday that Akram became "increasingly belligerent and threatening" in the final hour of the hostage crisis. He credited previous security trainings his congregation had received for helping him and the other hostages survive the ordeal.

"Without the instruction we received, we would not have been prepared to act and flee when the situation presented itself," Cytron-Walker added.

Driving the news: Local police responded to a 911 call at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville about an hour after the synagogue's 10a.m. Shabbat services, which were being livestreamed on Facebook.

The FBI's Dallas Field Office, including crisis negotiators, and Texas Department of Public Safety then spent the next 10-plus-hours working alongside local authorities to resolve the standoff with Akram.

Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted about 9:30pm, "Prayers answered. All hostages are out alive and safe."

Zoom in: "Around 9pm, the ... hostage rescue team ... breached the synagogue, they rescued the three [remaining] hostages, the suspect is deceased," Miller said. One of the hostages was released earlier on Saturday.

Matt DeSarno, the special agent in charge at the FBI's Dallas Field Office, said Saturday night that the suspect was focused on "one issue that was not specifically threatening to the Jewish community."

the special agent in charge at the FBI's Dallas Field Office, said Saturday night that the suspect was focused on "one issue that was not specifically threatening to the Jewish community." The suspect said he wanted to see Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist, who is serving an 86-year sentence nearby, per the Texas Department of Public Safety. Siddiqui was convicted in 2010 for assaulting U.S. federal agents, employees and nationals in Afghanistan. Siddiqui's attorney condemned the synagogue incident, per CNN.

What they're saying: President Biden on Sunday called the siege "an act of terror," according to pool reports. The president, who said he was briefed again on Sunday morning by Attorney General Merrick Garland, also said he would be speaking with Rabbi Cytron-Walker.

"There is more we will learn in the days ahead about the motivations of the hostage taker. But let me be clear to anyone who intends to spread hate  we will stand against antisemitism and against the rise of extremism in this country," the president said in a statement on Saturday.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement Sunday evening, "For Congregation Beth Israel & the Jewish community, the immediate crisis is over. Yet the fear of rising antisemitism remains.

"We must answer hate with action & ensure synagogues and all houses of worship are sanctuaries of safety, Shabbat and other days of faithful observance a time of peace, and America a place of freedom for all," Mayorkas added.

Editor's note: This story has been updated throughout.
Actor Hwang Jung-min plays Richard III during a press conference for the play, "Richard III," at the Seoul Arts Center, Thursday. Yonhap



By Park Ji-won





The poster for the play, "Richard III" / Courtesy of Sem Company
Robert Price is a journalist for KGET-TV. His column appears here Sundays. Reach him at RobertPrice@KGET.com or via Twitter: @stubblebuzz. The opinions expressed are his own.
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Unison Capital Korea Representative Director Kim Soo-min speaks during an interview with The Korea Times at his office in Seoul, Dec. 30, 2021. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul



Unison Capital Korea interested in e-commerce sector



By Park Jae-hyuk



A massive inflow of global investors' money in recent years has enabled private equity firms (PEFs) to participate more aggressively in multiple mega-size buyout deals here and overseas, prompting market insiders to regard PEFs as the main beneficiaries of the COVID-19 pandemic that has rapidly increased the liquidity of the capital market.



According to investment data provider Preqin, buyout funds in Korea raised a combined $17 billion in 2020 and an additional $5 billion during the first 11 months of 2021.



Unison Capital Korea Representative Director Kim Soo-min, however, denied any correlation between the pandemic and the private equity industry's recent growth, emphasizing that PEFs have enhanced their competitiveness in the M&A market, regardless of the spread of the coronavirus.



"From the viewpoint of investors, private equities are more attractive asset classes, because various studies in developed markets have proven their risk-to-return ratios are better than those of public equities," he told The Korea Times during his first interview after he was appointed last October to chair the PEF Association in 2022.



Kim attributed the results to PEFs' attempts to add value to their portfolios through active long-term investments, which cannot be seen from passive investors depending on short-term trends.



He noted that the recent disruptions in the global industrial orders and the rise in digital technologies allowed PEFs to be more competitive in the M&A market, compared to conglomerates specializing in each of their own businesses.



"Amid the growing uncertainties, strategic investors have remained inflexible in terms of decision-making," he said. "In contrast, PEFs have been able to change their investment strategies quickly, in line with new trends."



Unison Capital Korea has also adjusted its portfolios to follow the megatrends.



"We are recently paying more attention to the e-commerce sector, investing in online shoe seller Sappun and online grocer Oasis Market," Kim said. "We are considering participating in additional deals involving e-commerce firms."



He added that his company will continue to focus on investments in consumer goods, services and healthcare sectors, with a belief that the lifestyle of Korean households will ensure a stable growth of such industries.



"Even though consumers change their behaviors to some degree, they will continue eating food and using services," he said.



Terarosa's ESG strategies



Global investors prioritizing the environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) factors is another megatrend that has affected Unison Capital Korea's investment strategies.



"We recently invested in Haksan, which operates Terarosa coffee shop chain, because of its potential for growing into an exemplary company in terms of ESG," Kim said. "Its founders have supported farmers cultivating coffee beans in Africa and Latin America, and helped Korean baristas build their careers."



Unison Capital Korea, which acquired a 35 percent stake in Haksan for 70 billion won ($58 million), drew up a budget to systematize the coffeehouse chain's ESG strategies from a long-term perspective. The PEF seeks to discover more companies having the potential for ESG management.



"We are not interested in creating funds themed with ESG, nor establishing departments in charge of ESG strategies," Kim said. "ESG investing without clear goals cannot succeed in the long run."





Unison Capital Korea Representative Director Kim Soo-min speaks during an interview with The Korea Times at his office in Seoul, Dec. 30, 2021. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul
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Osstem Implant's headquarters in Seoul / Courtesy of Osstem Implant



Over 1,500 investors prepare to file class-action suit against dental implant maker



By Yi Whan-woo



Osstem Implant, hit by a massive embezzlement scandal, is at a crossroads facing a possible delisting, with the Korea Stock Exchange (KRX) scheduled to decide by Jan. 24 at the earliest whether the dental implant maker's shares can be allowed to resume trading after being indefinitely suspended.



The decision will come amid snowballing fears among the shareholders of Ossteem that they would lose the money they invested in the firm, over the alleged embezzlement of millions of dollars from Ossteem funds, committed by an employee.



The amount, 188 billion won ($157.9 million), is believed to be equivalent to 91.81 percent of Osstem's equity capital of 204.76 billion won. The case is the largest-ever embezzlement case in the history of the country's listed firms.



Osstem promised that it will make "all-out efforts" to retrieve the money and resume stock transactions, after the KRX, the country's bourse operator, suspended its shares from the secondary KOSDAQ market over the scandal, which was made public through the company's regulatory filing on Jan. 3.



More than 1,500 minority shareholders of Osstem, however, find the dental implant maker's measures inadequate. They accordingly are preparing to file a class-action suit against the company.



"Against this backdrop, the KRX will decide if it is appropriate to resume stock transactions, after thoroughly going over the company's balance sheets, management and other factors that could have a grave impact on business transparency and protection of the rights of investors," the KRX said in a statement.



The KRX is looking into whether Osstem needs an eligibility review that will decide whether to allow the shares to resume trading, delist the firm or grant it an improvement period. This deliberation could be extended an extra 15 days.



The suspension will be lifted and the trading will begin again from Jan. 25, if the bourse finds the Osstem stocks qualified to do so.



On the other hand, the ban on trading will remain effective for up to one year if the KRX judges that the trading can only restart after improving certain required conditions.



The possible delisting will require the ultimate consent of the KRX's Market Oversight Committee.



The minority shareholders are expected to move forward with their actions based on the Jan. 24 outcome.



They are likely to seek compensation regardless of the outcome, while the amount of compensation they seek will vary depending on the situation.



"We will be able to estimate the amount of loss we have suffered once trading resumes," a lawyer jointly hired by the shareholders said, noting that the stock price is most likely to decline after its return to trading.



"In the case of a prolonged suspension and delisting, calculating our losses will be much more complicated," he said.



Meanwhile, the KOSDAQ has been going through a massive foreign investor sell-off since the start of the year, which market observers say is linked to the Osstem embezzlement case.



Foreign investors dumped a net 1.33 trillion won worth of shares on the junior bourse between the first trading day of the year on Jan. 3 and Jan. 15.



The tech-heavy market retreated to the range of 970, after closing at 1,033.98 at the end of 2021.


Business writer

Tony Dobrowolski's main focus is on business reporting. He came to The Eagle in 1992 after previously working for newspapers in Connecticut and Montreal. He can be reached at tdobrowolski@berkshireeagle.com or 413-496-6224.




A North Korean freight train crossed the Yalu River railroad bridge into China, Sunday, multiple sources said, raising the prospect of the two sides resuming land transactions in earnest following them being suspended for more than a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.







The train from Sinuiju arrived in the Chinese border city of Dandong at around 9:10 a.m., they said, while it was not immediately confirmed whether it carried cargo or was empty, they said.







It is likely to return to North Korea, Monday, with "emergency materials" loaded, according to a source who spoke on condition of anonymity.







It marks the first time that the secretive North has formally opened its land border with China in one-and-a-half years. It closed borders, with all tour programs for foreigners and the operation of cross-border passenger trains halted, since the COVID-19 outbreak.







"It means that the exchange of materials (between North Korea and China) has formally got under way in effect," a government source said, adding that the shipments of medical supplies and daily necessities will likely be resumed.







The train service came ahead of such key events as the Lunar New Year, which falls Feb. 1 this year, the opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics Feb. 4 and the Feb. 16 birthday of Kim Jong-il, the late father of the current leader Kim Jong-un.







Also drawing keen attention is whether the impoverished North will receive coronavirus vaccines to be provided by the United States and other countries. (Yonhap)


The alleged 2017 deal between Google and Facebook to kill header bidding, a way for multiple ad exchanges to compete fairly in automated ad auctions, was negotiated by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, and endorsed by both Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (now with Meta) and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, according to an updated complaint filed in the Texas-led antitrust lawsuit against Google.

Texas, 14 other US states, and the Commonwealths of Kentucky and Puerto Rico accused Google of unlawfully monopolizing the online ad market and rigging ad auctions in a December, 2020, lawsuit. The plaintiffs subsequently filed an amendment complaint in October, 2021, that includes details previously redacted.

On Friday, Texas et al. filed a third amended complaint [PDF] that fills in more blanks and expands the allegations by 69 more pages.

The fortified filing adds additional information about previous revelations and extends the scope of concern to cover in-app advertising in greater detail.
Is this the Insurrection?

Before addressing the details of the indictment, it is important to state the obvious about this indictment and how it is already being spun as proof of an insurrection. It is not. These are charges of seditious conspiracy based on efforts to disrupt the proceedings. There was discussion among some of the defendants about the prospects of civil war, particularly after January 6th. However, the charge itself is much broader.

The provision in 18 U.S.C. 2384 has long been controversial because it is so sweeping and includes any effort to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law:

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

Most of us discussed the riot previously noted that there were people who clearly came to the Hill that day to commit violent acts and interrupt the legislative process. Indeed, most of us predicted that a small group of people would receive the more serious charges.

I have never had much sympathy for those who rioted or those who recklessly fueled such anger. Saying that this was not an insurrection does not mean that this was not a desecration of our constitutional process and values. I publicly condemned Trumps speech while it was being given and I called for a bipartisan vote of censure over his responsibility in the riots.

The charges of a relatively small number of extremists in this large protest belies rather than supports the broader allegations of an actual insurrection. This remains a protest that became a riot  a view shared by the vast majority of the public. Over seven hundred people have been charged and most face relatively minor charges of trespass and unlawful entry. The fact that there were a small number of people intent on violence does not convert the intent or actions of the thousands in the protest into an insurrection.

FBI sources previously told the media that, despite months of intense investigation, they could find scant evidence of any organized plot and instead found that virtually all of the cases are one-offs. One agent explained: Ninety to 95 percent of these are one-off cases. Then you have 5 percent, maybe, of these militia groups that were more closely organized. But there was no grand scheme with Roger Stone and Alex Jones and all of these people to storm the Capitol and take hostages.

This is clearly part of that five percent that the FBI and most of us have been discussing. Their views or intentions do not convert hundreds of defendants from trespassers into insurrectionists.

The same is true for rioters in prior summers. We have seen groups anarchist and extremist groups like Antifa come to protests to fuel violence. This small number of individuals often discuss (as did these defendants) a desire to see an overthrow of the government. They tried to further such objectives by burning police stations and trying repeatedly to burn down a federal courthouse. However, their intentions did not convert the thousands of other protesters into rioters or insurrectionists. Even these extremist groups have not been called domestic terrorists or seditionists by the media or Democratic politicians.

The Indictment and Likely Trial Issues

The indictment itself details the same extremist rhetoric and calls that we have seen from extremist groups on both the left and right in past years. It is an unsettling part of this age of rage. The defendants adopted pseudo military jargon and beat their chests about the coming civil war. It is important not to dismiss the danger that such groups pose. They come across at points as clowns but this is why clowns can be so scary. They are clowns who openly discussed storing weapons and fostering a civil war. The indictment details evidence that most of these men entered the Capitol and encouraged the rioting. Most of the charges are similar to those in other cases in that respect and seem well-based.

It is really the first charge that has drawn the most attention and is likely to draw the most litigation. However, as discussed above, keep in mind that a conspiracy requires only two people to conspire to hinder the executive of any law.

Nevertheless, the Justice Department works hard to reinforce the view of this group as launching a military attack, using their own military jargon. It divides the group into stacks that marched on the Capitol.

Thus, Stack 2 (composed of just three people) is described as not walking but marching around the crowded grounds: [Stack Two] breached the Capitol grounds, marching from the west side to the east side of the Capitol building and up the east stairs.

The defense is likely to question these characterizations in pre-trial motions. Each stack was composed of a handful of people. Stack 1 was composed of Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins, and Jospeh Hasckett, and David Moerschel. Stack 2 was composed of just Joshua James and Robero Minuta. Then there is the ominous sounding Quick Reaction Force, which the indictment said was composed of only Thomas Caldwell and Edward Vallejo.

The indictment is strong on detailing the alleged violent rhetoric and machinations of the defendants. It shows men who speak of civil war and actively acquire weapons in the anticipation that they might be used.

However, as a criminal defense attorney, there are some gaps and disconnects that I expect could cause difficulties at trial on the sedition conspiracy charge. (The rest of the charges will be more difficult to contest on things like obstructing an official proceeding).

These are eleven people who were not armed with guns and some apparently never entered the Capitol. While the Justice Department discussed plans for river landings and arsenals of weapons and forces held in reserve, the individuals in Stack 2 were equipped with:

battle apparel and gear, including hard-knuckle tactical gloves, tactical vests, ballistic goggles, radios, chemical sprays, a paracord attachment, fatigues, goggles, scissors, a large stick, and one of the Stack Two members 82-pound German Shepherd named Warrior.

That is undistinguishable (and in some cases less lethal) than material seized from Antifa, Proud Boys, and other rioters in prior summer. Despite buying and storing weapons, they did not bring them to the Hill, did not use them, and left the Hill with many others. Only one, Joshua James, is charged with the broad offense of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers. (Count 8). The rest are charged with the common crimes of trespass, obstruction, and unlawful entry.

The indictment details discussions of a civil war after the riot. On January 12, 2021, James messages after this,  if nothing happens, its war  Civil War 2.0. There was no apparent follow through after January 6th with an actual attack or rebellion against the government.

The indictment also does not allege the broader conspiracy often raised by politicians and pundits. The defendants themselves appeared to acknowledge that they were acting without coordination with the Administration or President Trump. Rhodes messages All I see Trump doing is complaining. I see no intent by him to do anything. So the Patriots are taking it into their own hands. Theyve had enough.

There may be more charges coming given the references to unnamed co-conspirators. For example, on page 18, Watkins is quoted in discussions with someone who is only referenced as a co-conspirator. It is not clear if that person is a cooperating witness or a soon-to-be-charged defendant.

There are other glaring issues for defense counsel, including the possibility that a couple of the defendants who did not even participate in the actual riot at the Capitol building. That does not mean that they cannot be guilty of a conspiracy but it contradicts earlier published accounts.

The government, for example, previously held Caldwell as a key organizer of the attack and claimed that he entered the Capitol with this co-conspirators. The indictment, however, omits that allegation and now lists Caldwell with the two-man Quick Reaction Force. A federal judge ultimately refused to continue to hold Caldwell over the objections of the Justice Department.

Those issues will have to be hashed out in the forthcoming criminal indictments. After such charges are brought, defendants are under overwhelming pressure to cooperate and reach a plea deal. We will have to see if that proves the case here or with any additional indictments.

Conversely, these defendants will be able to demand exculpatory evidence from the government. Indictments always look more ominous before they are subject to adversarial challenge. However, it will be difficult to rebut some of these charges on obstructing the process or damaging government property. It will be the seditious conspiracy count that will produce the greatest factual and legal challenges in the months to come.

Here is the indictment: Rhodes et al indictment
A tiny administrative agency in the District of Columbia announced a new policy Tuesday that will likely serve as a model for a whole-of-government push to assemble lists of Americans who object on religious grounds to a COVID-19 vaccine.

The Pretrial Services Agency for the District of Columbiaa federal independent entity that assists officers in the District of Columbia courts in formulating release recommendations and providing supervision and services to defendants awaiting trialannounced a new records system that will store the names and personal religious information of all employees who make religious accommodation requests for religious exception from the federally mandated vaccination requirement.

The announcement does not explain why the agency needs to create this list except to say that it will assist the Agency in the collecting, storing, dissemination, and disposal of employee religious exemption request information collected and maintained by the Agency. In other words, the list will help the agency make a list.

The announcement also does not say what the agency will do with this information after it has decided an employees religious accommodation request.

And neither does the announcement explain why the Biden administration chose to test this policy in an agency with a majority-black staff, who are both more religious and less vaccinated than other groups. So much for the presidents commitment to racial equity.

Were starting to suspect that President Joe Biden is not keeping his promise to have the most transparent administration in history.

Whats really going on with this announcement at this tiny agency? Likely, the Biden administration is using it to stealth test a policy it intends to roll out across the whole government.

Almost nobody has ever heard of the Pretrial Services Agency for the District of Columbia, and very few people pay close attention to it or are covered by its policies. Indeed, at of the time of publication of this article, the announcement has been viewed only 16 times.

However, had Biden announced, for example, that the Department of Labor intended to adopt this policy, it would be big news. The Federal Register where announcements like this are made would be flooded with comments that the department would have to address.

That would, of course, delay the policys rollout. With the Pretrial Services Agency, Biden likely expected that the policy would land quickly and without a splash. As it is, the notice of a new announcement provides less than 30 days for public comment.

Biden may not be winning points for transparency, but hes doing his best to win first place in subjecting Americans with sincerely held religious beliefs to differential treatment.

Take the Department of Defense, for examplewhich has failed to grant a single religious exemption on behalf of any service members requesting one for the federal vaccine mandate. A group of Navy SEALS was recently successful in its federal lawsuit against the Biden administration on claims that its conscience rights under the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act were violated.

From the outset of his administration, Biden voiced support for passage of the patently faith-hostile Equality Acta bill that would gut the Religious Freedom Restoration Act entirely when it intersects with LGBTQ+ protections and entitlements in public accommodations.

The president also swiftly revoked the Mexico City policy that had been reinstated by former President Donald Trump, thereby ensuring that religious Americans would be forced to fund abortions overseas by way of their tax dollars, despite their religious objections to the act.

While employers, employment agencies, or unions with 100 employees or more are prohibited under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 from engaging in disparate treatment and from maintaining policies or practices that result in unjustified disparate impact based on religion, this administration doesnt seem to have gotten the memo.

That, at bottom, is what this policy is about.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and well consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular We Hear You feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.
Federal prosecutors disclosed in a December sentencing memo that Nader had agreed months earlier to plead guilty to a single count of felony conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government by funneling millions in donations to Hillary Clintons campaign and concealing the funds foreign origin. Naders plea has not been previously reported.

A lawyer for Nader did not respond to a request for comment.

Nader conspired to hide the funds out of a desire to lobby on behalf and advance the interests of his client, the government of the United Arab Emirates, according to the prosecutors sentencing memo. Nader received the money for the illegal donations from the UAE government, the memo said. The filing marks the first time that the U.S. government has explicitly accused the UAE, a close ally, of illegally seeking to buy access to candidates during a presidential election.

Naders guilty plea opens a new window into the efforts of the United Arab Emirates and its de facto ruler, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, known as MBZ, to influence the outcome of the 2016 election and shape subsequent U.S. policy in the Gulf. The governments memo notes that Nader and Los Angeles businessperson Ahmad Andy Khawaja also sought to cultivate key figures in the Trump campaign and that Khawaja donated $1 million to Trumps inaugural committee. It is unclear where that money came from.

Prosecutors allege that, in total, Nader transferred nearly $5 million from his UAE-based business to Khawaja, the CEO of a Los Angeles-based payment processing company. The sentencing memo details Nader and Khawajas efforts to disguise the money as a mundane business contract between the two. Of that amount, more than $3.5 million came from the government of the UAE and was given to Democratic political committees working to elect Clinton, according to the U.S. government, which has accused Nader, Khawaja, and six others of working together to conceal the origin of those funds. Prosecutors have not publicly accounted for what happened to the remaining $1.4 million they say Nader transferred to Khawaja.

With Naders guilty plea, five of the eight men charged in the alleged conspiracy have pleaded guilty; two other defendants are scheduled to stand trial this year. Khawaja fled the U.S. after the indictment. The Associated Press reported in 2020 that he was being held in Lithuania, citing police officials there and a Lithuanian lawyer representing him.

Prosecutors are seeking a five-year sentence for Nader, asking that it not begin until after he completes the 10-year sentence he is currently serving for possessing child pornography and bringing a minor to the U.S. for the purpose of engaging in criminal sexual activity.

Prosecutors have alleged that Nader took his instructions from the UAE crown prince and that he regularly updated MBZ on his progress as he sought to get close to Clinton. At one point, Khawaja complained that Nader and the UAE had not yet sent money to cover the costs of a Clinton fundraiser he was organizing. Nader texted that he would send note as per HH instruction, using an abbreviation of his highness, an apparent reference to MBZ.

A few days later, Nader was preparing to meet with both Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton and asked an Emirati official, almost certainly MBZ, if they could meet before he departed. [T]raveling on Sat morning to catch up with our Big Sister and her husband: I am seeing him on Sunday and her in [sic] Tuesday Sir! Would love to see you tomorrow at your conveniencefor your guidance, instruction and blessing!

Even as Nader poured donations into the effort to elect Clinton, he worked his way into the Trump campaign on behalf of his Gulf clients.

But even as Nader poured donations into the effort to elect Clinton, he worked his way into the Trump campaign on behalf of his Gulf clients. Special counsel Robert Muellers report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election described Nader as a senior advisor to MBZ and said that hed made contacts with both campaigns. Nader would later tell the FBI that he met with Trumps son Donald Trump Jr. several times in 2016, and the New York Times reported that Nader told Trump Jr. that both MBZ and Saudi Arabias crown prince were eager to help his father get elected. Nader advised the Gulf monarchs to be on good terms with both Clinton and Trump in the runup to the 2016 vote, he told the FBI.

After Trump won the presidency but before he was inaugurated, Nader unsuccessfully sought to arrange a meeting between Trump and MBZ, according to FBI interview notes. Instead, UAE officials arranged for MBZ to speak with top Trump campaign officials including Jared Kushner, Steve Bannon, and retired Lieut. Gen. Michael Flynn in New York. A few weeks later, through Nader, the Emirati leader arranged for a top Trump donor, Erik Prince, to meet with Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, a state-sanctioned investment fund, at a resort in the Seychelles.

After Trumps inauguration, Nader became a frequent visitor to the White House, according to the Times. Naders involvement with the Trump campaign and his role in the Seychelles meeting put him in the sights of Muellers investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Federal agents arrested Nader in June 2019 at John F. Kennedy International Airport after he got off a flight from the UAE and charged him with possessing a dozen images or videos of child pornography. Those charges were ultimately dismissed, but Nader was indicted on a separate child pornography possession charge and accused of flying a 14-year-old boy to the U.S. for sexual purposes. Nader pleaded guilty to both felony counts, which stemmed from activity that took place in 2012 and 2000, respectively, according to court documents, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison and lifetime supervision as a sex offender. Nader also spent a year in prison in the Czech Republic in 2003 for having sex with the same minor he flew to the U.S.

Nader isnt the only American recently charged with helping the UAE influence U.S. policy. Last year, the Justice Department indicted Thomas Barrack, a wealthy businessperson and close friend and adviser of Trump, for secretly working as an agent of the UAE in an effort to help advance the countrys foreign policy aims. In a press release at the time of the indictments unsealing, the Justice Department described Barrack and two others as working to provide intelligence to the UAE government about the Trump campaign and later the administration. Barrack was also charged with obstruction of justice and lying to investigators. Also indicted in the scheme was a UAE national and associate of Barrack, Rashid Al-Malik, whose role was first reported by The Intercept in 2019.

In Barracks indictment, MBZ and senior UAE officials are described, though not by name, as directing and otherwise overseeing Barracks efforts to work with Trump to advance the UAEs policy goals. Barrack, who pleaded not guilty to the charges, will face trial later this year.

The post UAE Adviser Illegally Funneled Foreign Cash Into Hillary Clintons 2016 Campaign appeared first on The Intercept.
In a drastic pivot from typical denunciations of false flag operations as conspiratorial nonsense that dont exist outside the demented imagination of Alex Jones, the US political/media class is proclaiming with one voice that Russia is currently orchestrating just such an operation to justify an invasion of Ukraine.

As part of its plans, Russia is laying the groundwork to have the option of fabricating a pretext for invasion, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Friday. We have information that indicates Russia has already pre-positioned a group of operatives to conduct a false flag operation in eastern Ukraine.

Without getting into too much detail, we do have information that indicates that Russia is already working actively to create a pretext for a potential invasion, for a move on Ukraine, Pentagon Spokesperson John Kirby told the press on Friday. In fact, we have information that theyve pre-positioned a group of operatives, to conduct what we call a false flag operation, an operation designed to look like an attack on them or their people, or Russian speaking people in Ukraine, as an excuse to go in.

The US government has substantiated these incendiary claims with the usual amount of evidence, by which I of course mean jack dick nothingballs. The mass media have not been dissuaded from reporting on this issue by the complete absence of any evidence that this Kremlin false flag plot is in fact a real thing that actually happened, their journalistic standards completely satisfied by the fact that their government instructed them to report it. Countless articles and news segments containing the phrase false flag have been blaring throughout all the most influential news outlets in the western world without the slightest hint of skepticism.

This sudden embrace of the idea that governments can stage attacks on their own people to justify their own pre-existing agendas is a sharp pivot from the scoff which such a notion in mainstream liberal circles has typically received. This 2018 article from The New York Times simply dismisses the idea that the 2014 Maidan massacre was a false flag carried out by western-backed opposition fighters in Ukraine to frame the riot police of the government who was ousted in that coup, for example, despite the existence of plenty of evidence that this is indeed what happened. This BBC article dismisses without argument the idea that the alleged 2018 chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria could have been a false flag carried out by the Al Qaeda-aligned insurgents on the ground to provoke a western attack on the Syrian government, yet there are mountains of evidence that this was the case.

Articles denouncing the very idea of false flag conspiracy theories surface routinely in the mass media. Snopes has a whole article explaining that false flags are kooky nonsense without any mention of the fact that this is a known tactic weve seen intelligence operatives discussing in declassified documents, like when the CIA considered planting bombs in Miami to blame Castro. I myself was once temporarily suspended by Facebook just for posting an article about false flag operations that are publicly acknowledged to have occurred. People who dare to question the many gaping plot holes in the official 9/11 narrative have often been treated with the same disdain and revulsion as neo-Nazis and pedophilia advocates.

"A US official told CNN" is not a "Scoop" but demonstrates the willingness of 'journalists' to stenograph unverifiable government disinformation. https://t.co/wr2u3xKtiI  Moon of Alabama (@MoonofA) January 14, 2022

None of this is to say that every theory about any false flag operation is true; many are not. But the way the mass media will instantly embrace an idea to which theyve heretofore been consistently hostile just because their government told them to to do it says so much about the state of the so-called free press today, and the fact that the rank-and-file public simply accepts this and marches along with it as though talking about false flags has always been normal says so much about the level of Orwellian doublethink that people have been trained to perform in todays information ecosystem. The way false flag operations were widely considered conspiratorial hogwash until the instant they were reported as real by the media institutions whove lied to us about every war is downright creepy.

The problem with preemptive false flag accusations is of course that the side making the claim can simply launch an unprovoked attack and then say See? Theyre staging a false flag to frame our side, just like we said they would! And then they can present their subsequent actions as defensive in nature, when in reality they were the aggressors and instigators. We are seeing nothing from the obedient western news media to suggest theyd do anything other than uncritically regurgitate such claims into the minds of their trusting audiences.

As the Beltway doctrine that US unipolar hegemony must be preserved at all cost crashes headlong into the reality of an emerging multipolar world, the US government is now more dangerous than it has ever been at any point in its history. We need the press to be holding the drivers of empire to account with the light of truth, and we need the public to be opposing and scrutinizing these reckless escalations. Instead, we are getting the exact opposite. God help us all.

_________________________

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This photo, provided by the North Korean government, Saturday, shows a missile test from a railway in North Pyongan Province, North Korea, Friday. AP-Yonhap









By Kang Seung-woo







The recent series of North Korean missile tests  three times in two weeks  indicate that its leader is doubling down on his country's nuclear arms buildup, rather than seeking more concessions before re-engaging in nuclear negotiations, according to diplomatic observers.







Despite the increasing frequency of missile tests, the U.S. government, already preoccupied with a difficult domestic situation as well as other diplomatic issues, is expected to maintain its commitment to diplomacy with Pyongyang, they added.







The Kim Jong-un regime fired hypersonic missiles on Jan. 5 and 11, followed by two short-range ballistic missiles launched from a train, Friday  something unusual for the country, which had not conducted missile tests in January for the last 13 years.







"In order to know if a missile performs as intended, you must test them. North Korea has actually done less testing of new missiles than the U.S., China or Russia did in the past. So the main reason he is testing is it is essential for obtaining the capabilities he seeks," said Robert Manning, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.






Visitors scan smartphone QR codes for entry logs at a discount store in Seoul, Sunday. Yonhap



9 pm curfew extended through Feb. 6, private gathering limit raised to six



By Lee Hyo-jin



Two contradicting court rulings over the COVID-19 vaccine pass scheme are causing public confusion, with calls mounting from residents outside Seoul to suspend the vaccine pass altogether.



The vaccine pass, which requires visitors to show either a proof of vaccination or negative PCR test result to access multiuse facilities, is facing continuous challenges due to a strong public backlash involving multiple lawsuits.





A Seoul administrative court on Friday ordered the suspension on the vaccine pass system on large supermarkets, discount outlets and department stores measuring 3,000 square meters or more in Seoul, partially accepting an injunction request filed by 1,023 people including doctors.



The suspension was limited to the capital area as the court only accepted the injunction against the Seoul Metropolitan Government, dismissing other stay of execution orders filed against the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KCDA).



"Eateries and cafes have relatively higher risks of infections as masks cannot be worn there, while large stores and department stores have lower risks. Limiting unvaccinated individuals from entering facilities that are essential to daily life is seen as an excessive regulation," the court said.



It has also blocked the government from enforcing the vaccine pass on children aged 12 to 18, which was set to go into effect from as early as February.



Shortly after the court's decision, the health ministry confirmed that the vaccine pass on large stores in Seoul has been temporarily suspended, expressing regrets over the ruling.





A notice at an entrance to a large store in Anyang, Gyeonggi Province, reads that visitors should show a proof of vaccination or negative PCR test result under the vaccine pass system, Sunday. Yonhap
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Most south-east Queensland beaches remained closed late on Sunday after an underwater volcano erupted off Tonga triggering tsunami warnings along Australias east coast.

On Saturday night an evacuation order was issued for Lord Howe Island and Japan as large waves hit several South Pacific islands.

A marine threat warning was issued for parts of Queensland, NSW, Victoria and Tasmania, with beaches closed from the Qld/NSW border up to Rainbow Beach in the Gympie region.

The shockwave from the volcanic eruption travelled more than 1000 kilometres an hour and a noticeable jump in atmospheric pressure was recorded across Australia, the Bureau of Meteorology said on Sunday afternoon.
WA Health has reported two new local COVID-19 cases and one travel-related case to 8pm on Saturday night, another three to 1pm Sunday and is reintroducing the mask mandate for public indoor venues as of 6pm Sunday.

The three overnight cases will be included in Mondays official tally but Premier Mark McGowan said in his 2.30pm press conference that the government had not wanted to wait this long before making its announcements.

As of 6pm we will be reintroducing the mask mandate for all public indoor venues, Premier Mark McGowan said in a press conference at 2.30pm.

The mandate applies in the Perth and Peel regions. It will not apply to children under 12 or for inside the home.
The Greens may have made significant inroads in suburban Brisbane in recent times, but experts say that may not be enough to see them claim their first federal lower-house seat in Queensland.

The Senate, however, was expected to be more fertile ground in the Queensland branchs bid to help the party gain the balance of power in Canberra.

Lead Greens Queensland Senate candidare Penny Allman-Payne concedes she has an easier run than her lower-house counterparts.

While there has been significant internal hand-wringing about the partys long-term chances of mainstream success, for now the Greens have their eyes set on the upcoming federal election, to be held in the first half of this year.

Griffith University political expert Paul Williams said he expected the Greens vote to increase, because of heightening concern about climate change and the environment.
Manila: The Philippines has finalised a deal to acquire a shore-based anti-ship missile system from India for nearly $US375 million ($520 million) to beef up its navy, the South-east Asian nations defence minister said.

The Philippines is in the late stages of a five-year, 300 billion pesos ($8.1 billion) project to modernise its militarys outdated hardware that includes warships from World War II and helicopters used by the United States in the Vietnam War.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Credit:AP

Under the deal negotiated with the government of India, Brahmos Aerospace Private will deliver three batteries, train operators and maintainers, and provide logistics support, Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said in a Facebook post late.

The agreement was conceptualised in 2017, but faced delays in budget allocation and due to the coronavirus pandemic.
How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them

Author: Barbara F Walter

Publisher: Penguin

Price: Rs 799

Pages: 293

In the year since the rampage at the Capitol, chatter about a 21st-century American civil war has seeped from the fringes into the mainstream. During the Trump presidency, there were of course any number of about political fracture; still, they mostly discussed widening but (usually) peaceable differences.

By contrast, predictions of an imminent conflagration tended to come from those quarters that also celebrated it, on MAGA [Make America Great Again] Twitter and its companion talk shows. The logic was hard to follow, but it often went something like this: Snowflakes (i.e. liberals), despite being so wimpy that theyre cowed into wearing face diapers (i.e. masks), were physically preparing to muscle their way to a gun-free hellscape of gender-neutral bathrooms and critical race theory.

Who wanted to dignify such dumb scenarios with sober analyses? When Barbara F Walter began writing How Civil Wars Start in 2018, the few people who heard that it was about a possible second civil war in America thought it was an exercise in fear-mongering, she writes in her acknowledgments, perhaps even irresponsible.

That even gives you a sense of Ms Walters cautious inclinations. As a political scientist who has spent her career studying conflicts in other countries, she approaches her work methodically, patiently gathering her evidence before laying out her case. She spends the first half of the book explaining how civil wars have started in a number of places around the world, including the former Yugoslavia, the Philippines and Iraq.

The range of her case studies implies that another damper on the American imagination has been an insistent exceptionaism  the belief that political collapse is something that happens elsewhere.

Contemporary civil wars are in some sense common (Ms Walter says there have been hundreds in the last 75 years), and in another sense rare. In any given year, only 4 per cent of the countries that meet the conditions for war actually descend into one. Civil wars ignite and escalate in ways that are predictable; they follow a script, she writes in her introduction, in what I thought was a bit of mechanistic hyperbole. It turns out that she and other scholars have identified certain risk factors, signs that things are starting to go awry.

Ms Walter has a political scientists fondness for data sets and numerical scales. She says that the US is firmly within the danger zone of a five-point scale measuring factionalism and a 21-point scale measuring a countrys polity index, where a full autocracy gets a -10 and a full democracy gets +10 (the US slid from +10 to +5 in a few years, occupying what Ms Walter and her colleagues call the not-quite-democratic and not-quite-autocratic zone of an anocracy). The numbers serve a function, corralling troubling observations into a cold system of measurement that presents itself as beyond dispute, seemingly nonpartisan and scientific.

Of course, nothing is beyond dispute anymore  and the book has a chapter on that, too. Social media, for all its initial promises of interpersonal harmony, has become an efficient machine for stoking rage, tearing people apart when it isnt bringing extremists together. An ethnic entrepreneur seeking to amass power by making bigoted appeals to a particular group doesnt need an especially sophisticated disinformation campaign to get people to feel fearful and despairing, convincing them to turn against a democracy that includes people they hate. Theres comfort in assuming that autocracy has to arrive with a military coup: Now its being ushered in by the voters themselves.

Ms Walters earnest advice about what to do comes across as well-meaning but insufficient. The US government shouldnt indulge extremists  the creation of a white ethno-state would be disastrous for the country. Thank you, Professor Walter. She proposes that the government instead renew its commitment to providing for its most vulnerable citizens, white, Black or brown. This, too, seems unobjectionable  but she also makes clear that right-wing militias planning to kidnap and murder government officials are zero-sum thinkers; they experience any benefit that might be shared by people who dont look like them as a grievous loss.

While the blithely unworried are hindered by too little imagination, the florid fantasies of QAnon show that some Americans are beset by too much of the same. Ms Walter mostly sticks to citing the scholarship in her field, but at one point, discussing the sinister clowning of Alex Jones, she reaches for Voltaire: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. The absurdities are by definition preposterous, but this book suggests that it would be preposterous to assume theyre irrelevant; its only by thinking about what was once unfathomable that we can see the country as it really is.
The exterior walls of part of an apartment complex under construction in Gwangju's Seo District collapsed on Jan. 11, raining down debris onto the road below. Newsis



By Ko Dong-hwan



Korea's National Fire Agency has rebuffed a politician's suggestion to call an Israeli intelligence unit to spur on the ongoing rescue mission at the site of a collapsed apartment under construction in the southwestern city of Gwangju.



The site of a partially destroyed apartment building that killed one worker and trapped another five inside is currently in unstable condition. Even a minor impact from maneuvering a construction machine could cause the building to collapse further. A 140-meter-high tower crane leaning against the building, which could fall if the building deteriorates further, is at the center of this dire situation.



The building is in extremely precarious condition and that is what makes the rescue mission more difficult; it's not actually a lack of technical support or equipment that is the problem, the agency said on Jan. 15.



"Unit 9900 are an Israeli military intelligence unit who often use three-dimensional imaging techniques to compare the collapsed building's interior before and after the accident and then use that to estimate the possible locations of the missing people," the fire agency said, referring to the Israeli unit, which collects imagery intelligence from aerial images as well as by satellite. They helped in a rescue mission at a collapsed apartment building in Florida in June 2021. "They don't actually go into the building to rescue people. They just suggest to the rescuers where the missing people might be located."



In order not to cause the crane to fall, the agency has only sent rescue dogs and their handlers, as well as 17 rescuers supported by drones to find the trapped workers.



Once the crane is successfully removed from the site and debris from the exterior walls cleared, then the over 200 rescuer workers and their equipment will be allowed in to search for the remaining workers, the agency said.



Ahn Cheol-soo, the candidate for the March presidential election representing the People's Party, suggested on Facebook on Jan. 14 that the central government had requested the Israeli government to send Unit 9900 to support the Gwangju rescue mission. He said that "out of a deep sense of desperation," he had asked the Israeli ambassador in Korea to send the unit to Korea, to which the ambassador responded by saying that he began looking into the matter.



"Our rescuers boast world-class urban search-and-rescue skills, as we are graded according to the highest classification ("heavy") in the United Nations," the National Fire Agency said, making clear that they will not go along with Ahn's idea.



The exterior walls covering the 23rd to 38th floors of the building in the city's Seo District crumbled on Jan. 11, putting the construction on hold. HDC Hyundai Development, the construction operator, faced a heavy public backlash, as they were also behind the demolition project of a building in the same city seven months ago that collapsed onto a road and hit a moving bus, killing nine people.


After Meta (formerly Facebook), now requires employees to get a Covid booster shot and submit a proof of vaccination before entering office premises and its own retail stores, the media reported.

In an internal email seen by The Verge, the iPhone maker said that once an employee is eligible to get a booster shot, they will have four weeks to comply.

"Otherwise, they will need to take frequent tests to enter a retail store, partner store, or office starting on February 15," read the memo.

will also require unvaccinated employees to provide negative Covid rapid antigen tests before entering the workplace, beginning January 24.

"Due to waning efficacy of the primary series of Covid-19 vaccines and the emergence of highly transmissible variants such as Omicron, a booster shot is now part of staying up to date with your Covid-19 vaccination to protect against severe disease," the tech giant said.

Last week, Meta said that employees who have received Covid booster jabs will only be allowed to enter office premises when it finally reopens.

Meta has already said that employees in the US would have to be fully vaccinated against Covid when they return to the office, likely from March 28 which is another delayed date for full office reopening as the Omicron-led Covid surge continues.

"They'll also need proof of a booster vaccine," a Meta spokesperson had said.

As the Omicron-triggered Covid infections surge globally especially in the US, Google has also said it will now require fully-vaccinated workers who are coming to offices to get weekly Covid tests.

Google will require anyone going to one of its US offices or facilities to have received a negative molecular test for COVID-19, reports CNBC citing an internal memo sent to employees.

The employees should also report their vaccination status and wear surgical-grade masks while at the office.

--IANS

na/ksk/

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
major Megha & Infrastructures Limited (MEIL) on Sunday said it has completed 5-km-long tunnelling work as part of the 18-km-long all-weather in a record time of 14 months.

The company in a statement said the project of the National Highways and Development Corporation Ltd (NHIDCL), being executed by the MEIL, is envisaged to ensure connectivity between Srinagar and Ladakh throughout the year without any interruptions.

The Zojilla Tunnel -- Nilgrar 1, 2 & Zojila main tunnel - is being expeditiously executed, despite unfavourable weather conditions like snowfall, and blizzard at a high altitude of 3,528 metres above mean sea level, MEIL said.

The statement noted that Zojila project, Asia's longest bi-directional tunnel, is a challenging development project in India for strategic reasons too.

It added that the current winter witnessed the highest-ever snowfall in the history of Jammu and Kashmir with temperatures dropping to -30 degree celsius.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
After Telangana, Maharashtra and on Sunday invited Elon Musk, the chief executive officer of US-based electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla, to set up a production unit in their states.



After Musk tweeted about challenges with the government in connection with his firm's plans to launch its products in India, Minister Jayant Patil responded on Twitter and said: "Maharashtra is one of the most progressive states in India. We will provide you all the necessary help from Maharashtra for you to get established in India. We invite you to establish your manufacturing plant in Maharashtra.



Pradesh Congress Committee chief Navjot Singh Sidhu also on Sunday invited Musk to set up Teslas unit in states industrial hub Ludhiana.



I invite @elonmusk, Model will create Ludhiana as a hub for Electric Vehicles & Battery industry with time-bound single-window clearance for investment that brings new technology to Punjab, create green jobs, walking path of environment preservation & sustainable development, Sidhu tweeted.



The offers come two days after Telangana Minister K T Rama Rao invited Musk to set up shop in his state.



Last year, Tesla had sought a reduction in import duties on electric vehicles (EVs) in India.



The Union heavy industries ministry had asked the electric car major to first start manufacturing EVs in India before tax concessions could be considered.



The electric car major had requested the Union government to standardise the tariff on electric cars to 40 per cent, irrespective of Customs value, and withdraw the social welfare surcharge of 10 per cent on such vehicles.
State-owned Ltd (OIL) has exited from a venture, selling its 20 per cent stake to its venture partner for USD 25 million -- the second exit of an Indian firm from the US shale business in two months.

" (USA) Inc (wholly owned subsidiary of OIL), divested its entire stake in Niobrara shale asset, USA," a regulatory filing by the company said, adding the consideration received was USD 25 million.

OIL and Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) had together in October 2012 bought a 30 per cent stake in Houston-based Carrizo Oil & Gas's Niobrara shale asset in Colorado for USD 82.5 million.

While OIL had acquired 20 per cent, IOC bought 10 per cent in Carrizo's Niobrara basin acreage assets through their respective subsidiaries.

The total investment of USD 82.5 million included an upfront cash payment of USD 41.25 million and a carry amount of USD 41.25 million, linked to Carrizo's future drilling and development cost.

The stake was sold to Verdad Resources LLC, which is the operator of the asset.

Originally, OIL acquired the 20 per cent interest in the liquid rich shale asset in the Denver-Julesburg Basin from Carrizo Oil & Gas, Inc. Carrizo sold its entire stake in the Niobrara asset to Verdad Resources LLC in January 2018. As a result, Verdad became the new operator of the asset.

Haimo Oil & Gas holds the remaining 10 per cent stake in the project.

The move by OIL follows Reliance Industries Ltd's exit from US shale, which has not been attractive in generating returns.

In November last year, Reliance said its wholly-owned subsidiary Reliance Eagleford Upstream Holding, LP has signed an agreement with Ensign Operating III, LLC to divest its interest in upstream assets in the Eagleford shale play of Texas.

With this, Reliance has divested all its shale gas assets and exited the shale gas business in North America. The firm had previously divested its entire stake in the Marcellus shale blocks.

State gas utility GAIL (India) Ltd continues to hold a 20 per cent stake in Carrizo's Eagle Ford shale acreage, which it had acquired in 2011.

OIL, in the filing, said its subsidiary (USA) Inc had reported a net profit of USD 279,000 on a revenue of USD 4.27 million in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2021.

When in 2012 it and IOC bought a stake in Niobrara, they were to receive a 30 per cent interest in Carrizo's production of about 1,850 barrels of oil-equivalent a day from 24 gross wells.

Carrizo held 61,500 gross acres in the Niobrara basin, of which the Oil India-IOC consortium had 18,450 acres, spread over three counties in Texas.

Apart from participating in Carrizo/Verdad operated wells, OIL USA has also participated in wells drilled by other operators in the region, such as Noble Energy, Whiting Oil and Gas, Mallards, Bison energy etc. Net production to OIL was about 415 barrels of oil equivalent.

OIL, whose assets in the northeast account for its entire crude oil production and the bulk of gas production, had aggressively scouted for overseas assets in the last decade.

As a result, it acquired interest in oil and gas exploration and producing assets from Venezuela to Russia. It continues to hold those assets.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested (India)s director (marketing) E S Ranganathan in a scandal involving sale of petrochemicals manufactured by at a discount.



A statement said the investigative agency conducted searches at the premises of the accused in Delhi, Noida, Gurugram, Panchkula and Karnal, among others.



The said that cash of approximately Rs 1.29 crore, gold jewellery and other valuables were recovered during searches from the premises of Ranganathan. He is the sixth person to be arrested in this case.



On Saturday, the said it recovered approximately Rs 84 lakh during searches, which included recovery of Rs 75 lakh from a Gurugram-based person.



The other five accused individuals in the case are Pawan Gaur (a private person), Rajesh Kumar (director of Rishabh Polychem, Delhi), N Ramakrishnan Nair (a Gurugram resident), Saurabh Gupta (associated with United Polymer Industries, Panchkula), and Aditya Bansal (associated with Bansal Agencies, Karnal).



United Polymer Industries and Bansal Agencies have also been named in the CBIs first information report (FIR).



The CBI alleged that Ranganathan was indulging into corrupt and illegal activities in conspiracy with other accused, who were acting as his middleman, by obtaining a bribe from the private buying petrochemical products marketed by .



CBI said it laid a trap and apprehended a private person and a director of a private company based in Delhi with an alleged bribe amount of Rs 10 lakh, which was collected on behalf of Ranganathan.



According to the CBIs FIR, the GAIL director (marketing) had demanded a bribe of Rs 15 lakh for issuing the discount order in favour of the beneficiary .
Amid the surge in COVID-19 cases, the administration on Saturday re-imposed weekend lockdown and said that night curfew shall continue to remain in force in all districts from 9 pm-6 am with complete restrictions on non-essential movement in the Union Territory.

"Night curfew shall continue to remain in force from 9 pm-6 am with complete restriction on non-essential movement. There shall be a complete restriction on non-essential movement during weekends in entire Jammu and Kashmir," the order reads.

The decision was taken on Friday by the State Executive Committee (SEC) meeting chaired by Chief Secretary Arun Kumar Mehta to review the COVID situation.

"The District Magistrates of respective districts of shall adopt a Zero Tolerance policy towards non-compliance of COVID Appropriate Behaviour (CAB), and shall ensure due action against defaulters under relevant sections of the Disaster Management Act, Epidemic Act, and the India Penal Code," the order reads.

As per the order, indoor and outdoor gatherings will be restricted to 25 people followed by gathering of up to 25 vaccinated people in banquet halls or 25 per cent of the authorised capacity. In the Banquet Halls, people will have to show RT-PCR reports which should not be older than 72 hours.

Also, cinema halls, theatres, multiplexes, restaurants, clubs, gymnasiums, and swimming will function with only 25 per cent of the authorized capacity.

The educational institutes have been permitted online mediums of teaching, while only vaccinated staff members can attend institutions for administrative purposes.

Chief Secretary also directed the divisional and district administrations to ensure fool-proof enforcement of all COVID protocols and the SOPs, stressing that Omicron is more virulent than the delta variant.

He ordered a mass scale awareness campaign to promote district COVID helpline numbers established for medical assistance over the telephone.

Chief Secretary also called for re-activation of block-level COVID medical grid to facilitate isolation facilities at Panchayat level, primary medical assistance at primary health care centres, and referral to district and tertiary healthcare facilities in cases of emergencies.

"The District magistrate (Chairperson, DDMAs) shall create as many Micro Containment Zones as necessary and as per situation demand on ground, keeping in view the spike of cases," it said.

The district administration was directed to enhance the number of tests including RTPCR and expedite identification, isolation, and micro-containment of the infections.

"If passengers arriving into the union territory is asymptomatic, they don't need to undergo RT-PCR or rapid antigen COVID-19 test on arrival if they have an equivalent final certificate of COVID-19 vaccinations or a valid RT-PCR COVID negative report taken within 72 hours," it said.

However, testing will be conducted on symptomatic incoming passengers by air/rail/road.

Also, the interstate movement of passengers will be permitted on the basis of a fully vaccinated certificate or test reports not 72 hours late.

The administration also stressed on speeding up vaccination drive in the 15-17 age category which is currently at 40 per cent.

The officials were asked to complete the vaccination in this age category within one week.

The chief secretary asked the Health and Medical Education Department to prioritize administering of booster doses in vulnerable populations through its 'Har Ghar Dastak' campaign.

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Washington [US], January 16 (ANI): As achieved the milestone of cumulative vaccine coverage of 156 crores on the first anniversary of the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive that started on January 16, 2021, Dr Kutub Mahmoood, Scientist and Virologist from Washington, DC told ANI that vaccination is the strongest weapon, adding that the pandemic cannot go on forever, and its end is pretty near.

"So, this cannot go on forever, and that end is pretty soon. I would say there is no winner in this game of chess, this is going to be a draw, where the virus will go in hiding and we actually win, we may come out of hiding behind our facemask. So, we hope to move forward, I think we are getting very close to that. So, I hope as we move forward in this year, probably we will come out of the pandemic very soon," Dr Kutub told ANI.

"There is a pressure on the virus to mutate and to adapt to the changing immunity in humans and then it tries to make these mutants so that it can escape. This is like a game, like a chess game, I would say as an analogy between the virus and the humans. So, that virus is putting out its moves, we as humans are putting out our moves. We have small moves, which are the facemask, hand sanitisers, social distancing. We have weapons that we have used against the virus with the vaccines, the antivirals, and the antibodies," said Dr Kutub.

He further appreciated for achieving 60 per cent vaccination within a year.

"This is a real great achievement for the country and for the vaccine manufacturers in . As you know Indian vaccines are globally used. And this time, last year, we were just in the process of getting these vaccines approved through the Indian DCGI for emergency use and in 12 months we have achieved almost 60 per cent vaccination this is a huge achievement for the Indian Government, Ministry of Health and vaccine manufacturers," said the virologist.

On mutation of COVID viruses he said, "If there are any certain mutants coming in, we will not be surprised. I think we should be able to contain it with vaccinations and the key is vaccination again. If the population is vaccinated, that would be my strong message, to get those vaccines and the boosters so that they are protected against any of these variants."

Commenting on a surge in cases in India and abroad, amid the spread of the Omicron variant, Dr Kutub said, "Yes, there are some cases where there are reinfections and those are particularly in immune-compromised subjects that have other medical preconditions. We can have boosters to contain virus in those immune-compromised cases."

Speaking on various studies that suggest T cells play an important role in fighting off viruses, Dr Kutub stated, "T cell response analysis has been not seriously investigated, but I think there is a big role of T cells particularly the helper T cells and the establishment of the helper T cells in the subject, because, these T cells will help B cells to make the antibody and these T cells can be cross-reactive also where they can be long lasting T cell immunity and it is very critical that we establish a good cellular immunity with the current with the current vaccine that we have."

Recently, Covaxin manufacture has said that its booster is 90 per cent effective against Omicron. Dr Kutub said that India's unique product Covaxin made by Bharat Biotech has also shown safety in 2-year-old children too.

"Covaxin is inactivated vaccines and this is the traditional way how we make the vaccine is to grow the virus and inactivate the virus and make the vaccines and in a traditional sense that would be my first approach in making the vaccine and Covaxin being an indigenous strain from India and manufactured by the Indian company," said the vitologist.

"I mean this is a uniquely Indian product, which I would like to congratulate the Indian company and the Indian government for moving in this direction for the vision of our Prime Minister. So this is actually a very good vaccine and we have seen the data is coming out from the clinical studies about the safety of this in the very young up to 2 yrs of age," he added.

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Delhi Health Minister on Sunday sought to nix concerns over "fewer" Covid testing in the national capital, saying the diagnostic tests being conducted in the city is three times the number recommended by ICMR.

All those who need to undergo testing are being tested, he said.

According to the Centre's new guidelines, asymptomatic patients do not need to undergo a test. Also, contacts of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 patients do not require a test unless they have comorbidities or are aged above 60.

Jain said these new guidelines on testing have come after thoughtful consideration.

Delhi conducted 67,624 tests on Friday and 79,578 on Thursday.

The city on Thursday reported 28,867 COVID-19 cases, the sharpest single-day spike since the beginning of the pandemic, after the city conducted 98,832 tests on Wednesday.

Jain told reporters that Delhi is expected to register 17,000 Covid cases on Sunday.

"Hospital admissions have plateaued and Covid positivity rate will also come down. Restrictions by the has impacted the spread of COVID-19. We will monitor the situation for three to four days before reviewing the curbs," he said.

On Saturday, Jain had said that it seems the national capital has reached its peak in COVID-19 infections and the government will think of easing restrictions when the daily cases decline to 15,000.

Delhi on Saturday reported 20,718 COVID-19 cases and 30 fatalities while the positivity rate stood at 30.64 per cent, according to health department data.

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Lyricist Ibrahim Ashk, known for penning songs for films like "Kaho Na Pyaar Hai" and "Koi... Mil Gaya", passed away on Sunday due to COVID-19 pneumonia, his daughter said. He was 70.

Ashk was admitted to the city's Meditech Hospital on Saturday after he complained of breathlessness, his daughter Musaffa said.

The veteran was diagnosed with COVID-19 pneumonia, which affected his lungs, the daughter added.

"He was admitted to the hospital on Saturday after he became very ill. There he was diagnosed with COVID. He had COVID pneumonia which the doctors told us affected his lungs and he had breathing difficulties. He passed away today around 4 pm," Musaffa told PTI.

His funeral will be held on Monday morning, she added.

Born in Madhya Pradesh, Ashk did his post graduation in Hindi Literature in 1974 from Indore University. Also an Urdu poet, he later went on to work as a journalist.

His popular work in Bollywood as a lyricist includes hit songs like "Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai", "Na Tum Jano Na Hum", "Koi Mil Gaya", "Idhar Chala Mein Udhar Chala" and "Aap Mujhe Achche Lagne Lage", among others.

He is also survived by his wife and two daughters other than Musaffa.

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Industry and Commerce Minister K.T. Rama Rao as invite to Tesla CEO to set up shop in the state was hailed by many including actors, leading journalists, entrepreneurs and others.

Hours after KTR, as the minister is popularly known, invited to bring the popular electric vehicles to India, several Twitter users heaped praise on him.

"Hey Elon, I am the Industry & Commerce Minister of state in India. Will be happy to partner Tesla in working through the challenges to set shop in India/ . Our state is a champion in sustainability initiatives & a top notch business destination in India," tweeted KTR.

His tweet was in response to Elon Musk's tweet on bringing EV to India. His tweet read "Still working through a lot of challenges with the government".

Eminent personalities including actors, journalists and industry leaders backed KTR's tweet and supported the idea.

"Love this car so much . Feels like hope is around the corner," wrote actor Genelia Deshmukh.

"Elon Musk, Come to Hyderabad - India! It will be epic to have you. The Government here in Telangana is terrific too," tweeted actor Vijay Devarakonda.

"Elon Musk sir you have best land & infrastructure in Telangana of course best Minister & Administration KTR," said Tollywood director Meher Ramesh.

Another film director Gopichand Malineni tweeted "Dear Elon Musk, we would love to have Tesla in Telangana... as we have the best infrastructure and the leading business hub of India."

"Hyderabad has just pipped Bengaluru to post in #Tesla race. Full marks to KTR for inviting Elon Musk," said well-known journalist Pankaj Panchauri.

Senior journalist Vikram Chandra called it an innovative invite.

"An innovative Twitter invite to Elon Musk from KTR after the Tesla head said he was facing "challenges" in dealing with the government. Are we going to see a Tesla factory in Telangana?!"

--IANS

ms/pgh

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Ahn Cheol-soo, the presidential candidate and leader of the minor opposition conservative People's Party, poses with a restaurant owner before he begins a one-day experience as a part time delivery worker to listen to the difficulties of members of the service industry, in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province, Sunday. Joint Press Corps



Minor opposition candidate eyes 20-percent support



By Jung Da-min



The rival presidential candidates of the country's two major parties, Lee Jae-myung of the ruling liberal Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and Yoon Suk-yeol of the main opposition conservative People Power Party (PPP), are set to face off in a two-way TV debate before the Lunar New Year holiday. The two sides are currently in discussions about the schedule before announcing the exact date of the debate.



The presidential election, slated for March 9, is approaching with about 50 days left to go. However, the rival candidates are still in a neck-and-neck race, as both are failing to find a breakthrough in their support rates which have dropped over allegations of corruption, illegal acts or scandals surrounding themselves or their family members. The two sides are expected to attack each other over such allegations during the scheduled TV debate, as they have agreed to discuss a wide range of topics related to state affairs  meaning anything could be on the agenda.



Amid this situation, the rise of Ahn Cheol-soo, the presidential candidate and leader of the minor opposition conservative People's Party, is raising the question of whether the scheduled two-way TV debate between Yoon and Lee should be changed to a three-way one, including Ahn.



Ahn's rise as a third party candidate has been observed in many recent opinion polls.



According to a survey of 1,001 adults conducted by local pollster Gallup Korea from Jan. 11 to 13, Ahn garnered 17 percent of the respondents' support, raising expectations that his support rate could rise to over 20 percent, which political watchers considers as an inflection point or threshold for Ahn to have power to influence the presidential election, with more support from swing voters.



In the Gallup poll, Ahn ranked third, following the DPK's Lee at 37 percent and the PPP's Yoon at 31 percent.



Ahn's support rate has increased remarkably over the past month. His rise is widely seen as a result of the continued drop in Yoon's popularity as well as increasing support from swing voters, who had remained undecided over whom to pick as the country's next leader. In another Gallup survey conducted a month ago from Dec. 14 to 16, Ahn's support rate was five percent, while Yoon's support rate was 35 percent and Lee's was 36 percent.



Some political watchers said that the scheduled TV debate will not have much influence over voters' choice of their preferential candidates, citing cases of past presidential elections. But others said that it is more likely that this year's presidential election will be affected by the results of the TV debate, when more voters have said that they could change their preferred candidates, in recent opinion polls.



According to a survey of 1,000 adults conducted together by four local pollsters  Embrain Public, Kstat Research, Korea Research International and Hankook Research  from Jan. 10 to 12, 29 percent of the respondents said they could change their preferred candidates. The percentage of those who said that they could change their preferred candidates was especially high among those in their 20s and 30s, with those percentages at 55 percent and 44 percent in each group, respectively. Young people in their 20s and 30s are considered the major swing voters in this year's presidential election.



Further details of each survey are available at the websites of polling agencies or the National Election Survey Deliberation Commission.




: on Sunday recorded 2,047 new COVID-19 cases and took the tally to 7,09,209. The death toll rose to 4,057 with three more fatalities.

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) accounted for the most number of fresh cases with 1,174 followed by Medchal Malkajgiri (178) and Ranga Reddy (140) district, a bulletin said while providing details as of 5.30 PM today.

A total of 2,013 people recovered from the infection today. The cumulative number of recoveries till date was 6,83,104.

The number of active cases stood at 22,048, the bulletin said.

A total of 55,883 samples were tested during the day and the total number examined till date was 3,06,29,520.

In view of the rise in cases in the country and the State, the government today extended the holidays to all educational institutions--private, aided and government, except medical colleges till January 30 as per the directions of Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, an official press release said.

The State Cabinet meeting would be held here on Monday under the chairmanship of Rao and the meeting would discuss on and other issues, it said.

Meanwhile, Legislative Assembly Speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy tested positive for COVID-19 for the second time.

Following mild symptoms on Saturday, the Speaker underwent tests and he tested positive for coronavirus, an official release said on Sunday.

Though he did not have any health complications, the Speaker was advised by doctors to get himself hospitalised here, it said.

Srinivas Reddy requested those who met him over the past few days to undergo COVID-19 tests and to isolate themselves as a precautionary measure. In November last, he had tested positive for COVID-19.

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The has quashed an order by the authorities that had rejected the refund claim of an assessee because it was filed after two years, a time limit set by the rules. This was done since the authorities have not taken into cognizance the earlier Supreme Court verdict that excluded the period from March 15, 2020 and October 02, 2021 from the time limit due to Covid.

However, the high court did not go into the validity of the circular and the question of striking it down.

The petitioner concerned filed the first refund application for the period July 2018 to September 2018 on August 21, 2020 online on the portal. The said application, however, was rejected by the assistant commissioner of CentralGST (CGST) in Mumbai on September 05, 2020 on the ground that there were certain deficiencies in the said application.

As such, the petitioner filed the second refund application on September 08, 2020, but this was also rejected by the assistant commissioner, pointing out deficiency.

Thereafter, the petitioner filed a third refund application on September 30, 2020, but that was rejected by the official mentioned above on the ground that the application had surpassed the time of two years, set by rules given in a circular issued by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs.

Aggrieved petitioner went to the Bombay high court, seeking to declare a said rule of limiting the refund within two years as ultra vires the Constitution.

The petitioner also sought quashing and setting aside the rejection order and direction to restore the third refund application of the petitioner.

HC observed that it is not in dispute that the first and second refund applications were rejected on the ground of certain deficiencies in those applications.

The third refund application was required to be filed within two years in accordance with the GST rules.

However, in this petitioners case, such limitation period fell between March 15, 2020 and October 02, 2021, a period which was excluded by the Supreme Court in all proceedings irrespective of the limitation prescribed under the general law or special law.

Earlier, the apex court in a suo motu writ petition had issued directions that in computing the period of limitation in any suit, appeal, application and or proceedings, the period from March 15, 2020 till October 2, 2021 will stand excluded due to Covid waves.

As such, the high court ruled that the assistant commissioner, CGST, is required to exclude the period of limitation falling during the said period.

It ruled that the third refund application filed by the petitioner was within the period of limitation prescribed.

Owing to this, the high court found the order by the CGST official to be contrary to the order passed by the Supreme Court.

However, the high court did not go into the validity of the circular which prescribes the time limit for refund claims, saying the same can be considered in the appropriate case.

Sandeep Sehgal, partner tax at AKM Global, said,"The GST department, without taking cognizance of the relaxations available therein for the limitations, rejected the refund application. Hence, the high court has rightly ruled in favour of the taxpayer."
Commerce and Industry Minister on Sunday assured full government support to leaders of India's top in pushing the growth of the sector and taking services exports to USD 1 trillion in a decade.

He said the country is on track to achieve its merchandise exports target of USD 400 billion this year, while services exports are likely to be about USD 240 -250 billion.

We can converge USD one trillion. That should be the ambition, mission. You have a little bit of catching up to do. I'll be delighted if you cross USD 1 trillion faster than them, the minister told IT industry leaders.

Welcoming the IT industry's proposal to start IT hubs in tier-2 and three towns, the minister said businesses should identify the towns and the centre would assist them in providing all the necessary infrastructure and facilities.

"Goyal has assured leaders of India's top that the central government will give full support to the sector to accelerate growth and help India's services exports soar to USD 1 trillion in a decade," the commerce and industry ministry said in a statement.

He also said the IT industry can make a big contribution to services exports by focusing on new technology and products that can make India a bigger global player in the sector.

Goyal suggested the industry to focus on high-tech products, for which the government would provide any assistance needed by the sector.

"IT industry had grown spectacularly on its own and many of the top companies grew at a time when India did not focus on creating a favourable ecosystem for startups," Goyal said, adding the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) will provide all assistance to push growth and services' exports.

The virtual meeting was attended by Nasscom President Debjani Ghosh, Infosys CEO Salil Parekh, Tech Mahindra CEO and MD CP Gurnani; Mphasis CEO Nitin Rakesh; Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji; Genpact CEO NV Tyagarajan; WNS Global Services Group CEO Keshav R Murugesh; President and Head of Business and Technology Services at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Krishnan Ramanujam, among others.

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Indias richest families saw their wealth reach a record high in 2021, even as 84 per cent of Indian households saw an income decline amid the pandemic, according to a report from non-profit Oxfam India titled 'Inequality Kills'. It said the richest 98 Indians own the same wealth as the bottom 552 million people.

The number of Indian grew during the year from 102 to 142, according to the report published ahead of the World Economic Forum's Davos Agenda. It called for higher taxation on the richest 10 per cent of the Indian population to help fund measures to reduce inequality. This could cover schemes for education, health care, and social security, according to the report titled Inequality Kills. The wealth of the top 100 families is now Rs 57.3 trillion, according to the report.

A separate analysis of the data from the World Inequality Report suggests that taxing the top 10 per cent would cover families with significantly lower wealth than the top 100. The average wealth of the top 100 families is Rs 5.7 trillion going by the Oxfam numbers. The average wealth of the top 10 per cent is Rs 63-65 lakh, shows a Business Standard analysis of the data from the World Inequality Report.

India was described as very unequal, with the top 10 of the country holding 57 per cent of the wealth, while the share of the bottom half is 13 per cent. The report had also pointed out the role of higher taxation globally to reduce inequality.

The Oxfam report pointed out that government tax revenues are disproportionately dependent upon indirect taxes like the goods and services tax. This makes all people who buy a product or use a service pay tax at the same rate. This has the effect of the poorer sections of societys tax rate being similar to that of the wealthiest, despite having lower income.

Among other suggestions, Oxfam also recommended at least two surveys every 10 years to measure inequality and better social security for informal workers.

It said a 4 per cent tax on the wealth of 98 can fund the mid-day meal programme for 17 years. A 1 per cent wealth tax would be enough to take care of the total expenditure for school education and literacy, or fund the government health insurance scheme Ayushman Bharat for more than seven years, according to the report.

Inequality has a significant negative impact, including on gender parity, which taxation of the wealthy can help address, according to Oxfam India Chief Executive Officer Amitabh Behar in a statement issued with the report.

The pandemic has set gender parity back from 99 years to 135 years. Women collectively lost Rs 59.11 trillion ($800 billion) in earnings in 2020, with 13 million fewer women at work now than in 2019. It has never been so important to start righting the wrongs of this obscene inequality by targeting extreme wealth through taxation and getting that money back into the real economy to save lives, said Behar.

Indias fight against inequality and poverty must be supported by the who made record profits in the country during the pandemic, he added.
Following a rise in COVID-19 cases, the government on Sunday extended the closure of all schools and colleges in the state till January 23.

However, online classes will continue, a statement said.

In the statement, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said that in view of changing circumstances and rising COVID-19 cases, all schools and colleges have been ordered to remain closed till January 23.

Adityanath also said that the night curfew from 10 pm to 6 pm should be strictly implemented, the statement said.

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Two nomination papers have been filed so far for the first phase of assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, officials said on Saturday.

One aspiring candidate filed nomination from the Sahibabad assembly constituency in Ghaziabad district on Saturday, while Samajwadi Party MLA from Kairana Nahid Hasan submitted his papers on the first day of the nomination on Friday.

According to the Election Commission, in the first phase of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, 58 assembly constituencies spread over 11 districts will go to polls on February 10.

The last date of filing nominations is January 21. Scrutiny of nomination papers will be held on January 24, while January 27 is the last date for withdrawal of nominations.

Counting of votes will be held on March 10.

The districts which are going to polls in this phase are Shamli, Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Hapur, Bulandshahr, Aligarh, Mathura and Agra.

In all, 2,27,83,739 voters -- 1,23,31,251 male voters, 1,04,51,053 female voters and 1,435 third gender voters -- will exercise their voting rights in the first phase at 25,849 polling booths located in 10,766 polling centres.

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Ahead of the Goa Assembly elections, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener and Delhi Chief Minister promised an honest government in the state as he launched a door-to-door campaign in St. Andre and Siroda constituencies on Saturday.

Kejriwal, who arrived in Goa on Saturday afternoon, kicked off a door-to-door campaign from St. Andre along with party candidate Ramrao Wagh, Goa convener Rahul Mhambre and party leader Amit Palekar.

He also held a door-to-door campaign in Siroda along with the party's candidate Mahadev Naik and other leaders.

While holding a door-to-door campaign he also heard the grievances of the people of both the assembly constituencies and assured them that once gets voted to power in the state, it will resolve all their issues.

"People are excited to give chance to a new party and are looking for an honest alternative. AAP will give the honest government," he said.

Lashing out at both the Congress and the BJP, Kejriwal said they had worked only for their vested interests.

"The youth in Goa are facing the highest unemployment rate. Government jobs are available only to people with money and connections. Thus, all the people from the constituency this time want to give AAP a chance. They are tired of the old parties who switch the parties for crores of rupees," he said.

Kejriwal reiterated AAP's promise of providing honest governance to the people of Goa if the party comes to power. When asked about the AAP's electoral prospects when many national political parties are in the fray, Kejriwal said the voters have faith in AAP.

"The voters feel that the AAP government will resolve their issues. All the guarantees announced by us, including providing free and interrupted electricity supply, unemployment allowance, reservation in employment for locals, Rs 1000 per month to every female over 18 years of age and Griha Aadhar allowance of Rs 2500 per month will be fulfilled,'' he added.

Goa will go to the assembly polls on February 14. The counting of votes will take place on March 10.

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The will contest 10-15 seats in the next month's Goa Assembly elections, party leader said on Sunday and stressed that the Maharashtra-based outfit will field common men as its nominees.

Responding to a question on whether the Sena will contest the polls in Goa along with the NCP, its alliance partner in the Maharashtra government, Raut said, We will also go. Their (NCP) leaders are coming to Goa



We will contest 10-15 seats in Goa, he added.

The Sena has so far failed to succeed in electoral politics in Goa which has a sizable Maharashtrian population. The Uddhav Thackeray-led party has been fielding candidates in the Marathi-dominated pockets of the tiny coastal state.

This time, was holding talks with the Congress and the NCP to take on the BJP after the formation of the Maha Vikas Aghadi. However, the talks appear to have not materialised.

The NCP and are together in Maharashtra. Even Congress is with us. But there must be some compelling reason for the seat-sharing. Our talks with them were on. NCP's talks were with the Congress. That doesn't mean that we will not contest polls, Raut said.

He said that the politics of Goa revolves around 10-12 people who hop from one party to another.

There are land mafia, drugs mafia. No party has remained untouched from this. We want the people of Goa to choose common people. We will give tickets to these people, Raut added.

The political contest in Goa has become multi-cornered with the entry of the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) apart from the traditional contestants like the BJP, Congress, MGP and GFP.

In the 2017 Assembly polls for the 40-member Goa Assembly, AAP had drawn a blank.

In the previous polls, the Congress had emerged as the single-largest party in Goa as it won 17 seats in the 40-member House. However, it failed to form the government after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which bagged 13, allied with some independents and regional parties to form the government under Manohar Parrikar who passed away in 2019. BJP's Pramod Sawant is the incumbent chief minister.

The Congress has already announced its pre-poll alliance with the GFP, while the TMC has a tie-up with the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) for the upcoming polls.

Recently, the TMC had hinted at a grand alliance comprising the Congress and AAP to take on the BJP.

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Some politicians in are making much of the number 7 in the seven-phase assembly elections, saying the "auspicious" numeral will help them win.

From invoking the Saptarishi' (Ursa Major) constellation, seven basic notes of Indian classical music to saat phere' (seven circumambulations) -- parties give different reasons and logic to claim that they will emerge victorious in the polls.

While the BJP hopes to score a hat-trick, the opposition Samajwadi Party and the Congress feel that luck will smile on them in the upcoming elections.

The Election Commission had recently announced the poll schedule in the state. Counting of votes will take place on March 10.

The state will go to polls on February 10, February 14, February 20, February 23, February 27, March 3 and March 7.

BJP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Seth said number seven is considered auspicious.

"There is 'Saptarishi' (Ursa Major) constellation. A rainbow has seven colours, and there are seven basic notes in Indian classical music. The 2017 state and 2019 Lok Sabha elections were held in seven phases, and the BJP registered comprehensive wins. In this assembly election, which will also be held in seven phases, the BJP will win more than 300 seats, he tweeted in Hindi.

Giving another reason for the possible victory of the saffron party, UP BJP spokesperson Manish Shukla said since the election phases will be moving from western to eastern UP, the BJP will repeat its splendid performance as it had done in the 2017 and 2019 elections.

UP leader Ashok Singh, however, accused the ruling BJP of indulging in politics of cheating.

"In the elections held in the state since 2014, the BJP has only indulged in the politics of cheating. The people of the state are no longer going to be lured by 'saat rang ke sapne' (seven-coloured dreams) of the BJP. They have made up their minds to throw the BJP beyond 'saat samundar' (seven seas), he said.

The Congress spokesman added that the party will "easily sail through the seven seas" in the polls.

Intensifying his attack on the BJP, Singh said, "BJP leaders are in the habit of speaking lies all seven days a week, and hence they will not be in a position to draw any positive energy from the seven horses of the chariot of Sun God."



He also claimed that the 'Saptarishis' (seven revered Hindu sages) are going to bless the Congress this time.

Surendra Srivastava, vice president, UP unit of the Samajwadi Party told PTI, "The seven-phase assembly polls will prove to be lucky for the Samajwadi Party (SP) this time. The SP along with its alliance partners will enthral the people with seven musical notes, and clinch the polls, the seventh and final phase of which interestingly falls on March 7."



Ashutosh Varshney, convenor, Ram Seva Trust, Prayagraj, said, "The bride and the groom take seven phere' around fire during marriage to cement their bonding. Now, it remains to be seen that which party in will eventually be able to cement its bonding with the people of the state in the ongoing elections."Pointing to the seven holy cities of 'Saptapuris', he further said, "A Sanskrit shloka describes the seven pilgrimage cities of Ayodhya, Mathura, Maya (Mayapuri or Haridwar), Kashi (Varanasi), Kanchi (Kanchipuram), Avantika (Ujjain) and Dwaravati (Dwaraka). These seven cities are the giver of Moksha' (liberation) and are called Mokshapuri."Varshney said of these, Ayodhya, Mathura and Varanasi are located in Uttar Pradesh, while Haridwar is located in Uttarakhand (another poll-bound state).

" has 403 seats in its legislative assembly, and the single-digit sum of 403 is also 7," he added.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Former minister in the Yogi Adityanath Cabinet, Dara Singh Chauhan, on Sunday joined the (SP) in the presence of its national president Akhilesh Yadav.

He is the third minister after Swami Prasad Maurya and Dharam Singh Saini to leave the BJP and join the party led by Akhilesh Yadav.

"In 2017, the BJP government gave a slogan of 'sabka saath, sabka vikas'. The party took support from everyone but only few people got benefits of development," Chauhan said after joining the SP.

The BJP legislator from the Madhuban constituency in Lucknow further claimed that not only backward class and Dalits are unhappy with the state government, the Brahmins are also not satisfied with the BJP government here.

"Attempts are being made to tamper with the Constitution," he added.

"I welcome Dara Singh Chauhan and his supporters who have come along large numbers," SP chief Akhilesh Yadav said.

Earlier on January 14, former Ministers Swami Prasad Maurya and Dharam Singh Saini, who resigned this week from the Yogi Adityanath government and the ruling BJP ahead of Assembly polls, have joined the .

Along with the former Ministers, the sitting MLAs Bhagwati Sagar, Vinay Shakya, Roshan Lal Verma, Mukesh Verma and Brajesh Kumar Prajapati have also joined SP.

Apna Dal MLA Chaudhary Amar Singh, Former BSP MLA Neeraj Kushawaha Maurya, former BJP MLC Harpal Saini, former BSP MLA Balram Saini, former BJP MLA Rajendra Pratap Singh, former Minister of State Vidrohi Maurya, former Chief Security Officer Padam Singh and former Congress MLA Bansi Singh Pahadiya joined the party.

The spate of resignations began with Swami Prasad Maurya quitting the cabinet. Maurya, a prominent leader from the OBC community, had joined the BJP from BSP. Dara Singh Chauhan had resigned as minister on Wednesday. Dharam Singh Saini became the third minister on Thursday.

has stitched a coalition of smaller parties for the assembly polls and has emerged as the main rival of the ruling BJP in the state.

Earlier BJP MLAs Mukesh Verma, Vinay Shakya, Avtar Singh Bhadana, Roshan Lal Verma, Brijesh Prajapati and Bhagwati Sagar resigned from the party.

will be held in seven phases from February 10 to March 7. The polling in will be held on February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27 and March 3 and 7.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
U.S. health agencies slammed for failing Americans over COVID-19 communication

Xinhua) 11:17, January 16, 2022

NEW YORK, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Vox, an American news and opinion website, on Friday published an essay criticizing U.S. health agencies and their officials for their failure to effectively communicate with the public over the COVID-19 pandemic, all the way through its raging course.

"The fierce backlash to the CDC's (the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) recent decision to shorten the recommended isolation period for people who test positive for COVID-19 was the latest in a series of communications blunders so severe that they have now become a meme," it said.

America's public health institutions have failed to communicate effectively with the U.S. public throughout the pandemic for two reasons: either they have been left trying to defend poor policies, or the messaging has taken the place of creating any kind of coherent policy at all, according to the article.

"I don't think any federal or state agency has done a great job communicating policy during the pandemic," Briana Mezuk, co-director of the Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, was quoted as saying. "The CDC should have been setting the example, and I guess in a way it did: a less-than-great example."

INCONSISTENCY

Communication is an essential part of any public health response, but U.S. health agencies have struggled with it since the very beginning of the pandemic, when government officials initially advised against wearing masks in early 2020 before reversing themselves to recommend nearly universal masking, said the author Dylan Scott, who is a policy reporter at Vox.

It appeared the initial guidance may have been issued in order to preserve enough masks for health care workers. Government officials were warning at the time that hospitals' supplies could be depleted at a critical moment if there was a run on masks. It was the first of the pandemic's "noble lies," according to the essay.

A year after the first masking flip-flop, the CDC stumbled on masks again. In April 2021, the agency urged vaccinated people to continue wearing masks in most indoor settings to reduce transmission before reversing itself and saying that vaccinated people could feel free not to wear masks indoors unless it was required by a local or state government.

"Many public health experts believed the decision to relax the masking guidance for vaccinated people was premature and, just a few months later when the delta variant drove up cases, the CDC changed course again and recommended everyone, including vaccinated people, wear masks when indoors in public," added the article.

SKEPTICISM

"The problem of unsound or indecisive policy creating bad messaging has been repeated over and over again throughout the pandemic, which has deepened skepticism about the agency's recommendations and created a fertile environment for disinformation to flourish," said the essay titled "The Most Consistently Botched Part of the U.S. Pandemic Response."

"Public health authorities faced serious obstacles to communicating effectively with the public," it said. The American people are divided, consuming different information from different sources, motivated by different ideologies.

Some of the confusion that has undermined the American response was avoidable. Prevailing attitudes inside the medical establishment prior to COVID-19 and specific mistakes made during the pandemic itself have contributed to the disconnect between public health authorities and the public they are trying to protect, according to the article.

"Our institutions are failing us with the lack of coordination, the lack of clarity," Scott Ratzan, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Health Communication: International Perspectives and a lecturer at the City University of New York, was quoted as saying. "This is a case clearly that shows our 21st-century institutions are not prepared."

(Web editor: Liang Jun, Bianji)




Main opposition presidential candidate Yoon Suk-yeol said Sunday he will deal sternly with illegal labor rallies if elected in March.







In a Facebook post, Yoon of the conservative People Power Party slammed the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, a major umbrella labor group, over its massive street rally in downtown Seoul, Saturday.







"The KCTU, which reigns above the law, is a symbol of unfairness," he wrote, saying more than 15,000 people gathered in defiance of bans under the anti-pandemic restrictions. "The Yoon Suk-yeol administration will deal strictly with militant labor unions' actions that are above the law."







Yoon likened the labor group's actions to a mockery of the nation as the people put up with various COVID-19 restrictions on private gatherings, business hours and other rules.







"I will set right the law and principles to ensure unions are faithful to their original purpose of enhancing workers' rights and interests," he said. (Yonhap)


The proposed merger of debt-ridden Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank with Unity Bank (USFB) is being examined and the process of amalgamation will start after the government approval, sources said.

Various aspects of the scheme of amalgamation have been examined and the government would soon send its suggestions, if any, to the RBI, sources said.

The RBI in December extended the restrictions on Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank for another three months till the end of March, 2022 as all necessary process on the draft scheme for the takeover was not complete.

As per the Banking Regulation Act, the draft scheme of amalgamation is required to be placed before the government for its sanction and the Centre may sanction the scheme without any modifications or with such modifications as it may consider necessary.

The scheme as sanctioned by the government would come into force on such date as the they may specify, as per the Act.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had prepared a draft scheme of amalgamation and the same was placed in the public domain on November 22 as part of seeking suggestions and objections, if any, from members, depositors and other creditors of and Delhi-based USFB. The deadline for submitting the comments was till December 10.

In September 2019, the RBI had superseded the board of and placed it under regulatory restrictions, including putting a cap on withdrawals by its customers, after detection of certain financial irregularities, hiding and misreporting of loans given to real estate developer HDIL.

The restrictions have been extended several times since then. The directions were last extended in June this year and are in place till December 31.

The draft scheme of amalgamation envisages a takeover of the assets and liabilities of PMC Bank, including deposits, by USFB, thus giving a greater degree of protection for the depositors, the RBI had said in November last year.

It may be seen that USFB has been set up with capital of about Rs 1,100 crore as against regulatory requirement of Rs 200 crore for setting up of a bank.

Further, the scheme notes that equity warrants of Rs 1,900 crore, to be exercised anytime within a total period of eight years, have been issued by USFB on November 1, 2021 to the promoters to bring further capital.

Under the scheme of arrangement, the depositors will get their full amount back over a period of 10 years. In the initial phase, the bank will pay amount insured under Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC) of up to Rs 5 lakh to depositors.

It is to be noted that USFB, a joint venture between Centrum Group and Bharatpe, has commenced operations as a bank with effect from November 1, 2021.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In the quarter gone by (Q3 of FY22), private lender issued around 950,000 credit cards, its highest ever credit card issuance in any single quarter.

Since the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) revoked the embargo on it in August 2021 to issue new credit cards, the lender has issued 1.37 million . This is according to a senior bank executive, who was present in an analysts call after the lenders Q3 earnings.

In Q3, we achieved the highest ever issuance, with 950,000 card issuances. Since late August, when we recommenced issuing new cards, we have so far issued 1.37 million cards, said Srinivasan Vaidyanathan, chief financial officer (CFO), HDFC Bank, in the analyst call.

Since RBI allowed to issue again, the lender had promised that it would come back with a bang in the market and look to regain its lost market share.

It had outlined a target of issuing about 300,000 cards per month following the lifting of the embargo. And beginning February, card issuances may touch 500,000 every month.

According to RBI data, at the end of August 2021, HDFC Banks outstanding credit card base stood at 14.74 million. And, the latest figures by the central bank show that HDFC Banks outstanding credit card base has grown to 15.54 million as of November 2021. The RBI has not released the data for December.

Meanwhile, the bank has seen a 24 per cent year-on-year (YoY) growth in credit card spends in the current quarter while debit card spends have grown by 14 per cent. The spend growth reflects both increased customer engagement and improved economic environment from a consumption perspective, said Vaidyanathan.

While the credit card spends have been robust, the credit limit utilisation has still not reached the pre-pandemic levels. Credit line utilisation is 0.8 times the pre-pandemic level.

For card customers, the credit line utilisation is low. The spend levels are up 24 per cent and the interchange is quite robust with a good yield. But the credit line utilisation has much more to go to get back to the pre-pandemic levels, Vaidyanathan said.

Until recently, the bank was following a conservative approach when it came to the credit limit. But it has reviewed the policy and gone back to business as usual subject to another Covid wave.





Most of our card customers have liability relationships with us. At an aggregate level, the liability balances of the card customers were typically 4x in the pre-pandemic period and right now it is 5x, which means the customers are sitting on a good amount of deposit balances, Vaidyanathan said.

The lender reported an 18 per cent jump in net profit in the October-December quarter (Q3 of FY22), aided by higher credit growth and lower provisions. Its profit after tax was to the tune of Rs 10,342.2 crore, in line with Street estimates, compared to Rs 8,758.29 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous financial year (FY21).

Net interest income increased by 13 per cent to Rs 18,443.5 crore in Q3 of FY22 compared to Rs 16,317.6 crore in Q3 of FY21. Net interest margin stood at 4.1 per cent in the reporting quarter.

Asset quality of the lender improved sequentially with gross non-performing assets ratio (GNPAs) at 1.26 per cent in Q3 of FY22 compared to 1.35 per cent in the previous quarter.

Covid restructuring has enabled our customers to tide over the uncertainty in the last few quarters. Initial indicators suggest that most of these customers are now positioned to resume their payment with minimal impact to overall quality of the advances, he added.
The threat of the variant is becoming real for many of Asias biggest countries just as it looks set to subside in some Western nations, and thats complicating investors search for winning share bets in the region.

The problem is that Asian governments are carrying out widely diverging policies, with strategies ranging from Chinas pursuit of Covid Zero to Australias move to live with the virus, and almost everything in between. The speed of vaccinations and the strength of health-care systems also vary greatly in the region.

Its another example of how Covid is forcing investors to face new challenges, though many remain positive about Asias ability to weather the storm as its best-performing nations kept deaths from the pandemic at levels far lower than elsewhere. Asian stocks have done better than their European and U.S. counterparts so far this year, after underperforming both of them in 2021.

Asia will be better braced to cope with waves, which may prove to be more short-lived, said Wai Ho Leong, a strategist at Modular Asset Management.  that are better vaccinated and have timely social distancing curbs are also likely to recover faster from this wave.

That, he says, points to Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, China and Malaysia as potential winners, with India, Thailand and the Philippines just starting to see surges. Consumer discretionary, autos and banks are among the sectors to bet on, he said.

Western countries from Switzerland to Spain and the U.K. have suggested that the pandemic may be shifting to an endemic phase. In Asia, the variant wave is starting to pounce, with cases surging in Australia, a jump in Tokyo infections prompting authorities to raise the Covid alert, and Hong Kong extending social restrictions.

Rich-Country Narrative



Exhausted by lockdowns, European countries have largely eschewed a return to onerous curbs. Many countries in Asia are refusing to buy into the rich-country Western narrative that it is milder and will have a lower net impact, wrote Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst for Asia Pacific at Oanda, in a Jan. 10 report.

The regions two largest are among them. For some, Chinas proven success in stamping out the virus when found means investors there have little to worry about from omicron.

While isolated lockdowns could disrupt a certain location temporarily, it is likely to have little impact on the economy as a whole, said Jian Shi Cortesi, investment director for China and Asia growth equities at GAM Investments in Zurich. Chinas economy has adapted to zero-Covid measures, with most sectors operating normally. For most people its life as usual.

But others are wondering how long that strategy can be maintained. Morgan Stanley cut estimates for Hong Kongs economy as the city again turns to strict curbs, likely delaying a re-opening with the mainland. Chinas lockdowns remain local but could become more widespread.

The odds of a China growth shock because of omicron and Covid Zero are steadily rising by the day, Oandas Halley wrote.

Japan was among the first countries to attempt a living with the virus strategy in 2020, but under the administration of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida Covid policy has grown more cautious despite 80% of the country having had two vaccine shots.

Japan is now the most strict country in the free world in terms of border control, said Richard Kaye, a portfolio manager at Comgest Asset Management Japan Ltd., which oversees about $10 billion in Japanese equities. Conversely, he says the strictness makes it the ideal reopening play.

We can invest in the reopening story with a much bigger, greater visibility than we have in other major economies, he said. Kaye sees airlines, airport operators, railroads and retail likely to benefit when eventually the strict borders are opened.

So far this year, Japans blue-chip index Nikkei 225 has underperformed the Asia benchmark by about three percentage points.
The man who held four people hostage at a synagogue in the US state of Texas before being shot dead by the FBI was 44-year-old British citizen Malik Faisal Akram, demanding the release of a jailed Pakistani neuroscientist suspected of having ties to the al-Qaeda terrorist group.

The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said it was aware of the death of a British man in Texas and are in contact with the local authorities".

Akram, who was identified by the FBI, demanded the release of Dr Aafia Siddiqui, who was convicted of trying to kill US military officers while in custody in Afghanistan.

The hostage-taker said that he wanted to speak to Siddiqui, who is being held at FMC Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, following her conviction in 2010. Siddiqui is currently serving an 86-year prison term in the US.

Witnesses claim that he referred to her as his sister, but John Floyd of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Siddiqui's brother was not involved.

"This assailant has nothing to do with Dr Aafia, her family, or the global campaign to get justice for Dr Aafia," he said.

Akram's brother Gulbar issued a statement carried by the Blackburn Muslim Community to confirm the death, saying he had been shot dead.

He said he had liaised "with Faisal, the negotiators, FBI etc" during the siege but "there was nothing we could have said to him or done that would have convinced him to surrender".

"We would like to say that we as a family do not condone any of his actions and would like to sincerely apologise wholeheartedly to all the victims involved in the unfortunate incident," Gulbar said.

"We would also like to add that any attack on any human being be it a Jew, Christian or Muslim etc is wrong and should always be condemned," Gulbar said.

According to media reports, one hostage at the Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville in Texas was released six hours into the 10-hour standoff, before an FBI SWAT team entered the building on Saturday night and the remaining were freed unharmed.

FBI Special Agent in-charge Matt DeSarno said earlier there was no immediate indication that the man had connections to any broader plan but that the agency's investigation "will have global reach".

US President Joe Biden told reporters on Sunday authorities "just don't have enough facts" to speculate why the man targeted the Texas synagogue, calling the standoff "an act of terror."



"I don't-- we don't have I don't think there is sufficient information to know about why he targeted that synagogue, why he insisted on the release of someone who's been in prison for over 10 years, why he was engaged, why he was using an anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli comments," Biden said.

UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss took to Twitter to condemn the "appalling act of terrorism and anti-semitism in Texas".

"We stand with US in defending the rights and freedoms of our citizens against those who spread hate."



Part of the attack was caught on a livestream of the morning shabbat service being broadcast on Facebook.

US media reports said that an angry man was heard shouting about religion, before the feed was cut out in the early hours of Sunday. It had been claimed that the suspect had a British accent.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Pacific nations and humanitarian groups struggled to establish communications with Tonga on Sunday after a triggered by a massive volcanic eruption cut telephone and internet connections, raising concerns for the tiny island nation.

An underwater volcano off Tonga erupted on Saturday, triggering warnings and evacuation orders on the shores of Tonga as well as several South Pacific islands, where footage on social media showed waves crashing into coastal homes.

Internet and phone lines went down at about 6.40 p.m. local time on Saturday, leaving the 105,000 residents on the islands virtually uncontactable.

"The images of the volcanic eruption in close proximity to Tonga are hugely concerning," Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, located about 1,481 miles from Tonga, said in a statement on Instagram.

"Communication as a result of the eruption has been difficult, but our defence force team and Ministry of Foreign Affairs are working as we speak to establish what's needed and how we can help," she said.

The New Zealand foreign ministry said there were no reports of injuries or deaths as yet but communications were limited.

Ardern will address the media at 3 p.m New Zealand time (0200 GMT) to give an update on the situation.

The Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) Pacific Office in Suva, Fiji said it was monitoring the situation and had no updates on damages or casualties.

Tongan churches in New Zealand organised prayers for their families back home.

"We pray God will help our country at this sad moment. We hope everybody is safe...," Maikeli Atiola, the Secretary of the Wesleyan Church of Tonga in Auckland said, Radio New Zealand reported.

The Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai volcano has erupted regularly over the past few decades but Saturday's eruption was so loud that residents parts of faraway Fiji and New Zealand said they heard it.

Satellite images captured the volcanic eruption on Saturday as the explosion sent plumes of smoke into the air and about 12 miles above the sea level.

The sky over Tonga was darkened by the ash.

The eruptions triggered warnings across the Pacific, with the United States and Japan urging people on their Pacific coastlines to stay away from the shores.

Australia issued a marine tsunami warning for the New South Wales coastlines, Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island, and said local beaches along the stateas coast have been closed. A tsunami advisory was also issued in New Zealand.

(Reporting by Praveen Menon; Editing by Leslie Adler & Simon Cameron-Moore)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
For the second 12 months in a row, the World Financial Discussion board scrapped its annual meeting within the Alpine resort city of Davos, Switzerland, due to the pandemic. For the second 12 months in a row, the World Financial Discussion board scrapped its annual meeting within the Alpine resort city of Davos, Switzerland, due to the pandemic.

The gathering is a vital cease on the annual circuit for the worldwide elite, a weeklong schmoozefest the place billionaires and autocrats mingle over canapes whereas activists protest within the frigid mountain air. Corporations make local weather pledges. Economists talk about inequality.

Everybody walks on the identical slippery, slushy roads.

It was on the January 2020 annual assembly that many executives and world leaders first heard concerning the coronavirus, as information experiences a few mysterious sickness started to trickle out of Wuhan, China. Final 12 months, the discussion board deserted and deliberate to carry the assembly in Singapore through the summer season, however the Singapore occasion acquired canceled, too.

Then in December, with the Omicron variant spreading quickly, the organizers stated that they had determined to postpone the gathering as soon as extra, with hopes of staging it this summer season as a substitute.

Everybody hopes that in 2022 the Covid-19 pandemic, and the crises that accompanied it, will lastly start to recede, Klaus Schwab, the patrician founder of the World Financial Discussion board, stated in a press release on Thursday.

To date, nevertheless, there may be little signal that the pandemic is starting to wane. And for a second 12 months in a row, with the occasion on maintain, the city of Davos, Switzerland, is caught in limbo.

Earlier than the pandemic, Davos got here to connote not merely the annual assembly of the World Financial Discussion board itself, however a mind-set. Professional-capitalism, pro-democracy, pro-globalization, is the religious dwelling of the stakeholder capitalism motion (which inspires firms to be higher company residents) and a testing floor for any variety of new win-win market-oriented options to fight local weather change, ameliorate starvation and restore frayed worldwide relations.

Extra virtually, Davos additionally got here to consult with a whole universe of satellite tv for pc occasions, subconferences and loosely affiliated advertising and marketing stunts that each one occurred in Switzerland all through mid-January. Fb constructed a short lived headquarters in towns foremost thoroughfare, often known as the Promenade.
A top law-enforcement official in said Saturday that 225 people died during the violent demonstrations that shook the country this month, a significantly higher number than previously announced.

Serik Shalabayev, head of the criminal prosecution service in the general prosecutor's office, said 19 police officers or servicemen were among the dead, news reports said. More than 4,300 people were injured, he said.

The previous official death toll was 164.

Demonstrations started on January 2 in the oil and gas-rich Central Asian nation to protest a sharp rise in fuel prices.

They quickly spread nationwide, widened into a general protest against the country's authoritarian government and descended into violence within several days, especially in Almaty, the country's largest city. Protesters stormed government buildings and set them ablaze.

At the request of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization sent a force of more than 2,000 soldiers, mostly Russians, to act as peacekeepers.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday that its troops had returned home, but it was unclear if forces from other alliance countries remained in .

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The hostage incident at synagogue has brought in the question - who is Aafia Siddiqui?

A live stream of the Shabbat morning service at the synagogue on Facebook captured audio of a man talking loudly when the incident started. According to the law enforcement officials, the hostage-taker demanded the release of the Pakistani scientist Aafia Siddiqui.

Aafia Siddiqui, also known as "Lady al-Qaida" is a Pakistani national who was convicted in 2010 by a New York City Federal Court of attempting to kill US military personnel. She is currently serving an 86-year sentence at Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Fort Worth, .

Siddiqui tried to kill US agents and military officers in Afghanistan, former Pakistani ambassador Hussain Haqqani who resided in the US and was the prime suspect in the 2011 Memogate scandal that surfaced in 2011.

The Memogate scandal erupted in 2011 when Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz claimed to have received an 'anti-army' memo from Haqqani for the then-US joint chiefs chairman Admiral Mike Mullen.

Siddiqui was in news in 2018 when there were reports about a "deal" weaved between Islamabad and Washington DC to swap physician Dr Shakeel Afridi who aided the United States (US) to track down former Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2011 with Aafia Siddiqui.

At least four people are being held hostage at the Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, according to a law enforcement official.

A rabbi is believed to be among the .

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
On a trip to the United Arab Emirates, the president of South Korea on Sunday reportedly reached a preliminary multibillion-dollar deal to sell Seoul's surface-to-air missiles to Abu Dhabi and pledged deeper cooperation with the Gulf Arab federation.

After South Korean President Moon Jae-in met Emirati Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum in Dubai, the countries signed a memorandum of understanding for the UAE's purchase of a South Korean mid-range missile defence system valued at some USD 3.5 billion, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

There were no further details on the deal announced during the visit nor immediate comment from the .

But during Dubai's weeklong aviation trade show last November, the Emirati Ministry of Defence tweeted it planned to acquire South Korea's M-SAM, an advanced air defense system designed to intercept missiles at altitudes below 40 kilometers (25 miles), saying it would constitute a qualitative addition to the capabilities of the national air defense."



Sheikh Mohammed posted photos of the meeting and said the seeks a comprehensive strategic economic partnership with South Korea, one of the world's top crude importers and financiers of energy projects.

The nations have strengthened their defense cooperation over the past decade, with South Korean elite special forces even travelling to the to train Emirati troops in an unprecedented years-long deployment for the Asian country.

Meanwhile, the UAE has hosted hundreds of North Korean labourers in past years who provide a key revenue stream for Pyongyang. But under pressure to enforce US-led sanctions over North Korea's nuclear program, Abu Dhabi has recently moved to choke off the network and stopped renewing North Korean work visas.

From Dubai's Expo 2020, where South Korea boasts a sprawling pavilion to showcase the country's high-tech and cultural achievements, President Moon praised the world's fair and pledged the countries will transcend generations and national borders to build back together and leap forward together.

President Moon landed in the regional financial hub of Dubai on Saturday, and was greeted by UAE Energy Minister Suhail al-Mazrouei. The oil and gas-dependent South Korea imports fossil fuels from the Persian Gulf, including from oil-rich Abu Dhabi, to power its energy-intensive economy, dominated by manufacturing industries from cars to petrochemicals.

The UAE represents 8 per cent of Seoul's oil imports, according to 2019 data from the US Energy Information Administration.

Not only does Seoul buy Emirati oil, but South Korean firms have participated in the development of Emirati oil fields to boost the Asian country's self sufficiency and, significantly, have built the UAE's Barakah nuclear power plant the first on the Arabian Peninsula.

The group of four reactors at Barakah in Abu Dhabi's far western desert, which marked the Korea Electric Power Corporation's first deal, are gradually coming online. As the UAE seeks to decrease its reliance on fossil fuels and diversify away from oil, it plans to draw a quarter of its electricity from the USD 20 billion reactors.

During the South Korean trade minister's trip to the UAE late last year, the countries also began negotiations on a new bilateral trade deal, including agreements to develop sources of clean power. On Monday, Moon met with an Emirati business delegation about clean-burning hydrogen fuel, his press office said.

The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company has sharpened its focus on hydrogen in recent months, building facilities to produce large volumes of the fuel and shipping so-called blue ammonia to Japan.

Carbon neutrality is obviously a difficult process, but if the two nations promote the hydrogen industry through solidarity and cooperation, they will have new opportunities, Yonhap news agency quoted Moon as telling a business forum in Dubai, adding that Seoul has helped the UAE develop a hydrogen-powered public transport system.

A different South Korean export takes center stage later Sunday at Expo, as star K-pop bands including Psy, of the hit song Gangnam Style," will perform catchy songs and dynamic dance moves to frenetic fans that braved rare desert rain to line up since early morning.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Hostages who had been held for hours inside a Texas synagogue were rescued Saturday night, according to Gov. Greg Abbott, bringing an end to a standoff that had lasted nearly 12 hours.

Prayers answered. All hostages are out alive and safe, Abbott tweeted.

Abbotts tweet came not long after a loud bang and what sounded like gunfire was heard coming from the synagogue, where authorities said a man had held people captive as he demanded the release of a Pakistani neuroscientist who was convicted of trying to kill U.S. Army officers in Afghanistan.

The hostage-taker was later declared dead, according to a law enforcement official who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. Details of the rescue or the man's death were not immediately released.

At least four hostages were initially believed to be inside the synagogue, according to three law enforcement officials who were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation and who spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity. The synagogue's rabbi was believed to be among the hostages, one of the officials said. One of the officials said the man claimed to be armed but authorities had not confirmed whether he was.

The Colleyville Police Department said one hostage was released uninjured shortly after 5 p.m. Saturday. The man was expected to be reunited with his family and did not require medical attention. A law enforcement official said the first hostage who was released was not the rabbi.

Authorities are still trying to discern a precise motive for the attack. The hostage-taker was heard demanding the release of Aafia Siddiqui, the Pakistani neuroscientist suspected of having ties to al-Qaida, the officials said. He also said he wanted to be able to speak with her, according to the officials. Siddiqui is in federal prison in Texas.

The officials said investigators have not positively identified the man and cautioned that the information was based on a preliminary investigation.

A rabbi in New York City received a call from the rabbi believed to be held hostage in the synagogue to demand Siddiquis release, a law enforcement official said. The New York rabbi then called 911 .

Police were first called to the synagogue around 11 a.m. and people were evacuated from the surrounding neighborhood soon after that, FBI Dallas spokesperson Katie Chaumont said.

The services were being livestreamed on the synagogue's Facebook page for a time. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that an angry man could be heard ranting and talking about religion at times during the livestream, which didn't show what was happening inside the synagogue.

Shortly before 2 p.m., the man said, You got to do something. I dont want to see this guy dead. Moments later, the feed cut out. A Meta company spokesperson later confirmed that Facebook removed the video.

Multiple people heard the hostage-taker refer to Siddiqui as his sister on the livestream, but Faizan Syed, the executive director of Council on American-Islamic Relations in Dallas Fort-Worth Texas, told The Associated Press that Siddiquis brother, Mohammad Siddiqui, was not involved. Syed said CAIRs support and prayers were with the people being held in the synagogue.

Texas resident Victoria Francis told the AP that she watched about an hour of the livestream before it cut out. She said she heard the man rant against America and claim he had a bomb.

He was just all over the map. He was pretty irritated and the more irritated he got, hed make more threats, like Im the guy with the bomb. If you make a mistake, this is all on you. And hed laugh at that, she said. He was clearly in extreme distress.

Francis, who grew up near Colleyville, tuned in after she read about the hostage situation. She said it sounded like the man was talking to the police department on the phone, with the rabbi and another person trying to help with the negotiations.

Colleyville, a community of about 26,000 people, is about 15 miles (23 kilometers) northeast of Fort Worth. The synagogue is nestled among large houses in a leafy residential neighborhood that includes several churches, a middle and elementary school and a horse farm.

Congregation Beth Israel is led by Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, who has been there since 2006 as the synagogues first full-time rabbi. He has worked to bring a sense of spirituality, compassion and learning to the community, according to his biography, and he loves welcoming everyone, including LGBT people, into the congregation.

Anna Salton Eisen, a founder and former president of the synagogue, said the congregation has about 140 members and Cytron-Walker has worked hard to build interfaith relationships in the community, including doing pulpit swaps and participating in a community peace walk. She described Saturday's events as surreal.

This is unlike anything weve ever experienced. You know, its a small town and its a small congregation, Eisen said as the hostage situation was ongoing. "No matter how it turns out its hard to fathom how we will all be changed by this, because surely we will be.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki tweeted Saturday evening that President Joe Biden had been briefed and was receiving updates from senior officials.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said he was monitoring the situation closely. We pray for the safety of the hostages and rescuers, he wrote on Twitter.

CAIR, the nations largest Muslim advocacy group, condemned the attack Saturday afternoon.

This latest antisemitic attack at a house of worship is an unacceptable act of evil, CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said in a statement. We stand in solidarity with the Jewish community, and we pray that law enforcement authorities are able to swiftly and safely free the hostages. No cause can justify or excuse this crime.

Siddiqui earned advanced degrees from Brandeis University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before she was sentenced in 2010 to 86 years in prison on charges that she assaulted and shot at U.S. Army officers after being detained in Afghanistan two years earlier. The punishment sparked outrage in Pakistan among political leaders and her supporters, who viewed her as victimized by the American criminal justice system.

In the years since, Pakistan officials have expressed interest publicly in any sort of deal or swap that could result in her release from U.S. custody, and her case has continued to draw attention from supporters. In 2018, for instance, an Ohio man who prosecutors say planned to fly to Texas and attack the prison where Siddiqui is being held in an attempt to free her was sentenced to 22 years in prison.

(Standoff ends safely at Texas synagogue, man demands Pak convicts release

AP| PTI, Colleyville (US)

Hostages who had been held for hours inside a Texas synagogue were rescued Saturday night, according to Gov. Greg Abbott, bringing an end to a standoff that had lasted nearly 12 hours.

Prayers answered. All hostages are out alive and safe, Abbott tweeted.

Abbotts tweet came not long after a loud bang and what sounded like gunfire was heard coming from the synagogue, where authorities said a man had held people captive as he demanded the release of a Pakistani neuroscientist who was convicted of trying to kill U.S. Army officers in Afghanistan.

The hostage-taker was later declared dead, according to a law enforcement official who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. Details of the rescue or the man's death were not immediately released.

At least four hostages were initially believed to be inside the synagogue, according to three law enforcement officials who were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation and who spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity. The synagogue's rabbi was believed to be among the hostages, one of the officials said. One of the officials said the man claimed to be armed but authorities had not confirmed whether he was.

The Colleyville Police Department said one hostage was released uninjured shortly after 5 p.m. Saturday. The man was expected to be reunited with his family and did not require medical attention. A law enforcement official said the first hostage who was released was not the rabbi.

Authorities are still trying to discern a precise motive for the attack. The hostage-taker was heard demanding the release of Aafia Siddiqui, the Pakistani neuroscientist suspected of having ties to al-Qaida, the officials said. He also said he wanted to be able to speak with her, according to the officials. Siddiqui is in federal prison in Texas.

The officials said investigators have not positively identified the man and cautioned that the information was based on a preliminary investigation.

A rabbi in New York City received a call from the rabbi believed to be held hostage in the synagogue to demand Siddiquis release, a law enforcement official said. The New York rabbi then called 911 .

Police were first called to the synagogue around 11 a.m. and people were evacuated from the surrounding neighborhood soon after that, FBI Dallas spokesperson Katie Chaumont said.

The services were being livestreamed on the synagogue's Facebook page for a time. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that an angry man could be heard ranting and talking about religion at times during the livestream, which didn't show what was happening inside the synagogue.

Shortly before 2 p.m., the man said, You got to do something. I dont want to see this guy dead. Moments later, the feed cut out. A Meta company spokesperson later confirmed that Facebook removed the video.

Multiple people heard the hostage-taker refer to Siddiqui as his sister on the livestream, but Faizan Syed, the executive director of Council on American-Islamic Relations in Dallas Fort-Worth Texas, told The Associated Press that Siddiquis brother, Mohammad Siddiqui, was not involved. Syed said CAIRs support and prayers were with the people being held in the synagogue.

Texas resident Victoria Francis told the AP that she watched about an hour of the livestream before it cut out. She said she heard the man rant against America and claim he had a bomb.

He was just all over the map. He was pretty irritated and the more irritated he got, hed make more threats, like Im the guy with the bomb. If you make a mistake, this is all on you. And hed laugh at that, she said. He was clearly in extreme distress.

Francis, who grew up near Colleyville, tuned in after she read about the hostage situation. She said it sounded like the man was talking to the police department on the phone, with the rabbi and another person trying to help with the negotiations.

Colleyville, a community of about 26,000 people, is about 15 miles (23 kilometers) northeast of Fort Worth. The synagogue is nestled among large houses in a leafy residential neighborhood that includes several churches, a middle and elementary school and a horse farm.

Congregation Beth Israel is led by Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, who has been there since 2006 as the synagogues first full-time rabbi. He has worked to bring a sense of spirituality, compassion and learning to the community, according to his biography, and he loves welcoming everyone, including LGBT people, into the congregation.

Anna Salton Eisen, a founder and former president of the synagogue, said the congregation has about 140 members and Cytron-Walker has worked hard to build interfaith relationships in the community, including doing pulpit swaps and participating in a community peace walk. She described Saturday's events as surreal.

This is unlike anything weve ever experienced. You know, its a small town and its a small congregation, Eisen said as the hostage situation was ongoing. "No matter how it turns out its hard to fathom how we will all be changed by this, because surely we will be.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki tweeted Saturday evening that President Joe Biden had been briefed and was receiving updates from senior officials.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said he was monitoring the situation closely. We pray for the safety of the hostages and rescuers, he wrote on Twitter.

CAIR, the nations largest Muslim advocacy group, condemned the attack Saturday afternoon.

This latest antisemitic attack at a house of worship is an unacceptable act of evil, CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said in a statement. We stand in solidarity with the Jewish community, and we pray that law enforcement authorities are able to swiftly and safely free the hostages. No cause can justify or excuse this crime.

Siddiqui earned advanced degrees from Brandeis University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before she was sentenced in 2010 to 86 years in prison on charges that she assaulted and shot at U.S. Army officers after being detained in Afghanistan two years earlier. The punishment sparked outrage in Pakistan among political leaders and her supporters, who viewed her as victimized by the American criminal justice system.

In the years since, Pakistan officials have expressed interest publicly in any sort of deal or swap that could result in her release from U.S. custody, and her case has continued to draw attention from supporters. In 2018, for instance, an Ohio man who prosecutors say planned to fly to Texas and attack the prison where Siddiqui is being held in an attempt to free her was sentenced to 22 years in prison.

___

(Jake Bleiberg, Eric Tucker and Michael Balsamo reported this story for the AP.)
Among the four sexual assault victims interviewed by The Korea Times and and its sister paper Hankook Ilbo, all except Flower wished to remain anonymous. The other names used in this article are pseudonyms.  ED.



By Lee Min-young



"When I was raped, it actually took me about a month to muster up the strength to go and make my case."



After taking a deep breath, Jennifer, a sexual assault victim, broke the silence and started talking about what happened to her that night.



Acquaintance, friend and partner



"He was actually a friend. We started out as friends and we used to hang out occasionally along with mutual friends," Jennifer told The Korea Times. But, she continued, that all changed when she went out for a drink with him and he showed his true colors.



The two had an argument outside a bar and suddenly he started acting aggressively, grabbing her by the shoulder and assaulting her. "I went straight into a full-on panic attack and I just went into a manic state at that moment and just blacked out."



The next thing she knew she was being dragged to a motel. She said her body was hurting all over and she even had a bloody lip but she couldn't remember what he had done to her or how she got there.



There, Jennifer was raped by him four times.





Jennifer speaks during a recent interview with The Korea Times. Korea Times photo by Kim Kang-min



"I felt trapped. He wouldn't let me go. By the fourth time, I felt so exhausted and helpless that I told him to get it done and over with if this is what he really wanted."



Flower from South Africa, another victim of sexual assault, recalled a similar experience.



"We were actually dating for about a month. But I had no intention of getting physical with him yet. I was uncomfortable about it." One day the two went out on a date and since it was getting too late to take the subway, he asked her if she wanted to stay at a nearby hotel for the night and get some rest. She agreed, unaware of his real intention.



"I told him, 'I'm sorry, I don't want to do anything, I just want to sleep,' but he ignored my request. Eventually he pinned me down to the bed with force, and started to do his thing." She said that she begged him over and over again that night to stop but he wouldn't listen. "I said, 'Please, if you're going to do this, please use protection, please...' but he ignored my request to use protection."



One month later, she learned she was pregnant.





Flower, another victim of sexual assault, said she remembers waking up in a hotel room without any clothes on, completely terrified, as she didn't have any recollection of what had happened to her that night. Korea Times photo by Kim Kang-min



During the interview, Flower became very emotional and tearful as she spoke about becoming pregnant as a result of the rape. "This is the first time I would ever talk about this publicly. That situation changed my life completely."



Ever since, she has been dealing with anxiety and PTSD. She never came forward about the attack and swept the traumatic experience under the rug.



Fear of reporting



She told The Korea Times that there are many foreign women who have been victims of sexual violence.



"I have tons of friends that constantly tell me this ajeoshi (middle-aged man) grabbed her bum on the subway and this one tried to take pictures of her. Foreign women often don't speak up about these problems because they are scared of losing their jobs and their reputation in this country."



Jeong Jae-hyung, an inspector with the juvenile crime and gender-based violence division at the National Police Agency (NPA), says many of the victims are reluctant to come forward because of their immigration or work status among other issues. The language barrier and a lack of information can also prevent them from calling for help. "These barriers also make the women an easier target and as such are exploited by the perpetrators," he said.





Jeong Jae-hyung, an inspector with the juvenile crime and gender-based violence division at the National Police Agency, speaks to The Korea Times about sexual violence cases against foreign women. Korea Times photo by Kim-Kang-min



According to the latest data provided by the Korean Statistical Information Service (KOSIS), in 2020 a total of 2,036,075 foreigners resided in Korea  909,103 of them women. But the number of calls to the Danuri Helpline in relation to sexual assault last year was 55, just 0.5 percent of the total calls received  an indication that such crimes are vastly underreported. Only 747 cases out of 39,296 reported sexual assault cases in 2020 involved foreign victims.



Qualified, experienced translators are needed



Cases involving foreigners are usually processed by multicultural support centers, and the victims are accompanied through the investigation by an interpreter and someone with whom they have a trusted relationship. While using translation services is the one major procedural difference between foreign and Korean victims, the language barrier is still a great hurdle for them in report their cases to the police.



After Jennifer reported the crime and gave her statement to the prosecution during an investigation to bring her case to court, she struggled to describe what had happened to her despite the help of an interpreter.





The language barrier is still a great hurdle for foreign victims in reporting cases of sexual violence to police. Korea Times photo by Kim Kang-min



"I had to repeat myself several times and she had to fix herself (for clarification). Apparently, there was something wrong with the translation of my statement that they couldn't understand exactly how I defended myself. So the prosecutor had asked me to reenact that."



So she was put into the situation of reenacting how she was raped four separate times. This occurred in front of all present, including the alleged rapist.



Gender sensitivity



Cases involving sexual assault had all been handled by criminal affairs departments in the past. But after many women raised the issue of a lack of gender sensitivity, the NPA created separate investigation departments for women and adolescents.



Patricia said she was shocked by how some police officers handled sexual violence cases without any sensitivity. She said she had gone to the police to report a case in which a stranger had sexually harassed her at her workplace. "They were yelling my personal information to one another and I was explaining my story quietly to one officer and the other officer kind of just shouts like, 'Oh, did he hit you?', 'Did he touch you?' You know, without any tact, without any grace."





Patricia, a victim of sexual harassment, talks about her experience with the police's handling of her case. Captured from Zoom



"We call it secondary victimization. We are trying to make sure that law enforcement personnel are responding in a sensitive way when it comes to dealing with sexual assault victims," Jeong said. He said police officers are being educated to collect statements from victims using AI-based speech recognition technology to help victims feel more comfortable talking to them.



The tool automatically converts their testimony into text so that officers won't have to type down statements, which makes victims feel as if they are being interrogated.



Linda also said she had an unpleasant experience with police officers. It was late at night when a man started following her as she jogged along the street. Police officers saw and came up to her asking if she was okay which soon led to inappropriate questions. "They started asking me unnecessary questions  and I could see them eyeing me up and down because I wasn't wearing a lot of clothes because it was very hot and I was exercising."





Linda talks about her unpleasant experience with Korean police officers. Captured from Zoom



The officers asked her what kind of work she was doing and her place of residence. "They were asking me in a way that felt like they were guessing if I was up for service. I had heard there were a number of Russian prostitutes living in the neighborhood," she said as she recalled the experience.



"They said they would follow me home to make sure I get home safe. I told them I didn't want them to know where I lived and I was feeling even more unsafe because of them but they insisted and eventually did follow me home," she said.



Lack of support



"After I went through all those experiences, I felt so alone."



Flower who had been through a number of traumatic situations in which she was sexually assaulted by Korean men regretted that she did not receive professional mental help for her PTSD.



Korea has improved its support system for Korean sexual assault victims over the past several years due to greater calls for victim protection and harsher punishment for perpetrators following a number of sex crime cases that made headlines nationwide.



But foreign women are still off of the radar, leaving many helpless and lost.



"There are organizations out there but they don't focus particularly on foreign woman. They didn't have any English-speaking staff, or they say they only help Korean women," Jennifer said. Experts say society needs to make more efforts to protect the rights of every victim no matter where they come from  and change may be coming.



"As of now, we have detectives in charge who supervise every aspect of the investigation. But in the future, victims will have to be given further protection through specialized law enforcement personnel who speak their language and can better communicate with the victims," Jeong said.





There are a handful of organizations for Korean sexual assault victims but foreign women are still off their radar, leaving many helpless and lost. Korea Times photo by Kim Kang-min



As of now, migrant women can report an incident through the Danuri Call Center, which is staffed by professional consultants from immigrant backgrounds.



The Danuri call center has services available in 13 languages, and it is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It also provides a range of information for migrant women and those from multi-ethnic households, including ways to request protection and assistance in the event of a crime.



"We're also working to better protect the rights of foreigners by working with migrant communities, law enforcement and neighborhood watch groups, while also raising awareness on safety guidelines and the resources that are available in case they need assistance," Jeong said.



Universal human rights



When Jennifer was provided with a lawyer by the government, she said she saw him only once during the investigation and did not hear from him until the ruling  when she was informed that the case had been thrown out due to a lack of evidence.



"The biggest problem with sexual violence investigations is that the victims are often left out of the loop once they have filed their charges. Criminal court cases are handled by the national judiciary, so it falls on the state to decide the fate of the assailant or defendant in question," said Choi Seung-ho, an attorney at Ondam Law based in Seoul.



"The victim's accusations merely serve as evidence in the court, but they themselves are not part of the legal proceedings. This leads to several problems for the victims. There are often left completely in the dark about the court schedule and any updates on the investigation of their assailants."





Choi Seung-ho, an attorney at Ondam Law based in Seoul, speaks during a recent interview with The Korea Times. Korea Times photo by Kim Kang-min
Following a massive undersea volcanic eruption in the island country of Tonga, was observed in the southern Japanese island of Amami-Oshima and many other places along the country's Pacific coast on Sunday.

Japan's Meteorological Agency issued warnings at 12:15 am on Sunday for the Amami Islands and the Tokara island chain in Kagoshima Prefecture, reported NHK World.

The agency said that a 120-centimetre has been observed in Kominato on Amami-Oshima Island.

Dozens of tsunami up to 90 centimetres have been observed along Japan's Pacific coast from the southern island of Kyushu to the northern island of Hokkaido, reported NHK World.

People are advised to stay on high alert and evacuate to higher ground.

An Employee of a hotel near the port of Naze on Amami Oshima Island told NHK that guests staying on lower floors have been moved to the top floor, the 10th.

About 50 guests are reportedly staying at the hotel. The employee hasn't seen tidal changes from the hotel, but some cars heading to higher ground are visible.

An official of another hotel on the coast said he cannot see the waves in the dark. He said he is evacuating eight guests to higher ground from the hotel, which is located about 10 meters above sea level.

An employee of another hotel near Naze Port told NHK that about ten residents in the neighbourhood have come to the hotel to take shelter and there has been no trouble so far. He also said he has not seen big tidal changes himself.

Over a hundred families were evacuated on Saturday from shoreline Samoan villages after a violent volcanic eruption in the Pacific island country of Tonga caused waves to surge.

.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The threat around the Pacific from a huge undersea volcanic eruption began to recede Sunday, while the extent of damage to Tonga remained unclear.

Satellite images showed the spectacular eruption that took place Saturday evening, with a plume of ash, steam and gas rising like a mushroom above the blue Pacific waters. A sonic boom could be heard as far away as Alaska.

In nearby Tonga it sent waves crashing across the shore and people rushing to higher ground.

The eruption cut the internet to Tonga, leaving friends and family members around the world still anxiously trying to get in touch to figure out if there were any injuries and the extent of the damage. Even government websites and other official sources remained without updates.

Aid agencies said thick ash and smoke was continuing to affect Tonga's air and water, and that authorities were asking people to wear masks and drink bottled water.

Dave Snider, the warning coordinator for the National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska, said it was very unusual for a volcanic eruption to affect an entire ocean basin, and the spectacle was both humbling and scary.

The tsunami waves caused damage to boats as far away as New Zealand and Santa Cruz, California, but did not appear to cause any widespread damage. Snider said he anticipated the tsunami situation in the U.S. and elsewhere to continue improving.

Tsunami advisories were earlier issued for Japan, Hawaii, Alaska and the U.S. Pacific coast. The U.S. Geological Survey estimated the eruption caused the equivalent of a magnitude 5.8 earthquake. Scientists said tsunamis generated by volcanoes rather than earthquakes are relatively rare.

The Tonga Meteorological Services said a tsunami warning was declared for all of the archipelago, and data from the Pacific tsunami center said waves of 80 centimeters (2.7 feet) were detected.

Rachel Afeaki-Taumoepeau, who chairs the New Zealand Tonga Business Council, said she hoped the relatively low level of the tsunami waves would have allowed most people to get to safety, although she worried about those living on islands closest to the volcano. She said she hadn't yet been able to contact her friends and family in Tonga.

We are praying that the damage is just to infrastructure and people were able to get to higher land, she said.

Tonga gets its internet via an undersea cable from Suva, Fiji, which presumably was damaged. All internet connectivity with Tonga was lost at about 6:40 p.m. local time, said Doug Madory, director of internet analysis for the network intelligence firm Kentik.

The Fiji-based Islands Business news site reported that a convoy of police and military troops evacuated Tonga's King Tupou VI from his palace near the shore. He was among the many residents who headed for higher ground.

On Tonga, home to about 105,000 people, video posted to social media showed large waves washing ashore in coastal areas and swirling around homes, a church and other buildings.

New Zealand's military said it was monitoring the situation and remained on standby, ready to assist if asked.

In Hawaii, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center reported waves that measured half a meter (1.6 feet) in Nawiliwili, Kauai and 80 centimeters (2.7 feet) in Hanalei.

In Tonga, a Twitter user identified as Dr. Faka'iloatonga Taumoefolau posted video showing waves crashing ashore.

Can literally hear the volcano eruption, sounds pretty violent, he wrote, adding in a later post: Raining ash and tiny pebbles, darkness blanketing the sky.

The explosion of the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai volcano was the latest in a series of dramatic eruptions.

Earth imaging company Planet Labs PBC had watched the island in recent days after a new volcanic vent there began erupting in late December.

Satellite images captured by the company show how drastically the volcano had shaped the area, creating a growing island off Tonga.

The surface area of the island appears to have expanded by nearly 45% due to ashfall, Planet Labs said days before the latest activity.

Following Saturday's eruption, residents in Hawaii, Alaska and along the U.S. Pacific coast were advised to move away from the coastline to higher ground and to pay attention to specific instructions from their local emergency management officials, said Snider.

We don't issue an advisory for this length of coastline as we've done - I'm not sure when the last time was - but it really isn't an everyday experience, Snider said.

Savannah Peterson watched in shock as the water rose several feet in a matter of minutes in front of her oceanfront house in Pacifica, California, just south of San Francisco.

It came up so fast, and a few minutes after that it was down again. It was nuts to see that happen so quickly, she said. I've never had water come all the way up to my front door, and today it did.

Police rescued a surfer whose surfboard broke in powerful waves off San Francisco.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The United Kingdom will abolish mandatory COVID-19 tests for all fully vaccinated travelers returning to the country by the end of January, the Times reported on Sunday, citing a source close to UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps.

"We are looking at removing all COVID tests for vaccinated travelers by the end of January, which is likely to coincide with the review of the plan B measures on January 26," the source said, as quoted by the media.

According to the newspaper, this move will help UK families to save hundreds of pounds and will give impetus to the recovery of the tourism industry.

In addition to the abolition of PCR tests for fully vaccinated people, the minister intends to remove other restrictions, in particular the mandatory wearing of face masks in shops and public transport.

The UK faced a surge in COVID-19 cases ahead of Christmas. On December 7, the authorities introduced the requirement for a negative COVID-19 test to all persons over 12 entering the country amid the spread of the new Omicron strain. In accordance with these rules, all passengers were required to present a negative PCR test taken no more than 48 hours before their arrival.

On December 8, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that the country would move to the so-called Plan B. The British were encouraged to work from home whenever possible and required to wear a mask. In addition, a COVID-19 pass confirming vaccination became mandatory for visiting public places. Daily testing was required for those who may had come into contact with carriers of the coronavirus.

A few days later, British airlines asked Johnson to abolish mandatory COVID-19 tests for fully vaccinated passengers.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A new rare-earth bill was introduced in the US Senate on Friday, aiming to force defence contractors to end the use of rare earth sourced from by 2026.

Reacting to the US move, Chinese experts said that it is another political move of the US against the backdrop of its attempt to contain China's growth, but it will not obstruct the development of China's rare-earth sector, reported Global Times.

It is not a surprising move given Washington's series of moves aiming to set up its own rare-earth supply chain, Liu Enqiao a senior analyst at Beijing-based Anbound Consulting, told the Global Times.

The broader context behind the move is the deteriorating US- relations. Moreover, the US rely heavily on China's supply of rare earth, a crucial raw material for high-tech products including weapons.

holds 44 million tons of rare earth reserves, accounting for 36.7 per cent of the global stockpile. In 2020, China produced 140,000 tons of rare earth, accounting for nearly 60 per cent of global output, reported Global Times.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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A day after the farmer unions gave ultimatum to the government on the issue of MSP, the on Sunday questioned the government over the issue.

spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill said, "Why MSP law is not being passed? Why Minister in Lakhimpur Kheri case not being dismissed? Why farmers union not being called for meeting? Withdrawal of black farm laws turning into mere election stunt. Will 19 Nov 2021 day when farm laws were withdrawn will turn into 'Dhokha Diwas'?"

The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) on Saturday had alleged that there is no forward movement on the MSP issue.

"There has been no progress. No committee has been formed on Minimum Support Price (MSP). There is only some action on withdrawing cases against farmers in Haryana, but not much progress on that count in other states, including Delhi. There has been no discussion on our demand in connection with power bills," SKM leader Yudhveer Singh told a media conference

SKM, a consortium of 40-odd farmers' organisations, had on December 9 declared to suspend their 15-month-long agitation that had started to protest the three contentious farm laws passed in 2020.

Lakhimpur Kheri was the place where on October 4 half-a-dozen people, including farmers and a journalist, were mowed down by a speeding vehicle, allegedly belonging to the son of Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, Ajay Mishra Teni. The farmers have demanded action against Teni and his son, but no step has been taken yet.

The SKM also declared to extend support to the all-India strike by labour organisations on February 23 and 24 as their demands include MSP and also because the labour organisations had supported the farmers' agitation.

--IANS

miz/skp/

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Around 40,000 teenagers in England will be eligible for a top-up booster dose to protect against COVID-19 as Britain's National Health Service (NHS) expands the booking service to 16 and 17 year olds from Monday.

Previously, third doses were only recommended by the UK's Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) to 18 and over and for clinically vulnerable teenagers most at risk from Covid-19.

This advice was recently expanded to all 16 and 17 years old and the NHS confirmed on Sunday that everyone within that age group can now get boosted in the coming weeks as they reach three months since their second jab.

"The NHS Covid-19 Vaccination Programme is expanding once again to offer eligible young people aged 16 and 17 the chance to book their boosters through the online booking service from tomorrow [Monday], with walk-in sites also available across the country, as the biggest and fastest vaccine drive in health service history continues at pace, said Dr Nikki Kanani, the Indian-origin Deputy Lead for the NHS vaccination programme.

"COVID has caused so much disruption for so many families over the past two years, affecting young people's lives and education, and getting vaccinated protects them, their family and their friends, letting them stay at school and continue socialising, she said.

The NHS highlighted that recent data from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) showed that two doses of the vaccine are not enough to stop people becoming unwell from the now dominant Omicron variant of COVID, but a booster significantly increases protection against the variant.

"More than 4 in 5 adults in England have already been boosted, helping to protect them from severe illness and reduce the pressure on the NHS in the face of Omicron, said UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid.

"We're now extending the programme to 16 and 17 year olds so they can top-up their immunity this winter to keep themselves and their friends safe. We can learn to live with COVID-19 if everybody comes forward for their vaccines and Gets Boosted Now, he said.

Since the vaccination programme rolled out to the lower age groups in August last year, the NHS said more than 889,700 teens have had their first dose and more than 600,000 in this age group have had their second jab.

UK Vaccines Minister Maggie Throup added: Thanks to the tireless dedication of the NHS, our booster programme has been a phenomenal success and allowed us to enjoy the festive season safely with loved ones.

"Omicron has spread rapidly across the UK and we're doing everything we can to keep schools, sixth forms and colleges open as face-to-face teaching is so important."



In line with JCVI guidance, the NHS warned that it cannot vaccinate 16 and 17 year olds within 12 weeks (84 days) of a positive COVID-19 test. Those aged 16 and 17 and considered at high risk from COVID-19 must wait four weeks (28 days) from the date of a positive COVID-19 test before getting any dose of the vaccine.

The latest booster expansion comes as UKHSA said COVID infection levels in London, the south east and east of England are flattening. While case numbers are still rising in northern parts of the country, that growth rate seems to be slowing.

"We see that infections are plateauing in the community, which is good, in London and the south east and the east of England," Dr Susan Hopkins, chief medical adviser at UKHSA, told the BBC.

"There are still risings, but much slower in the northern parts of the country," she said.

She added that hospital admissions are also "slowing down", with patients discharged "faster" due to the Omicron variant being relatively milder than other variants of COVID.

The UK's daily recorded COVID infections finally fell below the 100,000 mark since last month, with 81,713 cases on Saturday.



Covid programme delivers 1 bn doses to poor nations

The World Health Organization said that a UN-backed programme shipping vaccines to many poor countries has now delivered 1 billion doses, but that milestone is only a reminder of the work that remains after hoarding and stockpiling in rich countries. A shipment of 1.1 million vaccine doses to Rwanda on Saturday included the billionth dose supplied via the COVAX programme, the U.N. health agency said.

Xian lifts some curbs after 3-week lockdown

State media are reporting the Chinese city of Xi'an has gradually begun lifting restrictions after over three weeks of lockdown as authorities sought to stamp out a local outbreak. State-owned broadcaster CCTV reported that certain counties and development zones in Xi'an had begun restoring production.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The government could consider in the upcoming Budget levying TDS/TCS on sale and purchase of cryptocurrencies above a certain threshold and such transactions should be brought within the ambit of specified transaction for the purpose of reporting to income tax authorities, Nangia Andersen LLP Tax Leader Aravind Srivatsan said.

Also, a higher tax rate of 30 per cent should be levied on the income arising from the sale of cryptocurrency, similar to winnings from lottery, game shows, puzzle, etc, he said.

Speaking to PTI on what the Budget 2022-23, to be unveiled by the government on February 1, could have in store for the crypto industry in India, Srivatsan said currently, India has the highest number of crypto owners globally, at 10.07 crore and as per a report it is expected that the investment by Indians in could touch USD 241 million by 2030.

"A bill was expected to be presented during Winter Session of Parliament to regulate cryptocurrencies. However, it was not introduced, and it is now expected that the government may take up this bill in the Budget Session. If the government does not prohibit Indians from dealing in cryptocurrencies, we expect that the government could introduce a regressive tax regime for cryptocurrencies," he noted.

He said considering the size of the market, the amount involved, and the risk coupled with cryptocurrencies, certain changes may be brought in the taxation of cryptocurrencies like bringing them under the provisions of tax deducted at source (TDS) and tax collected at source (TCS) above a threshold limit which will help the government get the "footprints of the investors".

Both sale and purchase of cryptocurrencies should be brought under the ambit of reporting in the Statement of Financial Transactions(SFT).

The trading companies already do similar reporting of sale and purchase of shares and units of mutual funds, he said.

To keep a watch on high value transactions undertaken by the taxpayer, the Income-tax law has the concept of SFT or reportable account.

This helps tax authorities to collect information on certain prescribed high value transactions undertaken by any person during the year.

Financial institutions, companies and stock market intermediaries fall within the purview of SFT reporting. Srivatsan said similar to winnings from lottery, game shows, puzzle, etc., a higher tax rate of 30 per cent should be levied on the income arising from the sale of .

Ahead of the winter session of Parliament which ended of December 23, the government had listed for introduction a bill on regulating cryptocurrencies. The bill comes amid concerns over such currencies being allegedly used for luring investors with misleading claims.

Currently, there is no regulation or any ban on use of cryptocurrencies in the country.

The ' and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill' is now expected to be introduced in the Budget session of Parliament beginning January 31.

Separately, the government is mulling changes in income tax laws to bring cryptocurrencies under the tax net, and some changes that could form part of the 2022-23 Budget.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The fintech industry has urged Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to further liberalise the tax regime for financial sector startups in the forthcoming Budget, arguing that it has an immense potential to promote financial inclusion and generate significant employment opportunities.

The finance minister is scheduled to present Union Budget 2022-23 in Parliament on February 1. On expectations of the fintech industry from the Budget, Gaurav Jalan, CEO and Founder mPokket said all startups, including fintech firms, extensively use stock option to attract and retain talent.

However, employees of such exercising their ESOP (employee stock ownership plan) option would not only have to arrange the funds to buy the same but also pay around 35 per cent tax as well since the allotted shares are considered part of their package, he said.

"Tax collection at the time of sale of such shares, instead of collection on the employee's notional income, would resolve cash flow issues of employees and greatly help fintechs continue to attract and retain talent, thereby helping in the industry's overall growth," suggested Jalan.

Shruti Aggarwal, Co-founder, Stashfin said the government's digital push has opened the doors for financial inclusion and the fintech revolution.

"I'd like for the Budget to have a dedicated focus on driving the fintech ecosystem in the country. Fintech industry has the ability to help propel the Indian economy to the place it rightly deserves," she said.

Just as priority sector lending helped priority sectors of the economy that may require credit and financial assistance from NBFCs, it will be beneficial for fintech startups if more segments are included that drive financial inclusion for citizens with limited credit footprint, Aggarwal said.

She further said currently the onlending by banks to NBFCs is allowed up to an overall limit of five per cent of individual bank's total priority lending.

"If this gets increased to 7 per cent, it will further boost the economy," Aggarwal said.

Rakesh Kaul, CEO Clix Capital said as an important funding avenue for those ineligible for finance from mainstream lenders, NBFCs can play a pivotal role in facilitating faster economic recovery.

But lower rated NBFCs face major liquidity challenges because funding by banks is predominantly directed towards top rated or government backed NBFCs.

"Accordingly, the Finance Minister could announce bold moves encouraging banks to resume funding to NBFCs, particularly small and mid-sized players," Kaul said.

He further said the authorities should also facilitate co-lending origination between banks and fintech firms, which ascertains both share the risks.

This, Kaul said would ensure that banks also receive the priority sector benefit for such loans.

Nitya Sharma, Co-Founder & CEO, Simpl was of the view that the fintech industry, especially the digital payments space, has already proved its mettle as a stable growth avenue even during the thick of the pandemic and fully supported the Centre in furthering the digital economy.

"To ensure the benefits of financial technology and digital payments percolate to customers in rural India, the government could focus on expanding digital infrastructure, i.e., payments touchpoints and 5G Internet connectivity in remote areas. This will facilitate speedy transactions and augment the real-time payments system," he said.

Sharma further said digital payments that deploy cutting-edge technology, such as machine learning, data analytics and more, play a crucial role in building a cashless, digital-first economy.

"We welcome support from the government towards technology skill-building initiatives in startups that can go a long way in creating a viable fintech ecosystem," he said.

India has over 60,000 startups with 42 unicorns. The government has been decided to celebrate January 16 as National Startup Day so that this culture of startups reaches the far-flung parts of the country.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Samsung Electronics' Galaxy S21 FE 5G is displayed at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Jan. 6. Courtesy of Samsung Electronics



By Baek Byung-yeul



Samsung Electronics is scheduled to release its latest Galaxy S smartphone next month. However, due to the supply shortage of semiconductors, the company is expected to raise the price of the flagship smartphone.



According to overseas tech focused media, Sunday, the new Galaxy S22 will start at a minimum price of $899, around a $100 increase from the previous S21.



Samsung launched three variations of its S21 smartphones in January 2021. A model with the smallest 6.2-inch screen gained consumers' attention as it was rolled out for under 1 million won.



However, the industry view is that the company has to raise the price of the S22 phones due to the global supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.



Due to the shortage, prices of essential chips such as smartphone display driver integrated circuits, touch and display driver integration rose from around 30 percent to 40 percent in 2021, compared to the previous year. Power management chips and image sensor chips have increased from 10 percent to 15 percent as well.



Despite the chip price increase, there is another view that Samsung will try to stick to a similar price to the S21 as the company is chased by its Chinese competitors and Apple in terms of sales volume.



According to market tracker Counterpoint Research, Samsung is forecast to sell 290 million smartphones, thereby, ranking first in the global market with a 19 percent share. Apple is closely behind Samsung with 240 million phones and Xiaomi with 203 million.



"Competition has intensified in all directions and it may lose its shares in price-sensitive emerging markets such as in India to Chinese manufacturers," the research agency's analyst Kang Min-soo said.



The company is expected to introduce three versions of the S22 smartphones  S22, S22 plus and S22 Ultra on Feb. 9. Among the three models, the Ultra model will be the most interesting one as it is expected to feature the S Pen stylus to replace the Galaxy Note.


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Tillis helps push U.S. defense bill for N.C. bases, yet lawmakers manage to sneak in unrelated provisions
Tatita, is an Argentine artist born in Buenos Aires in December 1958 and who began painting in the late 90s. An abstract artist, her painting has been influenced by the French Nicolas de Stael (1914-1955) and collages by American Robert Motherwell (1915-1991). Beginning in 1999, she attended Argentine painters workshops like that of Peter Malenchini and Ariel Mylnarzewicz. In her country, she grew up nourished by the influences of the neo figuration of Luis Felipe Noe, and she was moved by the work of Romulo Maccio and Darienzo. Each of her works is very basic. It is by using geometric shapes that she wants to achieve full abstraction.

As did de Stael before her, she uses bright colours with impasto and much thickness to translate her sensual approach to life and painting. But at home, this imposed void is as alive as it is coloured! Squares placed on the canvas in an irregular and imagined order, and the large, different sized areas of red, blue, green and white material reflect this great hymn of joy and colour. Over the past decade she has participated in group shows and exhibitions in the galleries of the capital but also in San Isidro, Pilar, Madrid (Spain) as well as winning prizes in her country.

Her fame soon spread beyond the borders of Argentina, and she now sells her works in Spain. This recognition allows her to pursue her other great passion: travel. Each trip is an opportunity for her to discover new galleries and new museums, which she visits with her eyes wide open. ""One always comes out richer,"" she says. These discoveries allow her to maintain and grow her passion for art. In the coming years, says Tatita modestly, she wants to further progress in abstract art. Of one thing we can be sure, Tatita has indeed found her calling !




Photo: Simone Engels via CTV News

A phenomenon rarely ever seen in person was captured on camera out at Moorecroft Park in Nanoose last week.

Simone Engels told CTV News Vancouver that she was out on Jan. 9 trying to capture sunset images when she spotted something unexpected.

"It was blowing my mind," Engels said. "I did not know exactly what [I was] looking at, all these questions went through my mind right away."

The photographer first thought it was an iceberg floating far out. However, Engels explained that she knew that was highly unlikely.

"If it had floated by Campbell River someone would have called it in and that was the piece that didnt quite make sense for it to be an iceberg," she added.

What she did was take a picture of a "superior mirage, an incredible phenomenon that rarely occurs, and in turn photographing something that wasnt actually there.

"We can describe our light as waves and we had a temperature inversion so the lower air was colder than the higher air, which doesnt happen that often," Alexandra Blair, the chair of the Mathematics and Sciences Department at North Island College explained.

According to Blair, since the air has different temperatures, and therefore different densities, it refracts the light and appears to bend down the light waves.

"I looked through the zoom lens and thought this is so crisp and clear that it really had me stumped, it was so convincing that it was real," Engles added.

The photos she captured she shared to photography Facebook groups.

"A lot of them were blown away just like I was when I saw it, and they said, 'Wow, what an opportunity to take a picture of that phenomenon,'" Engels said.

Through the feedback from multiple people on Facebook, Engels believes that what she actually had photographed was a view of Mount Cheam in Chilliwack, more than 200 kilometres away.

"A friend of mine on Facebook actually overlaid the two images, my image with Mount Cheam, and it was the perfect match," she said.

Luckily for Engels, she was photographing at the perfect moment to see the "superior mirage, which Blair said has a lengthy history.

"Back in the day when sailors had talked about swimming cities or saw some ghost boats, thats most likely what happened," Blair explained.

For Engels, it still is a treasured experience.

"I do meditate on a fairly regular basis and I was inviting more mystical experiences in my life and just a couple of days later I come here and I see this thing," Engels said.

- With files from CTV News Vancouver
New risk for CEOs feared to to curb further investment



By Kim Bo-eun



Foreign businesses operating here are calling on the Korean government to ensure more "clarity" and "predictability" in a strengthened law over serious industrial accidents, claiming that it could hamper foreign investment and force many of them to consider pulling out of Korean markets.



Foreign firms share the view that industrial accidents need to be prevented, but there are concerns over the new law that will go into effect later this month, since many of the key terms remain vague and open to interpretation while placing the burden of responsibility on top executives. Under the new law, CEOs can be held criminally liable for serious industrial accidents if their companies did not have the required safety measures in place.



The Serious Accident Punishment Act that goes into effect on Jan. 27 states that the owner or chief manager of a business can face a minimum one-year prison term or a maximum fine of 1 billion won ($841.49 million) if an industrial accident involving a death occurs when a workplace doesn't take the required safety measures.



The cited safety measures include: setting up a team dedicated to workplace safety, identifying safety risks and addressing them, setting aside and executing a budget for workplace safety and having a manual to follow if a serious accident occurs. But detailed clauses have yet to be drawn up, which leaves room for various interpretations.



A recent survey of 121 foreign firms in Korea by the Korea Enterprises Federation (KEF), a business lobby, shows that 58.7 percent cited an unclear definition of "chief manager" and "required measures" as their greatest concerns ahead of the law going into effect.



"We are concerned about CEOs becoming criminally liable, irrespective of safety precautions in the case in which a serious accident occurs," Jeffrey Jones, a board member of the American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM), said. AMCHAM is the largest foreign chamber here, with 800 member companies.



The international lawyer and former AMCHAM board chairman stated that this concern is because, even if the law states that companies with safety precautions in place will be exempted from punishments, the vague terms of the law leave room for subjective interpretations.



"When an accident occurs, public sentiment can play into how prosecutors and courts deal with the case. There needs to be a lot of clarity and predictability. There needs to be clear and absolute terms to prevent this from happening," he said.





Executives of foreign invested companies are seen at Cheong Wae Dae for a meeting with President Moon Jae in on March 28, 2019. Cheong Wa Dae Press Corps.
Photo: The Canadian Press Paramedics arrive to pick up a patient at Verdun hospital Tuesday, January 12, 2021 in Montreal. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz

Quebec is reporting yet another jump in COVID-19-related hospitalizations today, saying the figure climbed by 105 in the past 24 hours and now stands at 3,300.

The provincial health department says 282 patients are currently in intensive care, an increase of seven from the previous day.

The province is also reporting 5,946 new cases of COVID-19, with 21 more deaths related to the virus.

Authorities say 81,564 doses of COVID-19 vaccine were administered in the past 24 hours, including 71,724 third doses.

It also says 13.1 per cent of the 39,806 COVID-19 tests processed in the last 24 hours came back positive.

In-person learning is set to resume Monday for Quebec's elementary and high school students even as COVID-19 infections continue to surge across the province.
A man told police he found a green rifle in a ditch while at work. He said he found the rifle at the 400 Block of McBrien Road. The man said he retrieved the firearm and then he notified police once he got home. He told police he is a former felon and he is not allowed to possess firearms. Police retrieved the rifle from the man and transported it to Property.

* * *

An employee at The Salvation Army, 2140 East 28th St., told police there was a man on scene who possibly had a gun. The employee said that as he was standing outside the location, a black male wearing all black and a mask came up to him with a bag against his waist. The employee said that he believes the man was an old employee, who he named, but he was not certain. The employee told police that he did not see a gun, but that the man was holding the bag as if there was a gun inside. He said that the man then walked away before police arrival.

* * *



An anonymous person told police they found a wallet in the Chipotle parking lot at 2122 Gunbarrel Road. They handed the wallet over to police. An officer attempted to contact the owner of the wallet, but was unsuccessful.

* * *

Police observed a man walking in front of traffic who dropped his phone in the roadway on Highway 153. Seeing a slightly unsafe situation, police made contact with the man and encouraged him to cross the road more safely.

* * *

Police made contact with a suspicious vehicle, a white sedan, running outside Doc Holiday Bar, 742 Ashland Terrace. The man in the car told police he was waiting for a waitress who was closing the business. The waitress came out and thanked police for checking on her.

* * *

A disorder was reported on Chula Vista Drive. Police spoke with two men who had a grievance against unknown people, and, with very little evidence, they decided the grievance was with each other. By simply having the men speak to one another, they came to understand their grievance was not with each other. Both men apologized and were chastised by police to attempt to deescalate such conflicts in the future with calm communication.

* * *

An employee at the Circle K, 4900 Brainerd Road, told police a man, they identified, walks to the store property daily and pesters customers by asking for money. The man was not on the scene when police arrived. Officers also could not find any previous reports about the man.



* * *

A caller reported an open door at a residence on Cherryton Drive. The caller said no one should be in the home and they noticed the front door standing open while they were walking their dog. Police saw the front door was open and cleared the structure. No one was inside, and there were no signs of forced entry.

* * *

A woman on South Germantown Road told police she lost her driver's license the evening before. She said she checked her vehicle and returned to where she thought it was lost, but was unable to locate it.

* * *

A woman told police while she was at work at Mueller Company, 1401 Mueller Ave., the evening before, someone damaged her vehicle. Police saw a dent and scratch on the driver's door. The woman said she does not know who did it; however, security guards at the company are supposed to investigate to find out further information. This is for insurance purposes.

* * *

A woman at Bayberry Apartments, 2300 Wilson St., told police a package containing an Apple iPhone ($900) was supposed to be delivered to her. She said the package is showing as delivered; however, she said that the package needed to be signed for in order to receive it. She said she checked with the front office, who had not seen the package. She said she also checked with FedEx, who told her the package was delivered to the front office. The woman has a Ring doorbell, and said no one approached her doorway to leave a package. She told police this is a leased phone from Xfinity and requires a report for them to replace the phone.

* * *

Police received a hang-up call from a residence on Oak Street. Upon arrival police made contact with a man who had been drinking. Police observed him to be fine and everything was alright.

* * *



A woman told police her iPhone 11 ($2,000) was taken. She said her ID and credit cards were

attached to the phone in a blue case. She said she left her phone on a table at work at Hertz, 5714 Lee Hwy., while a patron she identified was inside. She said she left her phone unattended and when she returned it was gone. She said she believes the man she identified took the phone, but she does not have any evidence. She told police she was able to locate her phone in a trash can

at Kumo restaurant at East Brainerd Road and Lee Highway. Police will attempt to view footage of the suspect at Kumo. The woman said she does want to press charges.

* * *

A man who lives in Texas called to make a report with Chattanooga Police about an identity fraud. The man said that someone working at a business on Georgia Avenue is using his name and SSN. He said that he used ADP application to find this information about his name and SSN being used by someone else. He told police he called the company, but the manager would not look into it without a police report. The man said he made a report with his local agency, as well as Chattanooga. He said the person is making about $620 a week and has been working for about four to five weeks. Police gave him the report number over the phone with all the information he needed. He is going to try and make contact with the company manager again.

* * *

A woman on Lindsay Court called for police assistance. While en route to her residence, dispatch informed police that a man could be heard being audibly upset that his wife had called the police, saying, "You're trying to get me to go back to jail." Upon arrival police made contact with the woman who called. She said her husband was drunk and every time he drinks he becomes hostile and they argue. She said that it has gotten physical before, but not tonight. Police spoke with her husband, who was visibly intoxicated and sitting on the couch. He said that he and his wife were in a verbal altercation because she did not want his friend to come over and stay the night. He said it

hadn't gotten physical and was not going to get physical. Police asked the woman if she wanted her residence placed on the Watch List. She said she did, and after doing so, police got back into service.
A group said it will rally on Monday at noon in front of the Chattanooga City Courts Building, 600 Market St., to speak out in support of life sentence reform by the Tennessee legislature this session.

The bill at issue, HB1532, is sponsored by Rep. Dan Howell, and passed overwhelmingly in the Senate last spring with sponsorship from Senator Janice Bowling.

Supporters of the bill said, "If enacted, it will return Tennessees life sentence for first degree murder to what it was before 1995  life with parole eligibility after 25 years in prison. Since 1995, anyone sentenced to life in Tennessee must serve 51 years before they are eligible for release, making it in effect the same as a life without parole sentence."

Former Chattanooga District 9 City Councilman, former governor appointment to the Board of Probation & Parole, and current Legislative District 28 House Rep. Yusuf Hakeem is to be in attendance to show support of this bill.

Chattanoogas current District 9 City Councilwoman and newly appointed member of the National League of Cities 2022 Public Safety and Crime Prevention Federal Advocacy Committee Demetrus Coonrod said, We have to deal with the trauma people deal with, and we cant ignore that historically there has been a lack of opportunity, chance and change. We have to address that. They both support this bill and agree with other supporters  including people whose loved ones were murdered  who argue that a 51-year sentence is too harsh and does not provide a second chance for people who have served a substantial time in prison for their crime, and have clearly demonstrated that they have changed, and can live as positive contributing members of society."

Supporters said, "The legislatures fiscal review committee estimates the bill will save taxpayers nearly $2.5 million each year, starting one year after its passage. Responding to concerns that the bill could create an undue burden on the parole board note that the bills immediate impact will be extremely limited, because there are very few people serving 51-year life sentences today who have reached 25 years in prison. The number of people serving these life sentences is small compared to how many parole hearings the Parole Board conducts each year. Due to reduced life expectancy for people in prison, about 30 percent of those currently serving this sentence arent likely even to live long enough to see the parole board.
Fans are still mourning the loss of The Golden Girls star Betty White, who died on December 31, 2021. The acting legend made plenty of famous friends over the years, including movie star Fred Astaire. White previously recalled an occasion where she missed out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with the dance icon.

Betty White | D Dipasupil/FilmMagic

Fred Astaire was a fan of Password

In her book, If You Ask Me (And Of Course You Wont), White described how she and her husband, Password host Allen Ludden, starting chatting with another couple, Ava and Richard McKenzie, at a party. The two pairs got along so well they ended up continuing their evening together over dinner. Turns out, Avas dad was dance legend Fred Astaire. White and Ludden soon learned that Astaire was a game show fan.

We had thought it was polite party talk when Ava told us her father loved game shows in general, but was a Password fanatic, White wrote. Sure enough, it turned out to be true.

White and Ludden got to meet the Royal Wedding star when his daughter invited them to her home.

A short time later, Ava invited us to a small dinner, The Golden Girls alum recalled. We were overwhelmed to meet the legendary Fred Astaire. He in turn couldnt ask enough questions about Password.

RELATED: The Golden Girls: Rue McClanahan Called Bea Arthur Giving and Loving Even Though They Didnt Have a Lot of Relationship Going On

Betty White and Allen Ludden got a call from Fred Astaire

White and Ludden also got to know Astaires sister, Adele. When the couple went to visit Ava and Richard in London, they all took a trip to Ireland to visit Adele as well. White got an example of how serious Astaire was about Password.

We all came in from a walk to be given a message that Mr. Astaire had called from Beverly Hills, White remembered. Fred wasnt calling to talk to his sister or to his daughter; he wanted to speak to Allen to find out why a certain clue had been disallowed on Password!

White and Ludden were floored by Astaires devotion to the show, which made their European trip all the more memorable.

The whole experience was like one of those dreams from which you awaken smiling, she wrote. Receiving the call from Fred Astaire simply added to the illusion.

Betty White couldve gone toe-to-toe with Fred Astaire

The legendary dancer once attended a gathering at White and Luddens house, where former The Mary Tyler Moore Show star revealed she made a tremendous error.

With all the wonderful memories I have of Fred Astaire, there is one moment I shall regret to my dying day, White confessed. It occurred at a party at our house, and the evening was going exceedingly well. Fred was at his most debonair. I stepped out to the kitchen momentarily to check on something.

White returned to find Astaire spontaneously tripping the light fantastic with one of her pals, which she found out was rare for the dancer.

I came back into the living room just in time to see Fred taking a few dance steps with comedienne Rose Marie, she shared. Ava was amazed: Fred never did that. I fully admit to being green with jealousy. Had I been there, maybe it could have been me he danced with  forget about being a generous hostess. No wonder I dont like the kitchen.

RELATED: The Golden Girls: Which Cast Members Are Still Alive?
Josh Duggars trial dominated the recent Duggar news through November and December 2021. Now, its the Duggar family sisters who are taking over the headlines. Several of the sisters filed a lawsuit after the media published private records from 2015. And sources now claim the sisters want therapeutic intervention and a life care plan for what occurred.

Several Duggar family sisters filed a lawsuit over an incident concerning the police and Josh Duggar in 2015

(L-R) Jessa Duggar, Jinger Duggar, Jill Duggar, and Jana Duggar visit Extra | D Dipasupil/Getty Images for Extra

Josh Duggars trial brought Duggar news to the forefront of the media in 2021. Prior to 2021, Josh made the news in 2015. In 2015, the media caught wind that Josh went to the police in the early 2000s over allegedly molesting a number of young girls, a few of whom were his sisters. The media then leaked the report. The Duggar sisters directly affected later spoke publicly about this.

Now, the sisters want justice for the leak. According to The Sun, in 2017, Jill, Jessa, Jinger, and Joy-Anna Duggar sued the city of Springdale. They also sued the owner of In Touch magazine and others involved in the scandal. The sisters claimed the release of the records caused them extreme mental anguish and emotional distress.

The trial for the case will begin in April 2022.

Duggar news: The Duggar sisters will fight for therapeutic intervention for what they went through

Jessa Duggar, Jinger Duggar, Joy-Anna Duggar, and Jana Duggar | Ida Mae Astute/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images

Recent Duggar news gives more information about the lawsuit. According to The Sun, the attorney for the Duggar sisters told the judge the sisters would not seek any damages for lost wages, lost past earnings, or lost future earnings. Instead, the attorney wants to fight for the sisters to have a life care plan that can cover the costs of therapeutic intervention.

We want a life care plan involving the cost of therapeutic intervention in these four womens lives over a period of time to address the emotional issues that are arisen from this nationwide disclosure since theyre public figures, the attorney told the judge.

It seems Josh Duggars trial may impact the Duggar sisters case, too. If there is a trial, the damages could be cut as a consequence of Joshs conviction, an insider explained to The Sun.

Where is Josh Duggar now?

While the Duggar family gathered for a massive Christmas celebration, Josh's wife Anna seemed to noticeably be missing as he remains jailed until sentencing.https://t.co/NJ4QDAD9kK  In Touch Weekly (@intouchweekly) December 28, 2021

With everything going on with the Duggar family sisters, where is Josh Duggar now? After Joshs trial and guilty verdict, he went directly to the Washington County jail to stay in solitary confinement. He will remain there until sentencing.

Josh can take video calls from family. But he cannot see them in person due to current coronavirus (COVID-19) restrictions, The Sun reports.

After the trial, probation officials create a pre-sentence report. This takes between 30 and 45 days, People reports. Then each side will have two weeks to study the report and to make objections, Clay Fowlkes, acting United States attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, told the publication. Then, after that report is issued, studied, all the objections are filed, thats when well really start thinking about what our sentencing recommendation to the court is going to be.

The same judge who presided over Joshs trial will issue the sentence.

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RELATED: Anna Duggar Is Taking Time Away From the Duggar Family and Leaning On Her Side of the Family More Than Ever, Insiders Claim
Josh Duggars trial resulted in a guilty verdict, shocking Duggar family followers. In April 2021, Josh was arrested on suspicion of downloading and obtaining child sexual abuse content. He was convicted in December 2021. Now that Josh resides in jail awaiting his sentence, recent reports suggest he only tried to call Jed Duggar out of all of his siblings. And their past work history together could point to why.

Josh Duggar speaks during the 42nd annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) | Kris Connor/Getty Images

After Josh Duggars trial, he remains in solitary confinement in the Washington County Detention Center in Arkansas. The Sun reports he cant have any in-person visitors due to coronavirus (COVID-19) protocol, but he can take video calls and emails while he awaits sentencing.

So, whos Josh contacting on the outside? According to The Sun, The SoJo Files podcast provided video and call logs that showed he and his wife, Anna Duggar, made over 100 calls back and forth to each other. He also called Jim Bob Duggar twice on the day after Christmas and once more on Dec. 29, 2021. Additionally, he talked to his mother, Michelle Duggar, a few times around the holidays.

As for Josh Duggars siblings, he reportedly called Jed Duggar three times, but Jed didnt pick up until the third call. It doesnt look like Josh has talked to any of his other siblings. He reportedly made zero attempts to connect with Jana, Jill, Jessa, Jinger, and Joy-Anna Duggar.

Jed Duggar reportedly worked with his older brother after Wholesale Motorcars closed

Josh Duggars brother Jed accused of trying to distract from trial https://t.co/icg02m1HNL  The US Sun (@TheSunUS) December 7, 2021

After Josh Duggars guilty verdict and jailing, its unclear why he chose to call Jed Duggar out of his other siblings. But their past work history may have something to do with it.

So, what does Jed Duggar do for a living? He reportedly started his own real estate company in 2020, but prior to this, he helped manage one of the Duggar family car lots, Champion Motorcars.

According to The Sun, Josh worked at Champion Motorcars alongside Jed after his car lot, Wholesale Motorcars, shut down in 2019. Homeland Security raided Wholesale Motorcars in 2019, so Josh likely went to work with Jed immediately after this occurred.

Additionally, Jed was set to potentially testify in Joshs trial. Its unclear how this wouldve impacted their relationship or what Jed wouldve said about his brother, as he didnt testify. But perhaps Josh and Jed had a closer bond than many Duggar family followers knew. This could serve as a reason why Josh made three attempted to contact Jed and zero attempts to contact his other siblings.

Do Josh Duggars siblings support him?

The Duggar family | D Dipasupil/Getty Images for Extra

Josh Duggars guilty verdict shook Duggar family fans. And the trial likely affected his entire family negatively. So, do Josh Duggars siblings support him now?

Joshs family members dont seem to talk about him publicly post-trial. But an insider told In Touch that the family feels horrified by what they heard and saw.

[Michelle Duggar] and [Jim Bob Duggar] are trying to stay strong, praying for Josh, [Anna Duggar], and their grandkids, the source told the publication. The family is rallying, but some of the kids cant forgive their brother Josh for what he did. Theyre horrified that he didnt get help sooner.

As for Anna Duggar, its unclear where she stands. Many Duggar followers suspect she will continue to support Josh through his sentencing.

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RELATED: Josh Duggar News: The Duggar Family Can Send Josh Food Gift Packages Containing a Family Favorite Snack
Ana Navarro had a rough end of the year 2021 and a rough start to the year 2022. The View co-host lost her mother in December after weeks of being sick and wasnt able to visit her due to the current government situation in Nicaragua. One month after her mother Violeta died, the political commentator is remembering her with a special Instagram post.

Ana Navarro | Lorenzo Bevilaqua/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images

Ana Navarro honors her mother

It has been a month since Navarros mother died and The View co-host is remembering her with a sweet Instagram post. In the photo, Navarro is seen holding a pillow with a case that has pictures of her late mother that she had previously shared on social media.

My mom has been gone a month today. Somebody -I dont know who- sent me these pillows with pictures of my beautiful mamma. There was no card. I hope whomever it was, sees this so I can say, thank you,' she posted. My dad slept with one of the pillows next to him the entire time he was here. He took one with him to Nicaragua and left the other in his room in my house for when he comes back. Said it made him feel closer to her.

At the end of the post, Navarro also thanked an anonymous person who sent her chicken soup to feel better. It turns out that the mysterious person was Eva Longoria who took to the comment section to reveal herself.

That was me! The chicken soup!!!! Not the pillows! Longoria replied.

RELATED: The View Co-Host Ana Navarro Says Her Father Has COVID-19 a Week After Mothers Death

Fans react to Ana Navarros sweet post

After Navarros post about her mother was shared on Instagram, it wasnt long before fans took to the comment section to express their sentiments. The majority of the comments were sending well-wishes to The View star who continues to mourn her mothers death.

Thank you for posting this Ana. Makes me have faith in humanity. So very sorry for your loss. I know how hard it is, a fan replied.

You are loved! In these trying times and your personal trying times, you have been positive, a voice of reason, just human, a follower added.

May you find Peace and Strength in the days ahead. You look so much like your Mother, an Instagram user said.

Human beings are inherently kind and this proves it! So beautiful and the fact that it brought your dad comfort is EVERYTHING! Be well, another fan commented.

Isnt that beautiful! Ana, know your sweet mama is looking out for you guys everyday! Much love, another follower said.

I believe in Karma you give so much of yourself that thoughtfulness comes back to you, another Instagram user mentioned.

RELATED: The View Co-Host Ana Navarro Compares Sara Haines Dress to a Toilet Paper Cover

Ana Navarro started off 2022 with COVID-19

Navarro also recently shared that she had tested positive for the coronavirus (COVID-19). The television personality is vaccinated and opened up on the show about how she found out she had a breakthrough case.

Just before the show started, I got a call from Christine, our COVID nurse, and the PCR [test] I took yesterday came out negative, Navarro explained on The View. I am now positive for COVID. Im feeling no symptoms, Im feeling pretty good so far. I hope this stays and I did what the CDC recommended. The minute that I felt a tickle in my throat I assumed I had it.

Navarro has continued to be on the show remotely and further updated that her symptoms had continued to be mild.

RELATED: The View Co-Host Ana Navarro Has the Cutest Wake up Call From Her Dog Chacha
In the U.S., according to the CDC, just 1 in 4 mothers breastfeed babies for the recommended six months.
Funeral Service will be 10:00 a.m. Saturday, April 30, 2022, at Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church. Interment will be at Rose Hill Cemetery under the direction of Sevier Funeral Home. Elnora J Rock of Chickasha, OK, passed away on Thursday, April 21, 2022, at the age of 85. She was born Dece
Hillsong apologizes after video of campers singing, dancing despite COVID-19 orders causes outrage

Hillsong Church responded with remorse after the leader of New South Wales slammed the Australia-based global evangelical church network for gathering teenagers at a camp in Newcastle to dance and sing despite a strict COVID-19 public health order.

New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet said he was incredibly disappointed after seeing footage of Hillsongs youth camp attendees singing and dancing to mainstream music, which he believes was not in compliance with the countrys exemptions for religious groups.

As a result, the church was ordered by New South Wales Health to cease singing and dancing immediately.

Singing and dancing at a major recreational facility is in breach of the public health order, New South Wales Health Minister Brad Hazzard said in a statement Thursday.

Hillsong Church told The Christian Post that they have always abided by public health orders as directed by each government, and takes COVID safe procedures very seriously for all services and events.

Ensuring the safety of those attending Hillsong events, and supporting the wider community effort to keep Australia safe, are both priorities for our church, Hillsongs statement stressed.

Photos and videos posted on the ministrys social media accounts showed countless 15 to 17-year-olds singing and dancing without masks while musicians performed on stage. The camp session ends on Sunday.

It is important to clarify that the current youth camps we are holding are not music festivals, Hillsong said. These are high school aged events that include sporting activities and games. They are alcohol-free events, held outdoors, and the number of students attending each camp is just over 200. The students are known to us and part of the same social network.

Hillsong maintains that the gathering is considered low-risk under the governments current guidelines. Hillsong assured that it implemented strict COVID safe procedures before and during each camp gathering, which included professional paramedics onsite 24 hours per day with testing capabilities.

New South Wales Health restricted gatherings for major recreational facilities, which prohibited dancing and singing in indoor and outdoor settings until Jan. 27. The government announcement resulted in the cancellations and postponement of various music events.

Singing and dancing in hospitality venues and nightclubs is deemed high risk due to increased movement and mingling within and across these venues, the influence of alcohol consumption, and the removal of masks in these settings to consume food and drink. People attending religious services generally remain in fixed positions and masks are mandatory for these indoor gatherings, A New South Wales Health spokesperson said in a statement.

Hillsong contends that only a small fraction of the three-day camp involved singing and dancing but apologized for the situation.

These camps have a Christian focus and include worship services. Over a three day duration the percentage of time spent singing is minor. However, we regret giving any perception that we were not playing our part to keep NSW safe and we sincerely apologise to the community at large, the church continued. Our heart is for people, and loving and caring for all people is at the core of our church.

We have since spoken to NSW Health and received instruction to cease congregant/student singing and dancing during the services that occur on the campsite and have immediately and willingly enacted that instruction.

The Guardian reports that Hillsong will not face fines of up to $55,000 after investigators were told that the camp was not a music festival, a prohibited gathering under the health rules.

While the order does not apply to religious services, it does apply to major recreation facilities and this event is clearly in breach of both the spirit and intent of the order, which is in place to help keep the community safe, Hazzard said in his statement.
HDC Group Chairman Chung Mong-gyu issues an apology for the June 9 building collapse incident, at Gwangju City Hall on June 10, 2021. Courtesy of the Gwangju City Government



Chung Mong-gyu to announce measure to take responsibility on Monday



By Baek Byung-yeul



Chung Mong-gyu, the chairman of HDC Group, is enmeshed in his biggest leadership crisis in the 23 years since he took office in 1999, as the group's crown-jewel apartment construction business has come under fire, after two building collapse incidents that occurred in Gwangju on June 9, 2021 and this past Jan. 11.



When the building collapse that killed nine people at HDC Hyundai Development Company's redevelopment project occurred in the southwestern city in June, Chung firmly vowed to prevent recurrence with an apology to the public, but his promise has been shattered by a second major building collapse at another of the company's apartment complex construction sites in the city.



Following the accident, one construction worker was found dead and five are still missing. The chairman visited the Hwajeong IPARK apartment collapse site, but he has not yet made an official statement or appearance concerning the Jan. 11 accident.



HDC said Sunday that Chung will take responsibility for the collapse of the exterior walls of the apartment building and is expected to announce his position on Monday.



The chairman is also expected to offer a formal apology to the victims and bereaved families.



An official familiar with HDC said that Chung might need to withdraw completely from managing the group's construction business and instead appoint a professional manager to supervise the affiliate.



"I understand that Chairman Chung is taking the gravity of the situation seriously and discussing his future with the management," the official said. HDC Hyundai Development Company is run by a professional manager, but Chairman Chung is known to be involved in the decision-making process as the chairman of the group.



The industry view is that Chung needs to act to restore the group's lost credibility.



Since the Jan. 11 accident, the Gwangju City Government ordered HDC to temporarily suspend all of its construction projects underway in the city. With the suspension order, all apartment complex construction projects that are capable of accommodating around 9,000 households have been halted.





Banners opposing the choice of HDC as the developer for the reconstruction of an apartment complex hang in Anyang, Gyeonggi Province, Sunday. Yonhap
Postcard from Paris: An overlooked and forgotten national hero

Largely overlooked in Paris, a city full of landmarks and other sights popular with tourists, is the grave of the Marquis de Lafayette.

Not only did Marie Joseph Yves Roches Gilbert du Motier serve in the Continental Army under George Washington and help secure the Franco-American alliance that changed the trajectory of the Revolutionary War, but he wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen at the start of the French Revolution in 1789. The seminal document, inspired by the Enlightenment and the principles embodied by Americas founding documents, remains a foundation of the French Republic to this very day.

Despite this incredible legacy, Lafayette seems forgotten today. Sure, the whitewashing of the great men from past eras by woke iconoclasts can be blamed but it is also undeniable that schools long ago stopped teaching history.

Lafayettes final resting place is Picpus Cemetery, a private cemetery on the grounds of a former Roman Catholic convent. His grave is surrounded by others, including mass graves containing 1,306 victims of the guillotine during the Reign of Terror in 1794.

Absent an American flag and several plaques, the grave is remarkably humble and seems beneath the dignity of a major national hero of both France and the United States.

The flag and most of the plaques date to July 4, 1917, when the American Expeditionary Forces under famed Gen. John Pershing arrived in Paris not long after the United States entered World War I or the Great War.

Pershings soldiers paraded through the city with great fanfare. Not only was it Independence Day for the doughboys, but the occasion was also steeped in the symbolism of the United States rescuing France just as Lafayette and the French came to the aid of the American cause.

The parade ceremonially ended at the cemetery, where Pershing, accompanied by French dignitaries, paid homage to Lafayette with Col. Charles Stanton  speaking for the Americans  famously declaring, Lafayette, we are here.

Today, the American flag is replaced during a graveside ceremony every July 4.

If you go

Picpus Cemetery (in French, Cimetiere de Picpus) is open from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Saturday. Access is through a somewhat nondescript door at 35 Rue de Picpus.

Supposedly, a nominal admission fee of 2 (about $2.28 at the time of writing) is charged but there was nobody collecting it when this columnist visited.

Dennis Lennox writes a travel column for The Christian Post.
Tsunami causes significant damage in Tongas capital; casualty reports await

Tsunami waves crashed across the shore of the Pacific nation of Tonga after the eruption of a huge undersea volcano Saturday, causing significant damage in the capital city of Nukualofa and bringing the entire U.S. West coast under a tsunami advisory.

As the telephone and internet links remained severed early Sunday, possible casualties remained unknown.

Coastal areas beyond the capital Nukualofa remained uncontactable, New Zealands Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said at a news conference Sunday, Reuters reported. Nukualofa is covered in thick plumes of volcanic dust but otherwise conditions are calm and stable. We have not yet received news from other coastal areas, Ardern was quoted as saying.

Tonga, which has a population of about 105,000, lies northeast of New Zealand.

Satellite images showed the volcanic eruption Saturday which sent plumes of ash, steam and gas rising like a mushroom about 12 miles above sea level.

The volcano, named Hunga Tonga Hunga Haapai, has erupted regularly over the past few decades but the latest eruption was so loud that residents in Fiji and New Zealand heard it, according to Reuters.

My entire house was shaking, Sanya Ruggiero, a consulting communications advisor based in Suva, the capital of Fiji, was quoted as saying. My doors, windows were all rattling like hell. And mine was not even as bad as others. Hundreds of people ran out of their homes.

Later, videos appeared on social media showing large waves slamming coastal areas and reaching homes, a church and other buildings, The Associated Press reported.

It was massive, the ground shook, our house was shaking. It came in waves. My younger brother thought bombs were exploding nearby, a local resident, Mere Taufa, told the Stuff news outlet.

While official damage assessments were awaited, she added that the New Zealand high commission in the Tongan capital had said the tsunami damaged boats, shops and other infrastructure.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies Pacific Office in Suva also had no updates on damages or casualties, according to Al Jazeera, a Qatari government-run news outlet.

An Australian government spokesperson told Reuters that initial assessments were still underway but Australia was ready to provide support to Tonga if requested.

Residents along the U.S. Pacific coast as well as in Hawaii and Alaska had also been advised to move away from the coastline to higher ground.

Savannah Peterson, a resident of Pacifica, California, just south of San Francisco, said the water reached her oceanfront house. It came up so fast, and a few minutes after that it was down again. It was nuts to see that happen so quickly. Ive never had water come all the way up to my front door, and today it did.

We dont issue an advisory for this length of coastline as weve done  Im not sure when the last time was  but it really isnt an everyday experience, Dave Snider, the tsunami warning coordinator for the National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska, was quoted as saying.

The highest waves were recorded in Port San Luis, California (4.3 feet); King Cove, Alaska (3.3 feet); Area Cove, California (3.7 feet); Crescent City, California (3.7 feet); and Port Reyes, California (2.9 feet), CNN reported, citing the National Weather Service.
200 Hindu radicals attack Christians at house church in India

A mob of some 200 Hindu nationalists attacked a house church during its worship service in Indias eastern state of Chhattisgarh, injuring the pastor and at least two other Christians and forcibly converting a Christian woman to Hinduism, according to a report.

The mob, apparently led by a man identified as Sanjith Ng, assaulted the Christians in a church in Odagoan village in Chhattisgarhs Kondagaon District on Sunday, the U.S.-based persecution watchdog International Christian Concern reported.

Sanjith Ng barged into the house where the worship service was underway and beat Pastor Hemanth Kandapan and a member of the congregation, identified as Sankar Salam, ICC said, adding that the man then dragged the pastor out of the house where more than 200 people had gathered.

The mob brutally beat the pastor and Salam, claiming they were illegally converting Hindus to Christianity. The pastor and the congregant sustained severe internal injuries and had to be hospitalized.

The mob threatened the Christians, saying they would be killed if they continued to hold prayers in the village.

I was under house arrested for nearly nine hours, Pastor Kandapan was quoted as saying. All through that time I was hackled and abused by the mob even in the presence of the police.

On Monday, leaders of the Hindu nationalist group Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) forced the Christians to participate in a religious ceremony where a Christian woman, named Sunderi Bathi, was forcibly converted to Hinduism.

The situation in the village is still tense, Pastor Kandapan said.

We do not know how long these families will have to stay out of their homes, he added, referring to five families that had fled the village.

Kondagaon is a tribal-majority district.

Attacks against tribal Christians have increased since radical Hindu groups launched a campaign in 2020 to stop the countrys tribal, or indigenous, people from converting to Christianity. These groups have been demanding that the government ban those who convert from receiving education and employment opportunities.

Most tribals do not identify as Hindus; they have diverse religious practices and many worship nature. However, the governments Census deems them to be Hindu.

In September 2020, tribal villagers vandalized 16 houses belonging to Christians from the same tribe in three separate attacks, forcing most of the Christian women in those villages to flee into jungles for safety at the time.

Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 2014, attacks on Christians have increased and intensified.

While Christians make up only 2.3% of Indias population and Hindus comprise about 80%, there has been an uptick in radical Hindu nationalist attacks on religious minorities.

The watchdog group Open Doors USA, which monitors persecution in over 60 countries, reports that Hindu radicals often attack Christians with little to no consequences.

Hindu extremists believe that all Indians should be Hindus and that the country should be rid of Christianity and Islam, an Open Doors fact sheet on India explains. They use extensive violence to achieve this goal, particularly targeting Christians from a Hindu background. Christians are accused of following a foreign faith and blamed for bad luck in their communities.

For Indias Christians, 2021 was the most violent year in the countrys history, according to a report. At least 486 violent incidents of Christian persecution were reported in the year.
Gunmen kill at least 5 at South African megachurch, create hostage situation

At least four people were shot and burnt to death while another was fatally shot at a Pentecostal megachurch that has more than a million members after gunmen stormed its headquarters near Johannesburg and allegedly held about 200 congregants, including women and children, at ransom for hours.

An armed group, allegedly sent by a church faction, launched the attack at the International Pentecostal Holiness Church in the town of Zuurbekom in the Gauteng province on the outskirts of Johannesburg at 3 a.m. local time on Saturday, according to South Africas Eye Witness newspaper.

Four people were found shot and burnt to death in a car while a fifth victim, a security guard, was also fatally shot in his car while he was apparently attending this complaint, National Commissioner of Police General Khehla John Sitole said, according to IOL.

Police arrested at least 40 people, including officials from the South African police, the National Defense Force, the Johannesburg Metro Police and the Department of Correctional Services. Police also seized dozens of weapons, including five rifles, 16 shotguns and 13 pistols, according to i24 News.

The crime scene is still being processed and the figures of arrests and firearms seized may fluctuate as the Special Task Force, Tactical Response Team and Visible Policing members continue to comb the compound," Sitole said. "These Units have also rescued men women and children who are said to be living in the compound and were being held hostage.

A power struggle over the churchs leadership began after its founder, Comforter Glayton Modise, died in 2016. Church spokesperson Abiel Wessie said that a faction from the churchs Jerusalem branch was behind the attack.

They came in and forcefully wanted to take over the church, Wessie told media. They came in and bulldozed the entrance. They used their bakkie to get through a gate that was locked. They managed to get access and others came through the back gate. They started to harass church members who were asleep at the time.

In November 2018, at least three people were injured in a shootout between the churchs feuding factions outside the headquarters in Zuurbekom.

In 2017, local newspapers reported that a church faction went to court saying about 110 million rands ($6.5 million) had gone missing.

Weve arrested all those we reasonably believed are suspects. They have been [taken] in for questioning, police spokesperson Vish Naidoo told BBC.

Sitole said, I have embarked on a Spiritual Crime Prevention Concept, which involves the participation of all religious denominations in the fight against crime. It is rather unfortunate that such an incident takes place during a time when South Africa is being plagued by a deadly virus and violent crimes.
Christian group urges Nigerian Pres. Buhari to rescue all Boko Haram captives after freeing 344 boys

A persecution watchdog group is urging Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari to rescue the boys who are still being held captive by Boko Haram after security forces rescued 344 of the kidnapped students in northern Nigeria late Thursday.

On Dec. 11, the jihadists captured an unknown number of boarding school students  possibly as many as 500  from Kankara Government Science Secondary School in Kankara, Katsina state. Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the attack.



They commanded the crowd like a herdsman herd the sheep, Hassan Abdul-Bashir told CNN. They shot the policeman guarding our school. I saw them driving many students. There could (be) as much as 200 students, but I am not sure.

The terrorists released a six-minute ransom video featuring Boko Haram's black-and-white flag and showing a large crowd of boys in the forest surrounded by masked gunmen. As one of the boys speaks to the camera, music plays in the background.



Please, sir, you have to send all the soldiers and armies and the jets back, says one boy, according to The Wall Street Journal. You have to close any kind of schools excluding Islamiyah, he says, referring to Islamic schools. Please, sir."

Security forces rescued the boys without fighting the jihadist group. Not all of those captured have returned, however, but it remains unclear if they are dead or still being held captive.



The attack bears similarities to the kidnapping of the 276 Nigerian schoolgirls in 2014 which gained international attention with the #BringBackOurGirls campaign, executive director of Save the Persecuted Christians, Dede Laugesen, told The Christian Post. It indicates that Boko Haram has expanded from northeast Nigeria to the northwest.



In 2014, over 276 schoolgirls were kidnapped by Boko Haram in the town of Chibok in Borno state. Over 112 remain missing.

As the mother of six boys, I watched that [hostage] video from the eyes of a mother. I thought about the parents who were grieving the loss of their sons," Laugesen said. "To look at the face of those boys, their faces were just.  Im emotional thinking of these boys in the forest with terrorists surrounding them, not sure if theyre going to come home.

Boko Haram grooms the boys it captures to become terrorists, Laugesen said. In some cases, the group forces children as young as 8 years old to execute Christians.





[Children are] used as assassins. They call them the cubs of the caliphate. Up to 10,000 boys have been taken by the terrorists, she said. They would have been taken off into the forest and brainwashed to become terrorists themselves. Orphans [and] abandoned children are ripe for the picking of terrorists.

Boko Harams opposition to education creates a vicious cycle that leads to more terrorism, said Laugesen. Children fear to attend school because terrorists attack education centers. Without education, they cant get jobs to provide for themselves as adults. Jobless, uneducated young adults often become terrorists.

Nigerias government often lets terrorist groups operate unopposed, she said. Nigeria receives lots of international money to help it fight terrorists. Keeping them around means more cash in the hands of its leaders.

Rather than fighting radical jihadist groups like Boko Haram and radical Islamic Fulani militants, the Nigerian government tells the world that killings and kidnappings happen for reasons other than terrorism. Western media and governments like to believe this narrative because they prefer narratives where Islam doesnt motivate violence, she said.

Nigerias Muslim President Muhammadu Buhari and his Muslim-staffed administration have repeatedly said that Boko Haram is mostly defeated. But in 2020 alone, radical Islamist groups, including Boko Haram, have killed 2,200 people.

After Boko Haram kidnapped the boys, the Nigerian government said the attack came from bandits, not Boko Haram terrorists, CNN reported.

What you have is a situation where the government fails to arrest or prosecute any of these terrorists. They frequently put out propaganda, and misinformation that the violence in Nigeria is put out by [clashes between farmers and herders], or lawlessness and banditry, Laugasen said. This is a way to distract the populace from these terrorists who have not been defeated. To save face, the government calls [terrorism] banditry and chaos.

Nigerias government probably saved the boys quickly for three reasons, she said.

Firstly, Muslim cultures value boys more than girls, so the Muslim-led government prioritizes saving them. Furthermore, the kidnapping happened in Buharis home region. Failing to respond would make him look weak, Laugasen said. Finally, the school that Boko Haram raided taught the children of several Nigerian leaders.

Several boys remain missing. It remains unclear whether Boko Haram killed them or is still holding them captive, Laugasen said. Boko Haram often refuses to set free Christian prisoners. Three years after her kidnapping along with over 100 other girls, Boko Haram still holds 17-year-old Leah Sharibu prisoner because she will not give up her faith in Christ. Nigerias government often leaves some prisoners behind with the terrorists when it negotiates prisoner releases.

[Boko Haram] kept Leah because she refused to renounce the Christian faith. This is the ideology of those who have taken these boys, she said. Until we know how many boys have been taken and how many have been returned, we cannot know all the boys are safe.

To help Christians in Nigeria, believers around the world can pray for them, Laugasen said. Christians can also write letters to their government representatives to demand the end of the Nigerian genocide.

We stand with [the boys] parents and insist that the Nigerian government bring all the boys home, she said.
Texas synagogue hostages are safe, suspect who wanted known terrorist freed shot dead

UPDATE JAN. 16 at 7:15 a.m. ET: The suspect in the Texas siege was a British citizen named Malik Faisal Akram, 44, from Blackburn. His family has apologized to those who were held hostage at the synagogue for 10 hours. President Joe Biden called the man's actions an act of terrorism.

The FBI and Texas authorities resolved an hourslong hostage situation at a Dallas-Fort Worth area synagogue late Saturday after they killed an armed man who stormed the Jewish place of worship on the Sabbath and held four hostages, including a rabbi, reportedly demanding the release of a convicted terrorist whom U.S. officials once described as the most wanted woman in the world.

U.S. Rep. Beth Van Duyne told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram late Saturday the hostage-taker is dead.

A loud bang followed by what sounded like gunfire was heard about 9:12 p.m. Central time Saturday outside Congregation Beth Israel, a Reform synagogue in Colleyville where a hostage situation had been going on for hours.

"All hostages are out alive and safe," Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted about 9:35 p.m.

The SWAT situation in Colleyville is resolved and all hostages are safe. We continue to work in partnership with the FBI to finalize all details, followed a tweet by Colleyville police at 9:55 p.m., hours after a male hostage had been released uninjured.

The suspect, who had not been identified but claimed to have bombs in unknown locations, took hostage of Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker and three others at the synagogue during their Sabbath morning service.

The synagogue was livestreaming its service on Facebook at the time which captured the initial part of the hostage situation before it was removed.

Rabbi Marvin Hier and Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization, said they were praying for the safety of the hostages. By all available information, this was a well-planned scenario designed to gain entrance into the synagogue by posing as a homeless man, they said in a statement shared with The Christian Post.

Earlier on Saturday, law enforcement officials told CNN the man may have demanded the release of Aafia Sidiqqui, known as Lady Al Qaeda, who was convicted in 2010 on charges that included attempted murder and armed assault on U.S. Army officers in Afghanistan and is serving her sentence at Carswell Air Force Base near Fort Worth.

The suspect was carrying backpacks and claimed he had explosives, ABC News said, adding that law enforcement acted as if it was true.

Law enforcement had said their priority was the safety of the rabbi and the other hostages.

Officers responded after they received a call about 10:45 a.m. Saturday, Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. They evacuated the area and called for assistance from the FBI Dallas Field Office, Tarrant Regional SWAT Team, Texas Department of Public Safety and other local agencies.

The rabbi is known for bringing all faiths together, according to The New York Times, which quoted Giovanni Capriglione, a state representative, as saying, He has brought Christian groups, and various Muslims groups together. He is not someone who is railing against one faith or another. Hes the exact opposite.

Siddiqui, a mother of three, was arrested in Afghanistan in 2008 when she was found with two kilos of poison sodium cyanide and plans for chemical attacks on New Yorks Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building, according to the Daily Mail, which said that during her trial she demanded that every jury member get DNA tested to see if they were Jewish.

Siddiqui is a Pakistani-born neuroscientist who was a biology major at MIT in Cambridge and got a doctorate in neuroscience from Brandeis University. She once reportedly told her student friends she would be proud to be on the FBIs Most Wanted list.

She had reportedly joined a National Rifle Association class and encouraged other Muslims also to do so. And she's also known to have lied to her husband, who was surprised to learn she married him for his familys connections to better enable her to wage jihad.

Her hatred for the U.S. was so strong that during her interrogation she grabbed a rifle from one of her guards and shot at them shouting: Death to Americans, according to the Mail.

Before her 2010 conviction, Siddiqui was possibly the lone female at al Qaedas highest echelon, and was dubbed by U.S. officials as the most wanted woman in the world, according to the Boston Globe, which also said the Islamic State terrorist group twice sought to trade captives for her release before beheading them.
This week in Christian history: Infant baptism debate, St. Anthony dies

Throughout the extensive history of the Church, there have been numerous events of lasting significance.

Each week brings anniversaries of impressive milestones, unforgettable tragedies, amazing triumphs, memorable births, notable deaths and everything in between.

Some of the events drawn from over 2,000 years of history might be familiar, while other happenings might be previously unknown by most people.

This week  Jan. 16 to Jan. 22  marks the anniversary of the Hampton Court Conference, Zurich holding a debate over infant baptism, and the death of an early church saint who pioneered organized monasticism.

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Biden's education secretary urged NSBA to write letter labeling parents domestic terrorists: emails

Newly released emails reveal that a controversial letter likening parents to domestic terrorists for raising concerns about the material their children were exposed to in public schools was crafted at the request of U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona.

A chain of emails released by the advocacy group Parents Defending Education on Tuesday documented a conversation between two National School Boards Association members, Marnie Maldonado and Kristi Swett.

The conversation took place on Oct. 5-6, 2021, after the leadership of the National School Boards Association wrote a letter to President Joe Biden asking for federal assistance to stop threats and acts of violence against public schoolchildren, public school board members, and other public school district officials and educators.

The Sept. 29 letter sought to label parents as angry mobs for speaking out against masking their children at schools and raising concerns about materials promoting trans activism, pedophilia, and critical race theory. Parents' disagreements with school board members at meetings were to be classified by federal agencies as heinous actions [that] could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.

In an Oct. 5 email to Swett, a member of the NSBA leadership, Maraldo inquired as to whether the NSBA letter to Biden violated the boards procedure outlining the emergency powers of the NSBAs Executive Committee.

The policy states that when it is not feasible or possible for the board to meet, the Executive Committee shall have general authority to act for the board on policy decisions or to make statements on public issues subject to the constraint that the decisions or statements are within the limits of and consistent with the NSBA beliefs and policies and constitution and bylaws.

Additionally, the policy stresses that such authority to act for the board shall be taken only when the Executive Committee has declared an emergency and determined that it is not possible or feasible for the board to meet as an assembled body, by telephone or by mail. It also requires the Executive Committee to inform members of the NSBA of any emergency action of the Executive Committee within 24 hours.

I am very concerned about the process by which the statement was made and the tone that essentially allowed the White House to direct the Attorney General to consider members of our community domestic terrorists, Maraldo wrote. I agree that we need to focus on civility, and we should be looking to our local law enforcement to protect board members and deal with threats of violence. I would have appreciated an opportunity to work with my fellow board members to give better direction on this very delicate topic.

Swett responded to Maraldo on Oct. 6, telling her: I didnt think the letter fell under an emergency situation, it certainly was not characterized that way when [then-NSBA Interim Executive Director] Chip [Slaven] told the officers he was writing a letter to provide information to the White House, from a request by Secretary Cardona.

Swetts reply indicates that Cardona was involved in the development of the letter, which was written as parents descended on school board meetings to express their outrage about the sexually explicit material available in high school libraries and curriculum. Parents have also expressed opposition to the teaching of critical race theory in public schools at school board meetings.

The NSBA letter, combined with a memorandum published by the U.S. Department of Justice five days later that asked federal law enforcement agencies to facilitate the discussion of strategies for addressing threats against school administrators, board members, teachers and staff, resulted in considerable backlash.

A group of parents filed a lawsuit against the DOJ over its memo and many state affiliates cut ties with the NSBA in the weeks that followed the letters publication. The Minnesota School Board Association was the most recent to terminate its membership with the NBSA.

The debate about parents role in their childrens education impacted the outcome of state and local elections in November. The 1776 Project PAC, which endorsed school board candidates opposed to CRT, reported that a majority of the candidates it endorsed emerged victorious in their races. In the Virginia gubernatorial election, Republican Glenn Youngkin defeated Democrat Terry McAuliffe, who declared: I dont think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.

The chain of emails released Tuesday is not the first indication that the Biden administration was involved in the development of the Sept. 29 letter. Parents Defending Education previously obtained an Oct. 2 email where NSBA President Viola Garcia informed members of the organizations Board of Directors that NSBA has been engaged with the White House and the Department of Education on these and other issues related to the pandemic for several weeks now.

The same chain of emails, released by Parents Defending in Education in October, includes an email sent by Slaven to NSBA board members with the letter attached. Slaven spoke of talks over the last several weeks with White House staff, noting that they requested additional information on some of the specific threats.
Planned Parenthood, ACLU attempt to block Ohio law requiring burial of aborted babies' remains

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a new complaint against Ohio over a state law that, among other things, requires the proper cremation or burial of aborted babies remains.

Last Friday, the national ACLU, its Ohio chapter, and Planned Parenthood filed for a second preliminary injunction against the law on behalf of five abortion clinics in the state.

The second injunction request comes after the plaintiffs received a temporary injunction against the law last April; at present, the clinics have until next month to comply with the law.

Freda Levenson, legal director for the ACLU of Ohio, said in a statement released Friday that she believed the law would have a devastating impact on the ability of patients to have autonomy over their own lives.

The effect of the law will be to delay procedural abortions, forcing patients to carry an unwanted pregnancy for weeks or months and then to undergo riskier and more expensive procedures, stated Levenson. Finally, the law imposes a funeral ritual on every patient, regardless of their own religious and spiritual beliefs. Judicial relief is critical to ensure patients are able to exercise their constitutionally protected right to obtain essential health care and determine the course of their own lives.

Mark Harrington, president of the pro-life group Created Equal, said in a statement emailed to supporters that he believed the courts ought to uphold this law and the dignity of human life.

Laws requiring aborted babies to receive a dignified final disposition in some ways pose a bigger threat than many abortion bans do, stated Harrington.

Because abortionists are the dregs of medicine, they will be unable to comply with these new regulations. That is why the abortion industry is fighting so hard to challenge this law.

In late December 2020, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed the Unborn Child Dignity Act into law, which mandates final disposition of fetal remains from a surgical abortion at an abortion facility [to] be by cremation or interment.

Other provisions included requiring abortion facilities to document in the pregnant womans medical record the final disposition determination made and maintain evidentiary documentation demonstrating the date and method of the disposition of fetal remains from surgical abortions performed or induced in the facility. Anyone failing to comply with the provisions of the law is guilty of failure to dispose of fetal remains humanely, a misdemeanor of the first degree.
Christians should obey the command to 'fear not'

One of the most terrible weapons that the devil uses against Christians is the weapon of fear. He harps on circumstances and situations to create fear in the lives of Christians. It is natural for humans to respond to external stimuli through fear, which is why the devil capitalizes on this to make faulty evidences appear real.

The omniscient God, who knows the end from the beginning, knew the schemes of the devil and gave us the command fear not. This command appears 365 times in the Bible to counteract the daily fears produced by the manipulations of the devil on an annual basis. Every day, the devil produces fear and God has already given the daily command of fear not. It is now left for us to make a choice between what the devil says and what God says.

The fear of COVID-19 and its Omicron variant can kill more people than the virus itself. Obedience to the command of fear not will inevitably provide psycho-spiritual support needed in these uncertain times. Fear is a torment that comes from the devil and Christians should not opt for it. Rather, we should continue to be strong regardless of the circumstances and the level of infection.

Joshua was able to conquer Canaan because He obeyed God rather than his fear: Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go (Joshua 1:9). Our ability to recognize that the Lord our God is always with us will help us to have confidence that He will see us through, no matter the situation.

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego survived the burning furnace because they were not afraid; they had confidence in the deliverance of God. They were determined to perish instead of bowing down to other gods. Sometimes, the root cause of fear in the lives of Christians is not lack of trust in the ability of God to see them through, but lack of readiness to suffer, die or lose something precious for the sake of the Kingdom.

Whenever a Christian has strong faith in God to deliver or do something for him or her, the devil usually comes with the question  what if God fails you? This is where the fear intrudes, and we rarely have an answer to this question. Our inability to answer the question results in fear. The three Hebrew men gave the answer to the enemy before he even asked the question: If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majestys hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up (Daniel 3:7-8). Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were bold to talk to the king of Babylon. Whether God would save them or not was irrelevant; fear would not grab a hold of them.

When Christians depend absolutely on their emotions, the tendency to be afflicted with fear by the devil will be very high. We should not depend on what we hear, see or feel. We should depend on what God says. Many of us are already afraid because we read news that the World Health Organization says there are over 7 million new cases of Omicron in Europe in the first week of January. Shouldn't we at this time trust God to repeat what He did for the Israelites in the land of Egypt, if He so wills?

The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike the Egyptians (Exodus 12:13). Christians should trust God that COVID, like every other disease, will eventually pass. God protected the Israelites from the plagues of Egypt; He can do so now as well.

Jesus disciples could not evangelize because they were afraid of persecution. When the Spirit filled them after Pentecost, their lives were changed. We need daily infilling of the Spirit if we must obey the command of fear not. The Holy Spirit gives us the enabling power act with boldness. Paul also brought it to Timothys attention: For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love and self-discipline (2 Timothy 1:7).

Our ability to understand the dangers associated with Christianity and our readiness to face these dangers will help us obey God. Christ did not promise us comfort. He has already said that in this world we will have tribulations. He did not assure us that He will deliver us from all troubles, rather He prepared our mind to face difficulties and be ready to die for His sake. Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell (Mathew 10:28).

Instead of being afraid of the Omicron variant, humans should be afraid of what happens after death. Where we spent eternity should be of utmost concern to us in this perilous time when persecutions, killings, natural disasters, accidents, and pandemics have continued to occur regularly. Let us therefore boldly walk unto the Throne of Grace in this time of trouble, to obtain God's mercy.




Mayor Eric Adams, foreground, with city law officials, speaks at a news conference inside a subway station after a woman was pushed to her death in front of a subway train at Times Square Station in New York, Jan. 15, in this livestream frame grab from video provided by NYPD News. AP-Yonhap





A woman was pushed to her death in front of a subway train at Times Square Station police said Saturday, a little more than a week after the mayor and governor announced plans to boost subway policing and outreach to homeless people in New York City's streets and trains.







The man believed responsible fled the scene but turned himself in to transit police a short time later, Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said at a news conference with Mayor Eric Adams at the station.







The 40-year-old victim, identified as Michelle Alyssa Go of New York, was waiting for a southbound R train around 9:40 a.m. when she was apparently shoved, according to police.







''This incident was unprovoked, and the victim does not appear to have had any interaction with the subject,'' Sewell said.







A second woman told police the man had approached her minutes earlier and she feared he would push her onto the tracks.







''He approaches her and he gets in her space. She gets very, very alarmed,'' Assistant Chief Jason Wilcox said, describing the earlier encounter. ''She tries to move away from him and he gets close to her, and she feels that he was about to physically push her onto the train. As she's walking away she witnesses the crime where he pushes our other victim in front of the train.''







Police on Saturday night identified the suspect as 61-year-old Simon Martial. Martial, who police said is homeless, was charged with second-degree murder. It was not immediately known whether he had an attorney who could comment.







Wilcox said Martial has a criminal history and had been on parole.







''He does have in the past three emotionally disturbed encounters with us that we have documented,'' he said.







Subway conditions and safety have become a worry for many New Yorkers during the pandemic. Although police statistics show major felonies in the subways have dropped over the past two years, so has ridership, making it difficult to compare.







And some recent attacks have gotten public attention and raised alarms. In September, three transit employees were assaulted in separate incidents on one day. Several riders were slashed and assaulted by a group of attackers on a train in lower Manhattan in May, and four separate stabbings  two of them fatal  happened within a few hours on a single subway line in February.







In recent months there have been several instances of people being stabbed, assaulted or shoved onto the tracks at stations in the Bronx, Brooklyn and at Times Square.







In this April 7, 2020 file photo, riders wait on a platform for a New York City subway train in New York. AP-Yonhap





Saturday's attack against Go, who was of Asian descent, also raised concerns amid a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes in New York and around the country. Police officials said the killing, including whether it was a hate crime, was under investigation, but noted that the first woman Martial allegedly approached was not Asian. Martial is Black.







''This latest attack causing the death of an Asian American woman in the Times Square subway station is particularly horrifying for our community,'' Margaret Fung, executive director of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said. She said the community was still mourning the Dec. 31 death of Yao Pan Ma, a Chinese immigrant who was attacked in April while collecting cans in East Harlem.







''These attacks have left Asian Americans across the city and across the country feeling vulnerable and they must stop,'' Fung said in a statement.







Adams, who has been mayor for two weeks, has noted that a perception of danger could drive more people to eschew the subway, complicating the city's economic recovery as it tries to draw people back to offices, tourist attractions and more.







''We want to continue to highlight how imperative it is that people receive the right mental health services, particularly on our subway system,'' the mayor said Saturday. ''To lose a New Yorker in this fashion will only continue to elevate the fears of individuals not using our subway system.''







''Our recovery is dependent on public safety in this city and in the subway system,'' Adams said.







Under his predecessor, Bill de Blasio, the city repeatedly said it was deploying more police to subways after attacks last year and pressure from transit officials. The agency that runs the subway system, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, sped up work to install security cameras in all 472 subway stations citywide, finishing that project in September.







However, the city also has repeatedly faced complaints in recent years about heavy-handed policing in subways. Protests erupted, for example, after police were seen on bystander video handcuffing a woman they said was selling churros without a license at subway stations in 2019 and punching a Black teenager during a brawl on a subway platform that same year.







Six police officers were assigned to the station Saturday, authorities said.







Joining Adams last week to discuss the state of the subways, Gov. Kathy Hochul said she was planning to put together five teams of social workers and medical professionals to help the city guide people living on streets and subways to shelter, housing and services.







Both Hochul and Adams are Democrats. (AP)


Unpacking Supreme Court justices reasoning in vaccine mandate decisions

For nearly 100 million American workers waiting breathlessly for an answer, a Thursday Supreme Court decision delivered good news for many, although not all.

In a rare late-day release of opinions, the Supreme Court issued its rulings in a pair of federal vaccine mandate cases that went to the court on an emergency basis.

In the first case  anticipated to have applied to approximately 84 million employees  and by a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court in National Federation of Independent Business v. OSHA stayed the implementation of the vaccination mandate that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration had issued in November 2021, requiring all businesses with 100 or more employees (with very limited exceptions) to direct their employees be vaccinated against COVID-19 or wear a mask at work and provide weekly negative tests for the disease.

In an unsigned opinion, the majority concluded that the government was not likely to prevail on its argument that OSHA possesses the authority to issue the vaccination mandate. It wrote that neither OSHA nor Congress had ever imposed such a requirement and that, although Congress has enacted significant legislation addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, it has declined to enact any measure similar to what OSHA has promulgated here.

As its name suggests, the court explained, OSHA is tasked with ensuring occupational safety  that is, safe and healthful working conditions. That means OSHA is only empowered to set workplace safety standards, not broad public health measures, and according to the justices, no provision of the Act addresses public health more generally, which falls outside of OSHAs sphere of expertise.

The court classified the COVID-19 virus as not an occupational hazard, but a universal risk that is no different from the day-to-day dangers that all face from crime, air pollution, or any number of communicable diseases.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, filed a concurring opinion. He emphasized that under the courts Major Questions Doctrine, the court will not presume that Congress empowered an agency to resolve a question of broad economic or social policy without expressly authorizing in the statutes text the authority to do so. The Occupational Safety and Health Act, he concluded, grants OSHA no such power.

Justice Stephen Breyer, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, dissented. Breyer concluded that because COVID-19, in short, is a menace in work settings, as proved by the number of people it has sickened or killed, OSHA could adopt a vaccination or mask-and-test requirement for businesses.

The Daily Signals parent organization, The Heritage Foundation (which had filed an application with the Supreme Court to halt the OSHA mandate), reacted to the news Thursday. Heritage President Kevin Roberts trumpeted the victory in a public statement, saying:

The federal government has no business dictating the private and personal health care decisions of tens of millions of Americans, nor does it have the authority to coerce employers into collecting protected health care data on their employees. By striking down the Biden regimes unlawful COVID-19 vaccine mandate, the Supreme Court has signaled its agreement with this basic tenet of a well-functioning and free society.

While the OSHA mandate is stayed for now, litigation on the merits of the governments employer vaccine rule will continue in the lower court (the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals).

In its second opinion of the afternoon, the court  in Biden v. Missouri, another unsigned opinion, but this time, by a 5-4 vote  allowed the Department of Health and Human Services vaccine mandate (administered through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) for workers at federally funded health care facilities to take effect.

The court wrote that a global pandemic provide[s] no grounds for limiting the exercise of authorities the agency has long been recognized to have. It noted that as a condition of receiving federal funds, Congress authorized the secretary to promulgate such requirements as [he] finds necessary in the interest of the health and safety of individuals who are furnished services in the institution.

The court noted that it would be the very opposite of efficient and effective administration for a facility that is supposed to make people well to make them sick with COVID-19. It also concluded that the vaccine rule was not, as the states had claimed, arbitrary and capricious, and that the longer, more complicated notice-and-comment period as required by the Administrative Procedure Act (ensuring transparent rule-making from the federal government) would have been impossible.

Thomas, joined by Gorsuch, Alito, and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, dissented, saying that the statutory provisions relied on by the government did not support its vaccine rule.

The justices noted that those provisions direct the administration of Medicare and Medicaid and are those that serve the practical management and direction of those programs, but there was no connection to that administration and a rule requiring millions of healthcare workers to undergo an unwanted medical procedure that cannot be removed at the end of the shift.

Thomas wrote that the government had a shaky foundation for its virtually unlimited vaccination through the Department of Health and Human Services, and if Congress had wanted to grant the agency the power to impose a vaccine mandate across all facility types and upset the state-federal balance (because only the state possesses the police power to mandate vaccination), it would have specifically authorized one.

In both cases, the question before the court was not how to respond to the pandemic, but who holds the power to do so.

For now  and until the litigation in the appellate courts below comes to an end  the answer is clear.

Originally published at The Daily Signal.
Nigerian bishop called in for questioning after criticizing gov't inaction on abductions, persecution

A security agency in Nigeria has ordered a prominent Catholic bishop to appear for questioning over his remarks that the countrys government, led by President Muhammadu Buhari, has failed to stop kidnappings and persecution of Christians, according to media reports.

The State Security Service, which reports to Nigerias president, has asked Bishop Matthew Kukah of the Sokoto diocese in northwest Nigeria to present himself for questioning after he wrote in his Christmas message that the government seems to have left the fate of Nigerians in the hands of evil men, The National Catholic Register reported.

In his message, the bishop referred to more than 100 girls who were abducted by the Boko Haram terror group who are yet to be rescued as well as hundreds of other children whose captures were less dramatic, according to CNAs partner agency ACI Africa.

Nothing expresses the powerlessness of the families like the silence of state at the federal level, he said. We have before us a government totally oblivious to the cherished values of the sacredness of life. Tales and promises about planned rescues have since deteriorated into mere whispers.

He continued, Every day, we hear of failure of intelligence, yet, those experts who provide intelligence claim that they have always done their duty diligently and efficiently. Does the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria not believe that he owes parents and citizens answers as to where our children are and when they are coming home?

The bishop warned that Nigeria is fully in the grip of evil, adding: Today, a feeling of vindication only saddens me as I have watched the north break into a cacophony of quarrelsome blame games over our tragic situation.

The Peoples Gazette reports that the State Security Service is a federal secret police that holds a reputation for intimidating and arresting government critics.

The Southern Kaduna Peoples Union, which has spoken out against insecurity in the Kaduna state, has urged Bishop Kukah not to accept the agencys invitation for questioning, arguing that other critics who have been called in for questioning have been silenced.

SOKAPU National Youth Leader Issac John Sirjay argued in a statement Monday that the government has extended invitations to some people who had at one time or the other accepted invitations, particularly persons considered to be critical of the nepotistic and clandestine leadership style of the Buhari administration.



We mourned the sudden demise of Dr. Obadiah Mailafia of blessed memory who until his death was a dogged critic of this administration and a regular visitor at one of the DSS facilities, Sirjays statement reads, according to the United States-based outlet Sahara Reporters.

Without ruling out any possibility of harm, we consider the invitation of Bishop Kukah by the DSS as one of such ploy designed to silence him at all cost.

In light of the above, it suffices to state boldly that the DSS has unarguably deviated from its core mandate of protecting national security and has become a willing tool for the suppression of free speech, the statement added.

Last November, a Nigerian journalist and Roman Catholic, Luka Binniyat, was detained allegedly for his reporting about attacks against predominantly Christian communities and the governments response.

Binniyat, a father who writes for the anti-communist newspaper Epoch Times, was arrested and arraigned at the Barnawa Magistrates Court in Kaduna state. He was charged with cyberstalking  a charge critics say is often used in the African country to silence the media.

He was arrested after writing an Oct. 29 article titled In Nigeria, Police Decry Massacres as Wicked But Make No Arrests.

The article is part of The Epoch Times coverage of the deadly attacks targeting the predominantly-Christian farming communities in the West African countrys Middle Belt.

Binniyat pushed back against government official's characterization of an attack on Christian farmers in the state as a clash. The Nigerian government has long claimed that violence in Nigerias Middle Belt results from decades-old farmer-herder clashes that have been exacerbated in recent years by more herders migrating south due to desertification and climate change.

Critics have warned that the Nigerian governments lack of action in the Middle Belt could result in a religious genocide. But the Nigerian government has pushed back on such assertions.

According to a recent study from the Anambra-based International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, at least 60,000 Christians have been killed in the past two decades in Nigeria. The organization, which is run by Christian criminologist Emeka Umeagbalasi, reports that hundreds of churches have been threatened, attacked, closed, destroyed or burned in 2021.

In the northern parts of Nigeria, criminal groups and terrorists have conducted several large-scale abductions of school children in recent years. In 2014, about 276 schoolgirls were kidnapped from a school in Chibok in the northeast Borno state by the Islamic radical group Boko Haram. As many as 112 of those girls remain missing.

In February 2021, armed militants kidnapped nearly 300 schoolgirls from the Government Girls Science Secondary School in Jangebe, Zamfara state. The children were released weeks later.

Watchdog group Open Doors USA, which monitors persecution in over 60 countries, ranks Nigeria as the ninth-worst country when it comes to Christian persecution.
Its been just over one year since I helped to produce a globally televised KISS concert in Dubai on New Years Eve 2020. We brought people from all over the world to collaborate with people from the local community to create a diverse and unforgettable experience that won awards for its video production value.

Theres no hotter format than video right now, and studies show that 33 percent of all online activity is spent watching them. As appealing as they can be to consume, creating fresh content can be a struggle for many businesses to maintain. All too often the creative process can be mystified, but in truth, its all about putting the right environment and team together so ideas can flow freely.

Video production in particular requires individuals with different skill sets to come together to produce something that any sole individual would be hard-pressed to create on their own. Productions call for an experienced team of videographers, editors and more just to get out of the gate, let alone turn in a quality product.

While diverse skills are widely regarded as necessary, its become more evident that diverse worker backgrounds boost the overall creative potential of a project as well. Diversity has emerged as a key component of creativity by business leaders around the world, and by embracing it in the workplace, the rate and quality of creative output trends upwards.

1. A diverse crew has more experiences to draw upon

Studies show that teams with diverse members are 70 percent more likely to capture new markets with their projects. The reasoning follows that by having more diverse members able to add their personal input, the overall well of experiences to draw upon is both wider and deeper than a team composed of similar individuals.

This trend is reflected by industry leaders, as Google releases annual reports on their internal diversity metrics, and shares insights on how hiring from a wider pool of candidates have positively affected their business. Rates of hiring minorities have steadily climbed year over year, and they have outlined concrete diversity goals to be met by 2025.

Google cites this as one of the contributing factors for their impressive 61.58 percent, year-over-year growth rate. While each production and business has its own specific needs in terms of team member abilities, one thing they all have in common is benefiting from multiple perspectives being present throughout the creative process.

Related: Why Diversity In the Workforce Is Imperative

2. It causes reflections, which leads to innovation

When working with diverse team members, individuals cant help but reflect on the different circumstances that surround each colleague. These internal team dynamics encourage an innovative thought process as the members must compromise and work with one another throughout production.

The end result from all the back and forth is a more creatively fueled project thats likely to appeal to a wider demographic. A recent phone call with Bereket Taffese, co-founder and CEO of Gebeya Media, helped illustrate this concept first-hand:

While our studio HQ is based in Ethiopia, our team and clients are located around the world. Every day we work to incorporate the thoughts and concerns of so many backgrounds  race, age and cultural values. By bringing about such different viewpoints all under one roof for a project, we find an increase in innovative and creative ideas.

Continued Tafesse, We incorporate these insights into our video projects, and feel like the final product benefits from us doing so. When you are working towards putting forth inspiring video content. You need all hands on deck to reflect and see how they can best contribute.

Putting together teams from diverse backgrounds creates a unique mix, one thats unique from any other, and ultimately a more interesting piece of content for the viewer to enjoy.

Related: How Diversity Helped Bring My Company Together

3. Diversity increases empathy and trust between team members

Trust is a necessary foundational block for any creative team to function, and it can be built by honest communication. Once colleagues empathize with the conditions and lives of one another, they are more likely to share their ideas and concerns.

Cohesive cooperation, an increase in focus, and higher levels of creativity are psychologically linked to trust, so instilling this from day one in any effort is vital to overcome differences in an individual's mindset.

With video production in particular each part of the team must have trust in areas beyond their immediate reach, and in the creative vision as a whole. Once the initial reservations are overcome between team members, the diversity of the teams skills and background becomes one of its most powerful assets.

From the top-level down this sentiment is shared, as 91 percent of CEOs believe empathy directly leads to better financial performance. This is why so many industries go to great lengths to ensure that their teams communicate effectively and empathize with departments beyond their own. Its a bonus to the bottom line of a company, but also to the creative potential of a project.

Creativity and diversity are intertwined far more deeply than one might imagine at first glance. Ensuring productions receive feedback from different points of view is a trend unlikely to change in the foreseeable future as it consistently yields such positive results.

Video productions in particular creatively soar from receiving this kind of input, but all creative projects can benefit from teams that make an effort to hear from diverse sources.

Copyright 2022 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
Get ready to learn more Greek letters. Scientists warn that omicrons whirlwind advance practically ensures it wont be the last version of the coronavirus to worry the world.

Every infection provides a chance for the virus to mutate, and omicron has an edge over its predecessors: It spreads way faster despite emerging on a planet with a stronger patchwork of immunity from vaccines and prior illness.

That means more people in whom the virus can further evolve. Experts dont know what the next variants will look like or how they might shape the pandemic, but they say theres no guarantee the sequels of omicron will cause milder illness or that existing vaccines will work against them.

They urge wider vaccination now, while today's shots still work.

"The faster omicron spreads, the more opportunities there are for mutation, potentially leading to more variants, Leonardo Martinez, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Boston University, said.

Since it emerged in mid-November, omicron has raced across the globe like fire through dry grass. Research shows the variant is at least twice as contagious as delta and at least four times as contagious as the original version of the virus.

Omicron is more likely than delta to reinfect individuals who previously had COVID-19 and to cause breakthrough infections in vaccinated people while also attacking the unvaccinated. The World Health Organization reported a record 15 million new COVID-19 cases for the week of Jan. 3-9, a 55% increase from the previous week.

Along with keeping comparatively healthy people out of work and school, the ease with which the variant spreads increases the odds the virus will infect and linger inside people with weakened immune systems - giving it more time to develop potent mutations.

Its the longer, persistent infections that seem to be the most likely breeding grounds for new variants, said Dr. Stuart Campbell Ray, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins University. "Its only when you have very widespread infection that youre going to provide the opportunity for that to occur.

Because omicron appears to cause less severe disease than delta, its behavior has kindled hope that it could be the start of a trend that eventually makes the virus milder like a common cold.

It's a possibility, experts say, given that viruses dont spread well if they kill their hosts very quickly. But viruses dont always get less deadly over time.

A variant could also achieve its main goal - replicating - if infected people developed mild symptoms initially, spread the virus by interacting with others, then got very sick later, Ray explained by way of example.

People have wondered whether the virus will evolve to mildness. But theres no particular reason for it to do so, he said. I dont think we can be confident that the virus will become less lethal over time.

Getting progressively better at evading immunity helps a virus to survive over the long term. When SARS-CoV-2 first struck, no one was immune. But infections and vaccines have conferred at least some immunity to much of the world, so the virus must adapt.

There are many possible avenues for evolution. Animals could potentially incubate and unleash new variants. Pet dogs and cats, deer and farm-raised mink are only a few of the animals vulnerable to the virus, which can potentially mutate within them and leap back to people.

Another potential route: With both omicron and delta circulating, people may get double infections that could spawn what Ray calls Frankenvariants, hybrids with characteristics of both types.

When new variants do develop, scientists said its still very difficult to know from genetic features which ones might take off. For example, omicron has many more mutations than previous variants, around 30 in the spike protein that lets it attach to human cells. But the so-called IHU variant identified in France and being monitored by the WHO has 46 mutations and doesnt seem to have spread much at all.

To curb the emergence of variants, scientists stress continuing with public health measures such as masking and getting vaccinated. While omicron is better able to evade immunity than delta, experts said, vaccines still offer protection and booster shots greatly reduce serious illness, hospitalizations and deaths.

Anne Thomas, a 64-year-old IT analyst in Westerly, Rhode Island, said she's fully vaccinated and boosted and also tries to stay safe by mostly staying home while her state has one of the highest COVID-19 case rates in the U.S.

I have no doubt at all that these viruses are going to continue to mutate and were going to be dealing with this for a very long time," she said.

Ray likened vaccines to armor for humanity that greatly hinders viral spread even if it doesn't completely stop it. For a virus that spreads exponentially, he said, "anything that curbs transmission can have a great effect. Also, when vaccinated people get sick, Ray said their illness is usually milder and clears more quickly, leaving less time to spawn dangerous variants.

Experts say the virus won't become endemic like the flu as long as global vaccination rates are so low. During a recent press conference, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that protecting people from future variants  including those that may be fully resistant to today's shots  depends on ending global vaccine inequity.

Tedros said hed like to see 70% of people in every country vaccinated by mid-year. Currently, there are dozens of countries where less than a quarter of the population is fully vaccinated, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics. And in the United States, many people continue to resist available vaccines.

These huge unvaccinated swaths in the U.S., Africa, Asia, Latin America and elsewhere are basically variant factories, said Dr. Prabhat Jha of the Centre for Global Health Research at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto. It's been a colossal failure in global leadership that we have not been able to do this.

In the meantime, new variants are inevitable, said Louis Mansky, director of the Institute for Molecular Virology at the University of Minnesota.

With so many unvaccinated people, he said, the virus is still kind of in control of what's going on.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
WOOD RIVER  As the COVID-19 numbers in Madison County continue to climb, Amy Yeager is striking a balance between concern and optimism.

The previous high number for COVID cases in Madison County came in December 2020, when there were 6,421 new cases.

The second-highest total was in December 2021, when there were 6,289 new cases, most of which were new variants such as Delta or Omicron.

For the first 13 days of January 2022, though, there were already 10,002 new cases of COVID.

That shows that we have both of the variants (delta and omicron) and they are both moving very fast, said Yeager, who is the public information officer for the Madison County Health Department.

The case rate for Madison County, meanwhile, reached an all-time high on Thursday, with 2,235.78 new cases per 100,000 population.

Thats extremely high considering that 50 cases per 100,000 is where we need to be, Yeager said. By comparison, on Oct. 23, 2021, we had 101 cases per 100,000 people.

On Jan. 5, the case rate was 708.84 per 100,000, meaning it more than tripled in an eight-day span by Thursday. On Dec. 30, the case rate was 511.47 per 100,000.

From a public health perspective, I cant emphasize enough how fast that growth is, Yeager said. We continue to emphasize to people the importance of doing what they can to help slow down that growth.

If they are exposed or find themselves in a risky situation for potential exposure, please get tested. If you do test positive, please quarantine and isolate. If you develop symptoms, call your physician and ask them what to do.

While the COVID surge continues, Yeager points to a decrease in the severity of cases as reason for optimism.

We have not reached a peak yet and we are definitely still in the high-transmission phase, Yeager said. The good news is that while hospitalizations are high, they seem to be slightly decreased.

The number of deaths has been fairly low compared to the extreme straight-up slope of the surge. Thats another indicator that the vaccine is working.

Yeager reminds people that the vaccine is meant to add a layer of protection against the virus and is not a cure for COVID.

Its designed to prevent you from having the severity of illness and hospitalization or death from COVID. At this time, its not meant to keep you from getting it, Yeager said.

Since this time last year, there are also therapeutics in use by physicians so once you have COVID and once you meet certain criteria, there are options to help treat you. There are some other treatments still in development, but this is a new virus and public health is working hard to find ways to help prevent it and or to lessen the severity of it.

While the pandemic is a long way from being over, Yeager sees some positive trends despite the spike in new cases and the case rate.

The fact that were not getting as many deaths from COVID is a hopeful sign and a reflection of two factors, one of which is the vaccine. Were now at 55% fully vaccinated in Madison County, Yeager said.

It also reflects on the current variants and the fact that omicron is way more contagious, and its impact is less severe for a lot of people. But you still need to take it seriously.

According to the latest data from the Illinois Department of Public Health, about 69% of the variants active in Illinois were still delta, while about 31% were omicron.

Yeager said that means that the omicron surge still hasnt arrived in the state in full force.

The more concerning thing is how much is out there, Yeager said. Regardless of the severity, nobody wants to be sick, and we still dont know the long-term effects of the virus on your system. You still want to do what you can to prevent getting the virus.

There are certain things we have to offer in public health to add layers of protection and our most powerful tool is the vaccine. Its been found that the first two doses of vaccine provide protection against COVID-19 in general, but the booster adds an extra layer of protection, especially against omicron.

Yeager again addressed the topic of vaccine hesitancy while encouraging people to get vaccinated.

If you have not been vaccinated yet and you have questions about the vaccine, please ask public health officials for clarification, said Yeager, who also emphasized the continued importance of social distancing, hand washing and sanitizing. Be sure that you are using reliable sources and public health information should come from public health sources.

We understand that not everybody is going to want the vaccine, but we want people to know its there as an option, and why its important. If they choose not to get vaccinated, thats entirely up to them, but its part of our job to offer it and let people know what the benefits are.

Yeager recommends that people wear masks in public, regardless of their vaccination status.

The transmission of these newer variants is slightly different than the transmission of the original virus or the previous variants, Yeager said. The virus is more airborne now than it was originally when it was binding to surface to help it move along.

Its a growth point for the mutations that they have come up with a better mode of transportation, but its made it more challenging for all of us. Thats why masking is more important than ever before.

While the COVID numbers on the Madison County Department website (https://www.co.madison.il.us/departments/health/index.php) can be concerning, Yeager notes that those numbers are far from complete.

The number of cases on our website only includes cases that we know about at the health department, Yeager said. If you do a home test, that is not reflected in these numbers, and many people are doing them because its gotten hard to find them.

If you take a home test and you test positive, and you stay home and youre isolating and quarantining, thats a good step forward.
A handout photograph released by the UK Parliament shows Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson attending Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs) in the House of Commons in London on Jan. 12. AFP-Yonhap



Britain's main opposition leader on Sunday accused Prime Minister Boris Johnson of breaking the law, but the government vowed changes after a bruising series of revelations about lockdown-breaching parties.



In the latest, Johnson's wife Carrie was photographed on the front page of the Sunday Telegraph newspaper embracing a friend at a September 2020 party, in apparent violation of the then rules on social distancing.



At least six lawmakers in Johnson's Conservative party have now called publicly for him to quit, while others say they are awaiting the findings of an internal inquiry by senior civil servant Sue Gray.



Labour leader Keir Starmer, who is enjoying an opinion poll surge on the back of the Downing Street "partygate" allegations, said the facts were already clear.



"I think he broke the law. I think he's as good as admitted that he broke the law," Starmer told BBC television.



Gray only has the remit to establish the facts, he added, calling for the police to look into a possible criminal inquiry once her report is out.



"The prime minister has degraded the office of prime minister and he has lost full authority not only in his own party, but in the country," Starmer said.



Government minister Oliver Dowden, the Conservatives' co-chairman, conceded that the Downing Street parties were "completely unacceptable". But Dowden backed Johnson to stay in office, while stressing he would take "full responsibility" once Gray releases her findings.



"I can tell you that when he responds to the House of Commons, as he has committed to do so, he will make sure that we address the kind of culture that has allowed that to happen in the first place," he told Sky News.



Conservative MPs, many of whom were spending the weekend back in their home constituencies, say they are being deluged with messages from voters outraged at the accounts of rule-breaking in Downing Street.



After weeks of denials and stonewalling, Johnson this week apologised in parliament for at least one boozy event organised by his staff which he attended in May 2020, when Britons were banned from socialising.



Two other parties were held in April 2021 as Queen Elizabeth II prepared to bury Prince Philip, her husband of 73 years.



Downing Street sent apologies to Buckingham Palace, calling them "deeply regrettable".



But those were not isolated events, according to Saturday's Daily Mirror, which published a photograph of a fridge being delivered to a Downing Street back door in December 2020 for "Wine time Fridays". (AFP)


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Postscript Kenny Swade, a champion for education and the community

mattbeck / Matthew Beck / Chronicle photo editor In this September 2015 photo, Kenneth and Vera Swade speak to then-YMCA Executive Director Joanna Castle as the couple makes a $3,000 donation to the community phase of the Suncoast chapters capital campaign. Kenny Swade, who died Nov. 24, 2021 at age 81, also coached basketball for the YMCA in Citrus and Marion counties.

As a high school teacher in Ohio, Kenny Swade had a clever way of getting his students to come to class.

He would learn something about each student, something about their personality or about an interest or hobby or their background.

Then he would find a song from his own era, the 50s and 60s  he especially liked doo wop  and he would match a song to a particular student and play it in class saying, This ones for you.

The students loved it, said Vera Swade, Kennys wife of nearly 23 years. Theyd start asking, Wheres my song? and hed say, You have to come to class, and that got them to go to class.

After retiring and moving to Citrus County, Swade taught a College and Career Success class and continued his personalized songs for his college students and even classroom guest speakers like John Shields, a financial planner from Ocala.

He made a huge difference in my life, Shields said at Swades memorial service on Jan. 7 at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Hernando, and I will forever enjoy 40s, 50s and 60s music.

Kenneth Michael Swade died Nov. 24 at age 81.

He loved to teach, Shields said, and he loved to coach.

Swade was a teacher, counselor and coordinator for 40 years in Cleveland, Ohio, as well as a track and basketball coach.

He also enjoyed refereeing, Shields said.

Shields had been coaching basketball at the YMCA in Ocala and one day asked Swade, Whats the chance I could get you to teach me and the kids some things?

He went home and found some of his old whistles ... and hed drive over an hour to Ocala a couple times a week to coach, he said.

Swade also coached at the YMCA in Lecanto.

I knew him for about the past nine or 10 years, and I appreciate every opportunity I had to be around him, Shields said. He was a light to me. I lost my dad about 15 years ago ... and Kenny was a dad figure in my life.

He was opinionated; he was tough and he was hard. He had an old-school way of doing things that I absolutely adored, he said. We met through business and did some work together. He was a client, but he was my friend and I grew to love him for his passion for life.

Swade grew up and spent his career in Cleveland, Ohio.

After 40 years in education, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2011 for a lifetime of achievement in teaching.

He loved working with students, said Vera Swade, including working one night a week as a counselor at a youth homeless shelter called Safe Space.

His passion was to help students be successful in life.

We met when I was in vocational education and he was a teacher, Mrs. Swade said.

Swade was part of a program called Occupational Work Experience (O.W.E.), which helped train high school students for a career.

He would teach consumerism in the mornings and then in the afternoons he would place students in jobs in the community.

He also put on career expo fairs for the vocational technical school, which is where he met Vera.

Eleven short years later, we got married, she said.

The two were a team, especially once they moved to Citrus County and got involved in the community  Take Stock in Children, the YMCA, their church, the Guardian ad litem program, Community Bible Study and Central Citrus Rotary Club where Swade served as president and was named Rotarian of the Year 2020-2021.

He was a get things done kind of guy, said Michael Busler, Central Citrus Rotary Club past president. He really liked supporting things in the community. Im also on the board at the YMCA, and he and Vera came to the annual fundraising event and always gave a great contribution. He was involved; he didnt quit. And I really liked the guy.

Each year, the Central Citrus Rotary Club sells a lottery calendar and has a big car show at Black Diamond.

However, when the pandemic prevented the car show from taking place, Swade took it upon himself to sell as many calendars as he could and single-handedly sold more than 400.

He did it for me, Vera Swade said. That was the year I was Rotary president and he didnt want me to have an unsuccessful presidency.

But not only did Swade sell calendars, but he kept a list of all the people who bought one and wrote down their assigned lottery number.

Each day he would check the days winning Florida lottery number in the newspaper, and if it corresponded with the number of someone on his list, he would personally call that person to give them the news that they won.

He just loved people, Mrs. Swade said. He was aggressive and opinionated, but he had a heart of gold. He loved a challenge, the tougher the better.

He loved to cook, and we loved to travel together. We took five trips abroad and three Viking cruises, visited many places in the world. ... We were married almost 23 years, and we packed a lot of living in those years.

Although Swade suffered from congestive heart failure, he had a good heart, said Bob Nones, a friend from Good Shepherd Lutheran Church and a member of Community Bible Study with Swade.

He nurtured people, he was a true shepherd, Nones said. He was a student of the Bible, a student of the Lord and he had a lot of wisdom. He was really a treasure, and he is missed.
Florida, US (34429)

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Canada is open to fully vaccinated tourists. You may be able to visit Canada with a criminal record as long as you prepare ahead of time.

Planning a trip to Canada in 2022? How you can overcome your criminal record Canada is open to fully vaccinated tourists. You may be able to visit Canada with a criminal record as long as you prepare ahead of time.

Planning a trip to Canada in 2022? How you can overcome your criminal record Canada is open to fully vaccinated tourists. You may be able to visit Canada with a criminal record as long as you prepare ahead of time.

Planning a trip to Canada in 2022? How you can overcome your criminal record Canada is open to fully vaccinated tourists. You may be able to visit Canada with a criminal record as long as you prepare ahead of time. Daniel Levy Aa Accessibility Font Style Serif

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Although the coronavirus pandemic has entered its third calendar year, tourism to Canada is set to rebound in 2022.

Unlike in 2020 and 2021, Canada is now open to tourists from the United States and the rest of the world as long as they are fully vaccinated. It is important to note the Canadian government is updating its travel rules regularly as the pandemic continues to unfold so you are strongly encouraged to visit their website before you travel to Canada to get the latest information.

You should also keep in mind that Canada has strict rules on entering the country with a criminal record. If you have a criminal record, a Canadian border officer may deem you to be inadmissible to Canada and you will not be able to enter the country. U.S. citizens should also note their passport is linked to an FBI background record where their criminal history may appear. Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) officers have access to FBI background record information.

The good news is that Canada is accommodating to tourists and recognizes those with a criminal record may be capable of being rehabilitated and hence are unlikely to pose a public safety risk to Canadians. As such, the Canadian government offers a number of solutions you can pursue to overcome criminal inadmissibility.

Get a free consultation with the Cohen Immigration Law Firm

The first solution is called a Temporary Resident Permit (TRP). As the name implies, it is a temporary solution that may enable you to enter Canada as long as you can demonstrate a compelling reason to the government for your visit. Applicants looking to enter Canada for business or compassionate reasons are more likely to gain a TRP than those simply looking to go to Canada for tourism. Tourists with a criminal record are usually advised to apply for the next option instead, called Criminal Rehabilitation.

The second option, known as Criminal Rehabilitation, is a permanent solution. If your application is successful, your criminal history will no longer be grounds for inadmissibility into Canada as long as you do not commit another crime. At least five years from the completion of your most recent sentence needs to pass in order to apply for rehabilitation. The Canadian government translates your foreign crime to the Canadian equivalent. This is important because rehabilitation fees differ based on the nature of your crime. The application fee is $200 CAD for non-serious criminality and $1,000 CAD for serious criminality.

It is also worth noting you may be deemed rehabilitated if at least 10 years have elapsed since you were convicted of a non-serious crime. One can be automatically deemed rehabilitated and not need to apply for Criminal Rehabilitation but it is best to consult a Canadian immigration lawyer in advance to get a legal opinion letter.

A legal opinion letter is your third option. In the letter, a Canadian immigration lawyer will provide a legal opinion of the facts of your situation including why you should not be considered inadmissible to Canada. It can also complement one of the above options since you can bring the letter with you to the border to provide CBSA officers with additional proof you should be allowed into Canada. A legal opinion letter can be beneficial in a number of situations, including but not limited to the following:

1) Deemed rehabilitated individuals.

2) Individuals who have been charged but not convicted, such as those who received a deferral of adjudication or a Nolle Prosequi.

3) Individuals who have been convicted of an offence which does not have equivalence in Canada.

Get a free consultation with the Cohen Immigration Law Firm

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Oklahoma City, OK (73106)

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Consultant national pentru elaborarea conceptului unui program guvernamental de stagii pentru tinerii din diaspora - studenti sau absolventi ai institutiilor universitare de peste hotarele tarii
Beachwood, OH (44122)

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Iran nuclear talks progressing amid "better atmosphere"

11:19, January 16, 2022 By Gao Wencheng ( Xinhua

TEHRAN, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Chief negotiators of Iran and three European countries on Friday temporarily returned to their capitals for consultations as expert talks continue, providing the latest evidence that international talks to salvage the Iranian nuclear deal in Vienna have been moving forward.

The return of chief negotiators to their countries does not mean the eighth round of talks has stopped, according to the website of Iran's Foreign Ministry. The eighth round of negotiations between Iran and other remaining signatories to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) began on Dec. 27 with the United States indirectly involved after its pullout in 2018 from the landmark pact.

"BETTER ATMOSPHERE"

"There's a better atmosphere since Christmas," European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters on Friday following an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in the French city of Brest.

"Before Christmas, I was very pessimistic," he said, adding that "today I believe reaching an accord is possible," even within the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, there is "real progress" on the restoration of the JCPOA, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.

"There is real progress there, there is a real desire, first of all between Iran and the United States, to understand specific concerns, to understand how these concerns can be taken into account in a common package," Lavrov told a press conference.

The Vienna talks are "moving forward on right track," Iran's official IRNA News Agency reported on Saturday.

"The number of issues of difference has decreased and delegations are busy to discuss the way of implementing any potential agreement," the report said, quoting an informed source on condition of anonymity.

Also, Mikhail Ulyanov, head of Russia's delegation to the nuclear negotiations, tweeted on Thursday that the diplomats in Vienna primarily paid attention to "to (the) implementation of a future deal."

"We need to agree on who will be doing what and when on the way towards full restoration of the nuclear deal," which is not an easy task, he added.

"DIFFICULT PART"

Though in a positive atmosphere, it's reported that a wide range of issues remains unresolved in the nuclear talks, given Iran and the United States, the two main parties, indirectly exchanging messages.

"We are discussing difficult issues and considering the ways to prepare the draft of the agreed principles," Iran's Mehr News Agency reported on Saturday, citing a source close to the Vienna talks.

According to the reports, about the removal of the sanctions and nuclear issues, lots of disputes have been resolved, and the negotiators "are increasingly working on the third appendix on how to implement and sequence the possible agreement."

The informed source noted that this phase of negotiation is "one of the most tedious, time-consuming and difficult parts of the negotiation, but it is indispensable to achieve the goal."

Based on reports from the venue of the talks, the Iranian negotiators have been focusing on assurances and verification of U.S. next moves, which the Western parties were opposed to, so as to "reach a good and acceptable agreement that will guarantee the Iranian nation's rights and interests."

As the indirect negotiations between the United States and Iran reach a critical stage, neither side "wants to seem too eager to compromise, which would risk appearing weak," New York Times commented recently.

WAY AHEAD

While the diplomatic endeavors are going on, Washington still carries on with its pressure campaign. There are only "a few weeks left to see if we can get back to mutual compliance," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday, warning his country stands ready to look at "other options" if negotiations fail.

However, Tehran has repeatedly vowed that it will not make hasty concessions under pressure. "Unfortunately, many of the weaknesses of the JCPOA ... have been due to the influence of the negotiators from the U.S. psychological pressures and the haste in signing the JCPOA agreement," said a news article published by Nour News website, which is affiliated with Iran's Supreme National Security Council.

To move the negotiations forward, the United States, Iran's Tehran Times daily suggested, can "greenlight the release of Iranian assets as a goodwill gesture to pave the way for a lasting agreement," not an interim one that is unlikely to be accepted by Iran.

Ali Vaez, Iran expert at the International Crisis Group, said in a recent podcast episode that to revive the JCPOA, given former U.S. President Donald Trump's "original sin," the United States "should go first and offer sanctions relief in areas that are actually open to verification," primarily in Iran's oil exports and related services, as well as its ability to repatriate all revenues and access to its frozen assets.

Vaez also suggested Americans and Europeans provide assurances that Iran would be able to, at least during a Biden or Democratic administration, "keep the benefits of the agreement, as long as its own nuclear commitments are fulfilled."

In parallel to Washington taking those steps, Iran should freeze its nuclear program to give time and room for verification, he added.

(Web editor: Peng Yukai, Liang Jun)
Four employees of a Northampton County business have been charged with stealing copper and selling it for $39,000 at two salvage yards, according to Slate Belt Regional police.

Christopher Alan Kieffer was the last to be taken into custody, at 11 p.m. Saturday, police said. Brent T. Schantz, Jonathan R. Schantz and Jonathan R. Redmond were taken into custody Tuesday and charged with stealing the copper from Advantage Electrical Services in Plainfield Township.

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Police began investigating Dec. 30 after the owner of Advantage Electrical Services filed a theft complaint. Police said that between June and November, the four employees scrapped the copper at two salvage yards, receiving over $39,000.

Brent Schantz, Jonathan Schantz and Redmond were arraigned and released on unsecured bail. Kieffer was arraigned Saturday night. All four face charges of theft of secondary metal and conspiracy to commit theft of secondary metal.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 16)  The leader of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has reminded voters to choose the countrys next leaders wisely.

During a forum of the Brotherhood of Christian Businessmen and Professionals (BCBP) on Saturday, Bishop Pablo Virgilio David, CBCP president, said it is important to review the profile of candidates, their real intentions, and accomplishments as disinformation campaigns on social media proliferate.

He advised Filipinos to verify all information they received.

"It is our moral obligation to verify when accusations are made against people... The incongruence between thought, speech, and action. This is what often turns our word into a lie or a falsehood... In the mainstream media we have professional journalists who can immediately react to narratives on the basis of basic criteria of accuracy, truthfulness, factuality. Well, the same is not the case anymore in social media," he said.

David also reminded voters that discerning people know what is right from wrong.

"Hindi paninira ang pagsasabi ng totoo tungkol sa mga nangyaring pang-aabuso noong nakaraan. Ang tawag po dito ay pagtutuwid. Pagtutuwid sa kaalaman sa kasaysayan. Kailangang lumingon ng tama sa pinanggalingan," he said.

[Translation: Telling the truth about the abuses committed in the past is not slander. This is called rectification. Rectification of historical knowledge. We need to look back the past in the right way.]

The BCBP has launched the Be Honest campaign to guide voters in choosing the candidates to vote in the coming elections.

The CBCP and the BCBP voters to pray for the upcoming elections and to select honest candidates who will truly serve and lead the country.

"Authentic positive change start with honesty and honesty starts with you and me," said Jayvee de la Fuente, team lead for the campaign.

"The call now is to make a decision, BCBP board chairman Cesar Altarejos said. Are we brave to choose honesty as our own advocacy?"
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 16)  Senator Leila de Lima has filed a resolution seeking a probe into the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) decision last month to lift the four-year-old ban on open pit mining.

In the proposed resolution, a copy of which was released to the media on Sunday, De Lima urged the Senate to assess the DENRs move, which she described as possibly catastrophic to the environment and to human life.

There is a need to conduct a thorough review of this policy decision as this can potentially open up the country once more to irresponsible mining practices which could further compromise the environment and pose health and safety risks to people and their communities, the senator said.

Last Dec. 23, DENR Secretary Roy Cimatu signed an administrative order allowing open pit mining for copper, gold, silver, and complex ores in the country. The department said this will help reinvigorate the mining industry and provide employment opportunities in rural areas amid the coronavirus pandemic.

But De Lima said the government must explore other ways to generate wealth, as she noted that the mining technique has caused a number of serious accidents in the country.

She recalled the Marcopper mining disaster in Marinduque in 1996, where the discharge of toxic mine waste from a fracture in the pit's drainage tunnel led to the contamination of the Boac River and flash floods that displaced over 4,000 people.

To this day, the municipalities of Boac and Mogpog are still reeling from the environmental damage caused by the incident. De Lima added there had been at least five more mining disasters that followed, showing the country has yet to figure out how to consistently extract mineral resources in a safe and efficient manner.

When gains and risks are placed on a scale, the State must always err on the side of caution, she also said.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 16)  The "no vaccine, no ride" rule, which bars unvaccinated passengers from using public transportation, will help urge more individuals to get inoculated, a transport group said.

Pasang Masda made the statement Sunday as it expressed support for the policy widely opposed by commuters and other transport groups.

"Ito'y isa sigurong pang-hikayat sa mga hindi pa bakunado na magpabakuna na sapagkat ito'y ligtas... Hindi ka makapanghahawa sa kapwa mo pasahero, at higit sa lahat, sa mga drayber," Pasang Masda president Obet Martin told CNN Philippines' Newsroom Weekend.

[Translation: This is one way to encourage unvaccinated people to get their COVID-19 shots because vaccines are safe. They will help prevent transmission between passengers, and most especially, drivers.]

"Nagkausap kami ni Asec. Steve [Pastor] ng DOTr (Department of Transportation) and Sec. [Arthur] Tugade, at sinabi ko, susuportahan namin ng Pasang Masda ito. Kung maganda ang polisiya at ikagaganda at ikabubuti ng mamamayan, ako'y sumusuporta rito," he said.

[Translation: I told DOTr Asec. Steve and Sec. Tugade that we, in Pasang Masda, will support this. If it is a good policy and it is for the good of our people, I will support it.]

The DOTr on Wednesday said public transport via land, rail, sea, and air will be limited to fully vaccinated individuals amid the rising COVID-19 cases in Metro Manila.

The rule will be enforced starting Monday, Jan. 17, and will remain in effect unless the capital region shifts to a lower alert level.

Earlier, the Metro Manila Council approved a resolution imposing restrictions on the movement of unvaccinated residents.

Both policies have garnered mixed reactions from the public, along with some experts and lawmakers, mostly for being discriminatory and against the law.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 16)  The Philippines expressed its condemnation over the four-year jail term handed to Myanmars ousted civilian leader Aung Sang Suu Kyi by a military court last Jan. 10.

"The military regime is using the judicial system to silence political opponents and crush the National League for Democracy," said Foreign Affairs Secretary Teddy Boy Locsin, Jr. in a statement published on Sunday.

Suu Kyi, who served as a state counsellor and the country's de facto leader until a military coup toppled her and other democratically elected leaders in February last year, was found guilty of multiple charges, including possession of unlicensed walkie-talkies and violating the communications law.

The 76-year-old Burmese leader was previously sentenced to a two-year prison term last Dec. 7 by another junta court for incitement and violating the Disaster Management Law.

Locsin urged Myanmar's military leaders to release all of their political prisoners, uphold democratic institutions and processes, and "fully" respect human rights and the rule of law.

"We also call on the military leadership to participate in an inclusive dialogue and resume the democratic transition process," he said.

Locsin added that the country is worried about the worsening situation of Myanmar's civilians, nearly a year since the military takeover of their government.

The country's top diplomat said he will consult with his Southeast Asian counterparts in pushing for dialogues to ease the dire state of the Burmese people.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 16)  Despite the surging COVID-19 infections in the country, devotees of the Sto. Nino still found ways to celebrate their patrons feast.

In Manila, the Tondo Church encouraged devotees to attend online masses, as Mayor Isko Moreno prohibited all physical activities related to the feast. Still, there were those who passed by the church to offer their prayers.

"Sana matapos na itong pandemic na ito para lahat tayo makagalaw na para matapos na problema ng buong mundo," Edwin Perez, devotee of Sto Nino de Tondo said.

[Translation: I pray that this pandemic will end soon, so we can start moving and end this global problem.]

In Cebu, the colorful, lively, and grand Sinulog festival was cancelled again this year due to rising cases in the province. Even so, Louie Nacorda was able to complete the nine-day holy masses online, and prayed for each of his collection of images.

"Faith is still there. Naku, kapag nakita mo yung mga tao rito maluluha ka dahil sa tibay ng pananampalataya nila. We, Cebuanos strengthen each other by faith, eh," he said.

[Translation: Faith is still there. You will get teary-eyed when you witness the strong faith of the people. We, Cebuanos strengthen each other by faith.]

Nacorda has more than 50 different images of the Sto. Nino and more than a hundred other patron saints in his collection.

In Aklan, the Pilgrims Mass for the Kalibo Sto. Nino Ati-atihan festival this year went on as scheduled, amid the rapid increase of COVID-19 cases in the province.

The Kalibo festival, considered as the mother of all Philippine festivals, is now on its 112th year.

But this year was the second time that major events like the Sadsad sa Kalye and the Ati-atihan Tribe Costume and Street Dancing Contest were cancelled.

During the Pilgrims Mass at the St. John the Baptist Cathedral Church, Kalibo Bishop Jose Corazon Tala-oc reminded devotees to strengthen their faith, especially during this time of crisis.

"This devotion is linked to the history of the Filipino people. The first religious image we received from the Spanish seminaries was the Sto. Nino. Let us strengthen our faith and devotion to Sto. Nino", Bishop Tala-oc explained.

Only a third of the capacity of the church was allowed to enter. The rest stood in markings outside and watched the mass from the two big screens installed by the local government of Kalibo.

Aklan-based correspondent Carla Doromal contributed to this report.
Nick Shipman can be reached at Nshipman87@yahoo.com or (217) 260-4812. The church of Christ

Downtown, 149 N. Vermilion St. is open for services Sundays @ 10:30 a.m.; Tuesdays @ 7:00 p.m. Live

Call-In Religious Broadcast Sundays and Thursdays @ 7:30 p.m. Youtube.com/c/FaithComethByHearing
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Corsicana, TX (75110)

Today

Overcast. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High near 75F. Winds N at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Low 67F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph.
In fact, massive misclassification of deaths by showing Covid deaths as non-Covid, suggest the paper, Covid mortality in India: National survey data and health facility deaths, authored 11 scholars, led by Prabhat Jha of the University of Toronto, Canada, and consisting of an Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) faculty Chinmay Tumbe.

The authors of the paper estimate that Indias actual Covid-related deaths were in the range of about 2,300 to 2,500 per million, or approximately 6- to 7-fold the officially reported rate on September 1, 2021. This would put Indias death rate per million population just below the range reported in Brazil (2800/million) or Colombia (2500/million), where registration of deaths is far more complete, the authors say, adding, The actual excess deaths in the facilities may be larger as the Government of India has yet to release these data from June 2021 onward.

Adopting a complex methodology, based on mortality reported in a nationally representative telephone survey conducted by CVoter (which the authors qualify established, independent, private polling agency, data sources from public hospitals and smaller facilities, and the Census of Indias Civil Registration System (CSR), the authors say, The majority of Covid deaths India experienced throughout the pandemic occurred from April 1 to July 1, 2021 (2.7 million).



Covid-related deaths across States

In fact, according to them, The crude death rate  more than doubled in 2021 compared to 2019 Much of this excess occurred in April-May 2021 (0.45 million or 71%), reaching a 120% increase over earlier year totals. The increase in deaths in the first viral wave was predominantly urban, but deaths in the second wave affected both urban and rural facilities.



Indias death rate per million was just below the range reported in Brazil (2800/million) or Colombia (2500/million)

The authors continue, compared to 2018-19 totals, the increase in all-cause deaths in April-May 2021 varied across states, with Gujarat reporting a 230% increase  the highest among ten States for which data were available and analysed  and Kerala the lowest, having a 37% increase. They add, Total excess all-cause deaths were 1.25 million for the ten States that reported about half of national official Covid deaths.

Underlining that the actual excess deaths in the facilities may be larger as the Government of India has yet to release these data from June 2021 onward, the authors say, Both the 2020 and 2021 viral waves were characterized by widespread (and, for 2021, mostly uncontrolled) multigenerational transmission of the virus within households, with high levels of antibodies detected.

The authors state, Indias significantly higher Covid death rate in 2021 compared to the lower than expected death rate in 2020 requires further research. The spread of infection to rural areas in 2021 is one factor, but there might also be differences in the pathogenicity between the original virus (Wuhan) in 2020 and the mix of alpha and delta variants accounting for most of the 2021 viral wave.

They add, Similarly, tracking death rates will be essential to understanding the effects of the Omicron wave currently underway in India, or future viral variants.

There is now well-researched proof, if it can be called that, indicating that the Government of India may have fudged data to show lower Covid death rate. A new paper, published in Science, has said that while officially the Government of Indias Covid-related death estimates as of January 1, 2022  345 per million population  are one-seventh of the US death rate, the actual analysis of crude death rate in India suggests, this may be a gross underestimation.
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One can imagine why Kerzner believed Conan and head writer Robert Smigel created a character to poop on Ed the Sock.

Or did they? Smigel, for his part, denied ripping off the character in a Reddit AMA. I like Ed the Sock, but theres no connection. Never saw him until I heard people saying we had stolen from him, he claims. I thought of Triumph independently  out of a bit I started on the show in 1994.

Given Kerzners multiple conversations with Conans team, is it possible Smigel came up with Triumph on his own? Well, allows Kerzner, Ive watched shows about amazing coincidences on the Discovery Channel, so its possible.

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(This wasnt the only time Triumph got into it with another puppet. In 1999, the Insult Comic Dog was taking shots at pets.coms sock puppet mascot for ripping off his act. Pets.com fired back with a lawsuit, one that went away when the company filed for bankruptcy. In a fit of revenge, Triumph humped the pets.com mascot on Conans show.)

Team Coco What's more disturbing  the sock violation or the parade of urinals ruining the mood?

The Conan show wasnt the last disappointment for Ed the Sock. At one point, Kerzner was in talks with Comedy Central about carrying Eds Night Party. Those talks ended when Comedy Central began developing a new show with  you guessed it, Triumph. That stung, says Kerzner. But it was years ago.

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Fortunately, Ed the Sock has persevered as a Canadian comedy icon. He continues to hurl comic insults at his fellow countrymen, including debates with high-ranking members of the Conservative Party leading up to Canadas 2019 federal election. According to Kerzner, higher-ups in the Justin Trudeau team say Eds influence helped win the election.

As for Eds Night Party, the show did make it to America, running for a few seasons on G4.

And today, Ed is the face of newmusicnation.ca, an online music channel featuring independent artists. So  no hard feelings?

Ed has achieved so much success and forged such a bond with Canadians that I dont carry any ill-will toward Smigel or Triumph, says Kerzner. S**t happens.

Top Image: Muchmusic, NBCUniversal
The decision to progress the design and construction of a second Sydney airport after decades of negotiations offers the rare chance to build a major aviation hub from the ground up  but with foreign operatives already sniffing around, construction of a robust cybersecurity defence is proving to be as important as the pouring of concrete.

Potential security threats to Australian airports were among the incidents cited by Australian Security Intelligence Organisation director-general Mike Burgess late last year, who noted in his last annual threat assessment that the organisation had focused on a nest of spies, from a particular foreign intelligence service, that was operating in Australia and requested information about airport security protocols at a major airport.

Those spies  who were not from the Asia-Pacific region, Burgess took care to note  were quietly and professionally removed from the country, as have been others discovered and investigated by ASIO.

Although their threats were neutralised, their success in infiltrating Australias political machinery  building relationships with current and former politicians, a foreign embassy and a state policy service, among others  highlights the ever more adversarial climate into which the $5.3b Western Sydney International (Nancy-Bird Walton) Airport will open in 2026.

The threat of cyberattacks on the airport is far more than theoretical. In 2020, San Francisco International Airport was targeted by hackers that have been linked to the Russian government, with other attacks documented and a widely-cited European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) report noting that aviation systems are targeted on average 1000 times per month.

EASA formed a dedicated cybersecurity industry group in 2019 to foster discussion and remediation of cybersecurity risks  an approach that reflects the growing need to protect airports and aviation-related systems from cybercriminal attack.

ASIOs latest annual report flagged an enduring threat to Australia from espionage and foreign interference, warning that while increasing operational initiatives have made the operating environment more difficult for our adversaries, they have adapted their methods without changing their intent.

Cyberespionage remains the most pervasive approach adopted by our adversaries, the intelligence agency warned. It is highly effective and deniable, and can be executed remotely. Robust cybersecurity remains critically important in defending Australia from threats to security in the digital age.

Putting cyber at the core

Shaping that defence has been a critical part of planning for the myriad subcontractors involved in the project, who had spent more than three years planning its layout, infrastructure, security, and other elements before the terminals groundbreaking last November.

Cybersecurity is one of four core elements of security design and integration  the others being business requirements, human safety, and physical security  that will guide the construction and operation of the world-class airport and its supporting systems, noted Maksym Szewczuk, safety and security design manager with project delivery partner Bechtel Australia.

With the advent of security convergence, making sure that information security and cybersecurity, and unnecessary intrusion through the physical security system of cyberattacks, is addressed, he told the recent ASIAL Security Conference.

Bechtel and its partners were using a cyclical approach of continuous assessment and improvement, embedding the ISO 31000 risk management model into the design process and conducting regular risk assessments on elements of security being seamlessly integrated into architecture, technology, business operations, and security operations.

Cyber and other security elements are, Szewczuk said, being addressed in the early stages of the design cycle and assessed continuously through design and development.

Incorporating security early in the design process may increase costs in the short term, but it also enables better integration of security elements into the business requirements and business objectives, he said.

This includes extensive monitoring and use of business metrics to monitor operational security, using the security system as a data collection system that, he said, provides greater synergy between safety and security [and] making sure that the [workplace safety] function and security function are well aligned in the treatment of safety and security risks as a combined exercise.

Implementing security by design requires forethought, planning for flexibility and future technologies, he said, along with the use of intelligence and evidence-based risk management.

Its about making sure that the risks that are being treated are based on incidents and evidence  trying to be as proactive as possible, rather than being emotive and reactive.

Countering the infrastructure threat

Even as Bechtel manages the top-down view of security across its many layers, technology service provider DXC Technology will be more directly involved in the cybersecurity architecture at Western Sydney Airport.

Having been recently chosen as master systems integrator for the project, DXC and partner Chavali Consulting will plan and deliver integration, cybersecurity, and hosting platforms to unify more than 60 operational systems.

Building a greenfield airport from the ground up is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that will allow us to bring the latest innovation to the airport and apply technologies that are emerging, DXC Asia-Pacific president Seelan Nayagam said in announcing the firms plans to support the airport with state-of-the-art technology and forward-thinking principles.

Given the strategic importance of the new airport as a conduit for passengers  5 million per year upon its opening and 82 million by 2063  those principles will dovetail with the governments increasing focus on protecting critical infrastructure.

With Australia already strengthening its Asia-Pacific position and its AUKUS partnership attracting increased scrutiny from other nation-states, robust cybersecurity will be critical to ensure the airport fulfils expectations and maintains the resiliency it needs.

Hardening is presented within infrastructure, but its integrated and seamless, said Bechtels Szewczuk, who highlighted the move away from a fortress type environment to creating indiscernible layers of security.

That included putting vast amounts of computing power and smarts behind cameras and access control, and AI put to use in a sensible way that treats risk and responds well but diverts human attention to where it needs to be.

Overall security layers of presence are not felt to authorised users, he said, and security features will blend seamlessly with the environment  making the resulting infrastructure secure but inviting to use and to visit.
Were just about at the peak of the COVID omicron variant this week and that means mask-wearing also seems about as high as its been since the early days of the pandemic.

How high? I took a tour of six large stores Thursday and counted masks  a half-hour at each one. The results surprised me. I figured wed see at most two-thirds of people wearing masks, especially since few cities and towns have a mandate in place for indoor places and the governor has declined to restart the statewide mask rule.

In all, I hit five supermarkets and one large discount department store, in six different cities and towns. I counted a grand total of 496 customers, not employees, as they left the checkout lines and headed for the exits.

The result: 400 of the 496, or 81 percent, not only had a mask on, but had it covering their mouth and nose. Another 73, or 15 percent, had no mask at all, and the rest, 23 people, wore a mask that didnt cover their nose. One person had an N95 mask not covering his nose; go figure.

Eighty-one percent is a hefty number and it seems to back up Gov. Ned Lamonts contention, which he repeats often, that people are doing the right thing on their own.

Would the totals be higher if we did have a statewide rule? Two of the cities, New Haven and Norwalk, have a mandate in place. That appears to drive their face-covering numbers upward.

This is not a scientific poll, its just six slices in time. But I conducted a careful count. I tried hard to capture every single person checking out at every location, continuously for 30 minutes  not easy at a busy store with people leaving in two directions. Take these results as a general guide rather than a town-by-town comparison.

The store-by-store tour

Whos not wearing masks? It varied. Four of the five maskless people I counted at the Whole Foods in Milford were middle-aged women.

In Stratford, at a large chain supermarket that Im not naming because I didnt check in with management, there were 21 maskless customers checking out between 5:15 p.m. and 5:45 p.m. Oddly, or maybe not oddly, well over half were young men with beards.

One young woman at the Stratford store was horrified that I caught her without a mask. I approached her because she was with someone who did have a mask on, who turned out to be her sister.

I wear it everywhere I go and I change it every day, said Nicole Resto, a school bus driver who lives in Bridgeport.

But she and her sister, Natahsha Resto, had just come from the gym and ran into the supermarket for just one item, some meat for dinner. By the time she noticed she wasnt protected, Nicole was entering the store and she figured shed just run in and out.

Shes fully vaccinated; her sister, who wore a black medical mask, has not been vaccinated but will get the first shot soon.

I walked in there, I felt really uncomfortable, Nicole said  all the more since she just got over a relatively minor case of COVID-19 around Christmas time. That was her second bout with the illness. The first was much worse, in April of 2020 at the start of the pandemic.

The lesson: Its hard to draw conclusions about anything coronavirus, masks included. Still, we do see patterns and one of them was evident at the Seymour store in the heart of the Naugatuck Valley  an area with more blue-collar, conservative residents and more opposition to restrictions.

In all other stores I visited, the totals of mask-wearing ranged from 79 percent to 95 percent. Seymour had just 25 percent  and I might add that most of the workers were unmasked as well.

Perhaps it was skewed by the late hour and the fact that customers at 9 p.m., when I arrived, were young. With just 32 people in the store in the half-hour, aisles were sparse and distancing easier. Unlike at the other stores, I didnt see a sign at the door in Seymour asking customers to don a face-covering.

The Norwalk store had a large sign out front: Shoppers must wear a cloth face covering or face mask whle inside the store. The result: In my 8 p.m. visit, also a quiet time with just 42 customers, all but two wore a mask.

The Milford Whole Foods supermarket clocked in with 93 percent compliance. Im naming it because management asked what I was doing and agreed but asked me to stand outside the door, . There, a smaller sign read, CDC guidance currently recommends that vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals wear masks while indoors.

The Stratford store, the busiest that I visited, had the largest number of non-mask-wearers, typically in the self-checkout area. Though theyre not part of the count, I noticed at least two staff members were not masked.

The New Haven store, in a neighborhood outside of downtown on a busy boulevard, had just five non-wearers but 10 whose masks didnt cover their noses, pushing down the total there to 84 percent masked.

A shared sense of responsibility

At least one woman had two masks on; should I count her twice?

No, said Gene Sheehan, a public relations consultant whose call I returned during the New Haven count as I stood by the door. But he said, Thats proper-plus.

Sheehan has observed mask-wearing closely and said it has skyrocketed in just the last week or ten days, since the omicron variant has pushed the positive test rate over 20 percent in Connecticut and hospitalizations have hot near-record highs.

There is a shared sense of responsibility, Sheehan said, adding that the less-effective cloth masks have given way to more N95 and medical masks.

Throughout six hours of close monitoring, I didnt see a single interaction about masks, though I could easily have missed it.

If were were being scientific about this, wed have to consider all sorts of variables and control the study to isolate for how each of them affected mask wearing. The list is long: City or town, time of day, type of mask, type of store, crowd size in the store, rules that are or arent in place, enforcement of the rules and the age of customers.

Age was clearly a factor in the large discount store that I targeted in North Haven. It was early afternoon with many retired customers. The store made an announcement while I was there, masks are strongly recommended for guests who are not fully vaccinated, and for others as well, the loudspeaker message said.

dhaar@hearstmediact.com
NEW MILFORD  The buses are late. Or they only run one way. Or they dont come at all.

This school year, New Milford has been plagued by bus staffing shortages through their contracted transportation company, All-Star Transportation, that have caused continuous route and schedule changes. Sometimes, these adjustments occur with little forewarning  a driver cannot work one day, and communications have to be sent out to parents to let them know that morning or afternoon routes are canceled or adjusted.

This is likely to continue through the rest of the year, according Superintendent Alisha DiCorpo. To combat the ongoing issues, the company and district are trying to implement changes to alert parents sooner and add a second run schedule to get kids where they need to go.

Based on my conversations with the transportation provider, this may go on sporadically for the remainder of the year. COVID also plays a factor as it does for all businesses and school districts, DiCorpo wrote in an email to The News-Times.

On Friday, DiCorpo announced in another letter that two routes, bus 15 and bus 19, have been eliminated and students on those routes will be consolidated into other existing routes starting Tuesday.

All-Star serves districts including Newtown, Brookfield, Torrington and Ansonia. The start of the school year saw interruptions to bus routes in several districts, both in Connecticut and nationwide. Yet, New Milford seems to be one of the few school districts served by All-Star that continues to struggle with weekly, if not daily, interruptions to service.

Newtown Superintendent Lorrie Rodrigue said after initial struggles at the start of the year, her district is in a good place currently and have not had many of those same issues in recent weeks.

Similarly, in Brookfield, Superintendent John Barile said there have been no route issues or staffing effects to the point that routes have been canceled.

DiCorpo said New Milfords continued struggles were due to illness and driver shortages.

The company has not responded to The News-Times since September when a reporter first reached out for comment.

The New Milford school district recognizes the disruption and challenges to all of our students and families in New Milford, said Board of Education Chairwoman Wendy Faulenbach. This matter has been taken seriously and will continue to be, by working collaboratively with the bus company, the board, and the town.

According to its website, the company has had a terminal in New Milford since 2004 and transports 4,500 children daily during the school year. This fiscal year, New Milford shelled out roughly $4.1 million to All-Star as part of its transportation contract, a 3 percent increase from the year before. This is the districts fourth year of a five-year contract.

Faulenbach said any service interruptions will always be discussed with the vendor when they occur and during contract negotiations.

We understand, All-Star understands, that theres been some servicing issues, and those discussions will take place and continue to take place, she said, but we are all working together.

She added that the first priority is making sure services are running for students.

Faulenbach said they are telling the company: whatever resources you have, both in New Milford and out of district, we need them.

Making changes

On Thursday, DiCorpo wrote to families suggesting that interruptions to certain bus routes would persist for the remainder of the year.

To address this, All-Star is creating a second run with 30- to 40-minute time frames to make sure children get to and from school if their regular buses cannot run. Second runs will not be available on days with delayed starts or early dismissals.

In the mornings, buses going to Schaghticoke Middle School and New Milford High will pick up between 8:45 a.m. and 9:15 a.m., while other schools will run between 9:50 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. In the afternoon, kids at Schaghticoke and the high school will be picked up between 3:45 p.m. and 4 p.m., and other students between 4:30p.m. and 4:45 p.m.

The new second run routes will begin Tuesday.

While we realize that this is not ideal, we are doing everything to try to get children to and from school, DiCorpo wrote. We are grateful to All-Star for helping us to realize this strategy and for the bus drivers who are taking on the responsibility of the additional routes.

She said the district would be working to support families beyond these second runs.

The district has started updating its transportation page with altered bus route announcements, including a pop-up on the sites landing page alerting parents to visit the transportation page to check for updates.

DiCorpo said the district is in communication with All-Star three times a day, and would be updating the transportation page three times a day as well, to let parents know if morning, afternoon, or the next days bus routes would be interrupted.

We will update these daily as needed at 5:30 a.m. for morning bus runs, 11:00 a.m. for afternoon bus runs, and then again at 7:30 p.m. for any new changes for the next day, DiCorpo wrote.

Online, district parents frequently update each other on the status of certain buses, sharing information and emails to let others know which buses will be delayed or canceled for the day. Some say they dont always get the notifications from the school.

All-Star has been working to fill staffing shortages for several months. A job posting from June says that anyone 21 and older with three years of driving experience can apply. The job pays $17.77 per hour.

Mayor Pete Bass has not been involved in any of the busing conversations at the school level, but he has been staying in touch with the schools to support them.

Its quite a challenge, he said. Were here to support in whatever way the Board of Education and the superintendent need us to be, Bass said.

With the improved communication methods we've worked with All-Star to implement as well as the strategies we will employ between now and June, I believe things have already begun to improve and will continue to do so, DiCorpo wrote.
SUVA, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Fiji has reported nine new COVID-19 deaths in recent days, bringing the total number of COVID-19 deaths recorded in the island nation since confirmation of the third wave to 33.

According to a press release issued by Fiji's Health Ministry on Sunday, four of the deceased were not vaccinated, while the rest of them were fully vaccinated. All these individuals were over the age of 60, with the majority having pre-existing medical conditions.

Fiji's Permanent Secretary for Health James Fong said that the death rates indicate an upward trend in Fiji, which has recorded a total of 730 deaths of COVID-19 since it reported its first confirmed COVID-19 cases in March 2020.

Since the last update on Wednesday, Fiji has reported a total of 733 new cases, according to Fong.

Fiji now reported a total of 59,418 COVID-19 cases since March 2020, of which, 6,520 cases have been recorded in the third wave which started from the beginning of this year.

According to the permanent secretary, Fiji's national 7-day average daily test positivity is 34 percent, which is above the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation of five percent. The high positivity rate is an indication of wider spread community transmission in Fiji.

Currently, 92.5 percent of the target population in Fiji are now fully vaccinated, while 97.9 percent have at least received one dose.

The country, which has a population of around 900,000, started its booster dose program in November last year with frontline health and essential service workers and was later opened to everyone aged 18 and over.

The Fijian health ministry has urged Fijians to get their booster shots to better protect themselves from COVID-19, especially the Omicron variant. 
The 2022 tax season is officially starting on Jan. 24. That's when the IRS will start accepting and processing tax returns for the 2021 tax year.

If you're expecting smooth sailing, National Taxpayer Advocate Erin M. Collins recently warned of deep concern about the upcoming filing season when she issued her annual report to Congress (tinyurl.com/3r6ztuua). The national taxpayer advocate is the head of the Taxpayer Advocate Service, an independent organization within the IRS that represents taxpayers.

Why the concern? And what can taxpayers do to avoid potential problems?

In late December 2021, the IRS said it still had a backlog of 6 million unprocessed individual returns (Forms 1040) for the year, along with more than 2 million unprocessed amended individual returns.

As many of you wrote to tell me last year, calling the IRS to find out what was going on with your tax returns proved to be frustrating. Last year, according to Collins' report, the IRS received about 282 million phone calls, with customer service representatives answering roughly 11% of them (approximately 32 million calls). Also, for those who were able to reach an IRS representative, the IRS reported that hold times averaged 23 minutes.

Given these struggles, what does a taxpayer need to know this year to hopefully get the best results?

Know the tax deadline: This year, your tax return must be filed by April 18, 2022, due to the Emancipation Day holiday on April 16 in the District of Columbia. Taxpayers in Maine and Massachusetts have an additional day (April 19) for their deadline, due to the Patriots' Day holiday April 18. (However, you may file to request an extension to Oct. 17, 2022.)

Check your mail: Those who received advance Child Tax Credit (ACTC) payments or an Economic Impact Payment (EIP) in 2021 will want to watch for letters from the IRS containing information that can help prevent delays. Letter 6419 is for the ACTC, while Letter 6475 is for the EIP. You can also check online for information about your ACTC payments (tinyurl.com/3865zf2k) and your EIP payment (tinyurl.com/43be4p3h).

How important is it to have the right numbers? Collins' report noted that the Recovery Rebate Credit (RRC), which was used to claim missing EIPs on tax returns, led the IRS to issue more than 11 million math error notices in 2021 due to discrepancies over RRC figures when compared with IRS records.

Choose electronic filing: IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig, in announcing the opening of tax filing season, said: "The pandemic continues to create challenges, but the IRS reminds people there are important steps they can take to help ensure their tax return and refund don't face processing delays. Filing electronically with direct deposit and avoiding a paper tax return is more important than ever this year."

To file electronically, you can access the IRS's Free File program as of Jan. 14. It provides online tax preparation at no charge through a public-private partnership. According to the IRS, Free File can be used by any person or family who had an adjusted gross income of $73,000 or less in 2021. (Returns using Free File before Jan. 24 will be officially "filed" on Jan. 24. More details can be found at tinyurl.com/5ysyvhkc.)

The IRS said it anticipated that most taxpayers this year "will receive their refund within 21 days of when they file electronically if they choose direct deposit and there are no issues with their tax return." More than 160 million individual tax returns for the 2021 tax year are expected to be filed, according to the IRS.

To see the problems encountered by taxpayers last year, take the time to read Collins' list of the 10 most serious problems at tinyurl.com/3s7vmyvd. The National Taxpayer Advocate 2022 Purple Book, which offers 68 legislative recommendations to "strengthen taxpayer rights and improve tax administration," is at tinyurl.com/53k3xwpj.

While IRS processing is not in your control, how you prepare your tax return is.

Julie Jason, JD, LLM, a personal money manager (Jackson, Grant of Stamford) and author, welcomes your questions/comments (readers@juliejason.com). Her awards include the 2021 Clarion Award, symbolizing excellence in clear, concise communications. Her latest book, a curated collection of Julies columns, is Retire Securely: Insights on Money Management From an Award-Winning Financial Columnist. To hear Julie speak, visit juliejason.com/events.
NORWICH  One person died Sunday in a car accident on Interstate 395 near the Canterbury Turnpike overpass in Norwich, according to fire officials.

At 7:30 a.m. Sunday, the Yantic and Occum fire departments were dispatched to the area on a report of a vehicle in the woods, according to a report on social media by Yantic Fire Engine Company 1.
The Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles rejected nearly 80 requests for vanity license plates from October 2020 to the end of September 2021. Most of the rejected plates contained some sort of profanity, according to data obtained by Hearst Connecticut Media Group.

The DMV can reject vanity license plate requests for a number of reasons, including offensive phrases, legal advice or a duplicate entry. At least 36 of the rejected plates between October 2020 and September 2021 included profane language, references or slurs. Fourteen contained just numbers. A handful attempted to substitute the letter "O" for a zero, which is against state rules.

Here are mockups of five of the plates the DMV rejected.
William Carter, 62, of Ashland, Kentucky, died Monday morning, May 2nd, at Kings Daughters Medical Center. William was born April 7, 1960 in Ashland, Kentucky, a son of Betty Lou Perry Carter of Ashland, Kentucky, and the late William Paul Carter. He was retired from the car shops at CSX. Su
ADEN, Yemen, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Saudi Arabia-led coalition intensified its aerial bombardment against the Houthi militia in various regions of Yemen on Saturday, a military official told Xinhua.

"Scores of airstrikes were launched by warplanes of the Saudi-led coalition against the Houthis in Yemeni oil-rich provinces of Shabwa and Marib during the past hours," the local military source said on condition of anonymity.

The intensified aerial bombardment largely helped the Southern Giants Brigades gain on-ground military progress and managed to capture Marib's district of Harib from the Houthis, he said.

The source noted that "the Saudi-led coalition urged the Yemeni people to avoid using or traveling through some roads as the intensified aerial bombardment campaign will continue during the upcoming hours."

"The Houthis also attempted to escape the airstrikes and resorted to using civilian vehicles in order to transfer weapons towards their military sites," he added.

Earlier on the day, the Coalition Spokesperson Brigadier General Turki Al Maliki announced that "the coalition's leadership has asked Yemeni citizens and travelers not to use roads leading from the provinces of Marib and al-Bayda to the districts of Harib, Ain, Bayhan, and Usaylan."

According to the coalition's spokesperson, "the request not to use these roads will be in effect from 3 p.m. local time on Saturday, Jan. 15 until further notice."

He clarified that the coalition's forces considered these roads as "operational areas that are watched around the clock, and any movement on these roads will be targeted."

He also requested "Yemeni residents not to stay away from these roads for their own safety."

Yemen has been mired in a civil war since the Houthi militia overran much of the country militarily and seized all northern provinces, including the capital Sanaa, in 2014.

Saudi Arabia has been leading an Arab military coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 to support the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after the Houthis forced him into exile. 
Sunbury, PA (17801)

Today

Sun and clouds mixed. Slight chance of a rain shower. High 71F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy with periods of rain. Low 53F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall near a quarter of an inch.
It's not only parties at No 10 that Boris Johnson has been misleading the country about.

Last week, the Prime Minister told the House of Commons that the Labour Party would have locked down the country over Christmas in response to the Omicron variant.

It's total rubbish.

We take it as a compliment.

The Prime Minister can't find anything to attack in Labour's common-sense approach to Covid and so he is having to make it up instead.

The truth is that, while the Labour Party supported lockdowns at earlier stages of the pandemic, our approach has changed as the threat has changed.

While the Labour Party supported lockdowns at earlier stages of the pandemic, our approach has changed as the threat has changed, Wes Streeting (pictured) said

I'm not surprised that Boris Johnson is socially distanced from the truth, but I am surprised he's taken to telling porkies about Labour's policies on Covid, given that we put party politics aside before Christmas and saved his bacon.

Without Labour, sensible Plan B measures wouldn't have happened and we wouldn't be enjoying the new year without the threat of new restrictions.

He should be thanking us.

We know that the coronavirus is here to stay but, as Labour's Shadow Health Secretary, I don't want to see our country in lockdown ever again.

A visit to a primary school in my constituency this week was a reminder that lockdowns come at a great cost.

Children spent 155 days out of school on average over the past couple of years, but the impact on their learning, their wellbeing and their life chances is immeasurable.

Entrepreneurs who have spent years building up their businesses have seen them collapse, while others have made enormous sacrifices just to survive.

Workers have lost their jobs.

All through no fault of their own.

Without Labour, Plan B measures wouldn't have happened and we wouldn't be enjoying the new year without the threat of restrictions. Boris Johnson (pictured) should be thanking us

I still haven't forgiven the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, for leaving so many self-employed people excluded from any support whatsoever, while carelessly handing billions in Covid support to fraudsters.

There is plenty of evidence that shutting us off from our colleagues, friends and family has taken its toll on our mental health and wellbeing.

Feelings of loss and loneliness are inevitable when much of what makes life worth living is taken away.

That's why when Keir Starmer spoke about shifting the focus on healthcare to prevention as well as cure yesterday, he pledged that Labour would guarantee mental health support within a month to all who need it.

We need to learn to live with Covid. We've heard that phrase a lot from Ministers recently, but without a plan this is little more than a slogan. And unless we learn from the mistakes of the past two years we are doomed to repeat them.

That's why I've announced Labour's plan for living well with Covid. It includes some of the action we want to see from Government immediately, which would help to limit the spread of infections while having a minimal impact on our lives, livelihoods and liberties.

Fitting our schools with proper air ventilation systems means they can stay open and children can continue to socialise and learn without sitting in their coats in freezing classrooms.

Paying workers a decent level of sick pay means they can afford to isolate when they test positive for Covid and are less likely to spread the virus to their colleagues.

We've got to build our own national resilience and capacity for testing and vaccination.

It means we're not reliant on other countries and can stand on our own two feet and give a boost to British manufacturing.

When Keir Starmer (pictured) spoke about shifting the focus on healthcare to prevention as well as cure, he pledged that Labour would guarantee mental health support within a month

We cannot allow a repeat of the shortages of tests we've seen over the past month. It was extraordinarily complacent of the Government to go into this winter not knowing that their testing delivery service was taking Christmas off.

We'll also retain a standing volunteer army to help roll out future vaccines to keep the pressure off NHS staff.

Our best defence against new variants is to play our part in vaccinating the world. None of us are safe until all of us are safe. It is not just the right thing to do, it is also in our national self-interest.

Most importantly, we need a plan to make sure we never again enter a pandemic with a health and social care system lacking the staff, capacity and resilience to cope.

The NHS went into the pandemic with 4.5million people waiting for treatment, then a record high. We had a social-care system that had seen 8 billion of cuts, with elderly and disabled people denied the security they deserve.

It's not just that the Conservatives didn't fix the roof when the sun was shining, they dismantled the roof and removed the floorboards.

Now they are too distracted by boozy parties in Downing Street to take us forward.

Learning to live well with Covid will prepare us to get through the next wave of infections without more restrictions on our lives, livelihoods and liberties.

Wes Streeting is the MP for Ilford North. He became Labour's health spokesman in November.
Head bowed, voice sombre, Boris pleaded for forgiveness, and for time. 'I have learned enough to know there were things that we simply did not get right,' he told the Commons last Wednesday, before adding: 'All I ask is that Sue Gray be allowed to complete her inquiry into that day and several others, so that the full facts can be established.'

But there is no need to wait for Sue Gray. The facts have already been established, and they are clear. Despite a ban on social gatherings, on May 20, 2020, Downing Street threw a party.

'It would be nice to make the most of this lovely weather,' the invitation from No 10 principal private secretary Martin Reynolds opined, before exhorting the 100 invitees to 'bring your own booze!'

And so about 40 of them did. The Prime Minister was there, as was his wife Carrie Symonds, who sipped a gin. They mingled for 25 minutes. 'I believed implicitly that this was a work event,' Boris claimed.

There is no need to wait for Sue Gray. The facts have already been established, and they are clear. Despite a ban on social gatherings, on May 20, 2020, Downing Street threw a party

It's possible. Maybe he failed to spot the trestle tables loaded with food and alcohol. At the point Reynolds was apprised of the political dangers posed by the gathering  'he was rushing around in that languid, floppy-haired way he does saying, 'Oh gosh, do you really think this is a problem?' ' one No 10 official told me  perhaps he failed to pass on the warning.

When a senior aide directly questioned the wisdom of attending a bash being held 55 minutes after Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden had ordered the country  from that very building  to 'limit contact with other people', he might conceivably have misheard or misunderstood.

But it doesn't matter. Boris knew what the rules were, because they were his rules. Boris knew he was supposed to be avoiding unnecessary contact  both at work and socially  because he'd spent the year repeatedly instructing all the rest of us to do exactly that.

But there's another fact that has to be faced. Whatever anger the country feels towards its Prime Minister, this morning that Prime Minister is facing a coup. A meticulously planned, brilliantly prosecuted putsch at the hands of his former adviser and now arch-nemesis Dom Cummings

And Boris knows  because he admitted and apologised for it on Wednesday  that he broke those rules. However benign or damning Sue Gray's verdict is, nothing can now alter that reality.

But there's another fact that has to be faced. Whatever anger the country feels towards its Prime Minister, this morning that Prime Minister is facing a coup. A meticulously planned, brilliantly prosecuted putsch at the hands of his former adviser and now arch-nemesis Dom Cummings.

Cummings, to his credit, has made no secret of his strategy. His campaign is being conducted in plain sight, via his own public blog. His ambition  to drive the democratically elected head of Her Majesty's Government from office  is one he's frequently expressed ever since leaving Downing Street himself in November 2020.

And the fact he is hoping to install current Chancellor Rishi Sunak in the Prime Minister's place is an open secret in Westminster.

'Dom wants revenge,' an ally of his told me, 'and you can see it in how this is playing out. It's just one blow after another. He used to say, 'When they're down, you have to keep hitting them.' And that's what he's doing to Boris.'

While revenge is obviously a part of his motivation, it doesn't represent the whole picture. It's clear Cummings genuinely believes Boris is squandering the opportunities provided by his Brexit and General Election triumphs, a fear shared widely among many Tory Ministers and MPs.

He has also correctly raised concern at the influence Carrie Johnson wields over the Government. But there is another key reason why Dom thinks the man elected by the British people in the mini-landslide of 2019 should no longer be running the country. He believes he should be running it himself.

Again, he's made no secret of this. The most telling moment from his famous evidence session to the Health and Science Select Committee was when he revealed he had sat Boris down and told him, 'This building is chaos but you're more frightened of me having the power to stop the chaos than you are of the chaos.'

It's Cummings's hunger for power that is framing the current crisis. It's what lies behind the blog that revealed the party of the 20th. It's what lies behind the leaks and steers about other parties and Covid indiscretions. It's what has so brutally but effectively brought Boris to his knees.

And to many people that's an irrelevance. Including many Conservative Members of Parliament. 'I don't care why Cummings is doing this,' one told me. 'He's exposed what's going on. If a murderer goes to the police and gives evidence on a serial killer, you bang the serial killer up. It doesn't matter where you got the evidence from.'

If Boris is ousted by his party, that will represent the third defenestration of an elected Tory Prime Minister within five years. At which point the voters will say: 'These guys don't think they need us. Their attitude is it's their job to choose who governs us, and it's just ours to rubber-stamp it'

Another said to me: 'I can see what Cummings is doing, but we're beyond that now. We need to act, and we need to act fast. There are already 40 names in [MPs who have submitted letters of no-confidence in the PM to the 1922 Committee]. And we have to get on with it. At the moment it's Boris in crisis. But if we wait, it'll be the entire Conservative Party in crisis.'

Which is fair, but overlooks a number of important truths. The first of which is a simple principle. Five years ago a referendum was held, one in which the British people decided to take charge of their own destiny. Two years ago those same people elected Boris as their Prime Minister, with an overwhelming mandate. On both occasions they were promised it would lead to them taking back control. Not handing Dom Cummings control.

Then there is the politics. If Boris is ousted by his party, that will represent the third defenestration of an elected Tory Prime Minister within five years. At which point the voters will say: 'These guys don't think they need us. Their attitude is it's their job to choose who governs us, and it's just ours to rubber-stamp it.' And the reason they'll say that is because it will be true.

And then there is the final issue. Which is if Dom Cummings brings Boris down now, then that will not be the end of the bloodletting, but the beginning. Cummings will be seen as the evil genius who won the Brexit referendum. He will be seen as the puppet-master who successfully delivered Boris a majority government.

And he will be seen  rightly  as the malicious Machiavelli who casually cast the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom into political oblivion when he had outlived his usefulness.

Does anyone think that at the moment  the point at which he so manifestly wields the ultimate power he has craved for so long  Cummings will just shrug and walk away? Do people honestly think he will sit on his hands through the upcoming Tory leadership election?

That he won't deploy his talents in support of his favourite Rishi Sunak? And if they are deployed successfully, and Sunak then disappoints him as Boris did, that he won't eventually turn on him in the same merciless way?

On May 5 the country goes to the polls in the local elections. And that is the moment Boris should face his reckoning. Perhaps he can turn opinion.

Maybe people will see his management of the Covid pandemic in the round. By then he might have found a solution to the cost-of-living crisis. Or stopped the people-smugglers in their tracks.

Or perhaps he won't. The collapse of support currently revealed in the polls  especially in Red Wall seats  may have turned to an unstoppable flood. The nation's anger at the spectacle of Downing Street partying as the Queen and her people mourned may not have abated.

But either way, it's for the people to deliver the final verdict on Boris and the events of the past week. Not a faceless civil servant. Not an embittered former adviser. Not quivering Tory MPs.

There can be no Cummings Coup. If it's to happen, it needs to be the voters  and the voters alone  who tell Boris the party is finally over.
Angry articles will appear in Auntie's favourite organ, the Guardian. There will be disparaging pieces about the Culture Secretary, Nadine Dorries, who will be dismissed as a populist and philistine who writes rotten novels

There will be howls of outrage at the news that the BBC's 159 annual licence fee will be frozen for two years, and got rid of altogether from 2027 in favour of an alternative funding arrangement.

Angry articles will appear in Auntie's favourite organ, the Guardian. There will be disparaging pieces about the Culture Secretary, Nadine Dorries, who will be dismissed as a populist and philistine who writes rotten novels.

Over innumerable sophisticated dinner tables, the Tories will be rubbished as wicked iconoclasts bent on destroying a precious national institution. Boris Johnson  if he is still in No 10  will have more buckets of ordure poured over him in the Commons and elsewhere.

In short, the mother of all fights lies ahead, and the Government will need to keep its nerve if it is going to see through a revolution in the way our main public service broadcaster is financed and operates.

But in fact what is planned is long overdue, and almost certainly carries the support of most British people, if recent opinion polls are anything to go by.

The television licence fee, which was first payable in 1946 when the BBC was a monopoly with no competitors on the horizon, no longer enjoys majority public support for two interconnected reasons.

It makes no sense in a world where hundreds of alternative channels are available, and many, if not most, young people don't watch television. And the licence fee can't be justified as a universal poll tax if millions feel culturally and politically alienated from the Beeb.

I certainly treasure parts of the BBC. But it seems to me morally wrong and politically indefensible to force those who watch other channels to contribute towards the Corporation's entire output.

They may prefer Sky or BT Sport or ITV or dozens of other channels in the belief that these networks provide superior coverage to the Beeb. They may be drawn to live programmes on Amazon Prime or YouTube, for which a licence fee is required (it isn't for watching Netflix because it is streamed).

In short, the mother of all fights lies ahead, and the Government will need to keep its nerve if it is going to see through a revolution in the way our main public service broadcaster is financed and operates

Or they may regard the BBC's news coverage as being so politically parti pris that they can't bear it. According to one poll last year, 42 per cent of respondents believe that Auntie is sometimes biased.

If you think that other channels provide superior coverage, or abjure the BBC because its political preconceptions annoy you, why should you be compelled to pay an annual levy of 159 to a broadcaster you neither like nor respect, and seldom, if ever, utilise?

The BBC can hardly deny that other channels offer better sports, arts and drama coverage. In trying to justify itself, it clings to the myth that, in contrast to other broadcasters, it is scrupulously impartial in its presentation of news.

The trouble is that millions of people disagree. During the 2016 Referendum campaign, Auntie did her best to play with a straight bat, but in the convulsive years that followed she gave up any pretence of neutrality.

The BBC is institutionally anti-Tory and increasingly culturally woke. I recently spent a miserable week glued to Radio 4's flagship Today programme with a notebook nearby and a pen at the ready.

On the pandemic and the alleged state of the NHS, which was said to be coming apart at the seams, Today pursued a resolutely anti-Government line. The day after a jury let off four protesters who had toppled the statue of the slaver Edward Colston into a river, the programme chose to interview just one person, who naturally supported them.

The perception of bias is not a delusion of those on the Right. It is what many believe, and there is no point in the BBC simply repeating that they are mistaken. Why should people be made to subsidise a broadcaster they would rather avoid?

Needless to say, the Corporation's management misses the point. The PM's chief of staff, Dan Rosenfield, recently met BBC director general Tim Davie. Mr Davie asked him why the Government conflated discussions about bias with those about the licence fee, claiming they were 'completely separate' issues.

But they're not. They are related. Lots of people  more, I would guess, than 20 years ago  feel estranged from an institution which was once truly national but now, at any rate in its news coverage, seems often to reflect the prejudices of a Leftist metropolitan elite.

I don't of course deny that there are millions of people who embrace this offering, and don't think the Beeb biased. That's absolutely fine. The Corporation will continue to exist for those who admire its programming  and are happy to pay for it. Meanwhile other voices should be encouraged.

In other words, the BBC must compete in the market of ideas like all other media organisations, and no longer depend on receiving a massive cheque each year from people forced to sign it. A subscription service is probably the best route.

Would it survive? I'm sure it would. In fact, I believe it could thrive. It is a famous brand, and cherished by many. Moreover, it has a huge store of expertise among its staff, though doubtless there is overmanning.

Other media companies have built up enormous numbers of paying subscribers from a standing start. Why can't the BBC, which has been around for a hundred years and should have learnt a thing or two, do just as well?

It would discover that, on its own in the market, it wouldn't need  and could not afford  a Byzantine management structure of layers of stratospherically-paid executives.

Auntie would soon find she could get along fine without a Group Director of Strategy and Performance (pay 240,000 a year).

She might even struggle on without a Director of Creative Diversity (salary 267,000) or a Chief Content Officer (annual emolument 438,000).

What a culling of absurdly overpaid and superfluous executives there could be as a slimmer and revivified BBC was obliged to make its way in the real world in which most of us work and live!

Even more important, if there is no licence fee the BBC won't be tied to the Government's financial apron strings. It must be a blow to the Corporation to be told by Mrs Dorries that its main source of income will be frozen for two years, though it is a boon to those who pay the fee.

No one tells Sky, Amazon or Netflix what to charge its subscribers. ITV has to compete in the advertising market for its income. How liberating it would be for Auntie not to rely on the Treasury for a financial fix. After a hundred years of being protected and cosseted, she can finally grow up.

Alas, I don't expect that many BBC executives, or their cheerleaders in the Press and the Labour Party, will view the Government's plans in such terms. There will be a tremendous hullaballoo from entrenched vested interests. Nadine Dorries and Boris Johnson  or his successor  must keep their nerve.

Yet it seems the Government has seen the light. The Corporation will continue to prosper in some form, and good luck to it. But in the pluralist media world we inhabit, and with millions fed up with our public service broadcaster's dominating political slant, it's time the BBC grasped that a new age has dawned.
A four-year-old girl with a rare cancer that affects just 100 children in the UK every year is hoping to travel to New York for a pioneering vaccine to reduce the risk of the recurrence.

Florentina Burton, from Braintree, Essex, was diagnosed with neuroblastoma - a cancer that develops from specialised nerve cells - in May last year, after doctors found a tumour on her kidney.

With parents Amelia and Kevin by her side, Florentina has undergone months of treatment at Great Ormond Street Hospital, in London, and is now due to have radiotherapy and immunotherapy. It is hoped her treatment will end in September.

Florentina Burton (pictured), from Braintree, Essex, was diagnosed with neuroblastoma on May 21 last year, days before her birthday, after doctors found a tumour on her kidney

The family are raising money for her to get the bivalent vaccine as when Florentina was diagnosed they were told she would have treatment for 14 to 18 months but the cancer has a high relapse rate. Pictured: Florentina with her parents Amelia and Kevin

However the cancer has a high relapse rate.

To reduce this, the family are hoping to pay 250,000 to fly Florentina to New York for the bivalent vaccine, which is not available on the NHS.

The vaccine works by stimulating an immune response against two different antigens, such as two different viruses or other microorganisms. It is hoped this will lessen the risk of the cancer coming back.

Grandmother Donna Marino said: 'Florentina is very strong-willed. She has a fighting spirit.

'She is so determined and has come through things better than expected. She knows what she wants, even at this age. That has really helped her through the treatment.'

Donna explained Florentina was diagnosed after falling 'really ill' on around May 20, days before her birthday.

'A month prior to that she was a bit under the weather,' Donna continued.

Despite having the gruelling treatment, Florentina is able to dote on her baby sister (pictured) who was born in August and plays with her whenever she can

There have been fundraising events for Florentina (pictured left and right) including a Christmas ball which raised 10,000, an online auction and a meet and greet

The family have also been sharing her journey with neuroblastoma via their social media pages Florentina's Footsteps and @florentinafootsteps. Pictured: Florentina in hospital

'She was not really that interested in doing too many things. Then about three weeks before the diagnosis she was up in the night, cold and shivering. She did not want to eat. We thought she had picked up something.'

What is neuroblastoma? Neuroblastoma is a rare type of cancer that mostly affects babies and young children. It affects around 100 children each year in the UK and is most common in children under the age of 5. The cause is unknown. There are very rare cases where children in the same family are affected, but generally neuroblastoma does not run in families. Symptoms can include: a swollen, painful tummy, sometimes with constipation and difficulty peeing breathlessness and difficulty swallowing a lump in the neck blueish lumps in the skin and bruising, particularly around the eyes weakness in the legs and an unsteady walk, with numbness in the lower body, constipation and difficulty peeing fatigue, loss of energy, pale skin, loss of appetite and weight loss bone pain, a limp and general irritability rarely, jerky eye and muscle movements Source: NHS Advertisement

Weeks passed and Florentina's condition deteriorated so much, her mother Amelia decided to take her to hospital.

Ms Marino and Florentina's mother and father had noticed that Florentina was losing weight and had a distended stomach.

Doctors sought a second opinion from Great Ormond Street, where she was immediately transferred to the cancer unit.

At the time Amelia was pregnant with her second daughter.

Ms Marino continued: 'My daughter [Amelia] was in there on her own. She did not have a partner and she was pregnant. It was just awful, really awful.'

Florentina had chemotherapy, scans and blood transfusions. At the end of August last year, doctors removed the grapefruit-sized tumour once it had shrunk enough.

That same month Amelia and Kevin, who are documenting Florentina's journey on Facebook and Instagram, welcomed a baby girl.

Despite having the gruelling treatment, Florentina is able to dote on her baby sister and plays with her whenever she can.

Ms Marino said: 'She absolutely adores her. When she is around her she wants to do the Mummy thing. It's been a really good thing.'

Florentina, who also loves horses and has two Shetland ponies at her grandmother's house, will need to be in remission for a month before she is able to travel to New York for the vaccine. The family has raised about half of the 250,000 target.

There have been fundraising events for Florentina including a Christmas ball which raised 10,000, an online auction and a meet and greet.

Ms Marino said that fundraising events and raising awareness will continue so that the family can fight for Florentina and other children and families in similar situations.

It is hoped that eventually the bivalent vaccine will be brought to the UK and can help scores of children with the rare cancer.

Florentina also loves horses (left) and has two Shetland ponies at her grandmother's house

To donate to the fundraising appeal for Florentina click here
URUMQI, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Overseas Chinese and students from Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region condemned rumors and slanders by anti-China forces in the United States and the West at a video exchange meeting on Saturday.

"People often asked me about Xinjiang, and I always showed them photos of my hometown. They were all surprised by the development of Xinjiang," said Kamran Ekramjan, a Chinese student at Anadolu University in Turkey. "I firmly oppose any slanders against Xinjiang."

Kamiljan Ruza of the Turkey-China youth entrepreneurship association has been involved in foreign trade in Turkey for years.

Together with other members of the association, he organized a photo exhibition last year to show China's achievements in recent years. The visitors praised China's development, he said.

"I feel confident no matter what the difficulties, because the motherland always provides solid support to me," Kamiljan Ruza said at the meeting. 
A devastated mum will have to endure regular chemotherapy sessions for the rest of her life after doctors said her early cancer symptoms were related to her pregnancy.

Victorian mum-of-two, Jolene Anderson, has fought through 40 rounds of chemotherapy in just 18 months - after being diagnosed with colorectal cancer after her second daughter, Layla, was born.

It took doctors a year to diagnose the mum, who first complained of crippling symptoms, including major bleeding when she was 16-weeks pregnant.

Jolene Anderson, pictured right, has one dream - to live long enough to see her kids grow up, by her husband Shane's side

But instead the mum is looking at a base-line prognosis of five years which includes fortnightly chemotherapy sessions

Jolene Anderson fought cancer after the birth of her first daughter and assumed it was the same disease back again when she was diagnosed 18 months ago

'I was terrified, at first I thought I was miscarrying but the doctors said it was probably hemorrhoids and not to worry about it,' she told FEMAIL.

But the symptoms persisted first as crippling cramps which doctors put down to 'too much magnesium'.

Then Jolene started to find blood in her stools, this became a regular thing but was dismissed again as a side effect of the pregnancy.

The mum, who had previously fought and beat breast cancer after the birth of her eldest daughter Chloe, now five, decided to trust her doctors.

'I assumed they had taken her previous run-in with cancer into consideration,' she said.

But after the birth of her baby girl the symptoms continued so Jolene went back for answers.

Jolene was diagnosed with her second cancer a year after she started going to doctors to complain about symptoms of the disease

'I was in pain, bleeding and the said I probably had IBS. My doctor told me to take fiber supplements for two months and sent me home,' she said.

When they didn't work to alleviate symptoms Jolene went to another doctor who agreed to do a colonoscopy but told her she would have to wait six weeks as it wasn't urgent.

Then Jolene found a lump under her sternum - she went to yet another doctor who ordered an ultrasound immediately.

The technician told her to head to emergency for a CT scan explaining the the lump was a legion in her liver.

'This made my blood run cold, I thought of my last cancer and assumed it had somehow gone all the way through me,' she said.

She said it is hard not to feel bitter about the late-stage diagnosis

But it wasn't related to her last diagnosis. Instead it was a completely new primary cancer originating in her colon.

'The thing I struggle with the most is knowing there's a simple blood test out there that could have been done when I had that big bleed or in the months I was suffering with crippling pain. It would have shown cancer markers.'

'It is hard not to feel bitter, I shouldn't be Stage 4 but I am cos I just got palmed off.'

Jolene is now raising money for liver transplant surgery in the US, the operation its self will set her back $625,000 - a small price to pay for a lifetime with her kids, she explained.

She will also have to pay to stay near the hospital for a month while recovering as well as airfares for herself and her family.

'This surgery has been done for decades overseas but is still considered experimental in Australia,' she said.

'It is my only chance.'

Being cancer free will also mean being chemo-free.

Now the mum is hoping to head to the US for a liver transplant which could cure her

'A lifetime with chemo is a hard thing to consider because it just wears you out. I come home treatment night and just vomit,' she said.

'The girls want to play but I just want to lie on the couch because I am so sick.'

Endless rounds of chemo also mean Jolene can only work three days per week, and that her kids are with the babysitter every time she is at the hospital.

Jolene's husband Shane is 'very supportive' and 'very hands on' when he is at home - but has a job which takes him away from his family a lot.

Jolene is afraid to leave her young daughters and husband and says she is willing to try anything to stay with them

She is looking forward to living without chemotherapy - because the fortnightly therapy wears her out and leaves her vomiting for hours

Jolene was having symptoms for a year before she was diagnosed. She want others, especially pregnant women, to push harder if they think there's something wrong.

'Free checks start at 50 and it just makes me wonder how many young family lives could be saved if they did it earlier.'

Since her diagnosis Jolene has met other mums in the same boat - and says its heartbreaking to see this silent killer 'take down' so many mum in their 30s.

You can help support Jolene using Go Fund Me or through Rare Cancers Australia.
BBC podcast star Deborah James, who has incurable bowel cancer, shared the first time she walked in nine days, after undergoing four operations this week following a medical emergency during which she almost died.

The former deputy head teacher turned cancer campaigner, 40, from London, has been living with stage four bowel cancer since she was diagnosed in December 2016, and was told early on that she might not live beyond five years - a milestone that passed in the autumn.

In a video shared on her Instagram account, Deborah, a mother-of-two, filmed herself walking down a hospital hallway. She explained she was 'beyond shattered' after nearly dying last week.

She said she is 'making progress' and tasking her recovery step by step after enduring the 'hardest, most heartbreaking and scariest' period of her cancer battle in the last week, which has involved three operations and 'a lot more procedures' to come.

London-based BBC podcast presenter Deborah James. 40, who lives with stage four bowel cancer, has revealed on Instagram that she walked for the first time yesterday after an 'acute medical emergency' saw her nearly dying last week

Sharing the video on Instagram, Deborah wrote: 'Today I walked - its the first time in nine days Ive been able to try.'

Sharing the video on Instagram, Deborah wrote: 'Today I walked - its the first time in nine days Ive been able to try.

'Its never been so hard to muster the strength and conviction to do so. Ive had four operations this week (with more to come), am beyond shattered with a very weak body,' she revealed.

In the video, Deborah can be seen walking tentatively in a hospital hallway.

'But somehow my body is still ploughing on. Sometimes all we can do is take things step by step. The nurses and doctors are being incredible - Ive cried on pretty much everyone that pops their head around the door,' she went on in her post.

BBC podcast star Deborah James, who has incurable bowel cancer, has revealed how she 'nearly died' last week in an 'acute medical emergency'. She shared this photo from hospital

'Im making progress, its slow, but steady. Im still being monitored very closely. No idea what the next plan is- its just taking things bit by bit.

'Its hard when you just want a plan, but the plan is really to try to get me better, whatever pathway that takes. My drains are to do with my bile duct - which they finally stented (well we are in the middle of that process), and acities, which Ive had 10 litres drained already hence why Im dont look pregnant anymore,' she explained.

In spite of the grueling ordeal she is facing, Deborah thanked her following for their support.

In the heart-breaking video, the mother-of-two is seen walking down a hallways, with drains poking from underneath her hospital robe

The podcaster shared she is making progress on her Instagram and updated her followers on her condition

'Thanks for all your wonderful messages. They have blown me away. Im not in a position to respond but I very much appreciate the kindness,' she said.

Posting on Instagram on Friday, the mother-of-two spoke of enduring the 'hardest, most heartbreaking and scariest' period of her cancer battle in the last week, which has involved three operations and 'a lot more procedures' to come.

She told how her husband watched as doctors fought to save her life after she 'crashed' in resuscitation.

'A week ago at this time in the evening I nearly died in what was an acute medical emergency,' she wrote. 'I'm not ready to discuss what happened yet as the trauma of it all has been incredibly intense - but it's thanks to an unbelievable team of NHS specialists who worked all through the night and the next day to save me.

'I cannot be more grateful. I'm still not out of danger and I have a lot more procedures to deal with. But I'm now out of intensive care. And for the first time felt able to briefly update you.'

Sharing a photo of her giving a thumbs up from a hospital bed, she continued: 'This is me yesterday having just come round from my 3rd operation this week. I have another operation tomorrow.

'In 5 years of having stage 4 Cancer - this has been the hardest, most heartbreaking and scariest of them all. I'd always prepared for my death, but I wasn't prepared for something so blindsiding and traumatic to happen.

'I can't quite believe I'm here to write this. A week ago my whole family was praying I'd pull through the night. I'm getting a lot of help and support to come to terms with the trauma I've been through.

'My family have been incredible. I don't know how my husband held it together seeing me crash as an army of doctors stabilised me in resus.'

In new series of cancer podcast, You, Me and the Big C, James, 40, revealed she had to learn how to walk again after being bed-bound with colitis in December

Posting on Instagram overnight, the mother-of-two spoke of enduring the 'hardest, most heartbreaking and scariest' period of her cancer battle in the last week, which has involved three operations and 'a lot more procedures' to come

After thanking followers for their support, she added: 'Do me a favour and go tell your loved ones how much you love them. To realise in a sudden split moment that you are unlikely to see the next day is utterly heartbreaking. Have no regrets.'

It comes days after Deborah returned to her popular podcast You, me and the Big C and revealed how she'd been 'absolutely floored' by 'big gun chemo' during the summer and then a serious infection at the year's end - which saw her carried into a London hospital at 1am by her husband for treatment.

She told co-hosts Lauren Mahon and Steve Bland on the newest episode of the BBC podcast that she'd had to learn to walk again after being forced to remain in bed for almost a month.

She said: 'After colitis, I had to relearn to walk again because I had so much fluid.

'I'd been bed-bound for three weeks and just learning how to walk to the end of the drive or whatever, is just impossible essentially.'

Discussing how difficult the last six months have been, James said while she was really happy that the 'big gun chemo' she endured has slowed her cancer's growth, which had been 'on the march', it had been an exhausting time.

James marked five years since her 2016 diagnosis - a milestone she thought she wouldn't make - in December but was in hospital with infectious colitis

She explained: 'I have to be honest with you, going from targeted therapy back onto chemo, it was hardcore, big gun chemo, and it absolutely utterly floored me.

BOWEL CANCER: THE SYMPTOMS YOU SHOULDN'T IGNORE Bowel, or colorectal, cancer affects the large bowel, which is made up of the colon and rectum. Such tumours usually develop from pre-cancerous growths, called polyps. Symptoms include: Bleeding from the bottom

Blood in stools

A change in bowel habits lasting at least three weeks

Unexplained weight loss

Extreme, unexplained tiredness

Abdominal pain Most cases have no clear cause, however, people are more at risk if they: Are over 50

Have a family history of the condition

Have a personal history of polyps in their bowel

Suffer from inflammatory bowel disease, such as Crohn's disease

Lead an unhealthy lifestyle Treatment usually involves surgery, and chemo- and radiotherapy. More than nine out of 10 people with stage one bowel cancer survive five years or more after their diagnosis. This drops significantly if it is diagnosed in later stages. According to Bowel Cancer UK figures, more than 41,200 people are diagnosed with bowel cancer every year in the UK. It affects around 40 per 100,000 adults per year in the US, according to the National Cancer Institute. Advertisement

'I would say my quality of life was just hideous.'

Updating listeners on the current state of her health, she said: 'Some days I feel fine, my quality of life is OK right now, but I'm not the person people have known for the past four years where I'm running around exercising everyday.'

'It's just stable in a really b****y awkward place.'

The campaigner revealed that because of her reduced liver function and the colitis, she's not likely to qualify for a clinical trial.

She admitted she'd been 'procrastinating' over potential treatment options during the Christmas break.

In the summer, James was told she had an aggressive new tumour that had wrapped itself around her bile duct - requiring a life-saving stay in hospital - and a stent fitted to stop her liver from failing.

The stent fitted to stop her liver failing 'stopped working' in December.

She explained to her followers at the time how hopes at having a 'quick replacement operation' had turned into a 'nightmare'.

She said: 'I'm now at the mercy of hopefully some super 'magic medicine miracle' - but then I always have been, and any chance is a chance right?

'All I ever say Is all I want is hope and options.'

In April, James shared that her cancer, which has been kept at bay by pioneering treatment, was back again and she was forced to endure a 12th operation.

The West London mother-of-two, a deputy head, was diagnosed 'late' with incurable bowel cancer in 2016.

She has frequently said that as a vegetarian runner, she was the last person doctors expected to get the disease.

After sharing her experiences on living with the disease on social media, Deborah became known as the 'Bowel Babe' and began writing a column for the Sun.

In 2018, Deborah joined Lauren Mahon and Rachael Bland to present the award-winning podcast You, Me and the Big C on Radio 5 Live.

Bland tragically died of breast cancer on September 5th that year; her husband Steve Bland now co-presents the show.

The former deputy head teacher celebrated her 40th birthday in October but admitted that 'big gun chemo' in the summer had 'floored her'

The social media star has documented her battle with cancer online since being diagnosed and campaigned for better awareness around bowel cancer diagnosis
The Royal Family is desperate for 'conventional performers' as it faces a difficult year, according to a former staffer, who says Kate Middleton is 'what these troubled times need'.

With Prince Andrew's legal battles, as well as the Firm's concerns over the imminent publication of Prince Harry's upcoming memoir, the Duchess of Cambridge, 40, has been touted as playing a key role in shaping the future of the Monarchy.

'As the Prince Andrew scandal shows, the monarchy is in desperate need of reassuringly conventional royal performers,' Patrick Jephson, former chief of staff for Diana, Princess of Wales, told the New York Post.

'Catherine is just what these troubled royal times need  its no exaggeration that the Windsors future lies in her hands.'

Kate Middleton, pictured here with husband Prince William at the premiere of Bond film No Time To Die' last year, holds the future of the Monarchy in her hands, says a former staffer

Bethan Holt, author of The Duchess of Cambridge: A Decade of Modern Royal Style, told the publication that there 'seems to be a campagin to make the Cambridges the family's 'global stars' - adding that Kate is 'clever' in her 'calculated move to include Diana's memory alive'.

In a recent interview, royal expert and biographer Katie Nicholls said that the Queen, 95, already 'hugely values' Kate's work, and will rely on her 'more than ever' amid the royal scandals.

The biggest scandal facing the Firm at the moment is Prince Andrew's upcoming civil case, after being accused of battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress by Virginia Giuffre.

She claims that she was forced to sleep with the Prince on three occasions by US paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell  the first time when she was 17 and under the legal age of consent under New York law.

The former Queen Consort has been described as a 'conventional royal performer' by Patrick Jephson, former chief of staff for Diana, Princess of Wales

A US judge rejected the prince's bid to have his sex abuse case thrown out, leaving him facing the prospect of being cross-examined for seven hours on camera with embarrassing questions on everything from his sex life and 'private parts'.

His downfall has seen him stripped of his royal patronages 'with the Queen's approval and agreement' leaving him to fight the sex abuse lawsuit in America as a private citizen.

Andrew has always vehemently denied the accusations.

The Queen stripped Andrew of his royal patronages as well as his 'HRH' title in recent days, as a result of his legal battles

Prince Harry's memoir is reportedly an additional source of stress for the family. Harry, who resides in California with his wife Meghan, 40, and their two children, Archie, two and Lilibet, born in June, will be publishing the book this year, the year of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee.

He has promised to give an 'accurate and wholly truthful' account of his life, writing as 'the man he has become.'

Prince Harry has been vocal about what he called the 'total neglect' of the royal family since his exit from royal life in March 2020.

Following several TV appearances, including the Winfrey Interview and his talking heads in The Me You Can't See for Apple TV, his memoirs will offer an in-depth look at his life in the public life, from his childhood to now.

The Royal Family is reportedly concerned about Prince Harry's upcoming memoir, which will follow his controversial interview with Oprah Winfrey interview

His home life during the break-up of the Prince and Princess of Wales' marriage, the period of Diana's death and its aftermath, Harry's relationship with Camilla and past girlfriends are likely to form part of the book.

Having already been writing for a year, the prince is set to turn in a manuscript, which he promised will be a 'first-hand account of my life that's accurate and wholly truthful', by the end of this year. It is set to hit the shelves in 2022.

In addition, members of the Royal Family will also have to prepare themselves for series five of Netflix drama The Crown, which has started filming and will dramatise a notoriously difficult period of time in their recent history.

It will cover the Queen's 'annus horribilis', a Latin phrase meaning horrible year which she used in 1992 to describe the collapse of three of her children's marriages - including Prince Charles' to Princess Diana - and the fire that severely damaged her Windsor Castle home.
A pensioner claims botched surgery means he hasn't been able to close his eyes for nearly three years.

Pete Broadhurst, 79, from Four Oaks, Birmingham, splashed out 11,000 on a cosmetic procedure to fix his 'puffy cheeks' in 2019, after feeling insecure due to his broken relationships.

But, even after corrective surgery, his left eye is still permanently open, which he says is causing him constant problems.

Pete has to tape his eyes shut when he sleeps and use drops eight times a day to prevent them drying out.

He says he looks 'frightening' as his eyes stay open even when he wants to close them - and claims his appearance has cost him relationships.

Pete Broadhurst before surgery, which he did because he was worried about having puffy cheeks that he wanted to reduce

The pensioner, who has had revision surgery (seen) and is facing more, says he still isn't able to close his eyes properly

Pete, pictured after his initial surgery in 2019, says he has to tape his eyes shut when he sleeps and use drops eight times a day to prevent them drying out

Pete's problem started in 1959, when he had a dental surgery which led to him having enlarged cheeks.

He said: 'I had puffy hamster cheeks. Years ago I was in a relationship with a girl and we had two children and she was leaving me.

'I said, 'why are you leaving when we've got everything? Look at how lucky we are.' And she said, 'go look in the mirror, that's why I'm leaving'.'

After two further relationships where his insecurities about his looks grew, Pete decided he wanted to get corrective surgery.

So, the father-of-two, decided late in 2018 that he would go in for a procedure.

He approached BMI The Priory Hospital, who quoted him 11,000 to undergo a neck lift, under eye blepharoplasty and a rhinoplasty that would help reduce his cheeks.

And, on January 24, 2019, he underwent the nine-hour procedure, and was discharged the next day.

The retired painter and decorator paid 11,000 for a neck lift, under eye blepharoplasty and a rhinoplasty, pictured here after the surgery

Pete struggled with numerous issues after the surgery: As well as problems with his eyes, he vomited and struggled to pass urine

Pete said: 'I looked like I'd been beaten up. It was horrendous, and I couldn't close my eyes.

'I was being sick all through the night and in my sleep. The day after the surgery I wished I'd never gone.'

Pete claims he was vomiting and couldn't pass urine but just took these as the normal after effects of surgery.

The following Monday, after leaving the hospital, Pete had a catheter fitted, thinking initially it was to do with his prostate.

But he now believes that his problems passing urine were due to spending an elongated period of time under general anaesthetic where he couldn't go to the toilet.

He returned to the hospital two weeks after the surgery to get the stitches removed, and told the medics that his eyes were very irritated and watering.

But Pete claims that they told him all was normal and these side effects would pass by themselves.

Pete said that after surgery (pictured) he looked like he'd been beaten up. He says it was 'horrendous' and he couldn't close his eyes

The pensioner, seen after his 9-hour operation, says when he returned to hospital to have his stitches removed, he was told his eye irritation was normal and would naturally pass

Because his left eye has been left permanently open following surgery, Pete now has to tape his eyes shut to sleep - seen here trying to nap

He then went to the Good Hope Hospital on March 23, 2019 to have a routine prostate exam.

But the doctor noticed his damaged eyes - and he was referred to Birmingham and Midland Eye Centre.

There they told him his eyes weren't closing fully when he blinked or slept causing him irritation - a common complication of eyelid surgery called ectropion.

However, the doctors there couldn't treat him as he had the original surgery privately, so he returned to BMI.

His surgeon arranged for a free corrective surgery at BHI Parkside for a skin graft to help the skin in his cheeks meet his eyelids.

He had the hour-long surgery on May 13, 2019.

But, more than two years later, Pete claims he still can't fully close his left eye - and the right one is completely shut.

He said: 'My eyes were distorted, I could barely see at all. She'd lifted my left eyelid up and my right eye had a blinker in the corner. It never improved again.

'I was unable to see and at night I still had to tape it shut.'

Although NHS doctors recognised the damage to Pete's eyes, he says that because he'd had the original surgery done privately, he had to return to the private hospital for a corrective op

He has also suffered from poor vision as a result of the surgery, and can no longer drive or make out people's facial expressions

Pete, a retired painter and decorator, is speaking out now to warn others about the dangers of surgery.

He said: 'Getting on the bus one day a man said, "my God, what's happened to your face?".

'I was already feeling down it just made it worse. Now I'm only worried about getting my eyes comfortable.

'It's gone beyond how I look. I just want relief. I want to tell others to be careful because it can ruin your life.'

Pete has been prescribed eye drops to take eight times a day, and was told to microwave a towel to wrap around his eyes for when he sleeps.

His vision is now so poor he can't drive a car or make out people's facial expressions, and has had to give up his hobby of shooting as he can't see the target.

All private hospitals have since refused to provide any further surgery as they could exacerbate his vision issues, and the NHS has a year-long waiting list.

This has meant Pete felt forced to go abroad, resulting in a 7,000 lower eyelid blepharoplasty at the Clinic Mono in Turkey.

He saw the surgery advertised in the newspaper as where Katie Price goes, and is due back there later this year for a follow-up procedure.

Pete said: 'My left eye is still open today. Whoever you trust, even a top surgeon, please be careful because it can ruin your life.'

A BMI Healthcare spokesman said: 'We can't comment on the detail of individual cases, but we are committed to the highest standards of patient safety and care quality and are investigating this matter thoroughly.

'The surgeon in question is currently suspended as we are mirroring an NHS trust suspension.'

Lindsey Sharp, from BHI Parkside, said: 'BHI does not provide healthcare. It provides space to NHS, private consultants and other healthcare professionals to undertake services they are qualified to provide.'

The surgeon who performed Pete's surgery at BHI Parkside declined to comment as she cannot share confidential information about patients.

Pete is set to travel to Turkey for a further operation later this year. He has already had one private surgery there, on top of the corrective free corrective surgery he had in the UK
January is the busiest month for both divorce lawyers and dating. For those looking for the latter, a word of caution. According to Action Fraud  the national fraud and cyber crime reporting centre  daters who strike up online relationships between Christmas and Valentines Day tend to be the most susceptible to romance fraud.

One of the worst types of this is catfishing. This is when someone poses as someone they are not in order to gain their victims trust. Of course, when dating we all give a carefully curated, edited version of ourselves. How many of us have said we love poetry when in fact the last poem we read was at school?

Catfishing, however, is something entirely different. The fraudsters create a fake profile and an entirely fictitious world to reel the victim in, gain their trust, form an emotional bond  and then manipulate them.

Research conducted in 2020 found over a quarter of dating website users had been scammed by fake persona (file image)

Research conducted in 2020 by the banking industry found over a quarter of dating website users had been scammed by fake personas over the past year. Much of this involved sending money. The average amount was 321, although in total 7.9 million was lost in the first half of 2019, a horrifying increase of 50 per cent on the previous year.

But the motives of catfishers arent always financial. For some, its psychological. They arent out to scam people of their money but rather to form an intense bond, fulfil some deep-seated emotional need.

For me, this kind of catfishing is the most disconcerting. If its financial, theres often alarm bells ringing. But in this scenario they can take longer to hear.

You might think youd never fall for a romance scam. That youre too savvy or smart to be reeled in. Well, its actually much easier than youd think  I should know, because it happened to me and it showed me how easy we are to manipulate.

When it happened, Id just split up from a long-term partner. One night, a friend set up a dating profile for me. We spent some time absent-mindedly scrolling through the profiles while having a glass of wine together, but I soon forgot about it.

Then, after about a month, I got an unsolicited message from someone. They attached a picture. He was incredibly handsome. A doctor, like me. We happened to know some people in common. It seemed legitimate. I felt a jolt of excitement.

I logged back on to the site and replied to his message. He replied within an hour. Back and forth our messages went throughout the day. I was out that evening and he was still messaging me, so rather than keep logging into the site, I sent him my mobile number. He texted me immediately.

In fact, over the next few weeks he bombarded me with texts.

I felt flattered. Before long, he knew everything about me. I tried to play it cool and went on a few dates with other people, but in the back of my mind, he was top of my list.

Dr Max Pemberton (pictured) said if youve decided to start dating online this year, I wish you the best of luck  but please be careful

Despite not seeing each other face-to-face, we really got on. He seemed perfect, almost too perfect, if Im honest. But when it came to meeting, things never seemed to quite work out.

After about six weeks of intense texting, I started to smell a rat. I messaged one of the friends we had in common who confirmed she knew someone with the same name  but, she continued, hes in Canada. I thought back over our chats. Hed never actually said where he was.

I messaged him and asked where he was. On a late shift, he replied, frustratingly. Yes, but which country, I said back. He didnt reply for a few hours, but then sent Canada. It seemed odd that in all the time hed been asking me out, he hadnt mentioned he was on another continent! I queried this and he explained he was locuming there while visiting relatives.

There were a few other inconsistencies. He said he was working the next day but then called and said hed had a lazy day in bed, clearly forgetting what hed told me the day before. He said hed seen a play Id just seen, but it had only just opened in London  and he was in Canada. Ah, hed seen it when it was in New York, but odd not to have mentioned that.

A study has argued NHS cash should be diverted to schools to improve the nations health. I actually think this is a good idea  prevention is far better than cure, and we know the pandemic has had a devastating effect on children.

He was coming back to London next week and we should meet. I told myself I was just being overly suspicious. But then next week came around and he said he was back in London, but couldnt meet. There was nothing tangible  he could explain everything  but it just didnt feel right.

Eventually my friend helped me track down the person who was in the photos and, yes, you guessed it, he was in Canada, but he wasnt the person Id been talking to. Id been duped.

I confronted the catfish and he confessed he wasnt who he said he was. Hed seen my dating profile and recognised me from my writing, and wanted to talk to me.

So hed found a picture of someone I was connected to and pretended to be him. I felt incredibly stupid and irritated with myself for falling for such an obvious scam. I demanded he meet me and, to his credit, he agreed to come to a coffee shop near St Pauls Cathedral. When we met, I realised everything had been a lie.

Initially I was angry, but it soon became apparent he had very low self-esteem and hadnt intended for it to go on for as long as it had  two months in total.

I left the coffee shop feeling sad for him, but vowing to listen to my gut in future. Looking back, I realise I was the victim of a clever psychological game. Id been emotionally open and hed used bits of information about me, flattered me, to ingratiate himself with me.

So if youve decided to start dating online this year, I wish you the best of luck  I know several happy couples who met this way  but please be careful.

As I learned, things online are not always as they seem.

Dont mock redheads . . . they also have feelings

Dr Max said as a nation we take name-calling of redheads less seriously than we do about, say, sexism or racism. Pictured: Julianne Moore

While Hollywood actresses Christina Hendricks and Julianne Moore may be shining examples of women who are proud redheads, more needs to be done to stamp out anti-redhead prejudice, according to Chrissy Meleady, chief executive of Equalities and Human Rights UK. It does seem that as a nation we take this kind of name-calling less seriously than we do about, say, sexism or racism.

While Im not a fan of identity politics, which I think is divisive and risks reducing people to just a few key characteristics, can we all just agree that mocking people about their physical differences hurts.

Dr Max prescribes...

NHS food swap app

The NHS food swap app, comes off the back of research that shows 60 per cent of parents are giving their children more sugary or fatty snacks than they did before the pandemic

This app allows parents to scan the barcodes of supermarket foods to find healthier alternatives. For example, instead of Pizza Express Classic American Pepperoni Pizza, which has 4.9g saturated fat and 1g salt per 100g, it suggests Pizza Express Classic Fiorentina (2.8g sat fat and 0.7g salt per 100g). It comes off the back of research that shows 60 per cent of parents are giving their children more sugary or fatty snacks than they did before the pandemic.
An American expat has been shocked after sharing how his Australian friend cracks open hard boiled eggs - sparking a debate online.

Adam Foskey, who moved from Georgia to Melbourne, couldn't believe it when his friend cracked the egg using a knife and removed it with a spoon.

'Is this how you all do it? I'm baffled. Is this an Australian thing?' he asked in a now-viral TikTok video.

Adam has gained a strong online following by outlining the differences he's noticed between the two countries since moving Down Under.

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Adam Foskey, who moved from Georgia to Melbourne, (pictured, left) couldn't believe it when his friend cracked the egg using a knife and removed it with a spoon

His friend then removed the egg using a spoon (pictured, right). 'Is this how you all do it? I'm baffled. Is this an Australian thing?' he asked in a now-viral TikTok video

'So this is how one of my Australian friends cracks open his boiled egg,' Adam said in the short clip.

Rather than peeling the egg, his friend carefully sliced off one end using a butter knife before proceeding to scoop it out with a spoon.

'Like what?' Adam said in shock, then his friend added: 'And good to go, perfect.'

Within a week the video racked up more than 126,000 views, but many Australians seemed divided by the 'mind blowing' method.

'This is how I do it with a soft-boiled egg but leave the egg in the shell to dip toast soldiers in the yolk,' one person wrote.

Another person said he thought this was the 'normal' way to crack an egg rather than peeling the shell.

But another disagreed and said she 'never knew' of the tactic despite being Aussie.

'Is this an Australian thing?!' another questioned.
Dont fall for quick fixes. set a six-month goal instead

Sweeping New Years resolutions rarely work  that whole New Year, new you chat is far too unrealistic. But what if you cant even stick to the small things? What if youve tried many times to exercise three times a week or quit sugar in your tea and you fail every time? Here are some tips to make this year the one where change sticks

Set intentions NOT resolutions Personal trainer Michael Brigo (brigopt.com) says the reason resolutions dont work is because they inspire negative thoughts. Its like saying to yourself: Im lazy/I cant stick to a regime, which sets you up with a negative mindset. Michael says we should be setting ourselves intentions instead: These motivate us to live better.

So how should we create a wellness intention? First, we should discover the reason we want to change. A resolution, for example, would be: I need to give up smoking. An intention would be: What do I want to change? How will I feel when I achieve it? Michael recommends writing down the answers and how you aim to achieve your goal  DIY (do it yourself), DIWY (do it with you, eg, with someone else), or DIFY (someone does it for you). This, he says, will help us work towards lasting change.

Check your wellbeing bank account

Personal trainer Matt Roberts suggests taking advantage of the wellness tech on offer. Understanding your sleep, heart rate, blood glucose levels, stress hormones and more will allow you to take control of how you make positive change, he says. Like avoiding looking at your bank account  It might be scary, says Matt, but unless you look you cant fix the problem. Matt recommends two apps: SuperSapiens is a blood glucose monitor which ensures you are fuelling your body correctly, while Whoop monitors sleep, workload, stress as well as nutrition, training and recovery. think yourself healthier

Athletes harness the power of visualisation all the time, imagining themselves winning a race or scoring a goal. Personally, I believe if we can see something in our minds eye we are far more able to achieve it. Before a big presentation, for example,

I will imagine myself delivering a fearless speech. Research shows that our brains find it hard to decipher between whats imagined or reality, so if we visualise success we are firing up more positive neural pathways which in turn create positive behaviour in ourselves.

To apply this to wellbeing, frequently imagine yourself achieving your goals, whether thats feeling fit or conquering a challenge. Imagine precisely how it would make you feel, physically and mentally.

Play the long game

Avoid falling for quick fixes. Rhian Stephenson, nutritionist and founder of new wellbeing membership portal Artah.co, suggests setting yourself a six-month goal instead. Great habits around health and nutrition take time and consistency, she says.

Never say I cant

Rhian believes we need to be conscious of the inner language we use. For example, I dont want this is far more empowering than saying I cant have this as it suggests you are in control, not your circumstances. Rhian also suggests we remind ourselves why we are making certain food decisions. Instead of telling yourself youre not allowed that chocolate croissant, tell yourself its because you know it causes your mood and energy to crash.

@susannahtaylor_

Weleda Calendula & Chamomile Hand Sanitiser is made with natural ingredients

It is estimated that over 50 per cent of the population suffers from dry and sensitive hands due to use of harsh sanitisers. The new Weleda Calendula & Chamomile Hand Sanitiser is made with natural ingredients that kill 99.9 per cent of viruses and bacteria, yet the gentle formulation is made with 100 per cent organic plant ingredients. Whats more, it comes in a refillable glass jar. From 5.95, weleda.co.uk.

Pure Heavenly chocolate contains less than one per cent of sugar per bar

I dont believe in life without chocolate. So Im delighted to have found Pure Heavenly, which comes in many flavours, contains less than one per cent sugar per bar and is free from dairy, gluten, wheat and soy. Plus it tastes darn good. From 3.90, pureheavenly.com.
Styling: Nicola Rose. Make-up: Caroline Barnes at Frank Agency. Hair: Alex Szabo at Carol Hayes

He was not as advertised, said my friend Zoe, as she slumped into the banquette on our last girls night. She had been on a date with a man who had claimed to be 5ft 11in on his online profile but was, in fact, sub-5ft 7in. Plus, she claimed, his footwear was suspiciously chunky of heel.

It made us all collectively wonder, if he could fabricate his height, where else could he conjure up a few extra inches?

Research shows that, on dating apps, women often lie about their age while men exaggerate their height. These statistics became personally problematic when I hit the dating scene a few years ago.

Im tall. Five-feet-nine-and-three-quarter-inches tall, to be exact. Which is good in that I can wear maxi dresses and occasionally wangle the emergency exit seat on planes, but bad in that the average height of a UK male is 5ft 9in. So if I want a man taller than me, it rules out more than half the male population instantly.

I have always been tall. At school I was head and shoulders above the rest of the students, so constantly felt like the headmaster was addressing his sanctimonious assemblies to me alone. Slow dances at school discos were mortifying as even the tallest boy only came up to boob height.

In my teens I did not want to be tall, I wanted to be like Kylie. I wanted to be pocket-sized and cute and able to snog Lee from 5L without having to manufacture a sit-down situation. (I also wanted feet that were dainty and small.)

To counter the dearth of 6ft-plus males in my home town, I went to Loughborough University. I told my mother this was because it had a nice campus and the course was particularly suited to my interest in contemporary American literature. Really it was because it was full of jocks whose height average was 6ft 2in. And did I mention there were six male students to every female?

Suddenly I was surrounded by tall people. All my friends were tall, as were their friends. Ive lived in a self-selected tall world for decades.

So it came as a surprise, when I found myself dating at 45, that most people were quite a lot shorter. I categorically did not want a relationship with a man shorter than me. I wanted a man who could envelop me in a big hug, I wanted a man who could throw me on the bed and ravish me. I did not want someone who could wear my jeans.

I was set up by friends with a few guys and I thought it would be ungrateful to enquire about their height before I agreed to a date, so instead I spent hours scanning their social media accounts to see if I could find them pictured next to famous people whose height I could then Google. It was all quite time-consuming. And not entirely accurate. I met my boyfriend in real life so there was no setting of height preferences. Luckily he is 6ft-something. And thankfully big enough for the enveloping and ravishing. But I have put the Louboutin heels, that make me 6ft 3in, on Ebay.

Its making me think about why I had those dating rules, though. Why do I want to be smaller than a partner? Isnt that all a bit retrograde?

My woke daughter heard me theorising and quite rightly questioned my reasoning. Is it about being protected? A need to be taken care of? Is it Darwinian? Do I need a partner who can kill a water buffalo? Quite frankly, someone who can understand energy tariffs and fix the spinning wheel on my laptop would be more useful.

But its not only women buying into the traditional man-taller-than-woman cliche. Apparently, half of men want a partner shorter than them. Do they need to dominate? Feel in control? Are they conditioned, like we are, by the movies?

Fair play to those subverting the paradigm. Think Sophie Dahl and Jamie Cullum (5ft 11in and 5ft 4in respectively), Zendaya and Tom Holland (5ft 10in and 5ft 8in) or Mick Jagger and every Amazonian supermodel that walked the catwalk.

I admire their modernity, but Im still uncomfortable with going shorter. In the meantime, someone has just bought my Louboutins  a drag queen from the Home Counties.

@lifesrosie
A staggering one in ten of us is living with debilitating pelvic pain  yet were still being routinely dismissed by doctors and told its all in our head. Enough, says Jo Macfarlane, its time to take us seriously

There are three million women in Britain living with endometriosis and PCOS

The historic wood-panelled committee room in Westminster Hall was an unlikely setting for a frank discussion on female pain.

It was no surprise that most of the MPs present for the crucial debate last November on the lack of research and funding to understand and treat endometriosis and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) were women. Some even detailed their own, very personal experiences: severe agony, doctors who repeatedly dismissed their symptoms and a dearth of treatments.

And there was one point on which they were all agreed, regardless of their political allegiances. If ten per cent of men were in this situation, several MPs asked, would it be the same? The answer  a resounding no  is as heartbreaking as it is shameful for the estimated three million women in Britain living with endometriosis and PCOS.

The conditions are separate and distinct and cause their own horrendous symptoms. Endometriosis is an excruciatingly painful disease in which the cells from the lining of the uterus grow rampant elsewhere in the body, causing lesions and scarring on organs such as the bowel, bladder and even the lungs.

Id been in pain my whole adult life and I was dismissed. its not acceptable

PCOS, meanwhile, is a hormonal disorder that stops the ovaries from working properly. It causes acne, weight gain, excess body hair and fertility problems, and is linked to type 2 diabetes and anxiety.

However, they were debated together in parliament, following a public petition that gained over 100,000 signatures, because they share brutal common ground: they exclusively affect women, the causes are unknown and there is no cure. Even diagnosis can, in the case of endometriosis, take an average of eight years, according to Endometriosis UK.

In the absence of a coordinated programme of medical investigations for women who may be suffering from these conditions, sufferers are, instead, frequently subjected to medical gaslighting and told to take painkillers or the contraceptive pill, or simply to put up with the debilitating symptoms. Furthermore, both disorders are often dismissed solely as barriers to fertility, with women told to go away until youre ready to have a baby.

Some resort to self-managing their conditions with the help of advice from online support groups. As Labour MP Alexander Norris put it to the committee chair, David Mundell: To be clear Mr Mundell, there is a one in ten chance that either of us might present to our GP with erectile dysfunction.

I know for certain that the GP would not say to either of us to come back when we wanted to have a child, and they certainly would not suggest removing the offending organ. Just as we would not tolerate that attitude, we should not tolerate it for anybody in this country.

To understand how devastating these conditions can be, just ask Rosie Longman. The 42-year-old was forced to give up her brilliant career as a criminal barrister because of her endometriosis, which was only diagnosed when she was aged 30, despite 15 years of agony.

Shes had several laparoscopic operations (keyhole surgeries), to remove the build-up of endometrial growth. This is one of the few surgical treatments available, which relieves the pain for short periods before the tissue grows back. But last year, Rosie decided to undergo a hysterectomy in a bid to stop the pain for good. Hormonal changes during the menopause can reduce symptoms for both endometriosis and PCOS  and younger women often choose such extreme surgery, or drugs to induce a chemical menopause, as a solution.

When youre in pain, youre exhausted all the time, Rosie explains. Id recover from another bout of surgery, then start to feel pain and fatigue again. I couldnt keep doing that to myself. Id have to drop cases because the court dates would coincide with times of the month when I knew Id be in agony and might not be able to stand up. Giving up my career was the most difficult decision Ive ever made. But deciding to have the hysterectomy was a no-brainer.

A report last year from the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Endometriosis, chaired by the late Conservative MP Sir David Amess, found access to specialists remained a postcode lottery. Its survey concluded 58 per cent of women with endometriosis had to visit a GP more than ten times to get a diagnosis, while 21 per cent had ten or more hospital appointments.

A survey on endometriosis for the BBC found almost all women said it had affected their careers. At its worst, Rosie struggled to stand, walk or lie down without being in agony. Parts of her bowel became fused to other organs as the endometrial cells spread through her pelvis. I woke up in pain. I went to bed in pain. Its like someone is gripping your insides, pulling and twisting them and kicking you in the crotch.

A hysterectomy removes the endometrial tissue and the uterus and, in Rosies case, the ovaries as well. It is not always a cure  the condition, and the pain, can return. Rosie is now on hormone replacement therapy and still has some pain. But overall, its substantially better than it was and she now has a role teaching students training to be barristers.

I always thought Id have children, but my priority was getting rid of the pain. Britteny Gibsons pain, which left her curled up in a ball on the floor in agony, was dismissed by doctors for 15 years. The marketing officer, 31, who lives in Glasgow, grew up in the US where doctors advised her it was just a bad period and to take paracetamol and use a hot water bottle.

At the age of 18 she was prescribed the contraceptive pill, which suppresses the release of oestrogen from the ovaries, and can slow the growth of endometrial cells. However, the pain increased and she was finally fitted with the Mirena coil, a form of long-term birth control. When this failed to solve the problem, one GP shrugged and told her that 70 per cent of pelvic pain is unexplained.

She was 29 by the time she was referred to a gynaecologist. I thought that finally something would be done, she says. I was given an ultrasound, but the gynaecologist just said, You cant have endometriosis because the Mirena coil is the cure. If youre in pain, it must be something else.

I was devastated. It had a huge impact on my mental health. I went back to my car and wept. Id been in pain almost my whole adult life, and bleeding for weeks at a time, and I was dismissed. Its not acceptable, and its why we have to advocate for things to change.

In guidelines drawn up by health watchdog The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in 2017, experts warn doctors not to exclude endometriosis if ultrasound scans appear normal because the growth often doesnt show up. To reach a diagnosis, they instead recommend laparoscopy  a procedure to insert a small telescope into the abdomen. If excess tissue is found, experts can remove it, in a process known as ablation, at the same time.

But these guidelines are still not adopted everywhere. In Brittenys case, it was only because her husband pushed her to get a second opinion that she was referred for a laparoscopy before her 30th birthday. It found endometrial cells all over her uterus and ovaries, which had stuck to the pelvic wall. They also found adenomyosis, where the endometrial tissue grows inside the wall of the uterus and causes labour-like contractions.

Following surgery to remove it, Britteny takes medication that induces a chemical menopause to block further growth. Its a life-changing diagnosis but I was so happy it wasnt in my head. It was like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders, she says.

A report last year from the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Endometriosis, chaired by the late Conservative MP Sir David Amess, found access to specialists remained a postcode lottery. Its survey concluded 58 per cent of women with endometriosis had to visit a GP more than ten times to get a diagnosis, while 21 per cent had ten or more hospital appointments. More than half ended up in A&E  with 27 per cent attending more than three times before being diagnosed.

Overall, endometriosis costs 8.2 billion a year in treatment, healthcare costs and the impact on work. Its not just deeply distressing for women, but a terrible waste of resources, campaigners say. The report said: Lets ensure that stories of people being ignored, dismissed and told pelvic pain is normal, or even in your head become a thing of the past.

Labour MP Emma Hardy, the co-chair of the APPG, said the group will meet with Maria Caulfield, the minister for patient safety and primary care, early this year to discuss a way forward, which may include a push to reduce diagnosis times  in Scotland, the government has already committed to slashing these to under 12 months  and to improve sick pay provisions for women with endometriosis.

Emmas co-chair, SNP MP Hannah Bardell, said there was a real opportunity for the UK to lead the world on endometriosis care, but warned that without collaboration and funding for research we will rob the next generation of women of the education, care and support they deserve.

The same holds true for PCOS. The disease, which affects the way eggs mature in the ovaries, can cause periods to become irregular or stop altogether. But because it is triggered by the overproduction of hormones known as androgens  including testosterone  its effects are wide-ranging. Women experience excess body and facial hair, acne, brain fog, weight gain, anxiety and depression. There are even known links to the development of type 2 diabetes.

Yet for June-Ann Joseph  as for many other affected women  there is little help available. The 33-year-old from North London, who now campaigns on PCOS issues, says: I was diagnosed at 17, given a leaflet and told, Come back when you want to have kids. That was it. But its far more than irregular periods. Its everything  Ive been affected physically and mentally. Ive had three bouts of depression, insomnia, anxiety, weight gain and dry eyes. I get awful brain fog. I work in HR, so I need to know about policies, procedure and employment law, but some days I cant retain information. I also have insulin resistance  the stage before type 2 diabetes. But no one knows why, and I have to advocate for myself.

Treating PCOS purely as a fertility problem means there is not enough research on the myriad other problems it causes, according to Rachel Morman at Verity, the UKs PCOS charity. I know women who were left childless, despite desperately wanting children, who didnt get enough support, she says. But there are other women who report trying to use battery acid to scar their faces because thats better than the excess hair. What about the links to type 2 diabetes? The only treatment is the contraceptive pill, but that just masks the symptoms. We need much more research, better aftercare for women once theyve been diagnosed, and a realisation that PCOS is about far more than fertility.

There are green shoots. The governments Womens Health Strategy, which is currently under consultation and will be published in the autumn, is expected to make updated recommendations for PCOS and endometriosis. And there are several research projects investigating biomarkers for these conditions, which would mean they could be diagnosed from a simple blood test rather than invasive surgery.

A study in Edinburgh is also investigating a cancer drug, dichloroacetate, to see if it could be used for endometriosis. Endometrial cells, like cancer cells, seem to produce higher levels of lactate, a harmful waste product. The drug lowers the amount of lactate and reduces the size of lesions. Patients in a trial reported that it had a huge impact on their symptoms.

But more needs to be done. Andrew Horne, professor of gynaecology and reproductive sciences at the University of Edinburgh, says: Diagnosis is the tip of the iceberg. Predicting how the disease is going to behave, and how it might respond to treatments and hormones and surgery, would be revolutionary.

For Emma Cox, chief executive of Endometriosis UK, the next steps are simple. We need to value womens lives more, she says. Women want to live fully, and free of pain. Its not much to ask. Lets throw money at this, work out whats causing it, how to diagnose it better and, hopefully, how to stop it.

For more information, visit verity-pcos.org.uk and endometriosis-uk.org
And for Gemma Bird (aka social-media star Money Mum), its all down to hard work and thriftiness, as shes never had a big-earning job. She reveals how anyone can save as much as she has  and shares her tips for getting started

Gemma Bird from Essex is Money Mum, an oracle of money-saving tips. Suit, Jigsaw. Shirt, Serena Bute. Sandals, Jimmy Choo. Earrings and bracelet, Monica Vinader.

To her 230,000 Instagram followers 40-year-old Gemma Bird from Essex is Money Mum, an oracle of money-saving tips, preaching the power of scrimping and saving. Dubbed the Mrs Hinch of money, and every bit as glamorous, mum-of-two Gemma has turned her obsession with saving into her personal brand, sharing discounts, deals and bargains with her budget-conscious followers. A far cry from your average financial adviser, shes struck a chord with her down-to-earth advice and philosophy that being thrifty doesnt make you a killjoy. Her goal? Make saving cool.



Gemmas small steps to big savings

Slash your subscriptions Do you know how many subscriptions you have? Not just gym membership or your TV package, but that music-streaming service, the beauty-buying club and all those meditation and fitness apps. Look at all your subscriptions right now. Ill bet you find a few youd forgotten about: cancel them! You can sign up again if you find youre missing them. But I have a hunch you wont. Install Honey on your browser For online shopping, Honey is a fab little browser extension that sits on your search bar and automatically finds all the online discount codes when you check out. It also lets you earn points and gives you vouchers. I always use it when I buy anything online. For instructions on how to install and use it, visit joinhoney.com. Get supermarket savvy Just by thinking that bit smarter about your weekly shop, you can shave pounds off your total. Plan your meals and write a shopping list for what you need. Dont buy anything that isnt on the list and you wont be wasting anything. And look at the price per 100g, not the item price. Youll notice how much more expensive some things are, but the way they are priced often makes it hard to tell. Rotate your kids toys If you have young children, instead of buying even more Barbies and Hot Wheels cars, keep a few of their toys hidden away. Then every few days get them out and hide some of the ones that have been in circulation for a while. Children dont care about the packaging or if something is from a particular shop  they just like the novelty of having a new toy to play with for a while. Advertisement

Gemmas own financial journey is proof that small savings lead to big gains. Thanks to years of frugal living and disciplined saving shes achieved the holy grail of life goals: living mortgage-free, despite having never earned more than 25,000 a year (more on exactly how she managed that later). Now shes sharing her wisdom in her first book, Money Mum: Save Yourself Happy.

I live and breathe saving. Ive been like that from a really young age, laughs Gemma, who credits her parents  her dad was a bus driver and her mum looked after the family full-time  for her thrifty mindset. Mum and Dad didnt have much money when we were growing up and they taught me the importance of budgeting and saving. At 13, Gemma got her first job delivering newspapers, then at 14 she worked as a mushroom picker for an hour each morning before school. Leaving school aged 16 in 1997, she worked in a local medical centre, earning 1,000 a month; she put 800 of it into a savings account and gave herself 50 to spend each week. On nights out shed stick to lime and sodas to save cash. All my friends were spending their money as fast as they could get hold of it but I was determined to save up for a house deposit, says Gemma.

It paid off. By 23 she and her then partner had saved enough for a 25,000 deposit on a two-bedroom house. Gemma continued saving the majority of her income, living to a strict budget and renting out their spare room to a student for 400 a month. Three years later, she had 10,000 tucked away, and used it to buy two rental properties with her dad (thats back when it was easy to get a buy-to-let mortgage).

Things didnt work out with her first husband and when they split Gemma walked away with 66,000 from the sale of their home. Moving back in with her parents, she worked two jobs  estate agent and driving instructor  and saved 30,000 in 18 months. I didnt drink alcohol. I didnt go on holiday. I didnt buy takeaway coffee. Four days a week I would have no-spend days. When she and her dad sold the rental properties, she made an additional 130,000.

Gemma saved 30,000 in 18 months despite only earning 25,000 a year. and trousers, Serena Bute.

It meant that when she met her new husband Adam, in 2010, she could pay off the 225,000 left on the mortgage of his four-bedroom house in Essex, where they now live with their nine-year-old son Brody and two-year-old daughter Bronte. Ive never earned hundreds of thousands of pounds; Ive just stuck to small, steady steps so I could have the big things I want. People think its just a fiver here and there but it adds up, says Gemma, who now runs a bridal lingerie brand with a friend. Theres no instant fix. You have to think like the tortoise, not the hare. The great thing about making small changes is that you dont need to be rich or have a high salary to start making real savings and seeing results.

You dont need to be rich or have a high salary to start making real savings

In December 2019, Gemma started her Money Mum Instagram account, sharing her money-saving mantra and posting deals and freebies shes found: discounted train fares, vouchers for family days out, meal deals at chain restaurants, even free dishwasher tablets. In one of her most popular posts she shared her rounding up technique for daily saving: every evening check your bank balance, and whatever the last figure is, you transfer it to your savings account. If theres 208 in your current account, transfer 8 into your savings account. If the next day theres 54 in the current account, put 4 into your savings, and so on. Loads of people have messaged me to say theyve started doing it, says Gemma. A teenage girl told me shed managed to save 500 towards her first car and now is saving extra because shes got the buzz. That makes me really happy.

Now with nearly 230,000 followers on Instagram, and more than 34,000 on TikTok, Gemma has become something of a money-saving icon. I didnt expect it to get as big as it has, she says. When the pandemic hit, her follower count soared. People were worried about losing their jobs. Businesses were folding. Couples were breaking up. Saving money suddenly became a very pressing issue for many people. There shouldnt be so much shame and secrecy about being a bit strapped for cash, she says. And with Money Mum, shes created a space where being thrifty is celebrated. Its a community. People message me with money tips too; theyll tell me theyve seen some pyjamas on sale in Tesco, she says. Its trying to work together: lets brag about the deals we find and share them. During the first lockdown she also launched #gemmasnospendday which encouraged her followers to pick one day a week where they tried not to spend a single penny. Gemma has also used her platform to talk about her chronic anxiety, which she takes medication to manage. Im a horrific worrier. I do think that maybe Im good at saving money because of the anxiety: its something that I can control. Sometimes I wish I had an I dont care attitude about life but then maybe I wouldnt have taken care of my money, or I might be in debt.

Gemma Bird: 'Sometimes I wish I had an I dont care attitude about life but then maybe I wouldnt have taken care of my money, or I might be in debt.' Dress, ME+EM. Sandals, Jimmy Choo.

Even though she is more financially secure than ever  in addition to the lingerie brand and book deal, there are paid partnerships with brands on her social media  she hasnt changed her lifestyle. I havent bought anything crazy. Id be a hypocrite if I did. Of course I love to dress up but its not the be-all and end-all to wear a Gucci dress. I can just go to H&M or Zara. I only buy clothes when I really need them. Her home is decorated with budget pieces from The Range and Homesense. I sprayed an old lamp with a 5 can of paint and got a lampshade off Ebay for 13. Boom! I have a new lamp instead of spending 150 buying one, she adds. But Gemma doesnt think she goes without. I just dont feel I need to go out every day and buy something extravagant. Its about being mindful, and sacrificing some of the smaller things so you can get the big things you want.

Gemma is now trying to pass on her money-saving mindset to her son. Hes asking for the new iPhone 13 for his birthday because someone in his class has got one. No way! I think its good to say no to your children. As an adult you cant go to your boss and say, I really want a Ferrari and its my birthday, so can I have 100,000? So why should you be able to do that with your parents?

I want Brody to understand that things cost money. We are educating him. The earlier you start the better. I get so frustrated when I see young people spending hundreds of pounds on trainers. Im like, No, put that money in the bank!

Gemma wholeheartedly believes that anyone can learn to be a saver. Having saved her way to the life shes always wanted to live, she hopes her book will inspire others to do the same. I want to empower women and girls to take responsibility for their own financial futures. To have those difficult conversations and do the uncomfortable maths, because, believe me, one day you will be so glad you did.

Follow Gemma on instagram.com/moneymumofficial. Her book Money Mum: Save Yourself Happy is published by Octopus, price 12.99. To order a copy for 11.04 until 30 january, go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937. Free UK delivery on orders over 20.
BEIJING, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- China is closely watching the volcanic eruptions and ensuing disasters including tsunami and volcanic ash in Tonga, and stands ready to provide every possible support and assistance at Tonga's request, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Sunday.

Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said the Chinese Embassy in Tonga immediately activated emergency response mechanism and learned about the situation of Chinese citizens after the disaster through various channels. "So far, no casualties of Chinese citizens have been reported," he said.

Noting China and Tonga are comprehensive strategic partners, Wang said China extends deep sympathies to the government and people of Tonga, and stands ready to provide every possible support and assistance at Tonga's request. 
Wetherspoon's founder Tim Martin has said British boardrooms have become 'havens of wokery and political correctness' amid a growing row over firms' sustainability and governance efforts.

Martin agreed with fund star Terry Smith, who last week accused Unilever of putting environmental, social and governance efforts before profit.

Attack: Wetherspoon's Tim Martin says firms obsess about governance

The pubs boss told The Mail on Sunday: 'There is too much virtuesignalling and too little attention to more important fiduciary duties, which require directors to put the company's interests first.'

Martin said 'the virtue-signalling was a type of marketing, designed to highlight the positive characteristics of the board as individuals, rather than the objective, sceptical and critical approach that is the essence of genuinely good corporate performance'.

Martin founded the pub chain in 1979 and has served as its chairman since 1983, though governance guidelines suggest executives should serve nine years at most.

He blasted BlackRock, the world's largest fund manager, which recently voted against reappointing Wetherspoon's non-executives, saying: 'Its chairman is also chief executive, and its own board appears not to adhere to the nine-year maximum tenure guideline.'
Travel firms are braced for a 'sucker punch' as workers at Heathrow threaten to strike during next month's school holidays.

More than 400 employees of airport services company Menzies are being balloted for strike action.

Turbulence: More than 400 employees of airport services company Menzies, which carries out baggage handling and refuelling for major airlines, are being balloted for strike action

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said staff are struggling after 'a two year pay freeze' and cost of living rises  and now need a pay rise.

The staff provide two services  handling baggage for airlines including Lufthansa and Aer Lingus; and refuelling planes for British Airways.

The poll will close on January 27 and potential industrial action could occur in mid-February.

SkiYodl boss Oli Dannatt said: 'It could be a massive headache for families who have already had to deal with enough disruption from changing travel restrictions.'

He added that it is 'another sucker punch for the ski industry'.

Menzies said it hopes to achieve an 'amicable resolution'.
Fever-Tree has overtaken Schweppes as America's leading tonic water brand in a huge success for a UK firm.

The breakthrough comes just over three years after Fever-Tree set up operations in the US, having previously exported mixers across the Atlantic from its base in London.

Fever-Tree has taken American bars and supermarkets by storm, snapping up 26 per cent of the market by last month, against Schweppes on 25 per cent.

Delighted: Fever-Tree's chief executive and co-founder Tim Warrillow

The brand is already the market leader in the UK but this is the first time it has surpassed Schweppes in the US. Schweppes is sold in America by multi-billion dollar drinks conglomerate Dr Pepper Keurig.

Chief executive and co-founder Tim Warrillow said: 'The US is often seen as a graveyard for British brands, which makes this milestone even more pleasing.'

The US accounted for 58.5m of its overall 252.1m sales in 2020. Fever-Tree shares have grown 15-fold since the company listed on junior market Aim in 2014, when it was valued at 154m.

Its market value today is just under 3billion.
New York let its eviction and foreclosure moratorium expire on Saturday, and the Housing Court reportedly has at least 291,000 pending cases that it will start hearing on Tuesday.

New York instituted the eviction moratorium in March 2020 by then-governor Andrew Cuomo and has been regularly extended since, but current Gov. Kathy Hochul has declined to do.

The critical economic support program was put in place at the start of the pandemic. Its ending sets the stage for a possible rush by landlords to try to oust low-income renters.

State and city officials expressed concern earlier this week about the impact of ending the moratorium, estimating that 500,000 New Yorkers needed housing aid at a time when the fast-spreading Omicron variant continued to upend social and economic life.

Protesters took to the streets of the Big Apple on Friday demanding the extension of a moratorium on rental evictions.

'It's unacceptable to start eviction proceedings against 250,000 people in the state of New York, when it's winter. And there's a pandemic still going on. It's just unacceptable,' said protest organizer Sarah Lazuy.

People take part in a protest against the ending of the eviction moratorium which is due to end

Protesters hold signs during a protest against the expiration of an eviction moratorium

'You cannot allow a moratorium to lapse in the middle of winter, during a COVID surge,' said Jumaane Williams, a former Brooklyn council member and himself a candidate for the post of governor.

When it was first instituted, New York was the epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis in the United States. Extensions occurred even as a federal eviction ban and moratoriums in other states lapsed.

The city of nine million has suffered at least 34,000 deaths during the pandemic.

As in previous days, demonstrators waved banners and chanted slogans in front of the New York Public Library.

'Housing is a human right' read one banner, while another brandished a picture of Hochul with the words, 'Governor of evictions.'

'It's going to be profound in New York,' said Ellen Davidson, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society. 'We expect to see case filings explode and housing courts struggling to operate the way they did, pre-COVID.'

'Tens of thousands of women and children of color in New York City are going to get evicted by their landlords, are going to wind up on the streets are going to wind up in our shelter system. And that just is not possibly right,' said New York City comptroller Brad Lander.

While many landlords may move immediately to evict tenants, Governor Hochul said that renters could effectively avoid eviction by applying for a rental relief program, even though the program has been depleted.

Rental and property prices in Manhattan and Brooklyn in particular are astronomical, one of the downsides of daily life in the economic and cultural capital of the United States.

New mayor Eric Adams has made the fight against New York's enormous socio-economic inequalities one of his priorities.

Mayor Eric Adams speaks during the press conference on expiration of eviction moratorium. Mayor Adams joined other politician to call on federal treasure to release more moneys to help tenants and landlords, pictured on Thursday

People sit in the street to protest after gathering in Manhattan's Bryant Park

On Thursday, Adams joined Hochul in calling on the federal government to provide an infusion of funds for the program, arguing that the United States' most populous city has not received its fair share of federal rent relief.

Adams also launched a campaign to inform tenants of their rights. In a recorded video message the mayor stressed that it was illegal for landlords to lock tenants out of their homes and that all New Yorkers could obtain legal assistance for free.

Landlords have submitted 81,530 eviction filings in New York City since March 15, 2020, according to Princeton University's Eviction Lab, which has compiled data on 31 cities.

It was unclear how many of those cases would now move forward and how many new cases would emerge.

Davidson said New York was particularly vulnerable compared to other states because it has a relatively high percentage of renters, many of whom are in low-income households.

She said the state had been 'shortchanged' by the federal relief program, which was based on population rather than percentage of renters.
A lawyer for the family of multimillionaire murderer Robert Durst's first wife, who vanished and was declared legally dead in 1982, has notified the real estate tycoon's trust that it would be seeking more than $100 million from Durst's estate and widow just five days after his death.

Attorney Robert Abrams told The Associated Press he would soon be filing a new wrongful death lawsuit against the estate and would renew legal actions against others he has claimed helped cover up the killing of Kathie McCormack Durst 40 years ago.

Robert Durst, 78, died Monday in a California hospital while serving a life sentence for shooting his best friend, Susan Berman, in the back of the head at her Los Angeles home in 2000.

A Los Angeles County jury convicted Robert Durst of first-degree murder in September on the theory he silenced Berman as she planned to tell authorities she provided a phony alibi to help him get away with killing Kathie Durst in New York in 1982.

Robert Durst was facing second-degree murder charges in New York for his first wife's alleged slaying.

In 1973, just after his 30th birthday, Robert Durst married Kathleen McCormack, a 19-year-old aspiring pediatrician

A lawyer for the family of Kathie Durst, pictured, notified the real estate tycoon's trust on Tuesday that it would be seeking over $100 million

New York real estate scion Robert Durst, pictured, takes the stand and testifies in his murder trial at the Inglewood Courthouse on August 9, 2021, in Inglewood, California

Durst's California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation booking photo from December 15, 2021 shortly before his death

Abrams sent a letter Tuesday to a lawyer who is co-trustee warning not to distribute money from the trust or destroy any records.

He singled out Durst's second wife, Debrah Charatan, whom he said is believed to be either the sole or primary beneficiary of a trust worth tens of millions of dollars.

Echoing allegations Abrams made in a 2017 lawsuit that remains under appeal, he said Charatan quietly married Durst in 2000 to help him evade authorities after the investigation into Kathie Durst's disappearance was reopened.

'We're not about to let Debrah Charatan dissolve the trust and get tens of millions of dollars more,' Abrams said.

'You don't get tens of millions of dollars in America for covering up a murder.'

Charatan has never been charged with a crime in the case and her attorneys said in court papers in 2019 that she bears no responsibility related to Kathie Durst's disappearance, which occurred six years before she met Robert Durst.

Attorney Scott Epstein said the lawsuit was based on rumor 'more suitable for a work of fiction.'

Kathie McCormack Durst disappeared in 1982

Attorney Robert Abrams, left, speaks during a news conference in White Plains, NY, November 9, 2021

Susan Berman, left, and Durst, right. Durst, 78, was serving a life sentence for shooting Berman, his best friend, in the back of the head at her Los Angeles home in 2000

'The plaintiffs' claims are at best an example of the most extreme form of speculation and at worst nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to publicly embarrass and extort money from Ms. Charatan, an innocent party, who is perceived by the plaintiffs as a deep pocket,' Epstein wrote.

The lawsuit against Charatan and others was thrown out because it was filed after a deadline expired, though it's being appealed.

Epstein did not immediately respond to a phone message seeking comment.

A woman who answered a phone listed in Charatan's name hung up when an AP reporter called for comment on Friday.

Attorney Gary Freidman, the co-trustee who Abrams addressed his three-page letter to, declined to comment.

Durst's deadly turn from a wealthy life of ease to a series of bizarre and bungled runs from the law became tabloid fodder and the focus of a feature film and a six-part documentary.

He was long estranged from his family, which controls one of New York's largest commercial real estate firms, owns several New York skyscrapers and runs One World Trade Center.

Robert Durst sits in a courtroom in Los Angeles on December 21, 2016

After an acrimonious legal dispute, he was bought out of The Durst Organization and his family trust in 2006 for tens of millions of dollars, his brother, Douglas Durst, who runs the company, testified.

Prosecutors estimated Robert Durst was worth about $100 million.

The McCormack family's previous lawsuit against Durst for wrongful death was also tossed because it was filed too late.

They can revive the lawsuit under New York law because Durst was charged last year with murder in the case, Abrams said.

Robert Durst was the last person to see Kathie Durst alive on January 31, 1982. Her body was never been found and she was finally declared legally dead in 2017.

During his LA trial, Durst testified he didn't kill his wife and didn't know what happened to her. He also denied killing Berman, though he said if he had killed either woman, he would lie about it.

Abrams' letter to the trust was akin to a restraining order, essentially saying 'we don't want you paying anyone anything until we get to the bottom of this,' said Matt Hunter, a New York estate attorney.

Robert Durst and his second wife, Debrah Lee Charatan, left, and Charatan, right, who is believed to be either the sole or primary beneficiary of a trust worth tens of millions of dollars

'Wife No. 1's estate is trying to glom onto to whatever wife No. 2 is entitled to through either Roberts estate or Robert's trust,' said Hunter, who has no role in the case.

Durst married Charatan in December 2000 while he was hiding from New York authorities. The previous lawsuit against Charatan said she handled his finances so he could lay low.

Berman, who told friends in late 2000 she was planning to speak with investigators, was killed about two weeks after they wed.

Durst eventually returned to a low-rent Galveston, Texas, apartment where had holed up disguised as a woman unable to speak.

In September 2001, he killed his elderly next door neighbor, Morris Black, chopped up his body and tossed it out to sea.

He was acquitted after testifying that Black, who he had befriended, had pulled a gun on him and it accidentally fired during a struggle for the weapon. He was convicted of tampering with evidence for disposing of the body.

Abrams plans a news conference on the 40th anniversary of Kathie Durst's disappearance later this month to reveal more evidence he uncovered.

He said he will file legal actions against others, including and Charatan and Durst family members whom he said also helped hide what they knew about Kathie Durst's slaying.

A spokesperson for The Durst Organization said Abrams has a reputation for bringing unsupported claims, naming the company or Douglas Durst more than 30 times in court filings in the past two years.

'Mr. Abrams has a long history of leveling hollow, baseless attacks without ever providing a single shred of documentation to substantiate his wild claims,' Jordan Barowitz said.

'Time and time again, these accusations have been summarily dismissed and thrown out by the courts.'
Shawnte Hardin, 41, was charged in September with 44 counts. It is unclear if authorities plan to upgrade charges against him after nearly 90 remains were found at his abandoned church

An Ohio pastor without a funeral license is being investigated by police after the remains of 89 people were found stored in boxes and bags at his abandoned church in Akron.

Shawnte Hardin, 41, pastor of the abandoned Greater Faith Missionary Baptist Church, was charged in September with 44 counts after two bodies were recovered from a building he was using for funeral services in Columbus, the Ohio Attorney Generals office said.

At the time he was charged with racketeering, tampering with records, identity fraud and abuse of a corpse in Lucas County, 100 miles from Akron.

On Tuesday, investigators from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation seized Hardin's abandoned church after a woman claiming to be an 'urban explorer' entered the church and found the remains.

Hardin's attorney, Richard Kerger, said Thursday that a former funeral director named Robert Tate Jr asked Hardin in 2017 to store the ashes of people whose families had not claimed them.

'There was no compensation for him,' Kerger said of Hardin. 'He was just doing a service for someone who needed it.'

It is unclear if authorities plan to upgrade charges against Hardin after the nearly 90 remains were found.

In October, Hardin was taken into custody to Lucas County Jail in northwest Ohio. It does not appear he's been released on bail at this time.

On Tuesday, investigators from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation seized Hardin's abandoned church and found the remains of 89 people were found stored in boxes and bags

Hardin was the pastor at the abandoned Greater Faith Missionary Baptist Church

Authorities said Hardin also has a history of criminal violations for acting as an unlicensed funeral director in Franklin, Summit and Cuyahoga counties since at least 2019.

The cases were consolidated in Toledo, with Hardin pleading not guilty.

Tate, the funeral director who allegedly asked Hardin to store the remains at his church in 2017, pleaded no contest to one felony and three misdemeanor charges in November 2015 after authorities board found 11 bodies in various states of decay at his Toledo funeral home.

Tate was sentenced to a week in jail and probation. He died in December at age 65.

The remains at Hardin's church in Akron were initially discovered Sunday by a woman who told a state investigator she was an 'urban explorer' and had entered an open door of an abandoned church.

She contacted the Ohio State Bureau of Embalmers and Funeral Directors, triggering the state investigation.

The woman said some of the ashes dated to 2010, according to a search warrant affidavit written by state investigative agent Arvin Clar.

Kerger disputed that the church was abandoned. He said Hardin has not been able to check on the building since being placed on home detention at his mother's home in Columbus while awaiting trial.

The family of Joseph Blackshear, whose remains Hardin stored at the church, said they were misled and told Blackshear had been buried next to a relative.

'It's heartbreaking. It's crazy to think that, you know, anyone would do anything like that,' Blackshear's niece, Geneva, told Fox.

Hardin was initially indicted with 37 counts in September after being accused of running an unlicensed funeral operation

The family of Joseph Blackshear, whose remains Hardin stored at the church, said they were told Blackshear had been buried next to a relative

'It's heartbreaking. It's crazy to think that, you know, anyone would do anything like that,' Blackshear's niece, Geneva, said after her uncle's remains were found at Hardin's church

Hardin was initially indicted with 37 counts in September after being accused of running an unlicensed funeral operation. The investigation began that same month after someone called 911 and reported seeing a corpse being moved from a van into a building.

State agents subsequently removed two bodies from the building.

Hardin told a Columbus television station at the time he was not acting as a funeral director but instead offered low cost services for transporting and washing dead bodies.

He was charged with seven additional counts, including abuse of a corpse in December.

According to his attorney, state law does not require a funeral director's license to bury people.

'There's nothing wrong with helping people dispose the remains of their loved ones,' Kerger said.
Sanctioned Chinese firms linked to the ruling Communist party have pocketed tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayer cash via the UK's furlough scheme, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Controversial firms blacklisted by the US over fears they have contributed to the repression of Uighur Muslims took money from the UK Government to pay their staff's wages during the national lockdown.

Firms blacklisted by the US over fears they contributed to the repression of Uighur Muslims took money from the UK Government to pay their staff's wages during lockdown

Chinese surveillance firm Hikvision claimed over 10,000 from the Treasury, but has insisted it has paid it back. Pictured: File image of Hikvision security camera outside of a shop in Beijing

The companies, which include China Mobile, are said to be a huge security concern owing to their alleged association with the Communist regime, a claim denied by their bosses.

Although China Mobile is subject to an investment ban in the US, the UK Government has not imposed the same curbs.

It means the company, which has an office in London, was able to claim furlough money which uses taxpayers' money to pay workers 80 per cent of their usual income up to a maximum of 2,500 per month.

Chinese surveillance firm Hikvision also claimed more than 10,000 from the Treasury, but has insisted it has paid it back.

Last night, critics called for a thorough audit of the emergency Covid scheme.

Sam Goodman, senior policy adviser at the UK-based pressure group Hong Kong Watch, said: 'These payments demonstrate the urgent need for an audit of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme to reveal the extent to which foreign owned companies subject to sanctions or investment bans have profited from the scheme.'
The family of a Houston homeless man who believed he died in a stabbing last month were shocked after discovering he is actually alive, after they watched a news segment this week in which he was hailed a Good Samaritan for helping save a cop in a fiery crash.

Johnny Walker's family was told three weeks ago by authorities that he may have been killed in a stabbing, prompting his loved ones to search hospitals and morgues throughout the city in an effort to locate his body.

But their hopes were renewed after spotting him, alive and well, in a news segment on Thursday where Walker was commended for being a Good Samaritan.

Walker had pulled a Harris County sheriff's deputy from a fiery crash on Thursday following a high-speed chase of a robbery suspect which killed a woman and injured two children, a five-year-old who is in critical condition and a two-year-old who is stable, police said.

Five more vehicles were hit, according to authorities.

Walker's sister, Monica Collins told KHOU they 'thought he [Walker] had passed away, and the fact that he helped save his officer's life...'

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Johnny Walker, pictured, was alive and well, is pictured in a news segment on Thursday when he was commended for being a Good Samaritan

Monica Collins, left, and her brother, Johnny Walker, who were reunited after she and her family thought he was stabbed to death three weeks ago

Walker had pulled a Harris County sheriff's deputy from a fiery crash, pictured, following a high-speed chase of a robbery suspect which killed a woman and injured two children

'An incredible silver lining to an awful story. Johnny Walker has been homeless for years. His family was told he may have been killed in a stabbing,' tweeted KHOU 11 reporter Janelle Bludau.

'They've been searching daily... but then saw him on the news this morning! He helped rescue the deputy from the burning car.'

Walker had reportedly rushed to help the deputy and others who had been injured in the deadly collision, which he was asked about by area news stations that were covering the deadly crash.

'And I asked him, I said, "If you can hear me, Sir, shake your head, open your eyes and let me know if you can't talk," and he opened his eyes,' Walker told ABC 13's Courtney Fischer.

'I'm homeless. I was doing some work for someone. I was taking some tools back when I heard "boom, boom, boom, boom, boom."'

Walker, pictured, told ABC 13's Courtney Fischer, 'I'm homeless. I was doing some work for someone. I was taking some tools back when I heard "boom, boom, boom, boom, boom"'

Pictured: Police investigate a fiery car crash that involved a deputy after a robbery suspect fled the scene and caused a deadly collision, killing a woman and injuring two kids

'I ran out here to see what it is and I saw a lot of cars, but I paid attention to the fire. My instincts were to go to that car and help him out, because he was crushed in on both sides,' Walker added

Deputies had been responding to a call of an aggravated robbery at a CVS in the 10800 block of the Eastex Freeway and Tidwell, near where Walker was in the area doing some work at the time of the fiery crash.

Authorities say a sheriff's deputy saw a man leaving the CVS wearing a mask and getting into a car that matched the description he heard on the scanner.

When the deputy tried to stop him, the man kept going, sparking the pursuit.

Collins was watching the news coverage of the crash at the time, and immediately recognized her brother as one of the Good Samaritans.

Walker reportedly rushed to help the deputy and others who had been injured in the deadly collision, which he was asked about by area news stations that were covering the deadly crash

She then rushed to the scene and finally located Walker after nearly a month of searching.

'When we got to him, he was just really upset that he couldn't help the lady,' Collins said.

The robbery suspect in that case, who was responsible for the fiery crash that inadvertently brought Walker and his estranged family together, has not yet been arrested as of Saturday night, according to police.

Collins told the network that the family plans on putting Walker up in a nearby hotel for the next few days now that they have located him, and added that she hopes they remain in touch.

Collins created a GoFundMe account for Walker after hearing from numerous people who wanted to help, in an effort to get him get counseling and a home.

The GoFundMe had met its $10,000 goal as of Saturday night.
He said NSW securing supply of rapid antigen tests as PCR turnaround drops

He said though case numbers high he had confidence for 'next couple of weeks'

Dominic Perrottet said NSW is in an 'encouraging' position in fight against Covid

NSW is doing better than its 'best case scenario' in combating Omicron with the outbreak expected to peak within days.

The state recorded 34,660 new Covid cases, down 29 per cent from Saturday, and 20 deaths on Sunday, with ICU cases falling from 193 to 191.

Dominic Perrottet urged residents to get vaccinations and boosters 'to protect you, your family and friends', and that of 191 people in ICU, half are unvaccinated despite this group making up less than seven per cent of the population.

'We are currently tracking at both an ICU and hospitalisation rates here in NSW better than the best-case scenario we released last week,' the premier said.

Premier Dominic Perrottet (pictured) on Sunday said modelling released for the state was 'encouraging' that Omicron was easing

Mr Perrottet said 47 per cent of eligible people in NSW have had booster shots, four months after their second jabs - about 25 per cent of all residents over 18-years-old.

He said NSW secured millions more rapid antigen tests and he 'expected these will be distributed in schools, healthcare, and transport as well as supporting the Commonwealth government in remote Aboriginal communities or aged care'.

Free PCR testing will also continue to be provided in NSW as pressure on labs eases - but Mr Perrottet urged people not to report their cases twice.

'We don't want to have a duplication of rapid antigen and PCR tests. The PCR test turnaround is now back at two to three days,' he said.

Chief medical officer Dr Kerry Chant said the state was also securing 'oral antivirals' to widen methods to fight the virus.

Sydney residents enjoyed a brief break in the rainy weather to travel into the city (pictured) as the Premier said the state was was at an 'encouraging' point in battle against coronavirus

In NSW nearly half of the eligible population has had a booster vaccine jab (pictured: a Sydney vaccine hub Belmore Oval)

Modelling released last week for NSW showed a worst-case scenario would put 6,000 people in hospital with Covid and 600 receiving intensive care at the peak.

In the best-case scenario, the modelling predicted there would be 3,158 COVID patients in hospital at the peak, while 270 of those would be in ICU.

'The relationship between hospitalisations and cases and what we're projecting is turning up quite well and does give us a degree of confidence about where we're headed into the next couple of weeks,' Mr Perrottet said.

Mr Perrottet said the turnaround for PCR testing in NSW had returned to two to three days (pictured: hospital staff at St Vincents in Sydney)

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazard on Sunday expressed concern that some areas of the northern part of the state, around Byron Bay and Lismore, had lower vaccination rates.

'People who think that it's OK to ignore getting vaccinated or indeed, think it's OK to go put other people of getting vaccinated doing absolutely inappropriate messaging to those people,' he said.

'They will be responsible for people in hospital or much worse. And there's more, one day this week we had six people in (Lismore Hospital) intensive care unit and all six were unvaccinated.'

'You can't get a clearer message than that. In a hospital, you have everybody who's in the ICU unvaccinated, there is a message for the rest of the state. Go and get vaccinated.'

Panic-buyers have again cleared supermarket shelves of toilet paper in the last week as Coles has brought in limits for some items (pictured)

Premier Perrottet says the state has 'a difficult few weeks ahead' but things not being as bad as feared was 'very reassuring and encouraging'.

Dr Chant said authorities were confident cases would peak soon.

She said about half the state's population could eventually become infected but some would be asymptomatic and may never even know they'd contracted the virus.

'Not all of those will have symptomatic infections or even know that they've been infected,' she said.

'Across NSW we have 95.2 per cent of people aged 16 and over receive the first dose of covered vaccine and 93.8 per cent have received two doses,' Dr Chant said.

'For the 12 to 15-year-old age group that was stubbornly stuck around 81.5 per cent and it's now 82.1 per cent have received their first dose and 78.4 have received the two doses.

'And pleasingly, the five to 11-year-olds, 11.5 per cent of receive their first dose of Covid vaccine.'

Experts have warned people believed to have 'immunity' after recovering from Covid should remain vigilant as they could be exposed to other strains

The NSW state government will also extend rental relief for small businesses amid the Omicron outbreak.

Treasurer Matt Kean on Saturday announced the scheme would continue until March 13.

'Small business is the engine room of our economy and we need to make sure we support impacted businesses through this latest Omicron wave,' he said in a statement.

'With staff shortages and reduced foot traffic, many businesses are struggling at the moment but the ability to negotiate rent will give them a buffer so they can keep the lights on now and recover more quickly.'

Commercial and retail tenants will qualify for the relief if they have an annual turnover of less than $5 million and continue to meet eligibility criteria for since-discontinued JobSaver or micro-business grant programs.
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Former President Donald Trump devoted his first rally of 2022 to again claiming the 2020 election was stolen from him and pushing a conspiracy theory that the January 6 rioters were 'FBI agents.'

'The big lie is as lot of bulls**t. That's what it is,' the former president announced as he arrived at the Florence, Arizona venue, wearing his trademark red hat due to the windy conditions.

While he would hit President Joe Biden here and there - mainly about the COVID response - he kept going back to the so-called 'big lie' and January 6.

He questioned the FBI's involvement in the Capitol attack, voicing a growing conspiracy on the right that Ray Epps, who was videotaped in Washington Jan. 5th, was actually a federal agent.

'How many of those present of the Capitol on January 6 were FBI agents?' he asked.

'People want to hear this,' he added. 'How about the one guy: 'Go in there, everybody get in there,'' he said, referring to Epps.

'Did any of these individuals play any role facilitating the events?' Trump asked.

Trump was supposed to hold a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on the anniversary of the Capitol attack, but advisers and allies pushed him to cancel.

He said the Arizona rally would be his chance to discuss what happened that day.

Trump mainly used the event to air his grievances.

Former President Donald Trump arrived at his Florence, Arizona rally Saturday night and immediately started ripping the media for not reporting that he won the 2020 election

'The big lie is a lot of bulls**t. That's what it is,' said the former president, who was wearing his trademark red hat due to the windy conditions

My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell aimed his ire Saturday at Fox News for not supporting the president's claims of election fraud strongly enough

He complained that the state of Arizona 'got taken away' from him.

'Last year we had a rigged election,' Trump said.

The ex-president harkened back to the Russia investigation as well.

'I'm a professional witch-hunter beater,' he told the crowd.

Trump made only brief mention of the 2024 presidential race, after months of dropping a series of not-so-subtle hints suggesting he intends to run for the presidency again.

'I believe 2024 will be even more important,' the former president said. 'That is the year we are going to take back the House, we're going to take back the Senate and we are going to take back America. And in 2024, we're going to take back the White House.'

At the top he did turn to the 2022 races, as he tries to position himself as a GOP kingmaker.

Trump brought Kari Lake, a former television anchor and his handpicked candidate for governor, onstage as he touted her gubernatorial run.

'If our founding fathers were here today they would be Trump Republicans,' Lake said.

Lake envisioned Washington crossing the Delaware with a 'Make America Great Again flag.'

She also pledged that if elected, 'We will finish you big beautiful wall.'

Trump called the state's current Gov. Doug Ducey, who stood up against the ex-president's election fraud claims, 'a disaster.'

Supporters of former President Donald Trump cheer as he speaks at a Save America Rally Saturday,

He complained that the state of Arizona 'got taken away' from him. 'Last year we had a rigged election,' Trump said

Supporters of Trump-endorsed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake cheer on

Trump hammered Biden on his administration's handling of the coronavirus.

He tried out a new impression of Biden.

'Remember: I'm going to get rid of COVID,' he said, lowering his voice.

Trump then pointed out to the current Omicron burst of numbers.

The ex-president also continued to use his racist nickname for the virus.

'I call it the China virus, is that OK?' he asked the crowd.

He said his own administration did a 'great job on testing.'

'There's no testing, there's no anything,' he said of the job Biden has done.

'We never even heard the term supply chains,' he said, adding 'there's no merchandise at Tiffany's,' the high-end jeweler.

Trump didn't bring up the vaccines - after getting heckled at a recent event in Texas with Bill O'Reilly after telling the crowd he had received his COVID booster.

Instead he went after the masking of children, telling our crowd 'leave our children alone' and arguing their immune systems were so good they didn't need protection.

'You know Barron had COVID,' he noted. 'And by the time we checked him a second time, it was gone.'

He also blasted the Democrats for 'locking people into their homes' and 'going mandate-crazy.'

Lake caused a commotion wherever she went - traversing the fairgrounds in black stilettos and leather pants and handing out her own branded red hats

The sun sets as Trump supporters wait for the former president to address the crowd

'Tell Joe Biden the Americans health choices are none of his business,' he said.

Trump, as he touted his 'anti-mandate' record for Covid vaccinations, then claimed that white people were being denied the Covid-19 vaccine and therapeutics.

'Now they're discriminating against, and now denigrating white people to determine who lives and who dies. If you're white, you don't get the vaccine, or if you're white, you don't get therapeutics. It's unbelievable.'

Earlier this month the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene revealed on their website they would consider 'consider race and ethnicity when assessing individual risk' and distributing monoclonal antibodies and oral antivirals like Paxlovid and Molnupiravir.

Trump also dedicated time to go after his Republican enemies.

He blasted anti-Trump GOP Reps. Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney for being part of the 'Stalin-ist show trial' - the House January 6 select committe.

He went after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The two GOP leaders had a falling out over Trump's false election fraud claims.

Trump expressed joy that Rep. John Katko, a New York Republican, announced his retirement.

Katko, Kinzinger and Cheney all voted in favor of Trump's second impeachement.

'They're falling fast and furious. The ones who voted to impeach,' Trump said.

Trump supporters showed up in droves in rural Arizona Saturday witness the former president give his first rally of the new year to kick off the mid-term season, where he was joined by several GOP candidates in the state he lost to Joe Biden by less than half a point.

The Saturday night rally kicked off with a full embrace of the so-called 'big lie.'

'Who won the election?' Arizona's GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward asked the crowd.

She received a chorus of 'Trump!' in return.

At other times the crowd was urged to chant 'de-certify!'

My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell, one of the president's most ardent defenders of his claims of election fraud, aimed his ire Saturday at conservative media outlets who won't fully embrace those false claims.

'This brings up the biggest problem we face. It's not the media, the fake news media, we're all onto them. It's the conservative media,' Lindell said. 'The ones that don't talk. One of them rhymes with Fox,' he joked.

'They're disgusting. They're disgusting. They won't talk about anything,' he continued.

'When was the last time you've seen anybody on Fox talk about the 2020 election?' he asked. 'You're not going to see it. It's disgusting.'

Lindell also slammed DirecTV's decision to drop the right-wing One American News network, which is embroiled in lawsuits over claims the network made about Georgia election workers.

A trio of Republican House members from Arizona also warmed up the crowd.

Rep. Debbie Lesko went after 'bare-shelves Biden' and previewed some of the probes Republicans launched should they retake the House in the November midterm elections.

'We're going to hold hearings on Biden. We're going to hold hearings on Fauci. We're going to hold hearings to uncover the origins of COVID-19,' Lesko said. 'We're going to hold hearings on the abuse happening in the Department of Justice.'

Rep. Andy Biggs also went after Fauci, who worked under both Trump and Fauci.

'Because when we're back in the majority I get to see Anthony Fauci right there and ask him some important questions because that man has been a destroyer' Biggs said.

In the crowd a number of Trump supporters called out: 'Lock him up!'

Biggs also asked House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to expel anti-Trump Republican Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger from the House Republican caucus.

'I'm begging you Mr. McCarthy, please will you finally expel Cheney and Kinzinger from the Republican conference?' Biggs said. 'That's all I ask.'

Biggs went after Biden too.

'Can you believe how much damage one deranged, mentally decrepit old man can do in a year?' Biggs said as he took the stage. He accused Biden of being 'ingratiated' with China. 'Can you just go be president of the Chinese?' he said, aiming his remark at the president.

Biggs also got the crowd to go a 'let's go Brandon' before he left the podium.

Rep. Paul Gosar, who was stripped of his committee assignments by the Democratic majority, after sharing a video on Twitter that showed Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez being assassinated and Biden being maimed, said he was 'liberated' now.

Meanwhile the Trump-backed gubernatorial hopeful Kari Lake, a former local Fox TV anchor, caused a commotion wherever she went - traversing the fairgrounds in black stilettos and leather pants and handing out her own branded red hats.

Trump's unfounded claims that the 2020 election fraud was stolen from him will likely be a central theme of the rally in Florence, about 60 miles outside Phoenix. Trump was the first Republican to lose Arizona in 24 years.

The Copper State has become central to the former president's election fraud fight, where a GOP-led election audit recently reaffirmed Biden's win.

Trump was previously scheduled to hold a press conference from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot - and the certification of Biden's win - but abruptly canceled, and promised to talk about the 'important topics' at his Florence rally instead.

Duane Schwingel directs people towards their seats at a rally by former President Donald Trump at the Canyon Moon Ranch festival grounds

A person wears a 'Jesus Is My Savior Trump Is My President' hat as crowds behind him line up to enter the rally

Trump supporters showed up in droves in rural Arizona Saturday witness the former president give his first rally of the new year to kick off the mid-term season

Donald Trump is heading to rural Arizona for his first rally of the new year t kick off the mid-term season, where he will be joined by several GOP candidates in the state he lost to Joe Biden by less than half a point

Also joining the president will be MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, one of the president's most ardent defenders in his claims of election fraud

'In light of the total bias and dishonesty of the January 6th Unselect Committee of Democrats, two failed Republicans, and the Fake News Media, I am canceling the January 6th Press Conference at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, and instead will discuss many of those important topics at my rally on Saturday, January 15th, in Arizona,' he wrote, adding, 'It will be a big crowd!'

Notably absent from the state will be Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and state Attorney General Mark Brnovich, both of whom have feuded with Trump as they disputed his claims that the election was 'rigged' in their state.

On the eve of the rally, Trump put out a statement calling Ducey a 'weak RINO.'

'Rumors are that Doug Ducey, the weak RINO Governor from Arizona, is being pushed by Old Crow Mitch McConnell to run for the U.S. Senate. He will never have my endorsement or the support of MAGA Nation!'

Two of Trump's handpicked candidates - former TV anchor Kari Lake for Arizona governor and Rep. Mark Finchem for secretary of state - will be on hand for the rally.

Donald Trump supporter Jonathan Riches holds a 'Trump Won' sign before the first rally of the year

Flags are seen hung ahead of the entrance to the rally

Rounding out the guest speaker list are Kelli Ward, the chairwoman of the Republican Party of Arizona, Dr. Alveda King, a niece of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. who served on Trump's 2020 advisory committee and Boris Epshteyn, an adviser to Trump's 2020 campaign.

The January 15 rally coincides with Martin Luther King's birthday, and falls two days before MLK Day. The King family will be in Phoenix holding a rally that same day pushing for federal voting rights protections, bills that Trump doesn't support.

Trump is also likely to bask in Biden's failures this week, where a new Quinnipiac poll found his job approval at a new low of 33%, as so far Democrats have failed to pass legislation to expand voting rights in the Senate after months of back-and-forth talks on his landmark Build Back Better bill also fell through.

Biden on Friday admitted to 'disappointment' as his agenda stalls in the Senate after a trip to Capitol Hill to beg moderate Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to get on board with the filibuster reform needed to push through voting rights.

'There's a lot of talk about disappointments and things we haven't gotten done,' he noted. 'We're gonna get a lot of them done, I might add,' the president added.

Lindell, meanwhile, is sure to talk about his claims that he has enough voter fraud evidence to put nearly the entire population of the U.S. in prison.

'We already have all the pieces of the puzzle. When you talk about evidence, we have enough evidence to put everybody in prison for life, 300-some million people,' Lindell said during a recent appearance on Real America's voice. 'We had that all the way back in November-December, but what we have are these other things that had to happen, which is evil revealing itself.'

Trump is also likely to bask in Biden's failures this week, where a new Quinnipiac poll found his job approval at a new low of 33%

Trump's choice of Arizona to kick off the midterm season signals that he will make election fraud claims front and center of his message for the 2022 elections, where Republicans have a shot to take back control in Congress, and could also be the basis for a 2024 comeback campaign for the White House.

The former president has stopped short of formally announcing a campaign just under three years ahead of the race.

GB News' Nigel Farage asked Trump during a sit down at Mar-a-Lago in December, 'Why on earth would [you] consider going into that hell again?'

'So I love our country,' Trump said. 'If you love the country you have no choice. It's not a question.'

'This is a wonderful, beautiful life,' Trump said of his lavish existence in Palm Beach. 'But I like that [being president] too because I was helping people. That's why I did it and I think you'll be happy in the future too because that'll be your next question. You'll be happy.'
CANBERRA, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- A tsunami warning has been issued for Australia's east coast after a massive underwater volcanic eruption off the coast of Tonga.

In a statement published on Saturday night, the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) issued a marine threat warning for parts of New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania and Victoria as a result of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai eruption on Saturday afternoon.

The blast led to tsunami warnings across the Pacific. The BOM said tsunami waves were observed.

"The size of these waves means the threat is for the marine environment for the east coast of Australia, and for land on Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island; however the situation will be closely monitored and warnings updated as required," it said.

"People in land-warning zones are strongly advised to move one kilometer inland or go to high ground at least 10 meters above sea level.

"While evacuations are not necessary for marine warning zones, people in these areas are advised to leave the water and move away from the immediate water's edge."

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) has established a helpline for Australian residents with friends and families in Tonga who could have been affected.

A spokesperson said that "initial assessments are still underway and DFAT is working to ensure Australians in Tonga are safe and accounted for." 
John Bercow launched an extraordinary attack on the kangaroo court of Westminster last night amid reports a Parliamentary inquiry had found him guilty of bullying.

The former Speaker branded the verdict unjust and amateurish, and has launched an appeal to overturn it.

He reportedly said: To call it a kangaroo court is unfair to kangaroos.

John Bercow launched an extraordinary attack on the kangaroo court of Westminster last night amid reports a Parliamentary inquiry had found him guilty of bullying

The Mail on Sunday revealed last summer that Mr Bercow was understood to be facing an inquiry into his conduct while an MP and threatening a judicial review into the process.

Last night, there were reports that Commons Standards Commissioner Kathryn Stone had judged him guilty on 21 out of 35 complaints brought by ex-Commons Clerk Lord Lisvane and private secretaries Kate Emms and Angus Sinclair.

Two claims from Lieutenant-General David Leakey, who as Black Rod was the Lords senior official, were rejected by the 18-month inquiry, The Sunday Times reported.

But Mr Bercow, who stood down as Speaker and as an MP in 2019, called the verdict unjust and the result of an amateurish process including hearsay evidence.

The ex-Speaker said he was wrongly alleged to have thrown a mobile phone on two occasions nearly 12 years ago.

He reportedly said: To call it a kangaroo court is unfair to kangaroos

In both cases, the people said to have been present at the time were interviewed and they refuted the allegation.

But Mr Bercow told The Sunday Times that this inconvenient fact was brushed aside in favour of two witnesses who were not present but who claimed that they had been told of the incidents.

He also claimed that in seven cases, investigators found him innocent only for Ms Stone to reverse the decision.

Mr Bercow, 58, has appealed against Ms Stones ruling. If the verdict is upheld, he could be banned from Parliament for life or face a censure motion.

Commons Standards Committee Chairman Chris Bryant said Mr Bercow made similar claims over the inquiry that found ex-Tory MP Owen Paterson guilty of breaching lobbying rules.

Mr Bryant, usually an ally of Mr Bercow, said: The House is determined to change its culture and nobody is above the rules.
Members of the Ukrainian territorial army were pictured training with wooden guns yesterday  as the might of the Russian army massed on their border.

Volunteers in the Kiev Territorial Defence Unit trained in an industrial area of the country's capital as Foreign Secretary Liz Truss called for Russia to 'halt its aggression'.

Her plea comes amid heightening tensions in the region after Moscow stationed more than 100,000 troops near the Ukrainian border.

Preparing for battle: Territorial army volunteers were training with wooden rifles in Ukraines capital, Kiev

Yesterday, Ms Truss tweeted: 'Russia is waging a disinformation campaign intended to destabilise and justify an invasion of its sovereign neighbour Ukraine.

'Russia must halt its aggression, de-escalate and engage in meaningful talks.' She added the hashtag 'stand with Ukraine'.

On Friday, the US said it had intelligence that Russia was planning a 'false flag' operation by sending troops into Ukraine who would carry out acts of sabotage on their own forces as a pretext for war.

'The operatives are trained in urban warfare and in using explosives to carry out acts of sabotage against Russia's own proxy forces,' one official said.

Getting ready: Ukrainian soldiers fire an anti-tank missile in a military exercise this week as the country prepares for a possible invasion

US National Security adviser Jake Sullivan suggested Russia used the same strategy when it occupied Crimea in 2014.

But the Russian embassy in Washington angrily dismissed the claims, saying: 'As usual, there is no evidence.' Despite the denial, Russia pressed ahead with live firing exercises.

Ukraine also accused Russia of being behind a massive cyber-attack on dozens of official websites on Friday.

Firepower: Russian troops carry out trials on tank weapons which may be used in Ukraine

Russian hackers were alleged to have left threatening messages on government websites.

Tensions remain fraught despite a week of diplomatic talks. Russian demands for a veto on former Soviet states joining Nato and a removal of Western troops from eastern Europe have been dismissed by the UK and US.

Tobias Ellwood, Tory chairman of the Commons Defence Committee, suggested President Vladimir Putin had 'negotiated himself into a corner' and an invasion of Ukraine was 'inevitable and imminent'.

Yesterday, the Daily Mail revealed that RAF spy planes had started surveillance flights in the region to monitor Russian troop movements.
Three quarters of right-leaning academics in British universities say they are having to hide their political views because of the woke orthodoxy in higher education, a new study has revealed.

The report by the Legatum Institute, a centre-right think tank, found the majority of right-wing lecturers have to 'self-censor' their beliefs.

The study claims left-wing lecturers 'openly dislike' those with different views and those who vote for right-wing parties in elections.

Three quarters of right-leaning academics in British universities say they are having to hide their political views (file image)

Meanwhile only 35 per cent of left-wing academics feel the need to hide their political views on campus, The Telegraph reported.

Around 70 per cent of those surveyed who identify as left-wing said they disliked right-wing voters, compared to 36 per cent of conservative academics who say they dislike their left-wing counterparts.

More than 650 academics, nearly half of whom were professors, were surveyed across the UK, Australia, Canada and the US.

In Britain, 35 per cent of all academics said they need to self-censor, a lower rate than in the other countries.

The US leads the way with 50 per cent, followed by Canada with 44 per cent and Australia with 39 per cent.

Matthew Goodwin, professor of politics at Kent University and a fellow at the Legatum Institute, said: 'Academic freedom has long been central to prosperity in the UK and around the world. Yet our findings suggest there are good reasons to be concerned about the extent to which it is being preserved and promoted by our universities.

Matthew Goodwin, professor of politics at Kent University and a fellow at the Legatum Institute, said the report raises concerns about academic freedom

'We find that academics in the social sciences lean heavily in only one ideological direction while remarkably large numbers of them are concealing their real views when on campus, fearful about what will happen if they are revealed. This should not be happening in a mature, liberal democracy.

'The good news is that large numbers of academics do say they are committed to academic freedom. But we also find a sizeable minority who clearly view ideological goals as being more important than the core principle of academic freedom

The study also found that 76 per cent of academics disagree with the notion that certain people should be stopped from speaking to students because their views could cause offence.

Only one in ten said speakers who might offend students should be no-platformed.
Tens of thousands of women are still being propositioned by vile landlords offering accommodation in exchange for sexual favours, a new study has found.

Despite recent law changes, sleazy men still use online adverts to entice vulnerable female tenants into sharing a bed or other 'jobs'.

Experts warned the problem is likely to get worse amid spiralling rents and the cost of living crisis.

The Mail on Sunday last week found ads on Craigslist, with one describing their property as 'escort friendly' and another saying the rent was 'negotiable depending on the services you're offering' (file photo)

Polly Neate, chief executive of the housing charity Shelter, said: 'It's sickening there are landlords who think they get can get away with sexually exploiting female tenants in need of a home.

'Keeping a safe roof over their head is only getting harder for women on the lowest incomes.

'We're worried even more tenants will be left vulnerable to this vile abuse of power.'

Research by Shelter found that 59,000 women were targeted by current or prospective landlords between March 2020 and last September.

Three-quarters of those questioned said they were struggling to afford housing costs.

One woman, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Mail on Sunday of how she felt forced to take up a 'sex for rent' offer.

'At the time I didn't have nearly enough money for the deposit to rent even a studio flat,' she said.

'The arrangement is that we sleep together when the landlord comes to town. I'm only expected to have sex with him once and then I go back to my own room.'

Websites face fines of up to 50,000 for hosting 'sex for rent' advertisements but they are still freely available online.

Tens of thousands of women are still being propositioned by vile landlords offering accommodation in exchange for sexual favours, a new study has found (file photo)

The MoS last week found such ads on Craigslist, with one describing their property as 'escort friendly' and another saying the rent was 'negotiable depending on the services you're offering'.

A further Craigslist post stated: 'Girl wanted to share apartment with male, must be broadminded and not shy in any way, no rent or bills in return for arrangement.'

In 2019, the Crown Prosecution Service issued guidance classifying 'rent-for-sex' deals as punishable by up to seven years in jail.

Several months later, an undercover investigation by the MoS found such exploitation was rife.

The Home Office said: 'The safety of women and girls is paramount and we will always place victims' voices at the heart of our decisions.'

Craigslist did not reply to a request for comment.
A Scottish rugby player and serving soldier has been sent a letter by the Home Office threatening to deport him back to his native Fiji.

Junior Bulumakau, 30, moved to the UK aged eight.

The father-of-two, who is married to a Scottish woman, has served in the British Army for the past 11 years and plays for the Scottish Rugby Union 7s team.

Junior Bulumakau being stopped by the Exeter Chiefs defence during the Premiership Rugby 7's Series at Kingsholm Stadium in 2014. He moved to the UK aged eight

Bulumakau, far left, in 2016. The father-of-two, who is married to a Scottish woman, has served in the British Army for the past 11 years

But he was told that his 'exemption to immigration control' had ceased and he had a month to leave.

Yesterday, the Home Office said the letter had been sent by mistake as it wrongly believed he had left the Army.
Environment Secretary George Eustice will this week launch a crackdown on fly-tipping in an attempt to ensure no hiding place for 'criminals who mindlessly dump waste'.

He will unveil plans for a new digital tracking system and other checks to stop waste 'cowboys' playing the system.

The moves mean illegally dumped rubbish could be more easily traced to the source.

Environment Secretary George Eustice (pictured) will launch a crackdown on fly-tipping in an attempt to ensure no hiding place for 'criminals who mindlessly dump waste'

Mr Eustice said last night that the new plans would add to powers given to town halls to tackle the scourge of fly-tipping (stock image)

Mr Eustice said last night that the new plans would add to powers given to town halls to tackle the scourge of fly-tipping.

He said: 'Fly-tipping is a serious crime. I am determined to clamp down on it and ensure those responsible face the full force of the law.'

The Environment Secretary added that the latest plans would 'ensure criminals have no room to hide when they mindlessly dump waste'.

His officials said that in 2020/21 alone, local authorities dealt with nearly 1.13 million fly-tipping incidents  an increase of 16 per cent on the year before.
Booster jabs will be offered to under-18s from tomorrow as the Government prepares to drastically reduce Covid restrictions.

Around 40,000 teenagers aged 16 and 17 will be eligible for their top-up dose when the national booking service opens on Monday, in the latest phase of the vaccine programme.

Previously, boosters were only recommended for clinically vulnerable 16 and 17-year-olds who were most at risk from Covid-19.

But a decision to expand the booster campaign was taken after data from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) showed that two doses of the vaccine were not enough to stop people becoming unwell from Omicron, but a booster significantly increased protection against the variant.

The NHS has said more in the age group will be able to get boosted 'in the coming weeks as they reach three months since their second jab'.

Dr Nikki Kanani, GP and deputy lead for the NHS vaccination programme, said: 'The NHS Covid-19 vaccination programme is expanding once again to offer eligible young people aged 16 and 17 the chance to book their boosters through the online booking service from tomorrow, with walk-in sites also available across the country, as the biggest and fastest vaccine drive in health service history continues at pace.

Booster jabs will be offered to around 40,000 eligible 16 and 17-year-olds from tomorrow under new plans. Pictured: A teenager is vaccinated at Cardiff Bay vaccination centre

'Covid has caused so much disruption for so many families over the past two years, affecting young people's lives and education, and getting vaccinated protects them, their family and their friends, letting them stay at school and continue socialising.

'We know that the best protection against coronavirus is to get vaccinated and I'd urge everyone, whatever your age, to come forward and get that vital top-up as soon as it is possible.'

More than 600,000 in the age group in England have had their second jab, and will be able to get boosted in the coming weeks as they reach three months after the second dose.

Since the vaccination programme rolled out to this age group in August, more than 889,700 teenagers in England  seven in 10 people aged 16 and 17  have had their first dose.

The NHS said invitations will be sent out this week encouraging people in the age group to book their appointment through the online booking service, or by finding their nearest walk-in site.

Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid said: 'More than four in five adults in England have already been boosted, helping to protect them from severe illness and reduce the pressure on the NHS in the face of Omicron.

'We're now extending the programme to 16 and 17-year-olds so they can top-up their immunity this winter to keep themselves and their friends safe.

'We can learn to live with Covid-19 if everybody comes forward for their vaccines and gets boosted now.'

However the NHS said that, in line with Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) guidance, it cannot vaccinate 16 and 17-year-olds within 12 weeks, or 84 days, of a positive Covid-19 test.

Those aged 16 and 17 and considered at high risk from Covid-19 must wait four weeks, or 28 days, from the date of a positive Covid-19 test before getting any dose of the vaccine.

More than 114 million doses have been delivered in England since the Covid-19 Vaccination Programme started in December 2020, including more than 30 million top-up doses.

It comes as fully vaccinated travellers will be able to go on half-term holidays in February without the need to take a test on their return, as the Government prepares to drastically reduce Covid restrictions.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid said he expects almost all Covid curbs to end in a fortnight because 'the data is moving in the right direction'.

It comes after Boris Johnson announced earlier this month that travellers arriving in England would no longer have to take a pre-departure Covid test.

He also axed the requirement for travellers to self-isolate on arrival until they receive a negative PCR test, with people now required to just take a lateral flow test within two days instead.

Yesterday another 81,713 positive tests of Covid were logged, according to Government dashboard data, dropping by nearly half on the figure last week.

There were another 287 deaths that were registered yesterday which is an eight per cent fall compared to last Saturday.

Daily hospitalisations have remained flat with the latest data showing 2,423 new admissions on January 10, down by less than a per cent on the previous week.

Dr Susan Hopkins, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) chief medical adviser, said parts of the UK were seeing the number of infections flatten.

But she added cases were still relatively high, with one in 15 people in England infected and one in 20 elsewhere in the UK, but that there was a 'slow down' in hospital admissions.

Other experts said the decrease in cases was 'giving cause for optimism', while the Welsh Government began to ease restrictions.

It came as it was revealed this week that millions of Covid vaccines could be binned unless booster uptake picks up in young people.

The booster drive has slowed to just 140,000 jabs a day, barely a fifth of the number being dished out in the run-up to Christmas.

Official figures show uptake is lowest among 18 to 24-year-olds, where just 28.9 per cent have been boosted (or 1.5 out of 5.3million in the age group up to January 13).

Health Secretary Sajid Javid said he expects almost all Covid curbs to end in a fortnight because 'the data is moving in the right direction'

Since the vaccination programme rolled out to this age group in August, more than 889,700 teenagers in England  seven in 10 people aged 16 and 17  have had their first dose

They are followed by 25 to 29-year-olds where 31.3 per cent have got their third dose (or 1.4 out of 4.5million), and 30 to 34-year-olds where 36.7 per cent have three jabs (1.7 out of 4.8million).

Uptake is highest among the over-75s where 91.7 per cent are boosted (4.5 out of 4.9million), and adults in their early 70s at 90 per cent (2.5 out of 2.8million).

Government figures show that while 80 per cent of the eligible population is now boosted, this falls to 57 per cent among 18 to 34-year-olds.

Older people are most at risk of suffering serious disease and being hospitalised if they catch the virus.

But scientists say boosters benefit all age groups because they slash the risk of hospitalisation by up to 88 per cent, and reduce the risk of a symptomatic infection by 70 per cent.

In December the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it was planning to allow for children aged 12 to 15 to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 booster in the new year, according to a report by the New York Times.

It came as Germany and Spain started vaccinating children as young as five in a bid to keep schools open.

Denmark and some Austrian regions already began offering jabs to younger children in November.
Tory peer Michelle Mone is to be investigated over links to a company that landed more than 200 million of Government PPE contracts in an unlawful 'VIP' procurement process, The Mail on Sunday understands.

The lingerie tycoon  nicknamed 'Baroness Bra'  has faced increasing scrutiny for her ties to PPE Medpro, which last year won two contracts worth a combined 203 million to supply the NHS with face masks and surgical gowns.

Lady Mone has repeatedly denied any association with the company, which she recommended to the Cabinet Office as a potential supplier in May 2020.

Although she has no actual formal connections with the company, her denials have come under scrutiny thanks to publicly documented connections between Anthony Page, PPE Medpro's owner, and businesses run by Lady Mone and her husband, Isle of Man-based billionaire Doug Barrowman.

Tory peer Michelle Mone is to be investigated over links to a company that landed more than 200 million of Government PPE contracts in an unlawful 'VIP' procurement process, The Mail on Sunday understands

Now senior sources have confirmed the House of Lords commissioners for standards will announce an inquiry into Lady Mone's interest in PPE Medpro as early as tomorrow, after Labour peer George Foulkes called for a probe.

Lord Foulkes said Lady Mone had failed to fully disclose her business interests in PPE Medpro and asked the commissioners to investigate whether she had breached the rules against lobbying when she referred the firm to the Government.

A Lords spokesman said: 'A complaint has been received and the Commissioner is currently undertaking an initial assessment of that complaint.'

Mr Page, the sole owner of PPE Medpro, is a wealth management expert who works for Barrowman's Knox House Trust, part of the Knox Group of companies based on the Isle of Man, where Lady Mone and her husband live on a 25 million estate.

Senior sources have confirmed the House of Lords commissioners for standards will announce an inquiry into Lady Mone's interest in PPE Medpro as early as tomorrow, after Labour peer George Foulkes called for a probe.

Last month, The Mail on Sunday revealed Mr Page is the director of a firm that owns a luxury yacht, called Lady M, on which Lady Mone sailed around the Adriatic last summer. Mr Page is also the majority shareholder of Lady Mone's new business venture Neo Space, which operates spaces for rent in Aberdeen.

We can also reveal Mr Page is a director of an offshore company that registered a 3.4 million private jet called M-KNOX last January. The name appears to be a reference to Barrowman's Knox group.

Documents filed with the Isle of Man Aircraft Registry show that the Cessna plane is registered by a company called Cabbane Limited.

Mr Page is a director of Cabbane, according to public documents, and the company is based in Knox House in Douglas on the Isle of Man  the same address as the Knox Group's Isle of Man office.

Company PPE Medpro last year won two contracts worth a combined 203 million to supply the NHS with face masks and surgical gowns following a recommendation from Baroness Mone

The Mail on Sunday contacted Lady Mone and Anthony Page for comment on the apparent business links but they did not respond.

Last night Labour's deputy leader, Angela Rayner, said: 'This is the latest in a drip, drip of concerning revelations about this contract and each new fact begs more questions.

'It's high time that everyone involved came clean, and the Government should tell us just what diligence they did on this company before handing over hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers' cash.'

Lady Mone founded lingerie brand Ultimo through parent company MJM International in 1996. She was made a life peer by David Cameron in 2015.

Lady Mone faces a separate fight to clear her name of libel, after Richard Lynton-Jones, who is of Indian heritage, filed a writ in the High Court alleging that Lady Mone had called him a 'waste of a white man's skin' in a WhatsApp group.

Lawyers for Lady Mone say the claim 'lacks merit' and she will 'defend it vigorously'.
Victoria Beckham is emblazoning her initials all over her latest fashion range  despite admitting having a dislike of big branding.

The 47-year-old is following in the footsteps of designers such as Louis Vuitton and Gucci by selling pieces covered in a monogram of her initials intertwined.

Her fashion label will sell a dress, shirt and trousers made from viscose twill and covered with the motif.

They appeared on Mrs Beckhams Instagram site yesterday along with a hint that a handbag may follow.

Victoria Beckham has released a new fashion range which prominently displays her initials VB

Victoria Beckham, pictured, previously said she was not in favour of using initials on her designs

But in an interview with Vogue magazine to launch the collection, the former Spice Girl said: Most of my starting points in designing are things that I dont like. And I dont like monograms.

I was never that person who wore big branding all over. Neither I nor David. But I can see that a lot of people do like that, so the challenge was, how do we do branding in an elegant and sophisticated and timeless way that we can carry on?

Mrs Beckham has yet to be seen wearing the new items, but added: This is now in my personal wardrobe and Im really excited to wear it. Its elegant, its chic.

The prices have not been revealed, but she will be hoping for success given that her fashion empire has racked up losses of 57 million and has not turned a profit for six years.

Directors have warned there is significant doubt over its future without more cash, although the beauty arm of her business has seen more success, with 7.3 million in sales in its first full year.
A massive undersea volcanic eruption that triggered a 7.4 magnitude earthquake near Tonga has caused tsunami waves and extensive flooding up to 10,000km away from the epicentre.

Lasting eight minutes, the eruption could be heard as 'loud thunder sounds' more than 800km away in Fiji, officials in the capital Suva said.

The effect of the volcanic eruption has been felt in New Zealand, the US, Canada and South America.

Warnings were also triggered for much of the east coast of Australia, Fiji, New Vanuatu, American Samoa, Lord Howe Island, Macquarie Island and Norkfolk Island.

Tsunami waves of up to 1.3metres were recorded in Port San Luis, California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia in Canada and Alaska.

There has been widespread flooding in the South American nation of Peru (pictured), which is on the Pacific coast of the continent

Tonga was hit by a second tsunami after the massive undersea Honga Hapai volcano erupted.

The country's consulate has spoken of the devastation.

'This is incredibly sad. The damage being done to the Kingdom of Tonga is extreme,' the consulate wrote on Twitter. 'The people of Kingdom are strong. Sending prayers to Tonga. Ofa lahi atu.'

All internet connectivity with Tonga was lost at about 6.40pm local time on Saturday, said Doug Madory, director of internet analysis for the network intelligence firm Kentik.

Southern Cross Cable Network, the company that manages the connection, does not know yet 'if the cable is cut or just suffering power loss,' chief technical officer Dean Veverka said.

Professor Shane Cronin, a volcanologist at the University of Auckland, said the eruption was one of the biggest in Tonga in the past 30 years.

'This is a pretty big event - it's one of the more significant eruptions of the last decade at least,' he told the BBC.

'The most remarkable thing about it is how rapidly and violently it's spread. This one was larger, a much wider lateral spread, much more ash was produced.

A second tsunami has hit the Pacific island nation of Tonga after the eruption of the Honga Hapai volcano

'I expect there to be many centimetres of ash that have been deposited on Tonga.'

Pictures have been tweeted of children sleeping in tents in Tonga after being evacuated from their homes.

One resident, Mere Taufa, said the eruption hit as her family was preparing for dinner, and her younger brother thought bombs were exploding nearby.

'My first instinct was to take cover under the table, I grabbed my little sister, and screamed at my parents and others in the house to do the same,' New Zealand news site Stuff.co.nz quoted her as saying.

Part of the devastation the two tsunamis have caused in Tonga is pictured from the deck of a fishing boat

Ms Taufa said the next thing she knew, water was rushing into their home.

'You could just hear screams everywhere, people screaming for safety, for everyone to get to higher ground,' she said.

The Morrison Government said no Australians were injured in Tonga, but the eruption led to a major surf event in Sydney being cancelled on Sunday.

It is still unknown if anyone has died or been seriously injured in Tonga due communications being down.

Children sleeping in a tent in Tonga after being evacuated from their homes because of the tsunami on the island

Health Minister Greg Hunt said Foreign Minister Marise Payne and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) are working with Tongan authorities.

'DFAT will continue to engage with the Tongan Government and has offered through the foreign minister all possible support that may be required,' Mr Hunt said.

In New Zealand, a dock was torn apart in a marina at Tutukaka on the North Island on Sunday after waves from the volcanic eruption swept in.

The marina and some campgrounds in Northland were evacuated due to the surge which caused 'significant damage', sinking a number of boats and badly damaging others.

New Zealand's emergency management agency issued an advisory on tsunami activity for its north and east coasts.

A dock (pictured) is torn apart by surging waters in a marina at Tutukaka, New Zealand, Sunday, January 16, 2022

The areas, 2,300km from the epicentre, experienced strong and unusual currents, and unpredictable surges at the shore.

New Zealand's Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, said images of the violent volcanic eruption near Tonga were 'hugely concerning'.

'[Our] defence force team and Ministry of Foreign Affairs are working as we speak to establish what's needed and how we can help,' Ms Ardern said.

New Zealand telecommunications companies 2degrees and Spark are offering to waive all fees for those trying to phone friends and family in Tonga.

The 8.10am tsunami-affected wave (pictured) at Santa Cruz in northern California, America, on January 15, 2022

Fiji also issued a tsunami warning, urging residents to avoid the shorelines 'due to strong currents and dangerous waves'.

The Fijian Government has opened evacuation centres for people in coastal areas.

Vanuatu, another island nation in the Pacific, issued a similar warning.

In the US, despite the dire warnings, spectators flocked to beaches to view the surging tsunami waves, and some surfers threw caution to the wind to catch them.

In Santa Cruz, video showed significant flooding near the harbour, with at least one vehicle caught in the surge.

People (pictured) evacuate the coastline in Chile following a tsunami preventive advisory issued by the South American nation

People evacuate from the Pacific coastline in La Serena, Chile following a tsunami warning on January 15, 2022

In Japan, authorities warned of waves as high as 3m. A 1.2m tsunami was recorded in the Kominato district of Amami-Oshima Island in Kagoshima Prefecture at 11.55pm on Saturday (1.55am AEDT).

The tsunami also reached South America and caused serious flooding in Peru on the west coast of the continent.

The Chilean coast of Los Rios, almost 10,000km from Tonga, was also been affected.

Chilean beaches were left empty after a mass evacuation along its extensive coastline, which stretches more than half the length of the continent's west coast.

A worker removes beach chairs after mass evacuation from the coastline in Chile, following a tsunami preventive advisory

Chile's National Emergency Management Authority issued a tsunami warning in three regions of the country following the Honga Hapai volcano eruption.

'Based on the new assessments, the Hydrographic and Oceanographic Service of the Chilean Navy has declared a tsunami threat to coastal areas in the Los Lagos region,' it wrote on Twitter.

'The threat of a tsunami has also been announced in the regions of Coquimbo and Los Rios.'

Authorities urged citizens to leave coastal areas and move to higher ground.

An empty beach is pictured after mass evacuation from the coastline in Chile, following a tsunami preventive advisory generated by local authorities, after an underwater volcano eruption on the island of Tonga

In Peru, authorities went to great lengths to reassure the public that the receding ocean was not the sign of a tsunami - though the tsunami did cause higher waters and flooding.

After fellow South American countries with Pacific coastlines, such as Chile and Ecuador were put on alert, several videos on San Bartolo beach in Peru showed the sea receding, alarming swimmers.

'After an analysis and evaluation through the National Tsunami Warning Center of this Directorate, it is reported that this event does not generate a tsunami on the Peruvian coast,' the Directorate of Hydrography and Navigation of the Peruvian Navy said in a statement.

People (pictured) look towards the ocean at a beach after a mass evacuation from the coastline in Chile on January 15, 2022

Lorena Marquez Ismodes, the head of Peru's National Tsunami Warning Centre, said there was no tsunami warning in Peru, despite that being the case in other coastal South American countries.

'There is no tsunami alert, there has been a volcanic eruption in Tonga. This impact has travelled throughout the Pacific Ocean, but the population should not be alarmed,' he told TV station Canal N.

However, Mr Marquez said that in Chile, where there is a tsunami warning, the situation is different.

'In Chile they issued a precautionary alert, but they have wave amplitudes between 20 and 30cm. The wave (in that country) can arrive in a different way than we do,' South American news site infobae.com reported.
The High Court is this week expected to hear a high profile corruption case in which the State is seeking to recover more than US$32 million and forfeit numerous properties from former Police Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri and his family.

Chihuri, who is believed to be in Malawi, is reported to have created a criminal syndicated mafia that siphoned funds for his personal, family and cronies benefit during the 25 years he was at the helm of the police force.

He fled the country following his removal from the post soon after the November 2017 resignation of the late former President Robert Mugabe.

Chihuri is alleged to have sold five properties between 2017 and 2018 that were part of a large property portfolio.

Buyers paid a total of US$620 000 for the five properties registered in the names of his family members and the State is still trying to find out how ownership changed in respect of two other assets previously owned by the Chihuri family.

Prosecutor-General Mr Kumbirai Hodzi, has filed a fresh application seeking explanation on the sale of the properties.

Justice Pisirayi Kwenda is on Wednesday expected to hear the matter in which Chihuri, through his legal counsel, will be expected to explain the sale of the properties.

In the latest High Court application counteracting Chihuris bid to set aside two orders issued against him, Mr Hodzi said a check with the Deeds Office showed the rushed disposal of assets by the Chihuri family.

Among the properties sold is a mansion in Gletwyn sitting on 30 acres of land valued at US$7 million.

On July 17, 2018, Isobel Halima Khan Chihuri sold stand 1421 Gletwyn Township which was walled, gated with a borehole, water tank, tank stand and wooden cabin to Brian Chijaka for US$130 000.

Her brother, Aitken Khan, had her power of attorney.

Stand Number 1411 Gletwyn was also sold by True Hope Trust again with Khan standing in for his sister, but the value of the property is yet to be established.

On March 21, 2018, Khan sold number 8 St Aubins Chisipite in Harare on behalf of owner Samantha Chihuri to Erinah Muchingami for US$365 000.

The property, measuring 9 094 square metres has a four-bedroomed house with borehole and is gated and walled.

On August 29, 2017, Khan sold another property in Strathaven, registered in the name of Nicole Tawonga Chihuri to Fairline Investments Pvt Ltd for US$125 000.

The Chihuri family is expected to disclose how they acquired Lot 3 of Plot 4 of Juliasdale, Nyanga, a property worth US$3 860 000 and registered in the names of Samantha Chihuri, Ethan Augustine Chihuri, Nicole Tawonga Chihuri and Anashe Melamine Chihuri under Deed of Transfer 2208/12.

The family should also explain how it acquired  14453 Ibhalabhala Crescent, Selbourne in Bulawayo which was transferred from the ex-police boss name into the name of Tendai Madamombe on July 24, 2018. The buyer has since resold the property.

Chihuri, his wife Isobel and children  Ethan and Samantha  were listed as respondents together with five companies involved in the alleged siphoning of money from the Police Revolving Fund.

An order which the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) obtained at the High Court placed known family property in Zimbabwe under the management of the Asset Management Unit of the NPA.

This means the property and companies cannot be sold without permission of the courts. Chihuri is challenging earlier unexplained wealth orders.

He argues that the unexplained wealth order constituted a gross irregularity and a fundamental breach of their legal rights and wants the High Court to declare that certain provisions of the Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime (Amendment) Act of 2019, infringe the Constitution.

In challenging the constitutionality of these provisions in the High Court, Chihuri and his family rely on a constitutional provision that gives courts subordinate to the Constitutional Court the power to make constitutional declarations and to pronounce as invalid, offensive pieces of legislation, although any such finding is subject to confirmation by the Constitutional Court.

Chihuri argues that if for any reason, the High Court does not wish to consider the constitutional matter, then the constitutional questions he is raising should be referred to the Constitutional Court for determination. Herald
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An undersea volcano that erupted in Tonga, triggering a 7.4 magnitude earthquake, was so large it was visible from space and sent tsunami waves crashing into the west coast of the US.

Waves of up to 4.1 feet were recorded in Port San Luis on Saturday, and tsunami-effect waves were recorded along the coast in California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska.

Satellite images showed the spectacular eruption from space and despite the dire warnings, spectators flocked to the beaches to view the surging tsunami waves, while surfers threw caution to the wind to catch the powerful waves generated by the surge.

Tsunami advisories were issued for Hawaii, Alaska and the U.S. Pacific coast. Hundreds of thousands of Japanese citizens were also advised to evacuate as waves of more than a metre hit coastal areas.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimated the eruption caused the equivalent of magnitude 5.8 earthquake. Scientists said tsunamis generated by volcanoes rather than earthquakes are relatively rare.

The powerful waves registered in Japan, New Zealand and Australia, with a thunderous roar heard 6,000 miles away in Alaska.

Tsunami-hit Tonga remained largely uncontactable on Sunday with telephone and internet links severed, leaving relatives in faraway New Zealand praying for their families on the Pacific islands as casualty reports had yet to come through.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the eruption was 'hugely concerning' and agencies were still trying to establish full communications with Tonga.

Dramatic official aerial maps showed the eruption cloud over Tonga after the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai volcanco erupted (pictured, satellite images of the volanic eruption in the Pacific Ocean on Saturday)

Tonga volcano eruption as seen from Himawari-8 of the Japan Meteorological Agency. Hundreds of frightened Tongans fled to higher ground as the eruption triggered a tsunami in the island nation, with a four-foot wave observed in Tonga's capital Nuku'alofa

 Slide me  Left: A satellite image shows the underwater volcano Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai with a plume of smoke rising from it, days before the eruption. Right: The volcano two hours before its eruption in Tonga.

Pictured: Satellite imagery shows the underwater explosion (left). The images showed a three-mile-wide plume rising into the air to about 12 miles

A car is caught in rising water at Santa Cruz Harbor on Saturday as tsunami flooding strikes low-lying areas

People look at a damaged boat in a marina at Tutukaka, New Zealand, after waves from a volcano eruption swept into the marina

A man takes a picture of the big waves in the breakwater caused by the tsunami in Venice beach while he walks with his dog

The eruption cut the internet to Tonga, leaving friends and family members around the world on Sunday still anxiously trying to get in touch to figure out if there were any injuries and the extent of the damage. Even government websites and other official sources remained without any updates.

Satellite images showed a huge eruption, with a plume of ash, steam and gas rising above the sea. A sonic boom could be heard as far away as Alaska.

The Tonga Meteorological Services said a tsunami warning was declared for all of the archipelago, and data from the Pacific tsunami center said waves of 2.7 feet were detected.

Rachel Afeaki-Taumoepeau, who chairs the New Zealand Tonga Business Council, said she hoped the relatively low level of the tsunami waves would have allowed most people to get to safety, although she worried about those living on islands closest to the volcano.

She said she hadn't yet been able to contact her friends and family in Tonga.

Some churches in New Zealand organised community prayers in Auckland and other cities.

'We pray God will help our country at this sad moment. We hope everybody is safe,' Maikeli Atiola, the Secretary of the Wesleyan Church of Tonga in Auckland said, Radio New Zealand reported.

Ardern said the main undersea communications cable has been impacted, likely due to loss of power.

Power was being restored in some areas on the islands and local mobile phones were slowly starting to work, she addedd.

Official damage assessments were not yet available, she said. But Ardern said the New Zealand high commission in Nuku'alofa had said the tsunami has damaged boats, shops and other infrastructure.

In this satellite image taken by Himawari-8, a Japanese weather satellite, and released by the agency, shows an undersea volcano eruption at the Pacific nation of Tonga Saturday

A surfer defies warnings to stay out of the water and catches a wave at Manhattan Beach in El Segundo, California Saturday

Tonga's cabinet held a crisis meeting on Sunday and was contacting development partners, a spokeswoman for Zed Seselja, Australia's minister for international development and the Pacific told Reuters. She said Australia would sent a P8 surveillance aircraft to Tonga on Monday.

The Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai volcano has erupted regularly over the past few decades but Saturday's eruption was so loud that residents parts of faraway Fiji and New Zealand said they heard it.

'My entire house was shaking,' said Sanya Ruggiero, a Consulting Communications Advisor based in Suva, the capital of Fiji, some 750 kms from Tonga.

'My doors, windows were all rattling like hell. And mine was not even as bad as others. Hundreds of people ran out of their homes,' said Ruggiero, who consults for several agencies including the United Nations.

Rumblings and eruptions from the volcano continued to be heard through the night, Ruggiero said. Hundreds of people were moved to evacuation centres in Suva. Fiji Airways had to cancel all its flights due to the ash clouds.

'This is the worst disaster Tonga has had in living memory and the recovery from this is going to take years,' Ruggiero said.

Experts said the ash fallout could contaminate drinking water and cause respiratory issues.

'Help will be needed to restore drinking water supplies. People of Tonga must also remain vigilant for further eruptions and especially tsunami with short notice and should avoid low lying areas,' said Shane Cronin, professor at the School of Environment, University of Auckland.

A tsunami has struck Tonga sending terrified locals fleeing for high ground as huge waves crashed over roads and into homes (pictured, tsunami waves begin to overwhelm coastal homes in Tonga on Saturday)

Locals took to social media to share dramatic videos of the surging waves making land and crashing through homes and cars (pictured, still images from video filmed in Tonga and posted to social media on Saturday)

Waves wash ashore Seal Beach after a tsunami advisory was issued following an underwater volcano eruption over 5300 miles away

'We are praying that the damage is just to infrastructure and people were able to get to higher land,' she said.

Tonga gets its internet via an undersea cable from Suva, Fiji, which presumably was damaged.

Southern Cross Cable Network, the company that manages the connection, does not know yet 'if the cable is cut or just suffering power loss,' chief technical officer Dean Veverka said.

The Fiji-based Islands Business news site reported that a convoy of police and military troops evacuated Tonga's King Tupou VI from his palace near the shore. He was among the many residents who headed for higher ground.

On Tonga, home to about 105,000 people, video posted to social media showed large waves washing ashore in coastal areas, swirling around homes, a church and other buildings.

New Zealand's military said it was monitoring the situation and remained on standby, ready to assist if asked.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said there had not yet been any official reports of injuries or deaths in Tonga, but cautioned authorities had not yet made contact with some coastal areas and smaller islands.

She said: 'Communication with Tonga remains very limited. And I know that is causing a huge amount of anxiety for the Tongan community here.'

She said there was significant damage to boats and shops along the Tongan coastline.

The New Zealand Prime Minister added Tonga's capital of Nuku'alofa was covered in a thick film of volcanic dust that was contaminating water supplies and making fresh water a vital need.

Aid agencies said thick ash and smoke had prompted authorities to ask people to wear masks and drink bottled water.

Ms Ardern said New Zealand was unable to send a military surveillance flight over Tonga on Sunday because the ash cloud was 63,000ft (19,000 metres) high but they hoped to send the flight on Monday, followed by supply planes and navy ships.

One complicating factor to any international aid effort is that Tonga has so far managed to avoid any outbreaks of Covid-19.

Ms Ardern said New Zealand's military staff were all fully vaccinated and willing to follow any protocols established by Tonga.

Dave Snider, the tsunami warning co-ordinator for the National Tsunami Warning Centre in Palmer, Alaska, said it was very unusual for a volcanic eruption to affect an entire ocean basin, and the spectacle was both 'humbling and scary'.

In Hawaii, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center reported waves that measured 1.6 feet in Nawiliwili, Kauai and 2.7 feet in Hanalei. The National Weather Service said there were reports of boats getting pushed up in docks, but the hazard diminished as the morning went on.

'We are relieved that there is no reported damage and only minor flooding throughout the islands,' the tsunami center said, describing the situation in Hawaii. The tsunami advisory for the islands was lifted about 11 hours after the eruption more than 3,000 miles away.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken wrote on Twitter he was 'deeply concerned for the people of Tonga as they recover from the aftermath of a volcanic eruption and tsunami'.

He added: 'The United States stands prepared to provide support to our Pacific neighbors'.

In Seal Beach, California, residents ignored warnings to stay away from the beach and flocked to the municipal pier to take pictures of the waves after a tsunami advisory was issued

Spectators flock to view waves from the Seal Beach municipal pier after a tsunami advisory was issued following an underwater volcano eruption around 5,300 miles away

Locals pleaded for people to 'pray for us' as the eruption was compared to 'bombs going off' by those who heard it, followed by the tsunami surging ashore

The eruption was so intense it was heard as 'loud thunder sounds' in Fiji more than 500 miles away, officials in Suva said

In Tonga, a Twitter user identified as Dr. Faka'iloatonga Taumoefolau posted video showing waves crashing ashore.

'Can literally hear the volcano eruption, sounds pretty violent,' he wrote, adding in a later post: 'Raining ash and tiny pebbles, darkness blanketing the sky.'

The explosion of the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai volcano was the latest in a series of dramatic eruptions.

Earth imaging company Planet Labs PBC had watched the island in recent days after a new volcanic vent there began erupting in late December.

Satellite images captured by the company show how drastically the volcano had shaped the area, creating a growing island off Tonga.

'The surface area of the island appears to have expanded by nearly 45 per cent due to ashfall,' Planet Labs said days before the latest activity.

Following Saturday's eruption, residents in Hawaii, Alaska and along the U.S. Pacific coast were advised to move away from the coastline to higher ground and to pay attention to specific instructions from their local emergency management officials, said Dave Snider, tsunami warning coordinator for the National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska.

'We don't issue an advisory for this length of coastline as we've done - I'm not sure when the last time was - but it really isn't an everyday experience,' Snider said.

He said the waves slamming ashore in Hawaii were just under the criteria for a more serious tsunami warning.

'It looks like everything will stay below the warning level, but it's difficult to predict because this is a volcanic eruption, and we're set up to measure earthquake or seismic-driven sea waves,' Snider said.

Large waves move in near Santa Cruz on Saturday. Inundation is not expected, but a tsunami advisory means there could be dangerous currents and strong waves along the coast

Large waves are seen in San Mateo County at around 8.10am on Saturday as a tsunami moved ashore

Joggers stretch next to a tsunami hazard zone sign in El Segundo, California, on January 15, 2022. The US National Weather Service issued tsunami advisories for the entire west coast of the United States following a massive volcanic eruption

Pictured: Image captured by NOAA's GOES West satellite and made available by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows an explosive eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano, located in the South Pacific Kingdom of Tonga, 13 January 2022

Beaches and piers were closed across Southern California as a precaution. The National Weather Service tweeted there were 'no significant concerns about inundation.' Strong rip currents were possible, however, and officials warned people to stay out of the water.

On California's central coast, the National Weather Service reported tsunami waves up to 4 feet (1.2 meters) and flooding in beach parking lots at Port San Luis. About 200 miles (320 km) down the coast, the waves were much smaller at Southern California's Seal Beach, according to Michael Pless, the owner of M&M Surf School.

'The waves are looking pretty flat,' Pless said. 'We're hoping they reopen the beach in a couple hours.'

Crowds gathered at the Santa Cruz Harbor in California to watch the rising and falling water strain boat ties on docks. Law enforcement tried to clear people away when big surges started at around 7:30 a.m.

About an hour later, a surge went over the back lip of the harbor, filling a parking lot and low-lying streets and setting some cars afloat. In 2011 after the Japanese earthquake a series of surges cost $20million of damage in the harbour.

Although experienced surfers would consider the waves reaching the West Coast barely high enough to qualify as swells, the National Weather Service warned that tsunamis cause deceptive water surges powerful enough to pull people out to sea.

Residents of American Samoa were alerted of a tsunami warning by local broadcasters as well as church bells that rang territory-wide Saturday. An outdoor siren warning system was out of service. Those living along the shoreline quickly moved to higher ground.

As night fell, there were no reports of any damage and the Hawaii-based tsunami centre cancelled the alert.

The eruption (pictured from a satellite) could be heard thousands of kilometres away and sparked warnings in New Zealand, Fiji and American Samoa

A tsunami advisory (orange) is in effect for Hawaii and the entire US Pacific seaboard, from the US/Mexico border all the way to the tip of Alaska's Aleutian Islands, after an undersea volcano erupted near Tonga

Authorities in the nearby island nations of Fiji and Samoa also issued warnings, telling people to avoid the shoreline due to strong currents and dangerous waves. In New Zealand, officials warned of possible storm surges from the eruption.

New Zealand's private forecaster, Weather Watch, tweeted that people as far away as Southland, the country's southernmost region, reported hearing sonic booms from the eruption. Others reported that many boats were damaged by a tsunami that hit a marina in Whangarei, in the Northland region.

Earlier, the Matangi Tonga news site reported that scientists observed massive explosions, thunder and lightning near the volcano after it started erupting early Friday. Satellite images showed a 3-mile-wide plume rising into the air to about 12 miles.

The Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai volcano is located about 40 miles north of the capital, Nuku'alofa. In late 2014 and early 2015, a series of eruptions in the area created a small new island and disrupted international air travel to the Pacific archipelago for several days.

There is not a significant difference between volcanoes underwater and on land, and underwater volcanoes become bigger as they erupt, at some point usually breaching the surface, said Hans Schwaiger, a research geophysicist with the Alaska Volcano Observatory.

With underwater volcanoes, however, the water can add to the explosivity of the eruption as it hits the lava, Schwaiger added.

Before an explosion, there is generally an increase in small local earthquakes at the volcano, but depending on how far it is from land, that may not be felt by residents along the shoreline, Schwaiger said.

In 2019, Tonga lost internet access for nearly two weeks when a fiber-optic cable was severed. The director of the local cable company said at the time that a large ship may have cut the cable by dragging an anchor. Until limited satellite access was restored people couldn't even make international calls.

Southern Cross Cable Network's Veverka said limited satellite connections exist between Tonga and other parts of the world but he did not know if they might be affected by power outages.
But Ministers were warned the vaguely worded draft law leaves the Government vulnerable to activists

Ministers will be at the mercy of animal rights extremists thanks to a 'botched' new law, critics warn.

MPs will begin debating the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill this week to recognise that animals feel pain.

They will also form a committee to scrutinise whether the Government has paid proper regard to animals as being sentient.

But Ministers have been warned the draft law is so vaguely worded it leaves the Government vulnerable to activists.

MPs will begin debating the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill this week to recognise that animals feel pain (stock photo)

Tory peers raised fears last month that the committee could become a 'Trojan horse' to block vital infrastructure to protect wildlife.

There are also concerns that game shooting and killing vermin on farms might face a ban.

Tory peer Lord Herbert, chairman of the Countryside Alliance, said the Bill gave 'leverage and power' to the animal rights agenda.

But last night, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: 'The committee will have no legal powers nor the ability to place new burdens or restrictions on individuals or businesses.'

Animal charity the RSPCA said there was 'overwhelming support' for the Bill, adding: 'Now is the time to speak up for animals.'
Fox News host Dan Bongino has had his YouTube account temporarily suspended and demonetized for claiming that masks are useless in preventing the coronavirus' spread.

On Friday, the right-wing commentator was banned from uploading anything to his channel for a week, according to reports. He has roughly 871,000 subscribers.

The 47-year-old's suspension reportedly stems from a video he had posted recently where he states masks are 'useless' from stopping the spread of the coronavirus.

A YouTube spokesperson declined to reveal what remark specifically prompted Bongino's removal from company's monetization program.

Bongino, who received his first of a possible three strikes before he's banned from the platform entirely, is also demonetized for at least 30 days, per YouTube's rules and guidelines.

Bongino, who currently hosts shows on Fox News and Fox Nation, will be able to reapply for the program in 30 days if the issues that led to the initial removal are addressed.

Fox News host Dan Bongino, pictured, had his YouTube account temporarily suspended and demonetized after spreading misinformation over COVID-19

Bongino shared a picture of an email, pictured, between himself and a YouTube representative named 'Coco,' and posted it to Twitter after his infraction

YouTube also removed Bongino's channel from its Partner Program, which allows users to monetize their content through advertising for 'repeatedly violating' guidelines on harmful and dangerous acts due to his spread of coronavirus misinformation.

YouTube implemented the rule in 2020 to prohibit 'content about COVID-19 that poses a serious risk of egregious harm.'

The video-sharing social media network doesn't permit videos with medical misinformation that contradicts local health authorities, such as the World Health Organization.

If Bongino's channel happens to to violate the policy for second time within a 90-day window, a two-week suspension would be applied.

If a third violation were to occur in the same time-frame, the channel would be permanently banned and deleted.

The Fox News host showed no sign of bowing down, sharing a screen shot of an email between himself and a YouTube representative named 'Coco' where he called the website, which is owned by Google, a 'tyrannical, free speech-hating, bullshit, big tech s***hole.'

Bongino, a former 12-year veteran of the Secret Service who once defended former President Barack Obama and George W. Bush, ran for congress in 2013

'[I will] immediately post content on why masks have been totally ineffective in stopping this pandemic' after his suspension is over, he told the rep, while daring YouTube to do something about it.

Bongino, a former 12-year veteran of the Secret Service who once defended former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, ran for congress in 2013.

'I was behind the scenes for 12 years I've been in the room during some of the most important conversations,' Bongino told ABC News about the access he had to high-level discussions inside the White House at the time.

Last year, the Washington Post profiled Bongino and his wildly successful podcast and YouTube channel, comparing his riling of the conservative base with former right-wing pundit Rush Limbaugh.
The Tongan flagbearer who won fans across the globe at the 2016 Olympics has described the chaotic scenes in his home country after an undersea volcano erupted on Saturday.

Pita Taufatofuathe, who is both a top martial artist and cross country skier, wrote on Instagram that his family in Haapai had all communication cut off.

'The king has called out all the reservists and the armed forces to prepare for assistance. The information I've been sent shows the tsunami going over Popua and the main town in Tongatapu, Nuku'alofa,' the 38-year-old who lives in Queensland said.

Taufatofuathe rose to fame after images of him shirtless wearing a traditional Tongan ta'ovala around his waist as he lead the Tongan Olympic team into the stadium went viral at the Rio De Janeiro Olympics.

Olympian Pita Taufatofuathe, a top skier, canoer, and martial artist in Taekwondo, gained international fans after he carried the Tongan flag at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio (pictured) dressed in a Tongan ta'ovala and covered in coconut oil

His father is the newly appointed governor of the province of Haapai and was intending to return there from attending parliament when the tsunami struck.

On Sunday, the athlete launched a GoFundMe for donations towards the recovery effort as the island nation has already been slammed with two devastating tsunamis.

'The eruption occurred in Haapai and spread through to all islands. Initial reports of damage have been catastrophic and all communications with Tonga have been wiped out,' he wrote.

He said he had not heard from his father, Dr Pita Taufatofua.

'After getting to the airport his flight was cancelled due to the volcanic eruption. Last we heard he was securing our home in Veitongo right on the water's edge,' he wrote.

He added Haapai is a 'series of lowlying islands' which would make the tsunami particularly dangerous as residents struggled to get to higher ground.

Taufatofuathe has launched a fundraiser for 'schools and hospitals' as a priority after a volcanic eruption off the Tongan province of Haapai (pictured)

The eruption has caused two tsunamis on the province which consists of low lying flat islands making getting to high ground difficult (pictured)

The Olympian said the initial priority for the funds would go towards those most in need, infrastructure, and repairing damage to schools and hospitals.

Just after 11am on Sunday, the British High Commission in Tonga said some satellite phones were working but phone and internet communications on-the-ground were still not in service.

Tongan Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni ordered bakeries, petrol station, and shops to open from 10am to 2pm to supply necessities.

Reports indicate the air quality is bad as there is still a lot of ash in the air.

There are no reports of casualties, but no reports at all from some of the outer islands in Tongan nation so the situation there is unclear.

'Most international flights have been cancelled, and options to leave the country are extremely limited. A state of emergency is in force and activities are restricted to prevent the spread of Covid,' the Australian Smart Traveller site said.

Pita Taufatofua again led the Tongan team out at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo (pictured)

A second tsunami later hit Tonga after the massive undersea volcanic eruption, flooding homes and triggering warnings as far away as Australia, Japan, and the US.

The government said no Australians were injured in Tonga, but the eruption led to a major surf event in Sydney being cancelled on Sunday.

A Tongan family recorded the moment water rushed in from the ocean, flooding homes as they finished church choir practice, while the country's consulate has spoken of the devastation.

'This is incredibly sad. The damage being done to the Kingdom of Tonga is extreme,' the consulate wrote on Twitter. 'The people of Kingdom are strong. Sending prayers to Tonga. Ofa lahi atu.'

Children sleeping in a tent in Tonga after being evacuated from their homes because of the tsunami on the island (pictured)

Part of the devastation the tsunamis have caused in Tonga pictured from the deck of a fishing boat (pictured)

The tsunami forced people to flee after the volcanic eruption was heard as a series of massive booms across several Pacific islands.

Children had to sleep in tents in Tonga after being evacuated from their homes because of the tsunami.

Tsunami warnings were issued for Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Vanuatu, American Samoa, Lord Howe, Macquarie Island, and Norkfolk Island along with Japan, Hawaii, and the west coat of the US.

The warning for Australia was cancelled by the Bureau of Meteorology on Sunday afternoon.

BoM said the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano erupted at 3.10pm AEDT on Saturday.

The tsunami also reached South America and caused flooding in Peru on the west coast of the continent. The Chilean coast of Los Rios, almost 10,000km from Tonga, has also been affected, and there were huge swells in the US.

A tsunami struck Tonga sending terrified locals fleeing for high ground as huge waves crashed over roads and into homes (pictured, tsunami waves begin to flood coastal homes in Tonga on Saturday)
Two-thirds of parents believe it is unsafe for children to return to classrooms in a few weeks time when the country is in the middle of the Omicron outbreak.

Just one-in-five parents were happy to let their children go back to school, according to a national survey by parent advocacy group, The Parenthood, in a poll of 3043 families.

More than half of respondents (56 per cent) said school should be delayed to allow precautions to be taken around the provision of masks, rapid antigen tests and ventilation.

A similar proportion (52 per cent) said the peak of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 should be allowed to pass, while 51 per cent said schools should stay closed to ensure more children can be vaccinated.

'In the weeks since the 2021 school year ended the Covid picture around the country has changed dramatically,' The Parenthood's executive director Georgie Dent said .

'Having spent almost two years heeding the strict message that keeping kids home was the best way to keep them and others safe from this virus, it is not surprising that against a backdrop of surging cases parents aren't feeling confident or certain that returning as planned makes sense.'

Two-thirds of parents believe it is unsafe for children to return to classrooms in a few weeks time when the country is in the middle of the Omicron outbreak

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has urged states and territories to open schools as planned, although Queensland has delayed its opening by two weeks.

Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy warned the national cabinet last week that 10 per cent of the workforce could be absent because of Covid at any one time, which would increase by a further five per cent if schools stay closed.

Such concerns came as tens of thousands of Australians continue to contract the Omicron strain and the death toll continues to rise.

NSW announced another 34,660 new Covid-19 cases on Sunday along with a further 20 virus-related deaths.

Victoria posted 28,128 new Covid-19 infections and another 13 deaths.

Just one-in-five parents were happy to let their children go back to school, according to a national survey by parent advocacy group, The Parenthood, in a poll of 3043 families

Meanwhile, the federal government is providing additional funding to assist the temporary widening of telehealth consultations through GPs and other specialists due to the high infection rate from the Omicron outbreak.

The $24 million will also cover the continued supply of personal protective equipment, such as masks, respirators, face shields and gowns for face-to-face consultations, including patients that have tested positive through a rapid antigen test.

The latter aligns with national cabinet's January 5 decision that RAT tests no longer need to be confirmed by a PCR test.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said telehealth had been a vital support during the pandemic, providing greater flexibility in healthcare delivery at the most critical time and continues to be a fundamental part of the pandemic response.
The disappearance of a nine-year-old girl from a lavish property is now being investigated as a homicide after a boat and ute were seized by police.

Charlise Mutten was staying with her mother Kallista Mutten when she vanished on Thursday at a sprawling private wedding venue owned by the family of her fiance, Justin Stein, who was interviewed by investigators on Saturday.

Charlise and Kallista, who live in Queensland, were on holiday in Sydney and were at the exclusive property dubbed Wildenstein by the Stein family at Mt Wilson in Sydney's Blue Mountains.

There is no suggestion the 31-year-old is in any way involved in the child's disappearance.

Investigators are now treating the case as a potential homicide, with extensive searches underway near the multi-million dollar property which is surrounded by dense bushland.

'We are very distressed,' a family source told the Daily Telegraph.

Charlise Mutten, nine, was staying with her mother Kallista Mutten when she disappeared on Thursday at a sprawling private wedding venue owned by the family of her fiance, Justin Stein, in Sydney's Blue Mountains

The distressed mum Kallista Mutten was consoled by emergency workers on Saturday

NSW Police released two photos of Charlise as the search for her intensified on Friday. She is described as being of Caucasian appearance with brown hair (pictured, Charlise Mutten

NSW Police told Daily Mail Australia that 'all lines of investigation' remain open in the baffling case.

The girl was last seen on Thursday at the property, but she was not reported to police until 8.20am on Friday.

A full scale search began within hours and police now hold 'grave concerns' for her safety.

The missing girl is described as being 'of Caucasian appearance, between 130cm and 140cm tall, of thin build, with brown hair and brown eyes,' NSW police said.

'It is believed she was last seen wearing a pink top with a round neck collar, a black knee-length skirt and pink Nike thongs.'

Investigators are now treating the manicured 12-acre property, including the residential buildings on it, as a crime scene.

Police divers scoured a pond at Wildenstein, which is run by Justin's brother James Stein, on Saturday, 9News reported.

They also seized a white boat used on the property and analysed it for fingerprints.

The boat is also understood to be subject to ongoing forensic testing.

NSW Police divers spent hours searching a pond on the Wildenstein property at Mt Wilson on Saturday

Kallista Mutten's fiance Justin Stein went to Penrith on Friday to speak with NSW police

At Penrith police seized a red utility vehicle connected to the persons of interest for examination

Police confirmed that homicide detectives are now investigating Charlise's strange disappearance.

The police dog squad, PolAir, police rescue, divers and Blue Mountains local police are all involved.

Officers on off-road trail bikes have also been deployed across the property and are searching the surrounding area.

It still remains unclear how Charlise went missing, with hundreds of police and volunteers - including fully equipped SES and rural fire service members wearing backpacks - searching the dense surrounding bushland since Friday.

The girl was reported missing at 8.20am on Friday from a property at Mt Wilson, 60km northwest of Richmond (pictured, police and detectives on the scene on Friday)

NSW police sent out a geo-targeting text message to all local residents in the area on Friday evening to inform them of Charlise's disappearance

The search and rescue teams have not stopped since, working through Friday night and are expected to continue overnight on Saturday into Sunday.

Storms prevented a PolAir helicopter, which used thermal imaging technology, from searching overnight on Friday, but it was deployed again on Saturday.

It is understood the terrain is extremely challenging for searchers with tangled and dense undergrowth and steep cliffs.

Rural fire service volunteers have used 'line searching' tactics and marked out any items found in their painstaking search.

The sprawling 12 acre property that Charlise was staying at with her mum Kallista was owned by her fiance Justin Stein's family

The property, dubbed Wildenstein, by the Stein family is run by Justin's brother James

On Saturday police confirmed the distressed mum, Kallista, was being consoled by police.

'For any parent this is a distressing scenario, so yes she is quite distressed so we're providing her with support,' acting superintendent John Nelson said.

Police also confirmed her fiance Justin Stein, 31, drove to Penrith to speak with investigators but there is no suggestion he is accused of any wrongdoing.

A red utility vehicle was seized for examination at Penrith on Friday.

NSW Police said no arrests had been made and that all lines of enquiry remained open.

The search and rescue command post was established at the Mt Wilson Rural Fire Service Station on Friday after Charlise was reported missing nearly a day after going missing.

The crews immediately began searching dense bushland around Mt Wilson, which is approximately 30km northeast of Blackheath.

Charlise Mutten, 9, went missing on Thursday but her disappearance wasn't reported to police until Friday

It is understood search teams were checking tents and bins in the area.

NSW police sent out multiple geo-targeting text messages to all local residents in the area on Friday and Saturday evening to inform them of Charlise's disappearance and request help.

They also asked social media users to share the missing girl's photo widely. The police post was shared over 13,000 times in a few hours.

Police are appealing for anyone with information about her whereabouts to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
The Portland Police Bureau has launched an internal probe into a training presentation which included a meme that mocked Bible verses and called protesters 'dirty hippies' who read Marx, have dreadlocks and smell like patchouli.

'And the Lord said... Woe be unto you, dirty hippy,' the offensive meme, included at the end of a 110-page PowerPoint presentation, read.

The image shows what appears to be a police officer in tactical gear raising his fist against an unarmed person in civilian clothes.

The alarm was raised by a city worker in September after they noticed the meme during a legal review of a lawsuit against the city pertaining to the bureau's response to the 2020 protests, KGW News reported.

Portland Mayor and Police Commissioner Ted Wheeler condemned the image, which the city plans to include in court filings, on Friday.

'I am disgusted that this offensive content was added to a training presentation for our police officers,' Wheeler said in a statement.

Wheeler's office said it was unclear when the image was created and whether or not it had actually been used during training.

The Portland Police Bureau has launched an internal probe into a training presentation which included a meme that called protesters 'dirty hippies'

Portland Mayor and Police Commissioner Ted Wheeler said he was 'disgusted' by the image

The alarm was raised by a city worker in September after they noticed the meme during a legal review of a lawsuit against the city pertaining the bureau's response to the 2020 protests

What the Portland Police training presentation meme says 'For thou stinketh of patchouli and 80; For thou talk of Marx, yet know him not; For thou hast bills, yet have not paid; For thou hast dreadlocks and white skin. And so I shall send among you, My humble servants with hat, and bat, That they may christen your heads with hickory. And anoint your faces with pepper spray. And once thou hast been cuffed and stuffed; Once thou has been stitched and bandaged; Perhaps thou shall learn, I'm tired of your s**t.' Amen.' Advertisement

Wheeler's statement continued: 'I believe that the hard-working members of the Portland Police Bureau who are seeing this for the first time are also angry and disgusted by the image and words on this slide and how it portrays members of our community and law enforcement.'

The presentation was intended to tackle how Portland Police handles mass protests, CNN reported.

Ironically, the document encouraged officers not to stereotype protesters, as they could come from 'different sides of the political spectrum,' before proceeding to label them 'hippies,' who read Marx, have dreadlocks and smell like patchouli.

Written as mock Bible verses, the meme states that officers, referred to as 'humble servants with hat, and bat,' are sent by God to 'anoint [protesters'] faces with pepper spray.'

It also mentions protesters being 'cuffed and stuffed,' as well as 'stitched and bandaged.'

'The message on the training presentation slide was contrary to PPB's values and what we are trying to achieve as an organization,' Police Chief Chuck Lovell said in a statement.

'Upon learning of its existence, I ordered an Internal Affairs investigation. That investigation is still open and therefore, details cannot be discussed,' Lovell added.

For months, beginning in late May 2020, Portland - one of the whitest cities in America - was roiled by near-nightly Black Lives Matter protests.

At the time, officials including Wheeler were criticized for what many described as an overly aggressive police force.

During the height of protests, officers reported more than 6,000 uses of force. The US Department of Justice rebuked the bureau for its 'abnormally high' reliance on violent tactics.

Police Chief Chuck Lovell said in a statement that the meme did not align with the Portland Police Bureau's values

During the height of protests, officers reported more than 6,000 uses of force in Portland. The US Department of Justice rebuked the bureau for its 'abnormally high' reliance on violent tactics

In 2020, hundreds of people marched the streets of Oregon's largest city demanding racial justice after the murder of George Floyd by a white officer and calling for police defunding

Portland police have a history of being combative.

In 2014, the city and Department of Justice reached a settlement agreement following a federal investigation that found Portland officers used excessive force against people with mental illness.

Some of the police spending that passed in November- including $2.7 million for body-worn cameras and hiring staff to assess the police department's crowd control tactics - were created in order to meet the Justice Department's reform requirements.

In 2020, hundreds of people marched the streets of Oregon's largest city demanding racial justice after the murder of George Floyd by a white officer.

Among the rallying cries were 'defund the police' - a call for elected officials to reallocate some law enforcement funding elsewhere.

In June 2020, the Portland City Council and the mayor answered by cutting $15 million from the police budget. An additional $12 million was cut due to pandemic-caused economic shortfalls.

Portland refunded its police department in November after a staggering surge in crimes, specifically murders in the liberal bastion.

Portland City Council unanimously passed a fall budget bump that added back $5.2 million of the $15 million it cut from police.

'Many Portlanders no longer feel safe,' Mayor Ted Wheeler said at the time. 'And it is our duty, as leaders of this city, to take action and deliver better results within our crisis response system.'
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The National Weather Service called off its tsunami warning for the West Coast after wave surges caused Los Angeles boats to capsize, streets to flood in Santa Cruz Harbor and US submarines to dive for cover following a massive underwater volcano eruption nearly 6,000 miles away on Saturday.

The eruption, near Tonga, set off a 7.4 magnitude earthquake that sent a tsunami crashing across the Pacific, causing waves to wreak some havoc on the West Coast.

A Los Angeles bystander caught the moment a police boat broke loose from the dock due to the rising waters and waves, causing the ship to capsize, nearly taking another boat down with it.

It was one of many vessels that capsized due to the tsunami's effect, as LA and San Francisco Bay officials urged residents to stay alert and away from beaches and the shore.

Santa Cruz Harbor experienced the worst of the flooding due to the wave surges in the West Coast

The waves completely flooded a parking lot by the docks at Santa Cruz Harbor on Saturday

An LA police boat was capsized by the rising waters and rocking waves. The sinking ship nearly took out a nearby boat

Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay officials warned residents to stay away from the shore due to the wave surges

WATCH: Police boat breaks loose and capsizes due to tsunami waves near Los Angeles pic.twitter.com/nxlgAE5BPs  BNO News (@BNONews) January 16, 2022

The volcanic explosion sent waves rocking throughout the Pacific. LA experienced surges of one-to-four foot tall waves

Further north in Santa Cruz Harbor, streets and homes experience mild to severe flooding as the city experienced a surge of waves every 20 to 30 minutes, KSBW reported.

'We had a few piles break. Some flooding, a couple boats that were submerged but not quite sunk but obviously a little bit of damage there,' Santa Cruz Harbor Master Blake Anderson told the TV station.

'A few vehicles in the parking lot were actually picked up and moved a few feet. We had a few electrical pedestals that were submerged in the north harbor so we're having PG&E take look at those.'

A local photographer in the city recorded a road near the shore being flooded as rising waters also trapped vehicles on the streets. Some residents were evacuated.

A surge at the upper half of the Santa Cruz Harbor caused the shop by the docks to flood

Roads began flooding early in the day, with the streets closest to the shore experiencing some of the worst flooding

A car is caught in rising water at Santa Cruz Harbor on Saturday as tsunami flooding strikes low-lying areas

Roads all over the Santa Cruz Harbor experienced mild to severe flooding

The situation was more peaceful up north in Oregon and Washington, which were spared from flooding.

The states were bracing themselves for possible tsunami activity earlier in the day as a submarine off the coast of Seattle was seen diving underwater to avoid the incoming waves.

Satellite images showed a huge volcanic eruption, with a plume of ash, steam and gas rising like a mushroom above the blue Pacific waters.

A sonic boom could be heard as far away as Alaska.

The oceans were relatively clear up in Washington, where boats began clearing out early Saturday morning and submarines went under water for cover

With the tsunami warning this morning for areas of Puget Sound, quite a few craft left their moorings to head to more open waters. Besides the usual fishing, cargo and sailing ships, we had a special guest near Port Townsend with its patrol escorts. pic.twitter.com/oDie2FhDJi  James Swartout (@MaxFitemaster) January 15, 2022

The volcanic eruption sent out a blast so powerful it could be seen from space

The eruption cut the internet to Tonga, leaving friends and family members around the world on Sunday still anxiously trying to get in touch to figure out if there were any injuries and the extent of the damage.

Even government websites and other official sources remained without any updates.

The Tonga Meteorological Services said a tsunami warning was declared for all of the archipelago, and data from the Pacific tsunami center said waves of 2.7 feet were detected.

In Hawaii, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center reported waves that measured 1.6 feet in Nawiliwili, Kauai and 2.7 feet in Hanalei.

The National Weather Service said there were reports of boats getting pushed up in docks, but the hazard diminished as the morning went on.

'We are relieved that there is no reported damage and only minor flooding throughout the islands,' the tsunami center said, describing the situation in Hawaii. The tsunami advisory for the islands was lifted about 11 hours after the eruption more than 3,000 miles away.
Health Minister Greg Hunt says there are clear signs that the spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus is peaking.

His prediction came as tens of thousands of Australians continued to be struck by the highly infectious strain and the death toll continued to climb.

'There are signs that NSW in particular and the ACT maybe peaking,' Mr Hunt told reporters in Canberra on Sunday.

Federal health minister Greg Hunt said Omicron in NSW and the ACT appeared to be reaching a peak and should turn around soon (pictured in December)

'I won't call it as having reached it yet, but in particular what we've seen, is that all of these jurisdictions have so far significantly undershot the hospitalisation, ICU and ventilation predictions that were made at the outset.'

NSW announced another 34,660 new Covid-19 cases on Sunday along with a further 20 virus-related deaths.

Victoria posted 28,128 new Covid-19 infections and another 13 deaths, while Queensland reported 17,455 cases and three deaths.

The death toll also rose in the ACT, where there were two fatalities alongside 1316 new cases, while Tasmania has 825 new cases.

While Mr Hunt provided some hope for the future, two-thirds of parents still believe it is unsafe for children to return to classrooms in a few weeks' time when the country is in the middle of the Omicron outbreak.

Just one-in-five parents were happy to let their children go back to school, according to a national survey by parent advocacy group, The Parenthood, in a poll of 3043 families.

A nationwide survey found parents were still hesitant about school returning (file image)

Many parents said school return should be delayed until cases drop further (pictured: a vaccination hub in Kippa Ring Queensland)

More than half of respondents (56 per cent) said school should be delayed to allow precautions to be taken around the provision of masks, rapid antigen tests and ventilation.

A similar proportion (52 per cent) said the peak of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 should be allowed to pass, while 51 per cent said schools should stay closed to ensure more children can be vaccinated.

'In the weeks since the 2021 school year ended the Covid picture around the country has changed dramatically,' The Parenthood's executive director Georgie Dent said .

'Having spent almost two years heeding the strict message that keeping kids home was the best way to keep them and others safe from this virus, it is not surprising that against a backdrop of surging cases parents aren't feeling confident or certain that returning as planned makes sense.'

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has urged states and territories to open schools as planned, although Queensland has delayed its opening by two weeks.

Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy warned the national cabinet last week that 10 per cent of the workforce could be absent because of Covid at any one time, which would increase by a further five per cent if schools stay closed.

Classes will run a little differently when school returns (pictured: a 'virtual classroom' in Adelaide)

Meanwhile, Mr Hunt also announced $24 million in additional funding to assist the temporary widening of telehealth consultations through GPs and other specialists due to the high infection rate from the Omicron outbreak.

The decision was widely applauded by GPs and other help groups.

The funding will also cover the continued supply of personal protective equipment, such as masks, respirators, face shields and gowns for face-to-face consultations, including patients that have tested positive through a rapid antigen test.

The latter aligns with national cabinet's January 5 decision that RAT tests no longer need to be confirmed by a PCR test.

Mr Hunt said telehealth had been a vital support during the pandemic, providing greater flexibility in healthcare delivery at the most critical time and continues to be a fundamental part of the pandemic response.
A 79-year-old man was sucker-punched in the head in an unprovoked attack in Brooklyn on Friday in broad daylight.

The brutal assault occurred as the elderly man, identified as Ralph Belgrove, was speaking with another person on the street in the Park Slope area of the borough.

From out of nowhere, a black man on a scooter, identified as 29-year-old Disheem Riley, carefully pulls over to the side of the road and parks up before walking over to his unassuming victim, who is in surveillance footage with what appears to be a cane.

He walks a few feet toward the where two men were having a conversation on the street, before coming up alongside Belgrove.

For a moment, the would-be attacker took a look around before slinging his fist.

Without warning, Riley punches Belgrove in the head, knocking him over in one fell swoop.

The NYPD released a video of the vicious attack on Saturday with video that shows the suspect riding a motorized scooter and parking it up before the attack

The would-be attacker can be seen parking up his moped at the side of the road in Brooklyn before creeping up behind the elderly man

The man walks to the sidewalk, where the victim was standing with a cane

The man was sent tumbling to the ground instantly while the assailant made a quick getaway.

'Next thing I know, I'm on the ground,' Belgrove said to the New York Daily News.

'No words were exchanged  nothing at all. Just, whack!'

After punching him, Riley could be seen gingerly making his way toward his moped which he then boarded and rode away, making a U-turn as if nothing had happened.

Fortunately, a surveillance camera caught the despicable act on camera with the NYPD releasing the disturbing footage on Saturday.

Although the video is slightly blurry, a still photo of the Riley saw him identified within hours of the footage being released. He has been slapped with assault and menacing charges.

Authorities have not released any motive for the midday assault or what may have led up to attack.

Belgrove suffered a minor injury and was treated at the scene.

'My elbow took most of the blow. I took a couple of Tylenols and went to bed,' he told the News, noting that he did not know the person who slugged him.

'I'm legally blind. I can't afford to have any enemies. I don't have an enemy. Everyone on that block knows me. It's not a question of, ''I did somebody wrong.''

'I hope they put this guy away some place. I mean, he would do that to me, he might do that to someone else. It's a good thing I have a little strength in me still.'

The suspect has been named as 29-year-old Disheem Riley. He has been charged with assault and menacing

After looking around, he then violently slams the victim in the head with his fist

The victim, Ralph Belgrove, fell to the ground and the suspect rans back to his scooter and rides off

The victim was left lying on the ground. He was later s treated at the scene for a minor injury

Since 2020, crime in New York has soared thanks to a combination of lax bail reforms and lack of police

The attack is the latest in a string of violent incidents and rising crime rates across New York that is exasperating police and residents.

Violent crimes are already up across the board in the Big Apple this year, with murders up by 33 percent when compared to the same period last year up until January 9, with eight murders alone in the last week.

Overall crimes are also up by 30 percent through January 9, according to police.

The rate of robberies, rapes, and assaults have also increased.

The reasoning behind the increase can be attributed to a combination of lax bail reforms and lack of police.

Yet, the new Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, has vowed to take an even softer touch on criminals.

His office said they will not seek prison or jail time for suspects or offenders unless there is no other option.

He will also downgrade some felonies, like armed robbery, to petit larceny.
DOUGLAS Mwonzoras MDC T party faces implosion as it emerges that the upcoming March by-elections have further widened divisions in his party, with some members openly defying him and taking sides with other top leaders in the party.

The MDC-T is scouting for candidates to represent the party in the March 26 by-elections to fill a total of 133 Local Government and parliamentary seats left vacant after the recall of MDC Alliance legislators and councillors.

The candidate selection process has widened the rift between Mwonzora and his deputies Thokozani Khupe and Elias Mudzuri and chairman Morgen Komichi.

Komichi, Mudzuri and Khupe are reportedly flexing muscles, pushing for their preferred candidates for the by-elections as they create their own political power bases ahead of the partys March 5 elective congress.

Last week, Mwonzora suffered a huge blow when four selected candidates in Bulawayo declined his offer to represent the party in the by-elections.

Dorcas Nyoni (ward 19) in Magwegwe, former councillor Shella Musonda and Annie Nyathi both for Makokoba ward 8 and Sibusisiwe Adams of Mpopoma ward 9, rejected Mwonzora and openly pledged their allegiance to Khupe.

Indications are that the party is now in a dilemma, running short of candidates for some wards and constituencies ahead of the March 26 by-elections. They have resorted to picking any names of suspected Mwonzora loyalists hoping they will agree to contest on the party ticket.

The Standard is in possession of the partys list of candidates showing that the MDC-T is yet to find candidates for 9 House of Assembly and 24 ward council seats.

The vacant parliamentary slots are Harare East, Mberengwa South, Mwenezi East, Mutasa South, Mbizo, Marondera East, Binga North, Pumula and Murehwa.

The party is also yet to find candidates for Guruve ward 7, Takawira ward 3, Mberengwa ward 25 and 34, Mbizo ward 12, Zibagwe ward 8, Gokwe North ward 23, Insiza ward 20 and 11, Gwanda ward 7, Umzingwane ward 20, Beitbridge wards 6, Kusile Lupane ward 15 and 19, Bikita ward 21, Chiredzi ward 16 and 9, Chegutu ward 14 Zvimba ward 4, Mondoro ward 10, Nyanga ward 9, Mutare ward 17 and 9 and Makoni ward 4.

But the list also shows that some constituencies and wards have two to six members jostling for candidature. The aspiring candidates belong to different camps aligned to Mwonzora, Khupe, Mudzuri and Komichi. Some of the constituencies with several candidates are Kuwadzana West and Mufakose with five applicants each; Makokoba ward 8 with four applicants, Kuwadzana ward 37 with five applicants, Mufakose ward 34 with seven applicants, Buidiriro ward 43 has four applicants among many others with several applicants.

Party spokesperson Witness Dube however downplayed the divisions in an interview with The Standard on Thursday. He said the party was still vetting prospective candidates.

I do not know about this list. I am in the elections directorate where we receive applications from where we are going to bring out the list of all the people who would be nominated. We have not compiled such a list as a department, Dube said.

We are still receiving applications for candidates from our members. The nomination court sits on January 24 and they claim we are struggling to field candidates, yet we are still far from nomination date. In fact, we are going to be oversubscribed in every constituency and ward.

We are free as a party to field the best candidates in every constituency. We are still vetting candidates. We just registered them as interested parties and they will go through the vetting process to qualify.

In December, Khupe dragged Mwonzora to court to stop moves to recall her from Parliament. Khupe said she had received information that a national council meeting held on November 26, 2021 had resolved to boot her out of Parliament. Mwonzora denied the claims.

Meanwhile, Mwonzora has said his party would contest the by-elections under the MDC Alliance name. He wrote to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) claiming ownership of the MDC Alliance name and symbols.

But MDC Alliance senior member David Coltart said Mwonzoras action exposed his opportunism.

Mwonzoras letter to the Zec is just shameless opportunism, written knowing he has Emmerson Mnangagwa, Zanu PF, ZEC and the courts on his side; but not the people. He and his cabal will discover that the vision, people and policies behind a name are far more important than a name itself, Coltart said. Standard
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A Union Pacific train full of packages derailed outside of a depot near an area where thousands of empty boxes had been left discarded by Los Angeles cargo thieves.

The derailment occurred on Saturday afternoon near the intersection of San Pablo Street and Valley Boulevard in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood.

'This afternoon approximately 17 cars on a Union Pacific train derailed just outside of our LATC yard, the same area where the vandalism has been occurring,' the company said in a statement after the derailment. 'The train crew was not hurt.'

It is unclear what caused the derailment, but many torn up packages left in the area by cargo thieves could be seen at the intersection, which remains closed.

Freight cars on Los Angeles railways are broken into on a daily basis by thieves who take advantage of the train's stops and loot packages. They leave behind the discarded boxes of Amazon and UPS packages, unused COVID tests and epi-pens they steal.

A Union Pacific train full of packages derailed outside of an LA depot amongst discarded Amazon and UPS parcels ransacked by thieves

A portion of the thousands of empty boxes left by cargo thieves are seen next to a derailed Union Pacific freight train left by cargo thieves in the Lincoln Heights section of Los Angeles

Dozens of freight cars are broken into every day on Los Angeles railways by thieves who take advantage of the train's stops to loot packages

The Los Angeles area has continued to see a rising trend in thieves looting from cargo containers carrying valuable items on Union Pacific tracks

The Los Angeles area has continued to see a rising trend in thieves looting from cargo containers carrying valuable items on Union Pacific tracks from companies including Amazon, REI and UPS that were bound for West Coast residences.

A series of discarded products such as unused COVID test vials and pharmaceutical drugs that were considered to be dispensable were also discarded.

Packages have also been seen spilling from open containers as thieves have been using materials such as bolt cutters to break the locks when the train is either stopped or slowly moving.

An increased security presence on the railway has since been enforced by Union Pacific to catch potential looters surveying the area.

The packages bought online leaving thousands of gutted boxes, including Amazon packages, UPS boxes, unused COVID tests, fishing lures and epi pens that will never reach their location

UPS bags are popular among 'thieves opening cargo containers' because 'they are often full of boxes with merchandise bound for residential addresses'

Discarded boxes left behind by Los Angeles cargo thieves

The railway company has since released a statement about their increasing concern of cargo theft on the tracks.

'Union Pacific is very concerned about the increased cargo thefts in California, and we have taken several steps to address this criminal activity,' they said in a statement.

'These rail crimes pose a serious safety threat to the public, our employees and local law enforcement officers.

'We have increased the number of Union Pacific special agents on patrol, and we have utilized and explored additional technologies to help us combat this criminal activity.

'We also will continue to work with our local law enforcement partners and elected leaders.'

The company has continued to report crimes on the tracks as the debris that had been accumulated was the result of only a month's worth of cargo looting.

They have also estimated that around 90 containers are compromised per day, according to Fox.

Union Pacific has continued to report crimes on the tracks as the debris that had been accumulated was the result of only a month's worth of cargo looting

Despite these concerns, The LAPD has said that they do not respond to these type of crimes unless they are requested by the company for help

They have also estimated that around 90 containers are compromised per day, according to Fox

Despite these concerns, The LAPD has said that they do not respond to these type of crimes unless they are requested by the company for help.

However, Union Pacific has their own police force who have been actively patrolling the tracks.

This is not the first instance where cargo containers have been targeted in the last months.

Cargo burglaries were also reported in November during the supply chain crisis period as trains en route to Los Angeles ports were being looted.

The cargo trains had traveled through an area of tracks that were lined with homeless encampments where thieves were reportedly cutting through the carts with bolt cutters.

Officials with the city then moved the shipping containers into vacant lots to prevent further thefts as a result.

Officials with the city then moved the shipping containers into vacant lots to prevent further thefts as a result

Union Pacific has their own police force who have been actively patrolling the tracks
Western Australia has reintroduced mask mandates as the Covid-zero state struggles with an outbreak of just five new cases, Mark McGowan has announced.

Masks will be made mandatory in all indoor public settings in Perth and the surrounding Peel region from 6pm on Sunday.

The mandate will not apply to the home, for people doing vigorous indoor exercise, or children under 12.

The decision came as the state's leader Mr McGowan announced three new cases in addition to the two earlier-announced cases, bringing the Sunday tally to five.

In the last seven days, the state has recorded 18 new infections, with the premier warning residents needed to 'assume it was spreading'.

WA Premier Mark McGowan has announced mask-wearing will be mandatory in all public indoor settings across Perth and the Peel region from 6pm on Sunday

'Its clear the number of cases of the Omicron variant is growing, and so is the risk to the community,' Mr McGowan said, announcing the new mandate over Twitter on Sunday.

'We know that masks have a significant impact in helping stop the spread of this virus. Its important we all do our bit to help limit the spread.'

Two of the three new cases are linked to the U Natural Spa Therapy business in Applecross, which has already been listed as an exposure site.

Anyone who visited the wellness centre between January 7th to January 13 is urged to get tested immediately and isolate until receiving negative results.

The three new cases will be included in Monday's Covid figures.

As the state's Omicron cases slowly rise, Mr McGowan urged Western Australians to be vigilant.

'What we know from the Omicron experience over east is that you can be carrying the virus with you, and have no symptoms,' he Tweeted on Sunday.

'Do not hesitate, do not assume you are fine because you have no symptoms.

'You must go get tested.'

The mask rules do not apply to children under 12, homes, or vigorous indoor exercise. Pictured: Staff wearing masks at the Perth Mercure hotel in April 2021

The new rule came just days after the premier introduced controversial restrictions which will see unvaccinated banned from hospitals, bottle shops, and play centres

Meanwhile, Western Australians not vaccinated against Covid will be banned from nearly every activity outside the home from January 31.

Announcing the controversial restrictions earlier this week, Mr McGowan confirmed the new rules could be in place 'for years' as he continues his ardent 'Covid-zero' stance.

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Un-jabbed adults had already been banned from dining in at cafes, pubs and restaurants, with vaccine passports checked at the door.

But from the end of the month, they'll also be banned from visiting loved ones in hospital, going into a bottle shop or taking their kid to a play centre.

Speaking on Thursday night, Mr McGowan warned 'life will change significantly' for the unvaccinated, who need to be 'protected from themselves.'

The premier later confirmed the unvaccinated will be barred from museums, Perth Zoo, gyms, and the entire Crown Casino complex.

From January 31, proof of vaccination will be required to visit public and private hospitals, aged care facilities, all hospitality venues including restaurants, cafes, bars, pubs, clubs, nightclubs, and dine-in fast food.

Premier McGowan told reporters 'life will change significantly' for the unvaccinated, who need to be 'protected from themselves' (pictured, a woman receives a vaccination in Perth in November, 2021)

From January 31, proof of Covid vaccinations will be required at the likes cafes, (pictured) pubs, restaurants, the casino and the zoo

Mr McGowan also had a message for those who are unvaccinated in his state - get jabbed now.

'These will be the broadest proof of vaccination requirements in the nation, and they will not be removed any time soon,' he said.

'We know that those in hospitals around the country are mainly unvaccinated people.

'If you don't get vaccinated, the message is clear - we will not let you put others at risk.'

Almost 95 per cent of Western Australian residents have had one dose of the Covid vaccine, while 87 per cent have had both doses.

The rest of Australia is starting to open up after nearly two years of lockdowns, not to mention being shut off from the rest of the world.

New restrictions for the unvaccinated in Western Australia from January 31: Unvaccinated West Australians will soon be barred from a huge number of locations, including hospitals, gyms, cafes, play centres and bottle shops Premier Mark McGowan stated the restrictions could be in place 'for years' Unvaccinated will also be banned from museums, pubs, nightclubs, the zoo and the entire Crown Casino complex Changes will be implemented from January 31, with Mr McGowan also having a message for those who have avoided getting jabbed - 'do so now' Advertisement

However, WA also made another drastic move earlier this week by banning anyone from any state and territory coming into his state, dubbing the rest of the nation an 'extreme Covid risk'.

Even visits to see dying family members are not allowed.

On Wednesday, Mr McGowan raised the Northern Territory to 'extreme risk', the highest level of Covid warning that bans all arrivals even for compassionate reasons.

The NT was the only state or territory not yet set to extreme, being only 'high risk' before, meaning the entire country is now banned except for a few exceptions.

An increase in cases in the NT prompted a tightening of border restrictions after the territory recorded 594 infections on Monday.

Western Australia has now deemed all states and territories as an 'extreme risk' shutting out all of the country (pictured, a map indication WAs Covid-19 classification requirements)

The new rules came into effect at 12.01am on Thursday, with only government officials, defence force personnel and diplomats allowed to travel into the state.

An exemption for travel could be granted under 'specialist or extraordinary circumstances' if approved by the state's police commissioner or chief health officer.

Travellers with an exemption must be vaccinated and complete 14 days of quarantine in a state-run facility at their own expense.

An additional two days of quarantine will be required at a 'suitable premises' with Covid testing conducted within 24 hours of arrival and on days five and 13 of isolation.
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More than two dozen men came together to push 15 caskets ranging in size from large to small down Bronx streets on Sunday morning, as the close-knit Gambian community came together to mourn those who died in New York City's deadliest fire in three decades.

A long line of black hearses began lining up outside the Islamic Cultural Center in Fordham Heights just after 10am, according to the New York Times, and the men soon gathered around the caskets to transport the remains of their friends and family into the front of the prayer hall.

Hundreds of mourners were gathered inside to pay their final respects to 15 of the 17 victims of a Bronx apartment building fire, with women on the second floor consoling each other as the men prayed below.

Many hundreds more sat in tents lining East 166th Street in the Concourse section of the Bronx where they peeked through windows or watched the funeral service via livestream. The services were beamed onto jumbo screens outside and in other rooms of the mosque.

At one point, two ambulances were arrived outside of the Islamic Center, with security officials telling crowds to disperse as EMS personnel carried an apparently unconscious woman from the building.

Fire officials told DailyMail.com they received reports of an ill person at the service at around 11.50am and two people were transported to a local hospital. Their identities and the condition they are in have not yet been released.

A casket of one of the victims of a Bronx apartment building fire that killed 17 people arrived at a mass funeral at the Islamic Cultural Center in Fordham Heights on Sunday morning

Mourners in the Gambian community of the Bronx wheeled the casket of Ousmane Konteh, 2, to the hearse following the funeral service for 15 of the 17 victims of an apartment building fire

Men were seen moving a casket to a hearse following the service. Some of the bodies will be brought back to Gambia

More than two dozen men brought the caskets to the front of the prayer hall for the funeral service

Mourners gathered around the caskets, which ranged in size from large to small

A mourner hugged the father of Ousmane Konteh, 2, in front of the hearse carrying his body

One woman was seen crying as the 15 caskets were carried into the Islamic Cultural Center on Sunday

The mass funeral capped a week of prayers and mourning within a close-knit community hailing from West Africa, most with connections to the tiny country of Gambia.

'This is a sad situation. But everything comes from God. Tragedies always happen, we just thank Allah that we can all come together,' said Haji Dukuray, the uncle of Haja Dukuray, who died with three of her children and her husband.

The dead ranged in age from 2 to 50. Entire families suffered suffocation from the fire, including a family of five. Others would leave behind orphaned children.

'One week they were with us ... now they're gone,' said Musa Kabba, the imam at the Masjid-Ur-Rahmah mosque, where many of the deceased had prayed.

Earlier in the week, burial services were held for two children at a mosque in Harlem.

A woman was seen being transported to a local hospital after apparently falling unconscious during the service

After security urged the crowds outside to make way, EMS officers could be seen carrying the unconscious woman

Mourners outside the Islamic Center had to make way for the EMS personnel, with many wondering what had happened

Following Sunday's services, 11 caskets were to be transported to a cemetery in New Jersey for burial. Four of the victims were expected to be repatriated to Gambia, as requested by their families, a Gambian government official attending the service said.

All week, family members had been anxious to lay their loved ones to rest to honor Islamic tradition, which calls for burial as soon after death as possible. But complications over identifying the victims delayed their release to funeral homes.

All of the dead collapsed and died after being overcome by smoke while trying to descend down the stairway, which acted as a flue for the heavy smoke.

Parts of the service was delivered in Soninke, a language spoken in Gambia and other parts of West Africa, but because of the magnitude of the tragedy, funeral organizers insisted on a public funeral to bring attention to the plight of immigrant families across New York City.

Many hundreds other mourners gathered outside of the Islamic Center, where they could watch the service via livestream

Aerial photos show the more than two dozen men gathering around and pushing the caskets into the building

They made their way down the Bronx streets to the Islamic Center where the funeral was held

Black hearses carrying the victims of the Twin PArks North West apartment building fire arrived just after 10am

Mourners spoke about the tragedy and claimed it never should have happened at the public service

Large crowds gathered by the windows to the mosque to watch the funeral service

Mourners, each wearing face masks, stood as the caskets arrived at the mosque on Sunday

Hundreds of people gathered in the prayer hall for the funeral service on Sunday

The caskets sat at the front of the prayer hall, as mourners gathered around them to pray

'Theres outcry. Theres injustice. Theres neglect,' said Sheikh Musa Drammeh, who was among those leading the response to the tragedy.'

He called on New York officials to make 2022 the 'year of the Bronx.'

'The Bronx is part of New York City, but it has not been regarded as such,' Drammeh said at Sunday's service. 'We are number one for everything bad and last for every desirable human endeavor.

'We are here because we live in the Bronx,' he continued, according to CBS 2. 'People are dying because they live in the Bronx. We hold these funerals because we live in the Bronx.

'They will never ever achieve their American dream because they lived in the Bronx,' Drammeh said of the victims. 'Their families will never see them again because they lived in the Bronx.'

Mourners greeted each other before the funeral service began on Sunday

Among those in attendance at the funeral service were US Senator Chuck Schumer and Mayor Eric Adams

Mayor Eric Adams said the victims' American dreams died in that fire in his eulogy0

Schumer greeted mourners at the funeral service on Sunday

Schumer spoke during the funeral service about the devastating loss of life

Officials have blamed a faulty space heater in a third-floor apartment for the blaze, which spewed plumes of suffocating smoke that quickly rose through the stairwell of the 19-story building. Fire officials also found that the entry door to the unit where the flames ignited failed to automatically close - as it is designed to do - when the family residing inside fled.

Some residents said space heaters were sometimes needed to supplement the buildings heat and that repairs werent always timely.

'We want the world to know that they died because they lived in the Bronx,' Drammeh asserted. 'If they lived in midtown Manhattan, they would not have died. Why? Because they wouldnt need to use space heaters. This is a public outcry. Therefore, there has to be responsibility from the elected officials to change the conditions that causes death every single day.'

New York City Mayor Eric Adams, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin, as well as two officials representing the Gambian government, attended the funeral services and showed their support.

'As people of faith, the Quran states, in essence those we lost belong to God. And today we return them to God,' Adams eulogized, adding: 'We have an obligation to be here for the families, and allow them to get the support they need to get through this period.

'The American dream, for too many, burned in that fire,' he continued. 'It is our obligation to make sure that the dream remains alive for all of us.'

New York Attorney General Letitia James also vowed to investigate, saying: 'I find it difficult to believe that this is the will of God. I find it difficult to believe that God wanted this to happen.

'This was about neglect,' she said. 'No individuals should have to have space heaters. No individuals should have doors that do not close. There were conditions in that building that should have been corrected.'

The investigation into the fire is ongoing.

The fire started just before 11am on January 9. It is believed a space heater caused the blaze

Smoke was seen coming through the window of the Twin Peaks apartment building on January 9

The five-alarm blaze erupted shortly before 11am and killed 17 people as smoke filled the building

Fire experts found several faulty self-closing doors in a Bronx apartment complex where a fire left 17 dead on Sunday. Investigators also believe the building's older fire safety measures contributed to the spread of the fire

Much of the focus centers on the catastrophic spread of the smoke from the apartment. The fire itself began shortly before 11am and was contained to one unit and an adjoining hallway, but investigators said the door to the apartment and a stairway door many floors up had been left open, creating a flue that allowed smoke to quickly spread throughout the building.

New York City fire codes generally require apartment doors at larger apartment developments to be spring-loaded and slam shut automatically.

In the wake of the deaths, a coalition of officials, including federal, state and city lawmakers announced a legislative agenda they hoped would stiffen fire codes and building standards to prevent similar tragedies from happening.

The proposals range from requiring space heaters to automatically shut off and mandating that federally funded apartment projects install self-closing doors on units and stairwells that would have to be inspected on a monthly basis.

As families bid farewell to their loved ones, others remained in hospitals, some in serious condition, because of smoke inhalation.

Fundraisers have collected nearly $400,000 thus far. The Mayors Fund, Bank of America and other groups said 118 families displaced by the fire would each get $2,250 in aid.
The ex-wife of a financial advisor is calling on banks and betting firms to do more to spot fraud and protect victims after she only found out her ex-husband had stolen nearly 15 million to feed his gambling addiction when armed police arrived at their front door.

Hannah David, 51, who worked as a national director of the Conservative policy forum, said armed officers came to the house with a warrant in November 2017.

Freddy David, 53, from Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, who was managing director of HBFS Wealth Management, had been using his reputation in the Jewish community to sell clients fictional opportunities. It left some of his elderly investors contemplating suicide.

He had become a gambling addict that stole from 55 clients through a Ponzi scheme and set it up alongside his business to feed his habit. He used part of an 80,000 investment from one victim to feed his gambling addiction and pay his children's private school fees, while he also set up a restaurant called Let's Meat and enjoyed trips to Greece and Israel.

A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud which pays existing investors with funds that are collected from new investors. At Southwark Crown Court, it was revealed that David had gambled around 15 million in 10,000 online transactions.

More than 13 million of the money was stolen from investors and the addiction was so bad that David gambled more cash than he took. The total loss to victims was 6,998,942.17 but the sum David was ordered to pay back had to be 'realistic' and he was ordered to pay back 1,340,111.

His family never saw the money and at one point he lost 250,000 in a day. David was jailed for six years for theft and fraud. Mrs David has since filed for divorce and sold the family home as well as another joint property.

Freddy David, 53 (pictured), from Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, had been using his reputation in the Jewish community to sell clients fictional opportunities

David was released in June 2021, having served half of his sentence. He had lived in a 1million detached house in Elstree, Hertfordshire.

Victim Leon Winsky said after the hearing he lost 300,000 of savings to David and considered suicide. Mr Winsky worked from the age of 14 up until retirement at 66.

'Freddy David has destroyed my family,' he said. 'I worked long hours over fifty years, I thought I would go to an honest Jewish financial advisor.'

He explained that when he found out about the fraud, he was so distraught that he considered killing himself.

'My first thought was suicide but just as I was about to jump in front of a train I decided to face him in court instead.

'The money invested in Freddy David was eventually going to go towards a flat for my special needs son Jonathan.

'We now only have two meals a day instead of three. For the time being we are managing to survive on my small pension.'

After his arrest David had told police: 'I am public enemy number one in the Jewish community and understandably so, I have very very few friends left and I understand why.'

Hannah David (pictured) is calling on the government to put legislation in place to reduce gambling harms

The Ponzi scheme had helped to fund an online gambling habit which saw him blow 15.6m on betting websites between January 2005 and November 2017  including 240,000 in a single day.

Speaking to the Times, Mrs David said: 'At that point [in 2017], my husband and I had been married for 24 years, and while our relationship was far from perfect, I had no reason to think he was involved in criminal activity.'

She said it became clear in the weeks afterwards that her husband was orchestrating massive fraud, targeting vulnerable members of the community.

Now, Mrs David is calling on the government to put legislation in place to reduce gambling harms.

The 51-year-old, who met her husband on a student trip in 1989, was a Conservative party councillor and stood as a parliamentary candidate in Harrow West in 2015 and 2017.

When she met her husband, he was studying industrial economics at the London School of Economics and she was at Leeds University doing law.

Four years later, they married, and David was working at Barclays Bank while Mrs David was training to be a solicitor.

David took over a wealth management company in 2003, after leaving Barclays.

Mrs David was a practicing solicitor with three children at the time and said: 'I felt financially secure and that we had a privileged life.'

What is a Ponzi scheme? The term Ponzi scheme was coined in 1920 by a swindler called Charles Ponzi. However, the first recorded instances of this sort of investment scam can be traced back to the mid-to-late 1800s, and were orchestrated by Adele Spitzeder in Germany and Sarah Howe in the United States. A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud which pays existing investors with funds that are collected from new investors. The scheme organisers promise to invest your money and generate high returns with little to no risk. But in many or most schemes the fraudsters do not invest your money and instead they use it to pay those who invested earlier. They may also keep some for themselves. One of the most infamous Ponzi fraudsters was Bernie Madoff. His scheme eradicated people's fortunes- both rich and poor- and destroyed charities and foundations worldwide. He destroyed the lives of his 37,000 victims and the scheme was $20 billion- the largest financial fraud in history. Some of his property has been auctioned off over the years to compensate the victims of the scheme. Source: Investopedia Advertisement

Fourteen years later, it became apparent that the life the pair were leading was not as clear cut as it seemed to Mrs David.

She realised her husband had been lying to her for more than a decade.

Mrs David knew their marriage was over when her husband confessed his gambling addiction to her.

She filed for divorce and sold the family home as well as another joint property.

The 51-year-old now lives in rented accommodation.

She said she feels lucky her children were old enough to fend for themselves but that none of them have fully come to terms with what happened.

She said she has always worked and was in a good position to rebuild her life so she does not feel like a victim.

But despite saying David has done more damage to others than her, she admitted the incident has taken an emotional toll on her.

She is now working with Carolyn Harris, Labour MP and chairwoman of the all-party parliamentary group on gambling related harm.

Mrs David said she has realised gambling is a hidden addiction which does not present physical symptoms and can go undetected by family and friends.

Eventually, the problems it causes can no longer be concealed.

She said learning about gambling addiction over the last four years made her discover that a lot can be done to help those addicted and their families, friends and community.

The 51-year-old noted that David was able to gamble huge sums of money for more than a decade.

And his bank or online gambling companies did not intervene.

The Gambling Act of 2005 is being reviewed by the government as it has been criticised for liberalising gambling laws and allowing advertising.

Mrs David thinks banks should be monitoring large sums of money and transactions that move from accounts to gambling companies.

Ms Harris said that Mrs David's story reveals how gambling addiction can affect people from all backgrounds and have tragic consequences.

She said more needs to be done to identify behaviour patterns which are high-risk but praised banks for the work they are doing to examine the harms of gambling and the responsibility they bear.
Former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith has said the targeting of MPs by suspected Chinese agent Christine Lee was 'just the tip of the iceberg'.

In an interview with Sky News' Trevor Phillips On Sunday programme today, he said that 'successive governments have been completely asleep at the wheel' over the issue.

'China, over the years, has so dominated us in a way that we are now completely dependent on them on a whole series of items and articles.

'Far too many officials and ex-ministers then left and retired and gone and taken money from China, so the very fact that they are in trying to persuade and infiltrate and subvert people within our political system is nothing new at all, but the worst bit about it is that too many governments seem too cautious about calling it out.'

Mr Duncan Smith said it was 'very important that we recognise China as a threat, not as a competitor'.

He called China's ruling communist party a 'brutal, dictatorial, ghastly regime'.

Parliamentarians were told Christine Lee has been monitored by the security services for some time but has not been arrested and is not being expelled as it stands.

Christine Lee and David Cameron at the ceremony of the British GG2 leadership awards in 2015

On Thursday, a rare warning was issued to all MPs by MI5 containing allegations about lawyer Christine Ching Kui Lee, 58, amid concerns that she was not being open about her connections to the Chinese state.

The secret service has stated that foreign interference is a 'live and present threat' to democracy, The Sunday Times reports.

Lord Evans of Weardale, the current chairman of the committee of standards in public life and former head of MI5 between 2007 and 2013, said government ministers did not follow recommendations his committee made to protect British politics from 'powerful forces' trying to bring 'undue influence', following a report last year.

He said: 'This current case demonstrates why we should be closing loopholes because there are quite powerful forces out there that are trying to bring undue influence, part through parliament and part through money.

'We made some recommendations to close some of those loopholes but [the] government hasn't acted on them.'

Home Secretary Priti Patel said her activity was 'under the criminal threshold' and Whitehall sources confirmed Miss Lee will not be expelled after MI5 issued an alert on Thursday warning MPs about her penetration of Parliament

The Chinese solicitor exposed as an alleged Communist agent by MI5 boasted of her influence with 'government ministers, senior civil servants and peers'. Miss Lee's access in Whitehall also included getting inside the Home Office. (Above, during her visit)

During the course of her political activities, Christine Lee donated more than 600,000 to the campaign office of Barry Gardiner, Labour's Shadow International Trade Secretary, and bankrolled several of his staff. Her own son was hired by Mr Gardiner's office as a diary manager before resigning last week.

Lee denies wrongdoing and sources close to her claim she is shocked by the allegations.

Yesterday, Gardiner, 64, said he had previously approached the security services about Lee and asked whether he should cease to engage with her, but was not advised to do so.

He said: 'I was told by the security services that they had now got specific evidence of illegal donations into British politics via Christine Lee, but that this did not relate to the properly recorded donations to my office. The question is - where did the tainted money go?'

Miss Lee's boasts of helping Chinese entrepreneurs seek opportunities in the UK and obtain visas have raised concerns she could have brought in other agents. Above, promotional material for her law firm

In a YouTube video, Chinese spy Christine Lee hinted at the scale of her ambitions in 2015, describing efforts to lobby 'more than 480 MPs' on behalf of the Chinese community as part of the British Chinese Project promoting closer relations. Her efforts paid off when Theresa May, who was pictured with Miss Lee at No 10 (above), presented her with an award for her work in 2019

Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng's officials are trying to establish if Mr Gardiner (pictured) tried to secure information about Britain's civil nuclear programme

Ms Lee, is a former chief legal adviser to the Chinese embassy in London and a legal adviser to the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office. She is also the secretary of the Inter-Party China Group at Westminster.

In addition to her donations to Barry Gardiner's office, she is also reported to have donated hundreds of thousands of pounds more to other parts of the Labour Party. Questions were first asked about her funding five years ago but no action was taken.

As well as embarrassment for Labour Ms Lee's firm also donated 5,000 to the Liberal Democrats in 2005 and another 5,000 to now party leader Ed Davey in 2013, when he was energy minister in the coalition government.

She also has links to the Conservatives. She appears to have also developed a good relationship with David Cameron while he was prime minister. And in January 2019, she received a Points of Light Award from then premier Theresa May, in recognition of her contribution to good relations with China via the British Chinese Project.
Hundreds more daily train services are being cut in response to pandemic-related staff shortages.

Avanti West Coast, c2c, East Midlands Railway and South Western Railway are introducing emergency timetables from Monday to reduce short-notice cancellations.

Several other operators have taken the same measure in recent weeks due to the impact of the Omicron coronavirus variant.

The self isolation period was this week cut to five days after data analysis showed staff shortages could cost the economy 35billion, the equivalent to 8.8 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), in January and February.

As of Monday, people in England will be free from isolation on the sixth day of their symptoms starting - as long as they test negative on a lateral flow on days five and six.

Staff shortages have also severely impacted the NHS, schools and at Royal Mail, where 77 delivery offices failed to make regular deliveries last week, according to the Sunday Times.

Hundreds more daily train services are being cut in response to pandemic-related staff shortages. South Western Railway (pictured) said its timetable will see it operate 28 per cent fewer weekdays trains compared to pre-pandemic levels

Travelers experienced long delays over Christmas and into the new year due to staff shortages as a result of Omicron coronavirus variant

It was estimated earlier this month that around 10 per cent of rail staff were absent from work.

South Western Railways emergency timetable will see it operate 28 per cent fewer weekday trains compared with pre-pandemic levels.

That is compared with the 17 per cent reduction in its most recent timetable.

The firms managing director, Claire Mann, said the change is 'the most effective means of ensuring our customers receive a reliable service'.

Avanti West Coast will only run one train per hour in both directions on each of its routes connecting London Euston with Birmingham, Glasgow and Manchester.

Just one daily return service will operate between the capital and Holyhead, North Wales via Chester.

It was estimated earlier this month that around 10 per cent of rail staff were absent from work. Pictured: Victoria station

East Midlands Railway said it is removing 4 per cent of services from its timetable as short-notice cancellations are 'incredibly frustrating' for passengers.

This will 'protect' those trains which are 'important for customers who are still travelling', it added.

Sixteen services will be removed the weekday timetable of c2c, which operates between London Fenchurch Street and south Essex.

Industry body the Rail Delivery Group said reliability has been boosted by those operators which have already reduced services.

It added that just 2.1 per cent of all trains were cancelled in the seven days to Friday, which is below the annual average of around 3 per cent.

Passengers are advised to check for updates before setting out on their journey, or sign up for automatic alerts from National Rail Alert Me.

Provisional Department for Transport figures show demand for rail travel was at 55 per cent of pre-pandemic levels earlier this week.

Royal Mail said a third of staff were absent last week which meant 77 delivery offices failed to make regular deliveries

At Royal Mail, around a third of staff were absent which a spokesman said made 'delivering our usual levels of service very challenging'.

Royal Mail also denied claims from postal workers that sacks of undelivered mail are piling up, while Britons are waiting on the arrival of important documents, including hospital letters, and others are still missing Christmas gifts.

The CWU, the postal workers' union, accused Royal Mail of not doing enough to cover staff absences, by recruiting temporary staff to cover.

Mr Javid moved to reduce isolation periods from seven days to five after NHS leaders, businesses and ministers joined the push for five full days, the timescale used in other countries including the US.

But government scientists had warned it could fuel the outbreak significantly, as people would be more likely to be infectious when they return to workplaces.

The news was hailed by health service bosses as a 'pragmatic move' and firms as a 'great relief' after weeks of struggling to fill gaps in the workforce due to soaring infections.

Labour also welcomed the tweak but questioned how many days had been lost to the NHS due to the delay in coming to a decision.

Senior Tories praised the 'very important step' and urged ministers to rule out keeping Plan B restrictions in place beyond the end of this month - when they are due to expire.

The Department for Health said it expected 7 per cent of people released from isolation would still be infectious.

But that was only up from the existing level of 6 per cent.

Mr Javid told MPs that UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) data showed 'that around two-thirds of positive cases are no longer infectious by the end of day five'.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid confirmed the length of quarantine for positive cases is being reduced from the current seven days

He said that, from Monday, people will be able to take two tests to get out of isolation, 'leaving isolation at the start of day six'.

'I urge everyone to take advantage of the capacity we have built up on tests,' he told the Commons.

The health service has been under intense pressure because of high Covid rates, leading to both hospital admissions and staff absences increasing.

Some 40,031 NHS staff at hospital trusts in England were absent for Covid-19 reasons on January 9, up two percent on the previous week (39,142)  and more than three times the number at the start of December.

But the NHS England data shows hospital staff absences due to Covid have dropped every day since reaching a peak of 49,941 on January 5.

The total includes staff who were ill with coronavirus or who were having to self-isolate.
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Parts of Britain were shrouded in fog this morning as the country braced itself for a big freeze, with temperatures expected to drop in some areas to -5C by tonight.

Temperatures are set to plummet in southern England, Wales and Northern Ireland later today with a few showers expected in the far south as a cold front makes its way across the country.

Meanwhile the northern isles of Scotland and north east Scotland could also see snow showers this week as forecasters warn of a continued risk of fog over central and southern parts of the UK.

Yesterday forecaster WX Charts predicted snow could blanket the capital before the end of the month, with most areas expecting a coating on January 30.

It came as the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) issued a cold weather alert and encouraged people to 'stay warm and look out for those most at risk' as it warned of 'freezing conditions and prolonged periods of fog' across the centre and south of the country in the coming days.

On Saturday the Met Office warned of travel chaos and possible flight cancellations as visibility plunged to just 50 yards in some areas and a yellow weather warning for fog was issued for London, Birmingham and the East of England.

Bookmaker Coral also gave odds of 4-5 that the UK will record its coldest January ever, while also giving even shorter odds of 1-2 of snow falling in London this month.

A motorist makes their way down a foggy road in Dunsden, Oxfordshire, this morning as the country braces itself for a big freeze, with temperatures expected to drop in some areas to -5C by tonight

Fog hits Dunsden, Oxfordshire, today as forecasters warn that temperatures are set to plummet in southern England, Wales and Northern Ireland later today

A Met Office spokesperson has said: 'There will be some chilly nights. There is a chance of a few snow showers on Wednesday across the norther isles of Scotland and north east Scotland but they will be quite few and far between.

'We're staying in a similar weather pattern to what we saw last week. We are mostly going to see high pressure across the UK this week so it will mean further cold nights with some fog as well overnight.

'There will be a continues risk of fog particularly as we saw last week over central and southern parts of the UK.

'We could see temperatures down to -4 and 5C overnight. Nowhere looks as though it's going to get much colder than that.

'Most of the week we are looking at highs of around 10C in the south and somewhere between 5-7C in the north.'

They added: 'On Tuesday and Wednesday, a bit like we've got today, there will be a band of rain moving its way south eastwards across the country but even that's not going to bring any heavy rain with it.

'Other than that it's generally dry. The coldest nights will be in the south of the country rather than the north which I suppose is a little bit more unusual but not much different to what we saw last week.'

And Met Office Deputy Chief Meteorologist Dan Rudman said: 'Temperatures in central and southern England are expected to trend downwards from Thursday, with overnight minimum temperatures possibly getting to -4C in some rural areas, but widespread below-freezing conditions elsewhere overnight in the following days.

'This will result in some harsh frosts and possible freezing fog in some places.

'Temperatures will stay subdued through the next few days from Thursday in the alerted areas, with highs likely to remain in the mid-to-low single figures through the weekend, especially in places where any fog or low cloud lingers throughout the day. '

Yesterday Agostinho Sousa, Consultant in Public Health Medicine at UKHSA, said: 'As we continue to experience very low temperatures this winter it's important to remember to check on those who are more vulnerable to cold weather, such as elderly or frail friends and family, especially if they live alone or with a serious illness.'

She said the 'most vulnerable' should heat their homes to at least 18C (64F) particularly if they have reduced mobility, are 65 and over, or have a health condition.

A car is spotted along a country lane in Dunsden, Oxfordshire, as forecasters warn of a continued risk of fog over central and southern parts of the UK

The cold outlook comes just a day after the Met Office warned of travel chaos and possible flight cancellations as visibility plunged to just 50 yards in some areas yesterday

The Met Office has said a band of patchy rain and drizzle will spread southeastwards as they day goes on

Forecasters have said we will stay in a similar weather pattern to what we saw last week and for most of the week we are looking at highs of around 10C in the south and somewhere between 5-7C in the north

She also advised people to wear shoes with good grip if they need to go outside during the cold weather.

Meanwhile, Coral's Harry Aitkenhead said: 'With January still yet to reach its third week and temperatures forecast to sink extremely low as the month progresses, we now make it odds on to be the UK's coldest ever.'

He added: 'Londoners can expect snow this month with the white stuff falling firmly odds on according to our odds.'

With the cold weather arriving as Britons face a crushing cost-of-living crisis, including increased costs on heating bills, the Government advised people to heat the living room during the day and the bedroom while going to sleep 'if people can't heat all the rooms they use'.

The UKHSA, which issued the cold weather alert, added: 'Wearing a few thin layers is better at trapping heat than wearing one thick layer.

'Having plenty of hot food and drinks is also effective for keeping warm.'

The predicted cold weather comes after Britons experienced a milder than usual start to the year and follows the UK's warmest ever New Year's Day when St James's Park in London registered 16.3C (61.3F), beating the previous record of 15.6C (60.1F) set in Bude, Cornwall, set more than a century ago in 1916.

And that came after the country's mildest New Year's Eve on record the day before when Merryfield in Somerset reached 15.8C (60.4F), beating the previous high of 14.8C (58.6F) set in 2011 at Colwyn Bay in North Wales.
Oliver Dowden today gave a firm hint that Plan B restrictions will be lifted in England on January 26 as he said the latest coronavirus data 'seems to be heading in the right direction'.

The chairman of the Conservative Party said the numbers relating to Covid infections and hospitalisations are now 'very promising'.

Mr Dowden said it has 'always been my hope that we would have the Plan B restrictions for the shortest period possible' and he is 'very hopeful and optimistic' that curbs will be eased before the end of the month.

However, he cautioned that the Government will 'await the data at the point of the decision before making that final decision'.

There is a growing expectation in Westminster that Boris Johnson will lift Plan B measures when they are reviewed on January 26.

That will mean the end of working from home guidance and Covid passes for entry to large venues being axed.

Travel testing rules could also be eased for fully-vaccinated travellers so they would no longer have to take a test on their return.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps is said to support the move, which would bolster the travel industry and ease financial pressure on families.

However, reports suggest that a legal requirement to wear face masks in indoor settings like shops and public transport is likely to remain.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid expects almost all Covid curbs to end in a fortnight because 'the data is moving in the right direction'.

Oliver Dowden today gave a firm hint that Plan B restrictions will be lifted in England on January 26 as he said the latest coronavirus data 'seems to be heading in the right direction'

Health Secretary Sajid Javid expects almost all Covid curbs to end in a fortnight because 'the data is moving in the right direction'

Covid-19 cases across the UK have fallen by 44 per cent over the past week according to new data

A further 81,713 lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases were recorded in the UK as of 9am yesterday while a further 287 people had died.

Mr Dowden was asked during an interview on Sky News this morning if he believes the Omicron variant is now in retreat.

He replied: Well, we have seen some very promising data whether that is in relation to infections or hospitalisations and that of course hasnt happened by accident.

'It has happened because so many people have taken that booster vaccine and thanks to the drive we gave it before Christmas we have now got over 60 per cent of the total population covered with the booster vaccine and actually over 90 per cent of over 50s.

That gives us pause for hope and optimism that we may be emerging from the worst of omicron.

So it is good news but it is thanks to all that hard work that has happened.

Asked if the nation should expect Plan B curbs to be lifted at the review in 10 days' time, he said: Well, it has always been my hope that we would have the Plan B restrictions for the shortest period possible.

I am under no doubt the kind of burdens this puts hospitality, wider businesses, schools and so on under and I want us to get rid of those if we possibly can.

The signs are encouraging but clearly we will wait to see the data ahead of that final decision.

Asked if it is likely that the restrictions will be removed, he said: Well, it all seems to be heading in the right direction, particularly crucially in relation to hospitalisations which seem to be plateauing.

You have seen those very good headline numbers. It is heading in the right direction now.

I am very hopeful and optimistic but clearly we will await the data at the point of the decision before making that final decision.

Covid passports and work from home guidance for England are expected to be lifted on January 26  with an announcement likely within days.

The legal requirement to wear face masks in indoor settings such as shops and public transport is likely to remain.

'Even as one of the most cautious members of the Cabinet on Covid, Sajid thinks we are on our way out of the worst of the crisis,' said a source.

A change on travel testing rules would likely prompt a surge in families booking a half-term break in February.

'We are looking at removing all Covid tests for vaccinated travellers by the end of January, which is likely to coincide with the review of the Plan B measures on January 26,' a source close to Mr Shapps told The Times.

As of last week, fully-vaccinated travellers can take a lateral flow test purchased from a private test provider within two days of arrival rather than the more expensive PCR.

Mr Johnson announced earlier this month that travellers arriving in England would no longer have to take a pre-departure Covid test.

He also axed the requirement for travellers to self-isolate on arrival until they receive a negative PCR test, with people now required to just take a lateral flow test within two days instead.

In Britain, work-from-home guidance and Covid passports to access large events have formed the backbone of Plan B, imposed in early December. But Sage has now formally acknowledged what many experts have been saying for weeks, namely that Omicron is much less severe than previous strains of the virus

The PM said he had taken the decision because the Omicron variant is now so prevalent in the UK that the border measures were only having a limited impact on the spread of the disease.

With the latest wave receding in most areas, modelling presented to scientific advisers on Sage suggests that continued curbs will make little difference to the level of hospital admissions.

In Britain, work-from-home guidance and Covid passports to access large events have formed the backbone of Plan B, imposed in early December.

But Sage has now formally acknowledged what many experts have been saying for weeks, namely that Omicron is much less severe than previous strains of the virus.

On Friday, Sage published minutes of a meeting on January 7 that said: 'Early data indicates that the severity of disease being observed in hospital over the last three weeks is lower than observed in early phases of previous waves, with less need for oxygen, less admission to intensive care, better outcomes, and shorter stays.'

It added: 'Unlike in previous waves, intensive care units are not likely to be the part of the health system under most pressure in this wave.'

Sage also said that modelling suggested that implementing extra restrictions 'would now have little effect on the peak', though it warned that dismantling Plan B restrictions 'before the peak is passed, could increase the overall impact of this wave on hospitalisations'.

Its latest conclusions are in sharp contrast to those it drew shortly before Christmas, when it warned hospitalisations could peak at between 3,000 and 10,000 a day and daily deaths at between 600 and 6,000.

The startling scenarios were based on the flawed assumption that Omicron was as naturally deadly as the previous Covid strain, Delta.

Meanwhile, the UK Health Security Agency has updated its assessment of Omicron, saying it now has 'high confidence that the variant causes low severity of disease in adults'.

The first 40,000 people aged 16 and 17, who had their second dose at least three months ago, will tomorrow be able to book their booster.

The remainder of the 1.2 million in that age bracket in England will become eligible for booster jabs over the coming weeks.

Mr Javid said: 'We're now extending the [booster] programme to 16 and 17-year-olds so they can top-up their immunity this winter to keep themselves and their friends safe.'
Former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is negotiating a plea deal in his corruption case, a person involved in the talks said.

The deal, which could be signed as early as this week, could usher Netanyahu off the Israeli political stage for years, paving the way for a leadership race in his Likud party and shaking up Israel's political map.

Any deal would also absolve Netanyahu of an embarrassing and protracted trial that has gripped the nation and risks tarnishing his legacy.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 72, (pictured) is standing trial for fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes (Photo: Maya Alleruzzo/AP)

Netanyahu denies any wrongdoing and an insider has claimed a plea deal will likely be announced in the coming days

Netanyahu is on trial for fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate cases.

The former premier, now opposition leader, denies wrongdoing.

Reports of a deal angered critics, who said it would undermine the rule of law.

'The man who worked to destroy the public's trust in the foundations of democracy for personal reasons is not eligible for deals,' health minister Nitzan Horowitz tweeted.

He was referring to Netanyahu's attempts after he was indicted to cast doubt on Israel's justice system, saying it was biased and pursuing a witch hunt against him.

Demonstrators gathered against the developing deal outside the attorney general's house on Saturday evening.

Any deal is likely to be challenged in court.

The person involved in the negotiations said the plea deal would drop the bribery and fraud charges and scrap one case entirely.

He said a plea deal was likely to be announced in the coming days.

The person said a number of elements remained unresolved, including the inclusion of the charge of 'moral turpitude', which under Israeli law would ban Netanyahu from politics for seven years.

They were also deliberating whether Netanyahu would be forced to do community service under the deal.

A plea deal could ensure former PM Netanyahu is banned from politics until he is 80 years old

A deal would anger the politician's critics, who may claim it tarnishes the rule of law. Pictured: Former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sarah (Photo: Avshalom Sassoni/Pool Photo via AP)

Including 'moral turpitude' would challenge Netanyahu's vows to return to lead the country after his 12-year reign was ended last year by a coalition of ideologically disparate parties with little in common other than its opposition to his leadership.

Netanyahu, dubbed a political wizard for his ability to survive repeated attempts at ending his rule, could make a comeback when the ban expires, when he will almost be 80.

His departure from the political scene would set off a leadership race in the Likud party, with several legislators already promising to run.

Likud is not expected to remain as dominant without Netanyahu, but would still be a major force under a new leader.

Benjamin Netanyahu's 12-year reign was ended last year. Pictured: Netanyahu outside Downing Street on a visit to the UK (Photo: Gareth Fuller/PA)

With Netanyahu gone, the more nationalist elements of the coalition could decide to break off from the fragile union and opt to join forces with their ideological brethren.

Netanyahu is charged in three separate cases.

The first alleges that Netanyahu received gifts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from wealthy associates.

In the second case, Netanyahu is accused of orchestrating positive coverage in a major Israeli paper in exchange for promoting legislation that would have harmed the news outlet's chief rival, a free pro-Netanyahu daily.

The third, nicknamed Case 4000, alleges that Netanyahu promoted legislation worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the owner of Israeli telecom giant Bezeq in exchange for positive coverage on its Walla news site.

A spokesman for Netanyahu declined to comment.
A metal detectorist has found an extremely rare example of England's 'first ever gold coin' which could make him a 400,000 fortune.

The King Henry III coin was struck in about 1257 by William of Gloucester with gold imported from North Africa.

It has been said by collectors to show the first 'true' portrait of an English King upon his throne since the time of William the Conqueror.

There are just eight of the coins known to exist, with almost all of them in museums.

A detectorist uncovered the treasure, which is just under an inch in diameter, on farmland in Hemyock, Devon, last September.

A metal detectorist has found an extremely rare example of England's 'first ever gold coin' which could make him a 400,000 fortune

The coin, which is just under an inch in diameter, was found on farmland in Hemyock, Devon, last September

The coin was found in a field in Hemyock, Devon, a medieval settlement famed for its castle (pictured)

He was completely unaware of its incredible rarity until he posted a picture of it on Facebook and it was spotted by a specialist at Spink auctioneers, London.

The lucky finder, who wishes to remain anonymous, was on his first metal detecting outing in 10 years.

The coin carries a pre-sale estimate of 400,000 but past examples have sold for more than 500,000.

The finder, who works as an ecologist, said: 'The coin was found in an unappealing field and could quite easily have never been recovered. Now it is protected for future generations to enjoy and it is truly humbling that I was its finder.

'My wish that day came true and I just happened to be the fortunate one. I feel I have to apologise to all those other detectorists who search and dream.'

The King Henry III coin was struck in about 1257 by William of Gloucester with gold imported from North Africa

The coin displays the portrait of the bearded and crowned Henry III upon his thrown on the Great Pavement in Westminster Abbey.

There is a long cross, roses and pellets on the reverse.

Some 52,000 of the coins were minted at twice the weight of a silver penny and valued at 20 pence, which equates to 60 in today's money.

But it became apparent that they were financially unviable because the value of the coin was worth less than its weight in gold.

As a result virtually all of them were melted down after they fell out of circulation following Henry III's death.

The other surviving examples are in the British Museum in London, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, and private collections.

Scholars believe the coin is among the earliest 'true' portraits of an English King and the first to be seen since William the Conqueror

The coin 'shows the direct influence on daily life of the international trade routes from the gold and spice rich Middle East and North Africa'

Who was King Henry III? England's spendthrift monarch The gilt-bronze tomb effigy of King Henry III in Westminster Abbey King Henry III (1207-1272) was the son of King John and reigned as king of England from 1216 to 1272 - one of the longest reigns in English history. As a child king, power was in the hands of 13 nobles appointed by his father - but this soon erupted into the Barons' War which ended in 1217. King Henry was known for his religious piety and lavish spending, including a rebuild of Westminster Palace and a huge overhaul of Windsor Castle. The king faced further barons' revolts as a result of his expensive foreign policy and failed wars. Simon de Montfort led the Second Barons' War and seized power in 1264, but he was later defeated by the king's son and heir Prince Edward the following year and executed. Happily married to Eleanor of Provence with whom he had five children, King Henry III was succeeded by his son Edward I 'The Longshanks' in 1272. Advertisement

Gregory Edmond, specialist at Spink, said: 'As an economic experiment, Henry's gold penny has long been regarded as the abject failure of a weakened and even bankrupt king.

'This would however completely disregard the context of the coinage in British history.

'Not only was the advent of a brand new gold coinage seismic in the domestic medieval landscape, but also shows the direct influence on daily life of the international trade routes from the gold and spice rich Middle East and North Africa.

'This one is in a near perfect condition. Artistically it shows a groundbreaking shift from the depictions of a king restrained by the stipulations of Magna Carta, to his own personification as England's original patron Saint Edward the Confessor.

'It is no coincidence that a King who idolised the Confessor and actively restored his famous Abbey at Westminster would wish to be seen in the same high regard.

'Most significantly the coin depicts the enthroned king sitting atop a cross-hatched pavement, conceivably a very early allusion to the world-famous Cosmati Great Pavement at Westminster Abbey conceived in 1259 and laid in 1268.

'In essence this coin depicts an enthroned king at the seat of all royal coronations for the first time since William the Conqueror.

'The detectorist found it on a normal piece of farmland. It was his first time detecting for around 10 years, so it was an extraordinary stroke of luck.

'At first he had absolutely no idea what it was until he posted it on a metal detectorist Facebook page and it ignited attention.

'I just happened to see it there and I got in touch to tell him he had to get it assessed.

'I recorded the find with the British Museum where it was determined to be only the eighth in existence.

'It is also the first new discovery of its type to be recorded in nearly 260 years. He hopes the money will go towards his children's future.'

The other surviving examples are in the British Museum in London, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, and private collections

Henry III was king of England from 1216 until his death in 1272.

In the 1240s and 50s he demanded that all payments be made in gold to build up treasures for major overseas projects. It was the first time that the economy had not relied on silver coins since the dark ages.

Following Henry's death, his coins were smelted and replaced with correctly weighed pennies in 1257.
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WAR VETERANS in Manicaland have refused to recognise recently elected Zanu PF provincial chairperson Mike Madiro, and called for a rerun of the rigged polls.

The ex-combatants met at Mutare hall in Mutare last week where they resolved to push for a meeting with President Emmerson Mnangagwa to register their concerns.

The meeting also touched on the challenges faced by the ex-combatants, and their achievements in 2021.

Madiro was declared provincial chairperson ahead of Albert Nyakuedzwa. But Nyakuedzwa and his supporters have accused Madiro of rigging the polls.

War veteran Stembile Zimunya who spoke on behalf of the ex-combatants after the meeting said they are ready to meet Mnangagwa to register their concerns over the election results.

The President should be given the correct results ,we want to tell our President that with the current situation Manicaland has gone to the opposition and the issue of elections should be addressed as soon as possible, Zimunya said

We have decided that there should be a re-run. The opposition is laughing at us because of what happened in the province. Yes, we are not disputing what the Politburo said but we are pleading with Emmerson to revisit the issue of Manicaland.

Enock Mukushwa secretary for administration for the Zimbabwe Liberation War Collaborators Association (Zilwaco) in Buhera District said there was rampant vote fraud.

Electoral corruption was rampant in Buhera district among other areas. The results which came out are not a true representation, and we want a re-run, he said.

Outspoken Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans (ZNLWVA) national political commissar Joel Mureremba said he was ready to fight for Nyakuedzwas cause.

I dont have any challenge with what the Politburo said but when I was given the provincial election results Nyakuedzwa had won only to realise it later that the results have been changed, he said

The results should be corrected. We were arrested during the former late President Mugabe, we slept in the cells at Mutare Central so l am not afraid to be arrested, he said

There are people who are stopping us from meeting President Mnangagwa but we are going to find a way to meet him,he said

Zimbabwe Liberation War Collaborators (ZILIWACO) Manicaland chairperson Angeline Muponda also raised similar concerns.

This should be addressed before we go to the by-elections and 2023 elections, she said

Madiro yesterday said when contacted for comment: I do not comment on such wild claims. It does not deserve my attention, and comment. Standard
Italian police have caught a gang behind a huge anti-vax scam that helped people sign up to get the Covid-19 vaccine only to have it thrown away and not injected in a ploy to get a vaccine passport.

According to the investigation, a network of dozens of people involved bringing people from all over Italy to the vaccination centre in Ancona where they paid up to 400 (330) for a fake jab.

The nurse who was supposed to inject them would squirt the dose into the rubbish bin before she would put a plaster on the patient and give them a 'green pass', which shows proof of vaccination.

Police in Italy arrested a nurse (pictured) who took bribes to give people fake proof of vaccination

Instead of injecting the dose into people's arms she was squrt it onto a tissue or into a bin

The nurse received hundreds of euros in exchange for the scam that took place in northeastern Italy

With growing pressure in European countries including many countries considering making the Covid vaccine compulsory, people are increasingly opting for fraud in order to obtain the vaccine passport confirming that they are vaccinated.

A special police squad in Ancona, northeastern Italy, found people who wanted to avoid having the vaccine were bribing a 51-year-old nurse running a vaccination centre in the area to pretend to give them the jab so that they could get their jab certificate.

As the video shows, the nurse and the patient make a show of getting the injection but she then reaches over and injects the contents into a waste container.

The nurse made a show of pretending to inject patients with the Covid vaccine before dumping the dose

The nurse's behaviour was caught on camera, with the footage released by police

The nurse was arrested and placed in preventive custody, while four people including a 53-old-lawyer from Ancona who acted as intermediaries for the scam were put under house arrest

The the gang were charged with wasting public resources and undermining the effectiveness of the public health work of the Italian national health system in order to tackle the spread of Covid

Italy has had more than eight million confirmed coronavirus cases during the course of the pandemic

The country was one of the first in Europe to use emergency measures beacuse of the virus and has seen 141,000 people die from Covid

Almost 50 million people have had their first Covid vaccine dose in Italy, accounting for 82.8 per cent of the population, while 76.1 per cent are fully vaccinated and 43.8 per cent have had a booster

The nurse was arrested and placed in preventive custody, while four people including a 53-old-lawyer from Ancona who acted as intermediaries for the scam were put under house arrest.

Police are investigating around 50 people as part of their operation, which started in December last year, and have ordered them not to leave the region and present themselves on a daily basis to the local force.

The the gang were charged with wasting public resources and undermining the effectiveness of the public health work of the Italian national health system in order to tackle the spread of Covid.

Police also seized 18,000 that had been garnered from people who paid for the vaccine.
A five-year-old British girl has been killed in a tragic accident on a ski slope in the French Alps.

The young girl, named locally as Ophelie, was taking part in a lesson on the piste when a skier careered into her at high speed yesterday morning.

Tragically she died as she was being transported to hospital by helicopter.

Last night a 40-year-old local man was in police custody and an investigation was opened for manslaughter.

The horrific accident happened yesterday at around 11am in the ski resort of Flaine, in the Haute-Savoie region of the French Alps, 50 miles from the Swiss city of Geneva.

Ophelie lived in Geneva with her ex-pat British family, who have a holiday home in Les Carroz, but it is now known how long the family had been at the resort.

The five-year-old girl died after a skier careered into her at high speed in the ski resort of Flaine in the French Alps. Pictured: GV of the Flaine resort

The young girl sadly died as she was being transported to hospital by helicopter. Pictured: GV of the ski resort of Flaine

She was in a group ski lesson run by the national ski school, Ecole du Ski Francais (ESF), with four other children. The children were in single file behind the instructor near the edge of the piste.

Neither the child, nor the arrested 40-year-old man, have yet been named following the tragedy in the resort of Flaine.

But Karline Bouisset, the public prosecutor in nearby Bonneville, confirmed that the man, a volunteer fire fighter, had been 'skiing at hight speed' on a Blue 'easy slope'.

He faces a manslaughter charge based on a 'deliberate violation of safety obligations' - a crime that comes with up to five years in prison, and a fine equivalent to 62,000.

Ms Bouisset said: 'The child was in a single file behind the group and was about to make a right turn when she was very violently hit by the skier arriving at high speed who tried in vain to avoid her.'

Jean-Paul Constant, the Mayor of nearb Araches, said: 'We are actively looking for a psychologist who speaks English for the family, who have returned to Geneva.

'They are suffering from extreme shock, as are many others involved in this tragedy.'

The horrific accident took place in the ski resort of Flaine, in the Haute-Savoie region of the French Alps

Some resorts in France and Switzerland have introduced speed cameras and hand-held radar devices

The ski resort of Flaine, in the Haute-Savoie region of the French Alps, lies 50 miles from the Swiss city of Geneva. Pictured: GV of the ski resort

The skier and volunteer firefighter, who administered first aid on the side of the piste, was said to be 'in a state of significant shock'. There was also a doctor present.

He comes from Saint-Jeoire, and is offering his full cooperation to the authorities.

Despite attempts at resuscitation, the five-year-old was pronounced dead at 1pm while being airlifted to hospital by helicopter.

A post-mortem will take place on Monday to determine the cause of death.

Some resorts in France and Switzerland have introduced speed cameras and hand-held radar devices in a move aimed at reducing accidents on pistes.

The limit on many has been set at 30kph, a little under 19 mph, but far lower speeds are expected on easier slopes.
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An underwater volcano that erupted in Tonga was a 'massive explosion' that only happens 'roughly every thousand years' and was so large it was visible from space.

The explosion triggered a 7.4-magnitude earthquake and sent tsunami waves crashing into the coast of the Pacific island, leaving it covered in ash and cut off from aid.

In the US, waves of more than four feet were recorded on the California coast on Saturday, and tsunami-effect waves were recorded along the coast in Oregon, Washington, British Columbia in Canada, and Alaska.

Satellite images showed the spectacular eruption from space and despite the dire warnings, spectators flocked to the beaches to view the surging tsunami waves, while surfers threw caution to the wind to catch the powerful waves generated by the surge.

Tsunami-hit Tonga remained largely uncontactable on Sunday with telephone and internet links severed, leaving relatives in faraway New Zealand praying for their families on the Pacific islands as casualty reports had yet to come through.

Professor Shane Cronin, from the University of Auckland, is an expert in Tonga eruptions. 'This is one of the massive explosions the volcano is capable of producing roughly every thousand years,' he wrote in The Conversation.

Prof Cronin added: 'We could be in for several weeks or even years of major volcanic unrest from the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai volcano.'

Two women drowned in northern Peru when two metre waves hit a truck, dragging it into the sea at Naylamp beach, Lambayeque, in the north of the country.

The driver escaped but his wife and another women drowned in the swell. Although Peru did not issue a tsunami warning, its navy are monitoring 'abnormal waves' off its coast.

The massive ash cloud covering the tiny island nation of Tonga is preventing surveillance flights from New Zealand to assess the extent of damage.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the eruption was 'hugely concerning' and agencies were still trying to establish full communications with Tonga.

One complicating factor to any international aid effort is that Tonga has so far managed to avoid any outbreaks of Covid-19.

Ms Ardern said New Zealand's military staff were all fully vaccinated and willing to follow any protocols established by Tonga.

The immediate concern in Tonga is for air and water safety due to ash and smoke. The government has asked the public to wear masks and use bottled water for now.

Tsunami advisories were issued for Hawaii, Alaska and the U.S. Pacific coast. Hundreds of thousands of Japanese citizens were also advised to evacuate as waves of more than a metre hit coastal areas.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimated the eruption caused the equivalent of magnitude 5.8 earthquake. Scientists said tsunamis generated by volcanoes rather than earthquakes are relatively rare.

The powerful waves registered in Japan, New Zealand and Australia, with a thunderous roar heard 6,000 miles away in Alaska.

The eruption has reportedly created a new island in Tonga, the second time such an event has happened in Tonga in ten years.

A newly formed volcanic cone between the Tonga islands of Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha'apai erupts on 15 January 2015, releasing dense, particle-rich jets from the upper regions and surges of water-rich material around the base

Dramatic official aerial maps showed the eruption cloud over Tonga after the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai volcanco erupted. Pictured: Satellite images of the volanic eruption in the Pacific Ocean on Saturday

The eruption is the latest explosion on the islands in the past month after days of volatility on Tonga, which has seen smaller eruptions before

Scientists said the eruption was a 'once in a thousand years' occurrence but warned it may not be over yet and there could be further explosions

The volcanic eruption let out a huge plume of ash and has reportedly created a new island, although communications remian down on Tonga

Tonga volcano eruption as seen from Himawari-8 of the Japan Meteorological Agency. Hundreds of frightened Tongans fled to higher ground as the eruption triggered a tsunami in the island nation, with a four-foot wave observed in Tonga's capital Nuku'alofa

 Slide me  Left: A satellite image shows the underwater volcano Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai with a plume of smoke rising from it, days before the eruption. Right: The volcano two hours before its eruption in Tonga.

Pictured: Satellite imagery shows the underwater explosion (left). The images showed a three-mile-wide plume rising into the air to about 12 miles

A car is caught in rising water at Santa Cruz Harbor on Saturday as tsunami flooding strikes low-lying areas

People look at a damaged boat in a marina at Tutukaka, New Zealand, after waves from a volcano eruption swept into the marina

A man takes a picture of the big waves in the breakwater caused by the tsunami in Venice beach while he walks with his dog

The eruption cut the internet to Tonga, leaving friends and family members around the world on Sunday still anxiously trying to get in touch to figure out if there were any injuries and the extent of the damage. Even government websites and other official sources remained without any updates.

Satellite images showed a huge eruption, with a plume of ash, steam and gas rising above the sea. A sonic boom could be heard as far away as Alaska.

Can volcanoes create new islands? Volcanic islands are created by eruptions underwater, usually at the boundaries of two tectonic plates, which are pieces of the earth's crust. When the plates ease apart, lava spews out in a volcanic eruption. When the lava cools, layers of erupted material form the basis of new land mass. The layers build their way up from the sea bed to create new islands.

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The Tonga Meteorological Services said a tsunami warning was declared for all of the archipelago, and data from the Pacific tsunami center said waves of 2.7 feet were detected.

Rachel Afeaki-Taumoepeau, who chairs the New Zealand Tonga Business Council, said she hoped the relatively low level of the tsunami waves would have allowed most people to get to safety, although she worried about those living on islands closest to the volcano.

She said she hadn't yet been able to contact her friends and family in Tonga.

Some churches in New Zealand organised community prayers in Auckland and other cities.

'We pray God will help our country at this sad moment. We hope everybody is safe,' Maikeli Atiola, the Secretary of the Wesleyan Church of Tonga in Auckland said, Radio New Zealand reported.

Ardern said the main undersea communications cable has been impacted, likely due to loss of power.

Power was being restored in some areas on the islands and local mobile phones were slowly starting to work, she added.

Official damage assessments were not yet available, she said. But Ardern said the New Zealand high commission in Nuku'alofa had said the tsunami has damaged boats, shops and other infrastructure.

Australia said it will send a P8 surveillance aircraft to Tonga on Monday to assess damage to critical infrastructure such as roads, ports and power lines, which will determine the next phase of the response effort.

In the United States, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the country stands prepared to provide support.

He said he was 'deeply concerned for the people of Tonga as they recover from the aftermath of a volcanic eruption and tsunami'.

In this satellite image taken by Himawari-8, a Japanese weather satellite, and released by the agency, shows an undersea volcano eruption at the Pacific nation of Tonga Saturday

A surfer defies warnings to stay out of the water and catches a wave at Manhattan Beach in El Segundo, California Saturday

Tonga's cabinet held a crisis meeting on Sunday and was contacting development partners, a spokeswoman for Zed Seselja, Australia's minister for international development and the Pacific told Reuters. She said Australia would sent a P8 surveillance aircraft to Tonga on Monday.

The Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai volcano has erupted regularly over the past few decades but Saturday's eruption was so loud that residents parts of faraway Fiji and New Zealand said they heard it.

'My entire house was shaking,' said Sanya Ruggiero, a Consulting Communications Advisor based in Suva, the capital of Fiji, some 750 kms from Tonga.

'My doors, windows were all rattling like hell. And mine was not even as bad as others. Hundreds of people ran out of their homes,' said Ruggiero, who consults for several agencies including the United Nations.

Rumblings and eruptions from the volcano continued to be heard through the night, Ruggiero said. Hundreds of people were moved to evacuation centres in Suva. Fiji Airways had to cancel all its flights due to the ash clouds.

'This is the worst disaster Tonga has had in living memory and the recovery from this is going to take years,' Ruggiero said.

Experts said the ash fallout could contaminate drinking water and cause respiratory issues.

'Help will be needed to restore drinking water supplies. People of Tonga must also remain vigilant for further eruptions and especially tsunami with short notice and should avoid low lying areas,' said Shane Cronin, professor at the School of Environment, University of Auckland.

A tsunami has struck Tonga sending terrified locals fleeing for high ground as huge waves crashed over roads and into homes (pictured, tsunami waves begin to overwhelm coastal homes in Tonga on Saturday)

Locals took to social media to share dramatic videos of the surging waves making land and crashing through homes and cars (pictured, still images from video filmed in Tonga and posted to social media on Saturday)

Waves wash ashore Seal Beach after a tsunami advisory was issued following an underwater volcano eruption over 5300 miles away

'We are praying that the damage is just to infrastructure and people were able to get to higher land,' she said.

Tonga gets its internet via an undersea cable from Suva, Fiji, which presumably was damaged.

Southern Cross Cable Network, the company that manages the connection, does not know yet 'if the cable is cut or just suffering power loss,' chief technical officer Dean Veverka said.

The Fiji-based Islands Business news site reported that a convoy of police and military troops evacuated Tonga's King Tupou VI from his palace near the shore. He was among the many residents who headed for higher ground.

On Tonga, home to about 105,000 people, video posted to social media showed large waves washing ashore in coastal areas, swirling around homes, a church and other buildings.

New Zealand's military said it was monitoring the situation and remained on standby, ready to assist if asked.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said there had not yet been any official reports of injuries or deaths in Tonga, but cautioned authorities had not yet made contact with some coastal areas and smaller islands.

She said: 'Communication with Tonga remains very limited. And I know that is causing a huge amount of anxiety for the Tongan community here.'

She said there was significant damage to boats and shops along the Tongan coastline.

The New Zealand Prime Minister added Tonga's capital of Nuku'alofa was covered in a thick film of volcanic dust that was contaminating water supplies and making fresh water a vital need.

Aid agencies said thick ash and smoke had prompted authorities to ask people to wear masks and drink bottled water.

Ms Ardern said New Zealand was unable to send a military surveillance flight over Tonga on Sunday because the ash cloud was 63,000ft (19,000 metres) high but they hoped to send the flight on Monday, followed by supply planes and navy ships.

Dave Snider, the tsunami warning co-ordinator for the National Tsunami Warning Centre in Palmer, Alaska, said it was very unusual for a volcanic eruption to affect an entire ocean basin, and the spectacle was both 'humbling and scary'.

In Hawaii, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center reported waves that measured 1.6 feet in Nawiliwili, Kauai and 2.7 feet in Hanalei. The National Weather Service said there were reports of boats getting pushed up in docks, but the hazard diminished as the morning went on.

'We are relieved that there is no reported damage and only minor flooding throughout the islands,' the tsunami center said, describing the situation in Hawaii. The tsunami advisory for the islands was lifted about 11 hours after the eruption more than 3,000 miles away.

In Seal Beach, California, residents ignored warnings to stay away from the beach and flocked to the municipal pier to take pictures of the waves after a tsunami advisory was issued

Spectators flock to view waves from the Seal Beach municipal pier after a tsunami advisory was issued following an underwater volcano eruption around 5,300 miles away

Locals pleaded for people to 'pray for us' as the eruption was compared to 'bombs going off' by those who heard it, followed by the tsunami surging ashore

The eruption was so intense it was heard as 'loud thunder sounds' in Fiji more than 500 miles away, officials in Suva said

In Tonga, a Twitter user identified as Dr. Faka'iloatonga Taumoefolau posted video showing waves crashing ashore.

'Can literally hear the volcano eruption, sounds pretty violent,' he wrote, adding in a later post: 'Raining ash and tiny pebbles, darkness blanketing the sky.'

The explosion of the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai volcano was the latest in a series of dramatic eruptions.

Earth imaging company Planet Labs PBC had watched the island in recent days after a new volcanic vent there began erupting in late December.

Satellite images captured by the company show how drastically the volcano had shaped the area, creating a growing island off Tonga.

'The surface area of the island appears to have expanded by nearly 45 per cent due to ashfall,' Planet Labs said days before the latest activity.

Following Saturday's eruption, residents in Hawaii, Alaska and along the U.S. Pacific coast were advised to move away from the coastline to higher ground and to pay attention to specific instructions from their local emergency management officials, said Dave Snider, tsunami warning coordinator for the National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska.

'We don't issue an advisory for this length of coastline as we've done - I'm not sure when the last time was - but it really isn't an everyday experience,' Snider said.

He said the waves slamming ashore in Hawaii were just under the criteria for a more serious tsunami warning.

'It looks like everything will stay below the warning level, but it's difficult to predict because this is a volcanic eruption, and we're set up to measure earthquake or seismic-driven sea waves,' Snider said.

Large waves move in near Santa Cruz on Saturday. Inundation is not expected, but a tsunami advisory means there could be dangerous currents and strong waves along the coast

Large waves are seen in San Mateo County at around 8.10am on Saturday as a tsunami moved ashore

Joggers stretch next to a tsunami hazard zone sign in El Segundo, California, on January 15, 2022. The US National Weather Service issued tsunami advisories for the entire west coast of the United States following a massive volcanic eruption

Pictured: Image captured by NOAA's GOES West satellite and made available by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows an explosive eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano, located in the South Pacific Kingdom of Tonga, 13 January 2022

Beaches and piers were closed across Southern California as a precaution. The National Weather Service tweeted there were 'no significant concerns about inundation.' Strong rip currents were possible, however, and officials warned people to stay out of the water.

On California's central coast, the National Weather Service reported tsunami waves up to 4 feet (1.2 meters) and flooding in beach parking lots at Port San Luis. About 200 miles (320 km) down the coast, the waves were much smaller at Southern California's Seal Beach, according to Michael Pless, the owner of M&M Surf School.

'The waves are looking pretty flat,' Pless said. 'We're hoping they reopen the beach in a couple hours.'

Crowds gathered at the Santa Cruz Harbor in California to watch the rising and falling water strain boat ties on docks. Law enforcement tried to clear people away when big surges started at around 7:30 a.m.

About an hour later, a surge went over the back lip of the harbor, filling a parking lot and low-lying streets and setting some cars afloat. In 2011 after the Japanese earthquake a series of surges cost $20million of damage in the harbour.

Although experienced surfers would consider the waves reaching the West Coast barely high enough to qualify as swells, the National Weather Service warned that tsunamis cause deceptive water surges powerful enough to pull people out to sea.

Residents of American Samoa were alerted of a tsunami warning by local broadcasters as well as church bells that rang territory-wide Saturday. An outdoor siren warning system was out of service. Those living along the shoreline quickly moved to higher ground.

As night fell, there were no reports of any damage and the Hawaii-based tsunami centre cancelled the alert.

The eruption (pictured from a satellite) could be heard thousands of kilometres away and sparked warnings in New Zealand, Fiji and American Samoa

A tsunami advisory (orange) is in effect for Hawaii and the entire US Pacific seaboard, from the US/Mexico border all the way to the tip of Alaska's Aleutian Islands, after an undersea volcano erupted near Tonga

Authorities in the nearby island nations of Fiji and Samoa also issued warnings, telling people to avoid the shoreline due to strong currents and dangerous waves. In New Zealand, officials warned of possible storm surges from the eruption.

New Zealand's private forecaster, Weather Watch, tweeted that people as far away as Southland, the country's southernmost region, reported hearing sonic booms from the eruption. Others reported that many boats were damaged by a tsunami that hit a marina in Whangarei, in the Northland region.

Earlier, the Matangi Tonga news site reported that scientists observed massive explosions, thunder and lightning near the volcano after it started erupting early Friday. Satellite images showed a 3-mile-wide plume rising into the air to about 12 miles.

The Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai volcano is located about 40 miles north of the capital, Nuku'alofa. In late 2014 and early 2015, a series of eruptions in the area created a small new island and disrupted international air travel to the Pacific archipelago for several days.

There is not a significant difference between volcanoes underwater and on land, and underwater volcanoes become bigger as they erupt, at some point usually breaching the surface, said Hans Schwaiger, a research geophysicist with the Alaska Volcano Observatory.

With underwater volcanoes, however, the water can add to the explosivity of the eruption as it hits the lava, Schwaiger added.

Before an explosion, there is generally an increase in small local earthquakes at the volcano, but depending on how far it is from land, that may not be felt by residents along the shoreline, Schwaiger said.

In 2019, Tonga lost internet access for nearly two weeks when a fiber-optic cable was severed. The director of the local cable company said at the time that a large ship may have cut the cable by dragging an anchor. Until limited satellite access was restored people couldn't even make international calls.

Southern Cross Cable Network's Veverka said limited satellite connections exist between Tonga and other parts of the world but he did not know if they might be affected by power outages.
A Queensland dad faces a gut-wrenching wait after losing contact with his four-year-old son in Tonga as a volcano erupted in the Pacific - with Jacinda Ardern warning anxious families parts of the island had been devastated by a tsunami.

Mosese Sitapa was on FaceTime with his son Elone on Saturday when the tsunami smashed through their home in the South Pacific Ocean.

Despite desperate attempts to contact the little boy and his loved ones the devoted dad has been unable to get through and is still anxiously awaiting an update.

He is just one of the thousands of Tongans in Australia and New Zealand who are struggling to contact family members after a massive underwater volcano erupted.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern warned families desperate to speak to their loved ones they may face many more sleepless nights as contact with Tonga remains limited

Photos have been posted to social media of children sleeping in tents after being evacuated from their homes (pictured)

The 7.4 magnitude earthquake 65km from Tonga's capital Nuku'alofa caused tsunami waves and extensive flooding up to 10,000km away from the epicentre.

Mr Sitapa said he saw the gigantic waves on social media and tried to warn the toddler over the phone, but his efforts came too late.

'I just talked to him and he kept playing with his toys. It was so sad,' he told 9News.

He hasn't heard from his son or his mother since the earthquake struck, with Tonga remaining largely uncontactable on Sunday.

Lasting eight minutes, the eruption could be heard as 'loud thunder sounds' more than 800km away in Fiji, officials in the capital Suva said.

Mosese Sitapa (pictured) was on FaceTime with his son Elone on Saturday when a once in a lifetime tsunami smashed through their home in the South Pacific Ocean

Monster waves swept through the city forcing residents to race to higher ground as they were hit with ash and small stones falling from the sky.

The effect of the volcanic eruption has been felt in New Zealand, the US, Canada and South America with warnings triggered for Australia's east coast, Fiji, New Vanuatu, American Samoa, Lord Howe Island, Macquarie Island and Norkfolk Island.

In New Zealand, dock was torn apart in a marina at Tutukaka on the North Island on Sunday after waves from the volcanic eruption swept in.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern warned families desperate to speak to their loved ones they may face many more sleepless nights.

'Communication with Tonga remains very limited. And I know that is causing a huge amount of anxiety for the Tongan community here,' Ms Ardern said.

While so far there has been no reports of injury or death, a full assessment of the situation has been impossible with zero communication available (pictured, the underwater eruption)

The prime minister reiterated the earthquake had caused 'significant damage' with the full extent not completely understood with communication lines still down.

Southern Cross Cable Network, the company that manages the connection, does not know yet 'if the cable is cut or just suffering power loss,' chief technical officer Dean Veverka said.

'The tsunami has had a significant impact on the foreshore on the northern side of Nuku'alofa with boats and large boulders washed ashore,' Ms Ardern said following talks with New Zealand embassy in Tonga.

'Nuku'alofa is covered in a thick film of volcanic dust but otherwise conditions are calm and stable.'

Ms Ardern said Tonga was in need of fresh water as the volcanic ash - which was spurted 20m high during the quake - had contaminated water supplies.

The government has asked the public to wear masks and use bottled water for now.

The tsunami has had a significant impact on the foreshore on the northern side of Nuku'alofa with boats and large boulders washed ashore, the NZ prime minister said

People survey a damaged boat at Tutukaka in New Zealand on Sunday after waves from the volcano swept into the marina

The prime minister said images of the violent volcanic eruption near Tonga were 'hugely concerning', with defence force strategising ways to help.

New Zealand has so far only been able to send a military surveillance flight over Tonga on Sunday because the ash cloud was 19,000 metres high, but they hoped to send another flight on Monday, followed by supply planes and navy ships.

Pictures have been posted to social media of children sleeping in tents after being evacuated from their homes.

Dozens of homes in Tonga have suffered severe structural damage while others are completely flooded with internet and telephone links severed.

Casualty reports are yet to come through meaning Tongans living abroad and in nearby New Zealand are facing a painstaking wait for updates.

While so far there has been no reports of injury or death, a full assessment of the situation has been impossible with zero communication available.

Australia's Minister for Health Greg Hunt on Sunday afternoon confirmed no Australians are known to have been injured in Tonga.

In New Zealand, dock was torn apart in a marina at Tutukaka on the North Island on Sunday after waves from the volcanic eruption swept in (pictured)

Mr Hunt said Foreign Minister Marise Payne and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade are working with Tongan authorities.

'DFAT will continue to engage with the Tongan Government and has offered through the foreign minister all possible support that may be required,' Mr Hunt said.

Australia's foreign aid office has said it would immediately prepare to send critical humanitarian supplies and a surveillance plane from Canberra.

The United States has also vowed to support Tonga with Secretary of State Antony Blinken stating the country was 'deeply concerned for the people of Tonga'.

Massive waves of up to 4.1 feet were recorded in Port San Luis on Saturday, and tsunami-effect waves were recorded along the coast in California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska.

Despite warnings residents flocked to beaches to view the surging tsunami waves, and some surfers threw caution to the wind to catch them.

An aerial shot of capsized boats believed to be affected by the tsunami in Muroto in Japan

In Australia, the eruption led to a major surf event in Sydney being cancelled on Sunday with most beaches forced to close across New South Wales.

At about 12pm on Sunday, the Bureau of Meteorology reported tsunami warnings for Tasmania, Victoria and Queensland had been cancelled.

At about 10pm the same warning for New South Wales was revoked by the Bureau.

In Japan, authorities warned of waves as high as 3m. A 1.2m tsunami was recorded in the Kominato district of Amami-Oshima Island in Kagoshima Prefecture at 11.55pm on Saturday (1.55am AEDT).

The tsunami also reached South America and caused serious flooding in Peru on the west coast of the continent. The Chilean coast of Los Rios, almost 10,000km from Tonga, was also been affected.

Chilean beaches were left empty after a mass evacuation along its extensive coastline, which stretches more than half the length of the continent's west coast.

Chile's National Emergency Management Authority issued a tsunami warning in three regions of the country following the Honga Hapai volcano eruption.
Sen. Rand Paul on Saturday hit back at YouTube censors who kicked him off the website for claiming that cloth masks do not protect against the coronavirus now that the Centers for Disease Control has updated its guidance on mask-wearing.

The Kentucky senator was suspended from the website for a week in August after he claimed in one video that 'Most of the masks you get over the counter don't work. They don't prevent infection.' He added that cloth masks, especially, do not work.

A spokesperson for YouTube told NBC News at the time that the video violated its policy on COVID-19 misinformation, which includes 'claims that wearing a mask is dangerous or causes negative physical health effects' or that masks don't play a role in preventing the contraction or transmission of COVID-19.

But over the weekend, the CDC changed its tune amid the spread of the Omicron variant, and is now admitting that 'loosely woven cloth products provide the least protection,' according to the New York Times.

It says in its new guidance that 'well-fitting disposable surgical masks and KN95s' provide more protection against the virus, and is now urging Americans to 'wear the most protective mask that you can that fits well and that you will wear consistently.'

Paul, who himself is a clinician, tweeted a link to the Times story about the new guidance, and wrote: 'Does this mean snot-nosed censors at YouTube will come to my office and kiss my ... and admit I was right?'

DailyMail.com has reached out to YouTube for comment.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul on Saturday slammed YouTube for censoring him over an August video in which he claimed that cloth masks do not protect against the coronavirus

A spokesperson for the video-sharing website said the post violated its policy on COVID misinformation

Recently, the CDC changed its guidance on mask-wearing and now recommends people wear either a surgical mask or an N95, prompting Paul to ask on Saturday whether the censors at YouTube will apologize to him

The Centers for Disease Control's new guidance comes as COVID cases are starting to level off from a holiday surge spurred by the highly-contagious Omicron variant.

Over the past few days, the infection rate has slowed in 44 states, and nationally, the daily case average has stagnated to 798,335 on Friday. That is just a 1.5 percent increase from the week before.

And while the U.S. set a one day record of over 1.4 million cases on Tuesday, the figure was inflated as a result of weekend reporting lags, and is not reflective of single day averages. The current 798,000 cases per day is the most America has ever experienced.

The largest drops in case growth in recent days have been experienced in Northeast, with states that were once seeing meteoritic case growth now seeing case rates starting to taper off.

New York, where the Omicron variant was first detected in the United States, is now averaging 293 new Covid cases per every 100,000 residents every day, about the same as it was two weeks ago. While the Empire state is still among the national leaders in infection rate, it could slowly slide down the leaderboards.

In neighboring New Jersey, 264 of every 100,000 residents are testing positive daily, a 2 percent decline over the past two weeks.

Other states that were recording surges in recent weeks like Maryland, Georgia and Illinois have all seen case growth taper off in mid-January, even as cases in California, Utah, South Carolina and Arkansas continue to surge.

But once a peak is reached in the United States, cases could quickly start to decline. In the UK, which trends ahead of the U.S., cases are dropping by nearly 40 percent over the past week, a miraculous decline for a nation that many people felt was going to be totally overwhelmed by the virus only weeks ago. The nation's capital, London, emerged as an early global hotspot for the variant, and has already seen cases fall off as well.

South Africa, the place of Omicron's discovery and the first place to feel the effects of the highly infectious variant, has seen a massive drop in daily cases in recent weeks as well, with current daily case figures hovering around 6,500 - down 70 percent from the late December peak on 23,000 cases per day.

The CDC now says cloth masks are the least effective in protecting against COVID

Top UK health adviser admitted lab leak was 'most likely' origin of COVID in February 2020, emails reveal Leading Western experts believed a lab leak was the 'likely' origin of COVID but were silenced because it could cause harm to Chinese scientists, bombshell emails show. Sir Jeremy Farrar, who publicly denounced the theory as a 'conspiracy', admitted in a private email in February 2020 that a 'likely explanation' was that the virus was man-made. The then-UK Government adviser said at the time he was '70:30 or 60:40' in favor of an accidental release versus natural origin. In the email, sent to American health chiefs Dr Anthony Fauci and Dr Francis Collins, Sir Jeremy said it was possible COVID had been evolved from a SARS-like virus in the lab. He went on that this seemingly benign process may have 'accidentally created a virus primed for rapid transmission between humans'. But the British scientist was shut down by his counterparts in the US who warned further debate about the origins of the virus could damage 'international harmony'. He was told by other scientists with links to virus manipulation research that it could cause 'unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular'. Sir Jeremy claimed in his emails that other respected scientists also believed the virus could not have emerged naturally. Names included Professor Mike Farzan, the Harvard researcher who first discovered how the original SARS virus binds to human cells. Despite his concerns, Sir Jeremy went on to sign letters in The Lancet a fortnight later denouncing anyone who believed in the lab leak theory as bigoted. Critics slammed the 'lack of openness and transparency' and accused Western scientists of shutting down debate about COVID's origin for political reasons. The new emails were only revealed after the US Republican House Oversight Committee were granted access to them yesterday after multiple appeals. Some information in the notes remains redacted. In Sir Jeremy's initial email, he revealed his and other experts' main suspicions centered around COVID's unique furin cleavage site  the part of the spike protein which makes it so efficient at infecting human cells. The email, sent on February 2 when the first COVID death outside of China was confirmed, continued: '[Professor Farzan] is bothered by the furin site and has a hard time [to] explain that as an event outside the lab, though there are possible ways in nature but highly unlikely. 'I think this becomes a question of how do you put all this together, whether you believe in this series of coincidences, what you know of the lab in Wuhan, how much could be in nature  accidental release or natural event? I am 70:30 or 60:40.' Sir Jeremy later downgraded his estimate 50:50 in further emails just days later on February 4. In total, a dozen scientists in the UK, US and Europe  including Britain's chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance  were included in the email chains in the first week of February. Advertisement

The Centers for Disease Control, meanwhile, has been criticized in recent weeks for its changing guidelines - most notably its update on the amount of time those infected with COVID or one of its variants should quarantine.

The agency is now saying people who are asymptomatic should quarantine for only five days as long as they continue to test negative for COVID, rather than the 10 days the agency originally suggested.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky has said the CDC's fluctuating guidance is due to new scientific information, but that hasn't stopped some of the country's most prominent leaders from questioning the agency's authority.

And just last week, Sen. Rand Paul got into a war-of-words with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, with the senator claiming that Fauci has profited off the pandemic.

During a hearing before a Senate panel to defend the Biden administration's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Paul accused Fauci of being responsible for the COVID deaths of thousands.

He doubled down on his claim that COVID-19 was likely engineered through gain-of-function research in a lab in Wuhan, China and subsequently leaked from that lab. Paul has also blamed Fauci's department of the National institute of Health for helping fund the lab and it's gain-of-function research.

Fauci, the nation's top immunologist and White House go-to on the coronavirus response, has repeatedly denied these claims to Paul's face in a series of terse back-and-forths during committee hearings over the last nearly two years.

But bombshell email revelations now show that even leading Western experts admitted that a Wuhan lab leak is the most 'likely' cause and origin of the COVID-19 virus.

Top UK government health adviser Sir Jeremy Farra, who publicly denounced the theory as a 'conspiracy', admitted in private emails to Fauci and Dr. Francis Collins in February 2020 that a 'likely explanation' was that the virus was man-made.

Paul has also accused Fauci of using government resources and his $430,000-a-year salary to attack scientists who disagree with him.

But Fauci claimed Paul was making these claims to try and attract donors, holding up a piece of paper with a fundraising page for Paul printed on it

'I ask myself, why would senator (sic) want to do this? So go to Rand Paul website and you see 'Fire Dr. Fauci' with a little box that says, 'Contribute here.' You can do $5, $10, $20, $100  so you are making a catastrophic epidemic for your political gain,' Fauci accused of Paul during the hearing.

Fox News' Laura Ingraham played that clip during an interview with Senator Paul on Tuesday evening and pointed out that Fauci's position in government has also led to his own personal and financial gain. She asked Paul about the clip: 'Your reaction to that? You know, he's had a documentary made about him, a book deal, been on magazine covers and cool Ray Ban shades  .'

'Didn't he win an Emmy, also?' Paul interjected in jest.

'But no, we want people to go to RandPaul.com if they want to get rid of Tony Fauci. It's a political thing,' Paul confirmed. 'He is a political creature.'

'We think he should be put up on charges, but he's not going to until there is an intervening election, so elections do make a difference,' he continued. 'I think he is a menace. I think he has lied to the American public. I think that he funded the lab in Wuhan  that in all likelihood this virus came from. I think he's ignored natural immunity. I think he has told people to wear cloth masks when they don't work.

'I think he's abusing his office,' Paul said to Ingraham. 'So, yes, we would go after him personally because he attacked others personally with his office.'

Last week, Paul got into a heated debate with NIAID Director Anthony Fauci during a Senate hearing on the Biden administration's COVID response

In a separate interview with Martha MacCallum on Tuesday, Paul pushed his claims that Fauci funded the Wuhan lab.

'[Fauci] funded the lab,' Paul insisted. 'He tried to obscure the idea that he was giving money to the lab and then he steadfastly, for two years, said it wasn't gain-of-function, that they weren't taking viruses that don't exist in nature, creating them and creating viruses that are so dangerous that they could actually wipe out a portion of humanity.'

'He continues to deny that if this came from the lab  yes, he's culpable,' Paul added.

'So when you ask him to investigate it, he's not exactly interested. He has a conflict of interest because it came from the lab.'

Fauci was caught on hot mic during the Health Committee hearing Tuesday calling Senator Roger Marshall a 'moron' after the Republican lawmaker accused him of hiding finances.

The immunologist responded to Marshall after telling him many times his financial disclosures, including his $434,212-a-year salary, are public knowledge and following an intense showdown with his nemesis Rand Paul.

After Marshall's time was up, the infectious disease expert could be heard sighing: 'What a moron, Jesus Christ.'

Upon retirement, Fauci will be awarded with the largest-ever federal pension making upwards of $350,000 per year.
Broadcaster Trevor Phillips today held back tears as he recalled the death of his daughter when strict Covid rules were still in place as he challenged Oliver Dowden over parties in Downing Street.

The Sky News presenter could be seen trying to keep his emotions in check as he challenged Mr Dowden, the chairman of the Conservative Party, over the parties.

Mr Phillips asked the senior Tory whether Boris Johnson 'really understands why people are angry' about Covid rules being broken at the heart of government.

Mr Phillips' eldest daughter, Sushila Phillips, 36, a freelance journalist, died 'peacefully in her own bed' in April 2021 after a 22-year battle with anorexia.

Broadcaster Trevor Phillips today held back tears as he recalled the death of his daughter when strict Covid rules were still in place as he challenged Oliver Dowden over parties in Downing Stree

The Sky News presenter could be seen trying to keep his emotions in check as he challenged Mr Dowden, the chairman of the Conservative Party, over the parties

Downing Street apologised to Buckingham Palace on Friday after it emerged parties were held in Number 10 the day before the Duke of Edinburghs funeral on April 17 last year.

The nation was still subject to strict coronavirus rules at the time as it emerged from lockdown.

Speaking on the Trevor Phillips On Sunday programme this morning, Mr Phillips recalled getting a phone call that weekend to tell him his daughter had collapsed. He went on to say she had died the next morning.

Mr Phillips said: 'You'll forgive me, I've talked about this once on this programme and I hoped never to have to do it again, but I think there are thousands, millions, of people across the country who will feel, frankly, rather as I do.

'Let's go back to that April 17/18 weekend, and I just want to say something about what I did during that week and other people will have exactly the same story.

'That week I saw my two daughters at various times outside  one was pregnant, one was very ill.

'Their mother, stepmother and I weren't allowed to meet them together. We all stuck to the spirit and the letter of the rules.

'On the Saturday, after watching the funeral of Prince Philip, I went to one of my friends' 70th birthday parties. He hired a tent, he's got loads of friends, but he's hired a tent for just six of us so we could sit outside, he stuck to the spirit and the letter of the rules.

'And at dinner I get a call, my daughter's collapsed, and as you will know, for months she'd been isolated, she was ill.

'By the following morning she had died and she had stuck to the spirit and letter of the rules, and there are going to be thousands of people who have that story in their background and, if I may say so, you are in here telling me about a civil servant's inquiry, that will not answer that anger. Does the Prime Minister really understand why people are angry?'

Mr Phillips' eldest daughter, Sushila Phillips, 36, a freelance journalist, died 'peacefully in her own bed' in April 2021 after a 22-year battle with anorexia

Mr Dowden replied: 'Well, first of all Trevor, I know how much you have suffered during this period and I know how much so many people in this country have suffered, the privations they have been subject to, the steadfastness with which people obeyed the rules and it is totally wrong if there has been any way in which, and we have seen some examples of this, those rules have not been fully obeyed in Downing Street.'

Minutes later, in an interview with shadow health secretary Wes Streeting, the broadcaster apologised, saying: 'I apologise to viewers if I brought something personal into this discussion, let's try and keep above that.'

But Mr Streeting said: 'By the way, Trevor, I don't think you should apologise for talking about your personal pain because millions of people up and down the country are having the same conversation.'
John Thune (pictured with his wife) is the No. 2 Republican senator behind Minority Leader Mitch McConnell

Senate GOP Whip John Thune urged Donald Trump to stop 'rehashing' claims the 2020 election was rigged in favor of President Joe Biden on Saturday.

The South Dakota lawmaker, told Fox that he would 'welcome' the ex-president's help to win back his party's control of Congress in the upcoming midterms -- but added that discussing the conspiracy theory over the presidential race could set them back.

Hours later Trump landed in Arizona to host his first rally of the year, where he again aired his grievances about November 2020.

Thune is the No. 2 Republican senator behind Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and is widely seen as his likely successor to lead the Senate GOP.

'To the degree that President Trump can be helpful, can contribute to' winning back the Senate majority, 'we welcome that,' Thune said.

'But I think any time we're talking about the 2020 election and rehashing that, it takes our eyes off the ultimate prize.'

He claimed the key to a successful election was moving forward -- taking a veiled jab at Trump and his Congressional allies still fighting a two-year squabble over who won the White House.

'I think most Republican senators understand that, in order for us to be successful as a country, that we have to get the majority back in the Senate, and that means focusing on the future not the past,' Thune said.

'We welcome the former president's support of that, but would hope that he would play a constructive role and contribute to helping us win the majority back in 2022.'

McConnell's deputy conceded that Trump still 'attempts' to influence the Republican Party but that his election fraud complains come second to the Senate GOP's priority of holding Biden accountable.

'President Trump still has a tremendous following among our supporters across the country and, you know, exercises that influence, or at least attempts to, on a daily basis,' Thune said.

'But I think ultimately for us as Republican senators our job right now is to try to get the majority back in 2022 and provide that check and balance against this crazy Biden administration agenda.'

Hours later Trump landed in Florence, Arizona, where he told a charged-up crowd that the state 'got taken away' from him in the last presidential race.

He lost the Grand Canyon state to Biden by a razor thin margin of 49.4 percent to 49.1 percent.

'Last year we had a rigged election and the proof is all over the place,' the former president said.

He urged Trump to stop bringing up the 2020 election hours before the ex-president railed against it at his rally

The Republican Party has been sharply divided by views over the integrity of the last presidential race

He then referenced the monicker Democrats and the media assigned to his 2020 conspiracy theories.

'We have a lot of proof and they know its proof. They always talk about the Big Lie -- theyre the Big Lie,' Trump said.

'The Big Lie is a lot of bulls**t, thats what it is.'

After some speculation that he might retire at the end of this year, Thune announced last week that he would seek another six-year term in the Senate.

Part of his growing weariness with his office had to do with Trump's iron grip on his caucus, the New York Times had reported.

'I've always promised that I would do the work, even when it was hard, uncomfortable, or unpopular,' Thune said in a statement on Twitter.

Trump called for Thune to face a primary challenge in late 2020 after the senator said his election fraud claims would go down 'like a shot dog.'

'He will be primaried in 2022, political career over!!!' Trump had said.

He also derided Thune as a RINO, or Republican In Name Only, an oft-used insult by the former president for GOP lawmakers who disagree with him.
COVID infections and deaths have increased at US nursing homes as the country continues to record breaking number of cases amid the surge of the Omicron variant.

Nursing homes were considered to be the lethal epicenter of the pandemic early on before the vaccine allowed many of them to reopen to visitors last year.

However, the surge of the new Omicron variant has since proven to be a setback for the elderly as cases began to skyrocket over the course of the holiday season.

The recent spike has since lead to new restrictions on family visits and a renewed push to get more residents and staff members vaccinated and boosted.

Nursing homes reported a near-record of about 32,000 COVID-19 cases among residents in the week ending Jan. 9, an almost sevenfold increase from a month earlier, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A total of 645 COVID-19-related deaths among residents were recorded during the same week, a 47 percent increase from the earlier period and there are fears that deaths could go much higher before omicron is through.

As of Sunday, the US has recorded around 527,000 new daily cases and over 800 deaths.

An increase in infections and deaths have been recorded at US nursing homes as the Omicron variant continues to surge throughout the country

As of last week, 32,000 cases and 645 deaths have been recorded at nursing homes across the country

The surge in nursing home cases has lead to new restrictions for visiting family members to decrease the chance of a spread

Despite the rising numbers, the situation is not as dire as it was in December 2020 when nursing home deaths per week topped out at about 6,200.

Experts credit the high vaccination rates now among nursing home residents with about 87 percent are fully vaccinated, according to CDC data.

COVID-19 shots and boosters provide strong protection against severe illness, hospitalization and death but the sick and elderly are uniquely vulnerable to the virus.

Nursing home officials say they are responding to the outbreak by limiting visitors to common areas instead of allowing them into residents' rooms and by reinstituting social distancing.

Some states, like New York, have put their own measures in place, like requiring proof of a negative test for visitors and providing all with surgical masks.

Nursing homes are also working to drive up vaccination numbers, especially for boosters with 63 percent of nursing home residents nationally have received an extra dose.

Booster numbers are significantly lower for staff members as about 83 percent are fully vaccinated but only 29 percent have gotten an extra dose.

Nursing homes have been holding vaccine clinics and town hall meetings to stress the importance of the shots.

They also got another tool to increase vaccinations Thursday when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Biden administration vaccine mandate for most health care workers in the US.

The case increase has urged unvaccinated elderly residents to receive the shot as well as their booster

About 87 percent of nursing home residents have been fully vaccinated with around 63 percent receiving the booster shot as well

To keep residents safe, healthcare workers have also been encouraged to receive the vaccine and the booster

About 57,200 nursing home workers - by far the highest number on record during the pandemic - had the virus in the week ending Jan. 9, a more than tenfold increase from a month earlier, according to the CDC.

Sharon Wheeler was shocked to learn that her 88-year-old, dementia-stricken father recently contracted COVID-19 at a Naperville, Illinois, nursing home.

Wheeler said she hopes the fact that he is fully vaccinated and boosted will help him pull through.

She also added she suspects visitors and residents coming and going around the holidays brought COVID-19 inside.

Wheeler hasn't been allowed to see her father, but the staff told her he had mild symptoms.

'I worked so hard to make sure he never got (COVID-19), because I was so terrified,' she said. 'He's such an older man, and I dont want to lose him this way.'

Vaccines are just one of the many tools that should be used to defend the elderly against omicron, said Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists.

He also recommended testing of visitors, mandatory boosters and the use of medical-grade masks like N95s and high-efficiency air filters.

'We need to build a Fort Knox around protecting nursing homes, but were not doing that right now, and thats why cases are surging,' Feigl-Ding said Thursday.

'We're going to have exponential numbers of hospitalizations and deaths.'

The virus dealt a devastating blow in late November to the New Hampshire nursing home Todd Fernald runs, called Webster at Rye, where 100 percent of residents and staff were vaccinated - but not boosted.

'COVID ripped through this building in 10 seconds,' Fernald said, recalling how, on the day that extra shots were scheduled to be administered, an outbreak occurred that would ultimately kill six residents, infect dozens of others and sicken 20 employees.

Since then, nearly all residents have been boosted, and employees are getting their third shots.

'I only lost one employee who didnt want to be vaccinated and chose to resign their job,' Fernald said.

'I'm having more and more people each and every week that I see are getting boosted and bringing me their booster cards.'

Making sure that facilities have supplies like tests is crucial too, said Lisa Sanders of LeadingAge, an association of nonprofit providers of aging services, including nursing homes.

'Older adults and the people they care for should be prioritized for support and supplies as they become available,' Sanders said.

An analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University finds that the U.S. is averaging 786,406 new cases per day, a 121 percent jump over the past two weeks, and a 30 percent increase over the past seven days.

For comparison, last Thursday, January 6, the U.S. was averaging 607,064 cases per day, a 70 percent increase over the previous week then which means week over week case growth has more than slashed in half over the first half of January.

While the U.S. set a one day record of over 1.4 million cases on Tuesday, the figure was inflated as a result of weekend reporting lags, and is not reflective of single day averages.

The current 786,000 cases per day is the most America has ever experienced.

The largest drops in case growth in recent days have been experienced in Northeast, with states that were once seeing meteoritic case growth now seeing case rates starting to taper off.

In New York and New Jersey, states that experienced a more than seven-fold increase in cases early in the Omicron surge are now seeing increases of around 40 percent over the past two weeks.

The Omicron variant is showing more signs that it is starting to burn out this week with the rate of case growth slowing in 44 states over the past two days.

National case growth is slowing as well, with the daily case average stagnating around 786,000 after rocketing in recent weeks.

While cases are still on an upward trajectory, the massive slowing in cases adds to the growing body of evidence that the new strain is starting to run out of people to infect - a phenomena predicted by many U.S. health experts in recent weeks.

Some experts are hopeful that the high infectiousness of the variant, combined with the relatively mild symptoms of Omicron could mean that the pandemic is soon coming to a close.

Dr Jim Baker, an immunologist at the University of Michigan, wrote in blog that the virus is showing similar signs to the 2011 flu pandemic that it will burn out soon.

'We have been focused on number of infections with COVID-19 because of the very sensitive and accurate diagnostic tests (PCR) we have developed,' he said.
Murder detectives are leading an investigation into the disappearance of a nine-year-old girl from a stunning Blue Mountains wedding venue.

Charlise Mutten had been staying with her mother Kallista Mutten and her fiance, Justin Stein, whose family are millionaires, at their lavish property when she disappeared without a trace.

Investigators have seized a boat as well a red ute as they desperately hunt for the schoolgirl, who was last seen on Thursday afternoon - with police not called until 8.20 on Friday morning.

There is no suggestion her 31-year-old mother or her partner are in any way involved in Charlise's disappearance.

Neighbours have told detectives they saw a car driving away from the area at 4.30am on Friday, with no headlights on.

Charlise Mutten, 9, was staying with her mother Kallista Mutten when she disappeared on Thursday at a sprawling private wedding venue owned by the family of her fiance, Justin Stein, in Sydney's Blue Mountains

Charlise normally lives with her grandparents in Queensland's Coolangatta but had been spending part of the summer break staying with her mum.

Police are now scouring her fiance's family property, the Wildenstein Estate at Mount Wilson, for clues four days after Charlise disappeared.

Investigators are treating the case as a potential homicide, with extensive searches underway near the multi-million dollar property which is surrounded by dense bushland.

A family source told the publication they were 'very distressed' by her disappearance.

Search teams have worked tirelessly all weekend to track and find Charlise, who has been missing since Thursday afternoon (pictured, search teams near Mt Wilson on Sunday)

There is no suggestion her 31-year-old mother or her partner are in any way involved in Charlise's disappearance (pictured, Charlise in a police hand-out photo)

Her distressed mum Kallista Mutten (pictured, left and right, with Charlise) was consoled by emergency workers on Saturday

Charlise is described as being of Caucasian appearance with brown hair (pictured, Charlise Mutten

NSW Police told Daily Mail Australia that 'all lines of investigation' remain open in the baffling case.

The girl was last seen on Thursday at the property, and was reported missing to police on Friday morning.

A full scale search began within hours and police now hold 'grave concerns' for her safety.

The missing girl is described as being 'of Caucasian appearance, between 130cm and 140cm tall, of thin build, with brown hair and brown eyes,' NSW police said.

'It is believed she was last seen wearing a pink top with a round neck collar, a black knee-length skirt and pink Nike thongs.'

Investigators are now treating the manicured 12-acre property, including the residential buildings on it, as a crime scene.

Specialist teams are seen scouring the bush on Sunday (pictured) in the continuing search for the nine-year-old

NSW Police divers spent hours searching a pond on the Wildenstein property at Mt Wilson on Saturday

Kallista Mutten's fiance Justin Stein (pictured) went to Penrith on Friday to speak with NSW police

Police divers scoured a pond at Wildenstein, which is run by Justin's brother James Stein, on Saturday.

They also seized a white boat used on the property and analysed it for fingerprints.

The boat is also understood to be subject to ongoing forensic testing.

The police dog squad, PolAir, police rescue, divers and Blue Mountains local police are all involved.

Officers on off-road trail bikes have also been deployed across the property and are searching the surrounding area.

It still remains unclear how Charlise went missing, with hundreds of police and volunteers - including fully equipped SES and rural fire service members wearing backpacks - searching the dense surrounding bushland since Friday.

The girl was reported missing at 8.20am on Friday from a property at Mt Wilson, 60km northwest of Richmond (pictured, police and detectives on the scene on Friday)

NSW police sent out a geo-targeting text message to all local residents in the area on Friday evening to inform them of Charlise's disappearance

The search and rescue teams have not stopped since, working through the weekend and are expected to continue overnight on Sunday into Monday.

Storms prevented a PolAir helicopter, which used thermal imaging technology, from searching overnight on Friday, but it was deployed again on Saturday.

It is understood the terrain is extremely challenging for searchers with tangled and dense undergrowth and steep cliffs.

Rural fire service volunteers have used 'line searching' tactics and marked out any items found in their painstaking search.

The sprawling 12 acre property that Charlise was staying at with her mum Kallista was owned by her fiance Justin Stein's family

The property, dubbed Wildenstein, by the Stein family is run by Justin's brother James

On Saturday police confirmed her distressed mum, Kallista, was being consoled by police.

'For any parent this is a distressing scenario, so yes she is quite distressed so we're providing her with support,' acting superintendent John Nelson said.

Police also confirmed her fiance Mr Stein, 31, drove to Penrith to speak with investigators but there is also no suggestion he is accused of any wrongdoing.

NSW Police said no arrests had been made and that all lines of enquiry remained open.

The search and rescue command post was established at the Mt Wilson Rural Fire Service Station on Friday after Charlise was reported missing nearly a day after last being seen.

Charlise Mutten, 9, went missing on Thursday but her disappearance wasn't reported to police until Friday (pictured, search teams in the area over the weekend)

The crews immediately began searching dense bushland around Mt Wilson, which is approximately 30km northeast of Blackheath.

It is understood search teams were checking tents and bins in the area.

NSW Police sent out multiple geo-targeting text messages to all residents in the area on Friday and Saturday evening to inform them of Charlise's disappearance and request help.

They also asked social media users to share the missing girl's photo widely.

Police are appealing for anyone with information about her whereabouts to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
Tony Blair today suggested he does not want to be called 'Sir' following his knighthood as he said he is 'perfectly happy with Tony'.

The former prime minister was awarded the title by the Queen in the New Year honours but it sparked a ferocious backlash.

A petition calling for the knighthood to be 'rescinded' has now received more than 1.1million signatures.

Sir Tony said this morning he was not 'surprised' by the scale of opposition to him being handed the honour because some people 'detest' him over his role in the Iraq war.

Tony Blair today insisted he is 'perfectly happy with Tony' as he suggested he does not want to be called 'Sir' following his knighthood

A YouGov poll at the start of January found almost two thirds of Brits disapprove of Sir Tony getting the honour

Asked during an interview on Times Radio if people should call him 'Sir Tony', he replied: I'm perfectly happy with Tony as a matter of fact, that is what feels most natural to me.

Look, it was very gracious of the Queen to bestow the honour and I accepted, in a way, not for myself as a person but because of the government that I led and on behalf of the people who worked with me who were dedicated, committed people who provided a lot of change to the country.

And of course there would be people who object to it strongly. That's to be expected. But there it is.

Sir Tony was asked if he was upset by the petition against him and he said: There are some people who want to say the only thing the government did was Iraq and ignore all the rest of the things we do and for those people, you know, they obviously feel very strongly.

But in the end, you know, you don't, especially in today's politics, you don't occupy a position of leadership and take decisions without arousing a lot of opposition and so it didn't surprise me and again, the best thing is just to accept that of course there will be people who strongly oppose it and you know, detest me for various reasons and this is just what happens to politics.

A YouGob survey published earlier this month found that 63 per cent of Brits disapproved of the knighthood while 14 per cent approved.

It found that three per cent of people strongly approved of the honour being given to the former PM while 11 per cent tended to approve.

Some 22 per cent tended to disapprove while 41 per cent strongly disapproved and 22 per cent did not know.
Dont shoot! Thats the sexiest man alive!

A paper target used at NYPD firing ranges bears a striking resemblance to comedic actor Paul Rudd, People Magazines sexiest man alive, the Daily News has learned.

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And if you factor in the Ant Man stars strong stache game in movies like Anchorman and its sequel, the two could be brothers, New Yorkers said Saturday.

Thats not legit  thats made up, right? laughed Upper East Side florist Cristana Flores, 40.

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Paul Rudd and the paper target used by the NYPD. (Getty Images)

Two words came to mind when Harlem pizzeria worker Sotirios Haralampidis saw pictures of the Clueless actor and the target side by side.

Oh s--t! he yelled, smiling.

Still, Harlampidis thought the two-dimensional doppelganger could have been another celebrity as well.

He could be Burt Reynolds, Haralampidis, 38, said.

The ageless Rudd was named Peoples Sexiest Man Alive for 2021, an honor he said he hoped would finally get him invited to those sexy dinners with Clooney and Pitt and B Jordan.

I figure Ill be on a lot more yachts. Im excited to expand my yachting life, the 52-year-old actor told People. And Ill probably try to get better at brooding in really soft light. I like to ponder. I think this is going to help me become more inward and mysterious. And Im looking forward to that.

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The target, aptly titled red plaid man was spotted in an NYPD forensics lab in Jamaica, Queens in October.

A department spokesman said officers had red plaid man in their sights when they tested out their MP5 rifles, but not recently.

We havent used that target in five years, the spokesman said.

Rob Clark, owner of the Realistic Target Company in Sommerset, Wis., said red plaid man and his brother green plaid man have been big sellers over the years with the NYPD and other law enforcement agencies that use rifles.

Breaking News As it happens Get updates on the coronavirus pandemic and other news as it happens with our free breaking news email alerts. >

This is the first time I had heard that, Clark, 75, said when asked about his targets resemblance to Rudd.

Still, Clark knows for a fact that the 40 Year Old Virgin star didnt inspire the sketch in any way.

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That image was probably made over 30 years ago, Clark said. I dont see (the connection), but Im not contradicting it necessarily.

I guess it would be safe to say that Paul Rudd looks like my target, he said.

Repeated calls and emails to Rudds representatives were not returned.

Rudd is not the only celebrity to be confused with a paper target used by law enforcement.

A target of a round faced, dark haired man used for more than 40 years and known as the the thug was often confused with a young Ernest Borgnine.
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A mysterious new artwork has appeared on a wall next to one of Banksy's original designs, sparking intrigue over whether the notorious street artist has returned to finish the job.

The original artwork, depicting a girl firing a slingshot of flowers, appeared on Valentine's Day in 2020 in the anonymous tagmaster's home town of Bristol.

It was subsequently vandalised, which prompted the owners of the house on which the graffiti was stencilled to cover over one part of the ruined artwork while encasing the other in a transparent box to prevent further damage.

Now, a brand new tag depicting a masked man attempting to pry away the covering with a crowbar has fuelled speculation that Banksy himself may have reappeared to graffiti the same location almost two years on.

But the masked character is accompanied by a one-word tag - 'Pouchy' - the meaning of which is as yet unknown and raises concerns that the new graffiti may not be an original Banksy.

The artist himself has not yet claimed the piece.

A stencilled figure of a man with a crowbar has appeared on an original Banksy. The artwork shows the man attempting to remove the wooden display which covers a Banksy artwork of a small child catapulting roses into the air (Bristol, 16 January 2022)

The crowbar-wielding character is depicted attempted to prise away the wooden covering which hides the original Banksy, which had been vandalised

However, a one-word tag - 'Pouchy' - has been scrawled next to the design and raises questions over whether the new artwork was created by the anonymous tagmaster himself

The original artwork was revealed on Valentine's Day 2020 in the Barton Hill area of Bristol, Banksy's home town. It was confirmed as a Banksy piece when a picture of it was posted on the artist's official Instagram post on Valentine's Day morning

The family that owns the house in the Barton Hill area of Bristol which the original Banksy adorns decided to cover up the artwork when it was defaced to prevent further damage in February 2020.

Temporary fencing was also added to the home in Bristol along with CCTV, while the explosion of flowers was encased in a clear, protective box.

The elusive artist confirmed the mural as his creation on his official Instagram account on February 14, 2020, but it was defaced just days later with pink spray paint which read 'BCC w***ers'.

Kelly Woodruff, the daughter of Edwin Simons, who owns the rented home on which the artwork appeared, said the family felt a 'strong responsibility' to ensure that the artwork could be enjoyed by the general public.

'Due to the mindless vandalism to the artwork, the family have taken the very difficult decision to cover and try to protect it so everyone can enjoy Banksy's work.'

Banksy himself released a statement in which he said he was 'kind of glad' the artwork was vandalised as he released a series of 'better' sketches of it.

The new art, which has been stencilled on the very same house on Marsh Lane in Barton Hill, shows a masked man with a crowbar attempting to pry away the wooden covering put in place by the Simons and Woodruff.

A stencilled figure of a man with a crowbar has appeared on an original Banksy. The artwork shows the man attempting to remove the wooden display which covers a Banksy artwork of a small child catapulting roses into the air

The Banksy piece was vandalised with pink paint (Ben Birchall/PA)

The figure is prying away the wooden covering which was installed in February 2020, shortly after the original artwork was vandalised

People take photos of a mural by Bansky which was vandalised, on the side of a house on Marsh Lane in Bristol, Feb 2020

The newest piece has yet to be 'claimed' by the notorious street artist, who typically confirms authorship of his artwork via his social media.

However, the new mural, which appears to match the style of the anonymous street artist, is accompanied by a one-word tag - 'Pouchy' - putting doubt into the minds of Banksy's fans over whether the design is genuine.

If the piece was indeed created by the infamous Bristolian himself, fans can expect the artist to confirm it on social media in the coming days.
This is the husband of suspected Chinese spy Christine Lee at the heart of the MI5 security alert who they say has been seeking to buy influence within the UK Government.

Martin Wilkes was pictured outside the couple's 1million house in an upmarket gated estate in the smart market town of Solihull in the West Midlands, while Ms Lee has not been seen since the news broke.

MPs were warned in a bombshell email this week to avoid contact with Christine Lee, 58, who has been monitored by the security services for some time.

She has not been arrested and is not being expelled as it stands, but a warning memo was sent to all MPs and peers in Westminster by the Speaker's Parliamentary security team.

MI5 said Lee had 'facilitated' donations to British political parties and legislators 'on behalf of foreign nationals'.

In a dramatic intervention, MI5 accused the 58-year-old of working on behalf of China's powerful United Front Work Department (UFWD) agency to corrupt politicians.

Lee moved with her parents to Northern Ireland in 1974 before relocating to the West Midlands in 1985 and marrying her first husband in Birmingham when she was 21.

Pictured: Martin Wilkes, the husband of Christine Lee, was seen outside the couple's 1million house in an upmarket gated estate in the smart market town of Solihull in the West Midlands

Christine Lee lives in a 1m-plus mansion behind these gates in Solihull in the West Midlands

Parliamentarians were told Christine Lee (pictured) has been monitored by the security services for some time but has not been arrested and is not being expelled as it stands

Some five years later she married Martin Wilkes in Solihull and the couple had two children.

Mr Wilkes, 71, who is also a solicitor, is listed as a director of five of Miss Lee's companies and has been described as the head of Christine Lee & Co's Birmingham office and its conveyancing department.

Miss Lee and Mr Wilkes live in a 1million house in an upmarket gated estate, where Mr Wilkes was pictured today, in the smart market town of Solihull, where three luxury cars were parked.

There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing on the part of Mr Wilkes. A family source described being introduced by Mr Wilkes to his wife on just one occasion at a Chinese restaurant after a family christening.

The source said: 'Christine seemed very nice and [she and Martin] were a nice couple. I knew she was a lawyer and was very bright. That was in Birmingham but we've not seen them since.

'We were close to Martin when we were growing up and this is such a shock.

Christine Lee is pictured with Labour MP Barry Gardiner outside Houses of Parliament in 2013

Ms Lee and David Cameron at the ceremony of the British GG2 leadership awards in 2015

'When I saw her on the news I didn't even realise it was the same woman. She doesn't use the name Wilkes so this is just an amazing twist. Martin is very nice but we have not been in touch for years. This will really rattle everyone.'

Another source added: 'Bit of a shock to think there's a spy in the family.' The couple and their two sons appear to have amassed a large fortune and own two properties worth 1.77million.

Earlier today, former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said the targeting of MPs by suspected Chinese agent Christine Lee was 'just the tip of the iceberg'.

In an interview with Sky News' Trevor Phillips On Sunday programme today, he said that 'successive governments have been completely asleep at the wheel' over the issue.

'China, over the years, has so dominated us in a way that we are now completely dependent on them on a whole series of items and articles.

'Far too many officials and ex-ministers then left and retired and gone and taken money from China, so the very fact that they are in trying to persuade and infiltrate and subvert people within our political system is nothing new at all, but the worst bit about it is that too many governments seem too cautious about calling it out.'

Martin Wilkes, who is also a solicitor, is listed as a director of five of Miss Lee's companies and has been described as the head of Christine Lee & Co's Birmingham office (pictured above)

Mr Duncan Smith said it was 'very important that we recognise China as a threat, not as a competitor'.

He called China's ruling communist party a 'brutal, dictatorial, ghastly regime'.

On Thursday, a rare warning was issued to all MPs by MI5 containing allegations about lawyer Christine Ching Kui Lee, 58, amid concerns that she was not being open about her connections to the Chinese state.

The secret service has stated that foreign interference is a 'live and present threat' to democracy, The Sunday Times reports.

Lord Evans of Weardale, the current chairman of the committee of standards in public life and former head of MI5 between 2007 and 2013, said government ministers did not follow recommendations his committee made to protect British politics from 'powerful forces' trying to bring 'undue influence', following a report last year.

He said: 'This current case demonstrates why we should be closing loopholes because there are quite powerful forces out there that are trying to bring undue influence, part through parliament and part through money.

'We made some recommendations to close some of those loopholes but [the] government hasn't acted on them.'

Home Secretary Priti Patel said Lee's activity was 'under the criminal threshold' and Whitehall sources confirmed Miss Lee will not be expelled after MI5 issued an alert on Thursday

The Chinese solicitor exposed as an alleged Communist agent by MI5 boasted of her influence with 'government ministers, senior civil servants and peers'. Pictured: during her visit

During the course of her political activities, Christine Lee donated more than 600,000 to the campaign office of Barry Gardiner, Labour's Shadow International Trade Secretary, and bankrolled several of his staff. Her own son was hired by Mr Gardiner's office as a diary manager before resigning last week.

Lee denies wrongdoing and sources close to her claim she is shocked by the allegations.

Yesterday, Gardiner, 64, said he had previously approached the security services about Lee and asked whether he should cease to engage with her, but was not advised to do so.

He said: 'I was told by the security services that they had now got specific evidence of illegal donations into British politics via Christine Lee, but that this did not relate to the properly recorded donations to my office. The question is - where did the tainted money go?'

Miss Lee's boasts of helping Chinese entrepreneurs seek opportunities in the UK and obtain visas. Pictured: promotional material for her law firm which has been established for 20 years

In a YouTube video, Christine Lee hinted at the scale of her ambitions in 2015, describing efforts to lobby 'more than 480 MPs' on behalf of the Chinese community as part of the British Chinese Project promoting closer relations. Her efforts paid off when Theresa May, who was pictured with Miss Lee at No 10 (above), presented her with an award for her work in 2019

Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng's officials are trying to establish if Labour MP Barry Gardiner (pictured) tried to secure information about Britain's civil nuclear programme

Ms Lee, is a former chief legal adviser to the Chinese embassy in London and a legal adviser to the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office. She is also the secretary of the Inter-Party China Group at Westminster.

In addition to her donations to Barry Gardiner's office, she is also reported to have donated hundreds of thousands of pounds more to other parts of the Labour Party. Questions were first asked about her funding five years ago but no action was taken.

As well as embarrassment for Labour Ms Lee's firm also donated 5,000 to the Liberal Democrats in 2005 and another 5,000 to now party leader Ed Davey in 2013, when he was energy minister in the coalition government.

She also has links to the Conservatives. She appears to have also developed a good relationship with David Cameron while he was prime minister. And in January 2019, she received a Points of Light Award from then premier Theresa May, in recognition of her contribution to good relations with China via the British Chinese Project.

Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has ordered his officials to conduct a 'deep dive review' into whether Mr Gardiner exploited his frontbench position to lobby on behalf of China.

Whitehall sources said the Security Service had uncovered Ms Lee's attempts to 'exert a malign influence' on politicians and believed she was 'hiding her links' to the communist party.

Ms Lee, a London-based solicitor and a former chief legal adviser to the Chinese embassy in London, speaking to former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2016. She is also the secretary of the Inter-Party China Group at Westminster.

In a dramatic intervention, MI5 accused the 58-year-old of working on behalf of China's powerful United Front Work Department (UFWD) agency to corrupt politicians.

Mr Kwarteng's officials are trying to establish if Mr Gardiner, who served as Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change and Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade from 2016 to 2020, tried to secure information about Britain's civil nuclear programme.

A source said: 'It is not immediately obvious why Ms Lee would be interested in Barry  there must be a good reason.'

Mr Gardiner denies any wrongdoing and said he had only found out last week from MI5 that Ms Lee was a spy, but had been 'liaising with our security services for a number of years' about Ms Lee's donations and was cleared to continue receiving them.

The Mail on Sunday revealed yesterday that another Labour politician, Lord Davidson of Glen Clova, who has spoken in support of policies pursued by the Chinese government, is a board member of an organisation closely linked to the UFWD.

A former Labour government Minister, the barrister is vice-chairman and advisory board member of the UK Sichuan Business Association.

In 2014 he described China's occupation of Tibet as one of its 'remarkable accomplishments'.

The UK Sichuan Business group's president Wenli Song has been praised for her work by UFWD officials. There is no suggestion that Lord Davidson has been involved in any wrongdoing.

Lord Davidson said he was 'unaware' he was listed as 'vice chairman of the advisory board' and had 'no communications from her [Wenli Song] that I can recollect.'

The Chinese embassy has denied the espionage claims, insisting that it did not need to buy influence.

Matthew Henderson, a former Foreign Office diplomat based in China, said: 'The Chinese Communist Party targets over-extended mediocrities.

'They want people who feel undervalued and ought to be respected and listened to much more than they really are.'

Yesterday, China dismissed the warning from MI5 to MPs, accusing Britain of being 'too obsessed with James Bond movies'.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Beijing has 'no need to and will never engage in the so-called interference', calling the claims about alleged spy Christine Lee 'irresponsible'.

Mr Wenbin said those behind the accusation 'may be too obsessed with James Bond 007 movies and made some unnecessary associations'.

He said at his daily briefing in Beijing, that Chinese officials hoped the 'relevant British official will refrain from making groundless allegations and hyping the China threat to serve (the government's) ulterior motives'.

'It is highly irresponsible to make sensational remarks based on hearsay evidence and certain individual's conjecture,' Mr Wang said.

Last night the a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in London said the Asian nation had 'no need' to 'buy influence' in any foreign parliament, adding: 'China always adheres to the principle of non-interference in other country's internal affairs.

'We have no need and never seek to 'buy influence' in any foreign parliament. We firmly oppose the trick of smearing and intimidation against the Chinese community in the UK.'
The DC homicide clearance rate experienced an eight percent decline this year as less than half of murder cases were closed this year which criminologists attribute to the lack of trust with law enforcement amid the country's woke anti-police movement.

The lack of trust in law enforcement has been attributed to the decline in the city's clearance rate as 42 percent homicide cases were reportedly closed in 2021, according to data from DC Witness.

Criminologists have since noted that police reliability is significant staple to solving murder cases as it is necessary to speak with witnesses and conduct thorough investigations.

These specialists also noted that numbers reportedly fluctuate based on these relationships as evidenced by the intense crime rate continuing to spiral throughout the city.

The negative relationship between members of law enforcement and the community has been attributed to events such as the May 2020 murder of George Floyd after Minnesota officer Derek Chauvin sat on his neck for more than nine minutes.

Movements around the country called for police departments to be defunded in response to Floyd's death throughout the summer season of that year.

The homicide clearance rate has seen a significant drop after 50 percent of cases were closed for 2020.

The year 2021 also saw a near thirteen percent increase in homicides as compared to last year with 226 total incidents reported.

The city's overall crime rate also rose by three percent with 28,413 incidents reported in total.

Criminologists report that a lack of trust with local law enforcement has contributed to the eight percent drop in DC homicide clearance rates for 2021

The year 2021 saw a near thirteen percent increase in homicide cases since 2020 as 226 total incidents were reported

The clearance rate dropped from 50 to 42 percent for this year as compared to 2020

'If people are less confident in the police, want to have less contact with the police, they're not going to be as cooperative,' Criminology professor Richard Rosenfeld told Fox News.

'The police therefore lose that valuable form of assistance as they're trying to solve homicides.'

'The police can't clear crimes on their own. Those of us who happened to witness the event are key ingredients in the ability of the police to clear a homicide or any other serious crime with an arrest.'

Criminologists have noted that a lack of trust has contributed to the community's dwindling faith in law enforcement.

'There can be a very vicious cycle involving police efforts to solve homicides, which under circumstances last year and into this year meant that the police were solving fewer homicides,' Rosenfeld also told the network.

'As a result, community confidence in the effectiveness of the police certainly doesn't improve or go up.'

"It very likely decreases. As community confidence in the police decreases  we might expect homicides to go up, increasing the caseload, making it more difficult for the police to solve homicides.'

The trust in police officers is considered to be vital in homicide investigations as evidenced by the decreasing rate

Movements to defund national police departments were implemented in response to events such as the 2020 murder of George Floyd

A Gallup poll from August 2020 demonstrated that trust in law enforcement was at its lowest with only a 48 percent rate.

Despite the rising clearance rate, the country's confidence with police rose by three percent for 2021.

However, a community's relationship with law enforcement is considered to be crucial in terms of homicide investigations as proven by the clearance rate decline.

'The number one factor in whether a homicide will be cleared is the availability of a cooperative witness, and in some homicide cases, there is no available cooperative witness,' crime researcher Thomas Abt told Fox News.

These criminologists have noted that by increasing methods of intervention for city violence and implementing further resources for police would be ideal in aiding further investigations.

Mayor Muriel Bowser attempted to request to hire more officers even after the budget for law enforcement decreased following the anti-police movements

National movements were organized to defund police organizations around the country in response to the George Floyd murder.

In response, the DC City Council regularly decreased the budget for law enforcement and even denied Mayor Muriel Bowser's request to hire more officers.

However, the council planned to organize a social program that would help combat city violence.

The number of police members continued to see a decrease as only 3,550 officers were reported to be on the city's force in December.

Bowser had blamed the low staffing numbers on the effects of on attrition and a lack of officers.

The MPD, which reportedly has a $550 million budget, said in June that 'higher than anticipated attrition' was responsible for the $3 million unspent by the department for staffing operations and job vacancies.

Deputy Mayor Chris Geldart noted that the importance of giving more resources to the MPD to further investigate and clear homicides as well as other crimes following a violent year for the city which saw a three percent increase since 2020.

'This year were bad numbers compared to in years past here in the District of Columbia,' Geldart told Fox News.

'But I also look at all the things that we've done, the things that we've been able to accomplish, and it could have been a heck of a lot worse.'

The city and MPD had implemented some resources to aid in combatting DC's violent crime wave but Geldart was still left unsatisfied.

'Again, not satisfied, not happy with the outcome, but I do think it could have been a heck of a lot worse,' he added.

DC Deputy Mayor Chris Geldart noted that the pandemic also affected the low clearance rate as it was difficult to arrest and prosecute criminals as court trials were being suspended and correctional facilities were keeping limited populations behind bars to prevent the spread

Geldart also said that the pandemic had impacted the clearance rates for the past year that left court trials suspended and underpopulated correctional facilities to prevent further spread of the virus.

'The interesting thing that we've seen over this year as our homicide rates have gone where they've gone is the community is actually not in that same place, he said.

'The community is actually asking, "Where are our police officers? We want the police officers in the community."'

'Is there trust in the police force? Is the police force there to serve the community in the way that the community expects? I think the answer here in the District of Columbia is, for the most it could possibly be, it is.'

The MPD also released a statement on behalf of Fox News.

'MPD is working tirelessly and building upon relationships with the communities we serve to make them safer,' the statement read.

'MPD emphasizes accountability and transparency to support an open and trusting relationship with the community.'

'MPD is committed to ensuring that each police interaction meets its high standards for fair and constitutional policing.'
Atlanta public transit CEO Jeffrey Parker committed suicide on Friday night after stepping in front of a train in the outskirts of the city.

Parker, 56, was struck at the East Lake station in Atlanta at 10.30pm, a Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority official told DailyMail.com.

No motive for his suicide has been announced. The DeKalb County Medical Examiner's Office and Sheriff's Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment from DailyMail.com.

He is survived by his wife Erin and his daughters.

MARTA Board of Directors Chairwoman Rita Scott described him as 'an outstanding leader and steward of MARTA whose passing leaves us all heartbroken.

'We are devastated at this loss as we valued Jeff's leadership and looked forward to him bringing his vision for transit to fruition. The entire metro Atlanta region owes him a debt of gratitude for his transformational efforts and we will not stop working to build on the foundation he created,' she added.

Parker was named general manager and CEO of the agency in March 2018. Since then, he has overseen transit expansion plans, helped negotiate a three percent annual raises for workers and led the agency through a Super Bowl and the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution.

In 2020, Parker won a three-year contract extension, securing his job until 2026.

His salary at the time was $366,575, according to the AJC. He was also eligible for a bonus of up to 10 percent of his base salary - or $36,657.

He reportedly told the board that 'any bonus or base salary pay raise was inappropriate this year,' according to MARTA spokesperson Stephany Fisher.

Atlanta transit CEO Jeffrey Parker died by suicide Friday night after stepping in front of a train

He died at the East Lake station on the outskirts of the city, a MARTA official told DailyMail.com

On Saturday, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp shared his condolences in a tweet.

'Marty, the girls, & I are saddened to learn about the tragic passing of Jeffrey Parker - GM/CEO of MARTA. In addition to a remarkable professional career in the public/private sectors, Jeffrey was known for his civic engagement and support for the advancement of his communities,' Kemp wrote.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said: 'I'm so sorry to hear this. My prayers are with Jeff's family, friends, and colleagues.'

Parker graduated cum laude from Northeastern University with a degree in computer science, according to his MARTA biography.

He was named one of Atlanta Magazine's Most Powerful People of 2020 and Atlanta Business Chronicle's Power 100: Most Influential Atlantans of 2020.

In 2019, he was recognized by the Atlanta Chapter of Women's Transportation Seminar (WTS-Atlanta) as its 'Man of the Year' for his history of hiring and promoting women in transportation.

'As we struggle to understand the complexity of this tragedy, we grieve with and for his wife Erin, his daughters and all of Jeff's family and friends as well as his MARTA family. As we continue to grieve, we want you to know that suicide is preventable and help is available to you,' said Chairwoman Scott.

The governor of Georgia and the mayor of Atlanta (bottom) shared their condolences Saturday

Parker helped lead MARTA expansion plans, such as a bus rapid transit line in Clayton County, one of the counties that make up the Atlanta metro area, according to the AJC.

He requested funding for the $300 million project through the Federal Transit Administration's Small Starts Program.

In 2019, Parker called for a $100 billion 'moonshot for transit' investment, as the region's population was set to grow by 2.5 million people by 2040, the AJC reported.

The massive funding goal - which would have vastly shadowed a $2.7 billion, 40-year plan approved by Atlanta voters in 2016 - didn't go well with some lawmakers.

'That's about 50 years of current GDOT spending,' state Rep. Brett Harrell said at the time. 'Not an ROI [return on investment] that sounds appealing to me.'

Parker oversaw expansion efforts in Atlanta and Clayton County and helped renegotiate workers' contracts. Above, Parker (far right) with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in May 2021

Parker called for a $100 billion 'moonshot for transit' investment in 2019, though he didn't specify where the money would come from at the time

He made $366,575 a year in 2020, the year his contract was extended until 2026

Collie Greenwood has been named acting CEO and general manger of MARTA. He is a former chief service officer at the Toronto Transit Commission

MARTA named Collie Greenwood as interim general manager and CEO after an emergency board meeting Saturday.

Greenwood is a former chief service officer at the Toronto Transit Commission. He joined MARTA in 2019 as the head of bus operations and was promoted to deputy general manager of operations last January.

In 2019, MARTA, under Parker's leadership, approved a new contract that gave its workers three percent raises for the next three years, AJC reported.

The agreement gave a 25-cents-an-hour longevity premium to all employees with 20 or more years of service and added a 'parity pay adjustment' of 50 cents an hour to all bus and rail operators.

It added $1 an hour for mechanics and other skilled technicians and came with $1,000 ratification payments for full-time employees and $500 for part-time workers.

Britt Dunams, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 732, which represents more than 2,500 MARTA and other local transit workers, said:

'We are deeply saddened and shocked to hear of the tragic death of MARTA general Manager/CEO Jeffrey Parker.

'Parker understood the importance of MARTA and public transit for our city, our members, and our citizens.

'Recently, we had been working with Parker to further strengthen the relationship between our Union and management that recognized the critical role our members have played in keeping our communities moving through the challenging times of the pandemic. In his memory, we will continue that important work and strive to make MARTA safer, more accessible and more affordable for all Atlantans.'

For those at risk, The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can be reached at 800-273-8255.
Donald Trump falsely declared in his Arizona rally that public health authorities are denying the COVID-19 vaccine to white people because of their race, an Associated Press fact check stated on Sunday.

The former president made racially-charged remarks that twisted facts and exaggerated the effects of racially conscious COVID antiviral treatment guidelines in New York.

'The left is now rationing lifesaving therapeutics based on race, discriminating against and denigrating -- just, denigrating -- white people to determine who lives and who dies. If you're white you don't get the vaccine or if you're white you don't get therapeutics,' Trump said in Florida, Arizona on Saturday evening.

'It's unbelievable to think this. And nobody wants this. Black people don't want it, white people don't want it, nobody wants it.'

The crowd applauded his remarks.

'In New York state, if you're white, you have to go to the back of the line to get medical health -- think of it, if you're white you go right to the back of the line,' Trump said as a few boos could be heard.

Trump made a number of bombastic remarks during his first rally of 2022 in Florence, Arizona

'This race-based medicine is not only anti-American, it's government tyranny in the truest sense of the word.'

He called on the Supreme Court to investigate what he called a 'flagrant civil rights violation.'

The Associated Press states: No, white people are not being excluded from vaccines, of which there is a plentiful supply. And there is no evidence they being sent to the 'back of the line' for COVID-19 care as a matter of public health policy.

A New York policy allows for race to be one consideration when dispensing oral antiviral treatments, which are in limited supply. The policy attempts to steer those treatments to people at the most risk of severe disease from the coronavirus.

It says that nonwhite race or Hispanic ethnicity 'should be considered a risk factor' because long-standing health and social inequities make people of color more likely to get severely ill or die from the virus.

Similar guidelines exist in Utah and Minnesota.

But Trump extrapolated from that to assert wrongly that white people are being forced to 'the back of the line' for health care and being shut out both from vaccines and therapeutics.

Maya Wiley, an MSNBC analyst and former New York City mayoral candidate, accused Trump of trying to foment a 'race war' on Twitter.

Bloomberg opinion columnist Tim O'Brien wrote that Trump is 'sprinkling lies atop his racism.'

Michael Lanza, a New York City Health Department spokesman, told the New York Post that race is not used to deny treatment.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found late last year that black, Hispanic and Indigenous people were about twice as likely to die from COVID-19 than non-Hispanic whites and were notably more likely to be hospitalized.

An earlier Associated Press analysis of the pandemic's first waves found that COVID-19 was taking a disproportionately heavy toll on Black and Hispanic people.

CDC research in October reported that people in certain ethnic and racial minority groups were dying from COVID-19 at younger ages and a report from the institution Friday said minorities are less likely to receive outpatient antiviral treatment than whites.

Former NYC mayoral candidate Maya Wiley excoriated Trump on Twitter over his comments

Bloomberg opinion writer Tim O'Brien said Trump was 'sprinkling lies atop his racism'
Paul Myners, a former Labour minister and city banker who advised the government on the bailout of the historic 2008 financial crash, has died aged 73.

His family confirmed he 'passed away peacefully' at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in west London in the early hours of this morning.

Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown led tributes to the ex-city banker today, describing him as a 'tower of strength' whose charitable work will be 'long remembered'.

Lord Myners was adopted from a Bath orphanage by a Cornish butcher and hairdresser aged three and grew up in Truro, before winning a scholarship to attend a Methodist school.

He was initially an inner-city teacher in London, but later became a financial journalist for the Daily Telegraph and chairman of the Guardian Media Group (GMG).

However, Lord Myners was ennobled in 2008 when Mr Brown brought him into the government as a Treasury Minister with responsibility for the City.

He served as the Financial Services Secretary in HM Treasury from October 2008 to May 2010, and was consequently made a life peer.

During his time in government, Lord Myners helped the then Prime Minister to organise a 400 billion bank rescue that saw the amalgamation of HBOS and Lloyds - the UK's fifth and sixth largest banks at the time.

Paul Myners, a former Labour minister and life peer, died in the early hours of Sunday morning, his family confirmed in a statement

Lord Myners pictured in the Queen's Robing Room before being introduced to the House of Lords as Lord Myners, of Truro, in 2009

The former Treasury Minister pictured outside 10 Downing Street ahead of a cabinet meeting in January 2009

The father-of-five has also previously served as chairman of the trustees of the Tate and chairman of the Low Pay Commission.

Mr Brown said today: 'My thoughts are with Pauls family. After a successful career in finance [he] was persuaded in 2008 to enter public service and was a tower of strength, helping nationalise key banks and producing a plan to overcome the global financial crisis.

'His charitable work in his native Cornwall will be long remembered.'

Carolyn McCall, ITV chief executive and who was chairman during Lord Myners' time at GMG, added: 'Paul was formidable with a brilliant brain, an entrepreneurial spirit and a prodigious work ethic.

'He didnt suffer fools at all, was a tough taskmaster and had a wicked sense of humour. I loved working with him and learned so much when he chaired Guardian Media Group.'

Lord Myners, who was also previously chair of Marks & Spencer, entered the House of Lords when he was made a life peer in 2008, remaining on the Labour benches until 2014 when he became a crossbench peer.

He is survived by his five children and five grandchildren.

In a statement, his family said: 'With great sadness we announce the loss of our beloved father Lord Paul Myners (1948-2022). He passed away peacefully in the early hours of this morning (Sunday) at Chelsea & Westminster Hospital.

'He will be deeply missed and in our hearts forever.'
Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell had an 'easy warmth' around each other and may have dated in the past, a friend of the pair has claimed.

Euan Rellie, who is a New York-based, British investment banker, attended the University of Oxford with Maxwell, 60, and was a guest at dinner parties that she and her disgraced ex-boyfriend Jeffery Epstein hosted in the US.

He recalled being invited to Epsteins New York home one evening and the disgraced socialite admitted that it was 'for my friend Prince Andrew'.

And a former Palace police guard made similar claims. Paul Page said he and colleagues wondered if the Andrew and Maxwell were 'intimate' due to the frequency of her visits to the Palace.

Mr Rellie and Mr Page made the revelations during an interview with Ranvir Singh for the upcoming ITV documentary, Ghislaine, Prince Andrew and the Paedophile.

Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell had an easy warmth around each other and may have dated in the past, a friend of the pair has claimed

Euan Rellie (pictured), who is a New York-based, British investment banker, attended the University of Oxford with Maxwell, 60, and was a guest at dinner parties that she and her disgraced ex-boyfriend Jeffery Epstein hosted in the US

Page, who was jailed in 2009 for a 3million fraud scam, claimed Ghislaine Maxwell (right) rarely signed in and entered the palace 'at will'

Speaking in the upcoming documentary, Mr Rellie said: 'She described Andrew as being her friend, not Jeffreys.'

'I got the sense that Prince Andrew and Ghislaine had probably been girlfriend and boyfriend in the past. They had an easy warmth around each other', reports The Telegraph.

This comes as the disgraced socialite is set to be sentenced on sex trafficking crimes on June 28.

The sentencing date was set by Judge Alison Nathan on Friday afternoon.

The delayed sentencing was based on the defense attorneys' decision due to recent 'compelling' evidence they say could overturn the trial, as well as Maxwell's conviction.

Meanwhile, a former royalty protection officer claimed the Duke of York would 'shout and scream' if his teddy bear collection was knocked out of place by palace maids.

The former constable, who left the Metropolitan Police in 2007, was part of the elite Royal Protection Squad and had access to the Duke of York's private residence.

He claimed that Andrew had a bed with '50 or 60' stuffed toys and maids were given a laminated picture so each bear could carefully be put back in its original position.

Former bodyguard Paul Page claimed that Andrew had a bed carefully positioned with '50 or 60' stuffed toys and maids had a laminated picture so each one would carefully be placed back in their original position to avoid a tantrum (file image)

Page (pictured) made the revelation during an interview with Ranvir Singh for the upcoming ITV documentary Ghislaine, Prince Andrew and the Paedophile

He said: 'It had about 50 or 60 stuffed toys positioned on the bed and basically there was a card the inspector showed us in a drawer and it was a picture of these bears all in situ.

'The reason for the laminated picture was if those bears weren't put back in the right order by the maids, he would shout and scream.'

Writer Elizabeth Day was introduced to Andrews 'strange' teddy bear collection back in 2019 at Buckingham Palace.

She wrote: 'I was told to wait in a corridor where my only other companion was an oversized teddy bear squashed into a seat.

'When I was ushered in to meet Prince Andrew, I asked him about it. He sniggered and told me it had been a wedding gift from his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson.

'It seemed rather strange to me that a grown man should be so amused by the presence of a stuffed toy, but I suppose the English upper classes have a long history with teddy bears used as transitional objects to express emotions they might feel uncomfortable with.

'I wondered if this was someone who had never really grown up because he had never had to. Here he was, taking up space in his mothers house, carrying out a made-up job to keep him entertained and still having a teddy bear his ex-wife had given him. It was weird.'

The royalty protection officer - who was in the Royal Protection Command from 1998 to 2004 - also said that officers believed the Duke has a close relationship with Robert Maxwell's daughter, The Sun Online reports.

Page, who was jailed in 2009 for a 3million fraud scam, claimed Ghislaine Maxwell rarely signed in and entered the palace 'at will'.

Ghislaine Maxwell gives Jeffrey Epstein a foot massage on his private jet dubbed the 'Lolita Express' and said to have taken Virginia to London where she was allegedly forced to gave sex with Andrew

He added: 'From the way she was allowed to enter and exit the palace at will, we suspected that she may have had an intimate relationship with Prince Andrew.

'She kept coming in and out, in and out.'

Ghislaine, Prince Andrew and the Paedophile will feature on ITV on Tuesday night at 9pm.

This news comes as Prince Andrew will no longer be known as His Royal Highness 'in any official capacity' in a stunning downfall as his family abandoned him to fight his sex abuse lawsuit in America as a private citizen.

Andrew, who remains Duke of York, also lost his military titles and royal patronages 'with the Queen's approval and agreement', Buckingham Palace said in a terse statement that brought his 61 years as a senior royal to a shock end.

He is only the 5th royal in recent history to stop officially using the HRH title, with Princess Diana and Sarah, Duchess of York, losing the styling after their divorce, while Prince Harry and Meghan Markle agreed to lose theirs publicly as part of their 'Megxit' deal with the Queen.

But like Harry and Meghan, Andrew will privately retain the title inside Palace walls, meaning he will not have to start bowing to all HRH members of the family.

'The Prince was tearful when told the news even though he had expected it. He feels that he has let so many people down, not least his mother, during her Platinum Jubilee year,' a senior defence source said.

This news comes as Prince Andrew will no longer be known as His Royal Highness 'in any official capacity' in a stunning downfall as his family abandoned him to fight his sex abuse lawsuit in America as a private citizen

'The Prince was tearful when told the news even though he had expected it. He feels that he has let so many people down, not least his mother, during her Platinum Jubilee year,' a senior defence source said. (Andrew is pictured above in RAF regalia in Lossiemouth, Scotland in 2015)

The decision to shred Andrew's military ties is likely to be particularly painful for the Royal Navy veteran, who served with distinction as a helicopter pilot during the Falklands War.

The news came a day after a US judge unequivocally rejected the prince's bid to have his sex abuse case thrown out, leaving him facing the prospect of being cross-examined for seven hours on camera with embarrassing questions on everything from his sex life and 'private parts'.

Andrew has been urged to settle out of court with his accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre 'for the sake of his mother', who celebrates her Platinum Jubilee this year. But he could face difficulties given Ms Giuffre is said to be pushing for 'her day in court'.

Buckingham Palace announced the Queen's decision to cast Andrew out of the royal fold in a statement released on Thursday.

'With The Queen's approval and agreement, The Duke of York's military affiliations and Royal patronages have been returned to The Queen,' it read. 'The Duke of York will continue not to undertake any public duties and is defending this case as a private citizen.'

The Duke of York's legal team on Saturday revealed it wants to question his accuser Virginia Giuffre's husband Robert and her psychologist Dr Judith Lightfoot.

Prince Andrew was photographed with his former wife Fergie in the passenger seat as he was said to be fearful of 'complete financial ruin' as the costs of the case start mounting up.

The couple were in a two-car convoy, indicating the Duke is still receiving royal protection. Last week security minister Damian Hinds would not be drawn on whether taxpayers would still foot the bill to protect Andrew.

Andrew (pictured on Saturday with Sarah Ferguson), who denies the allegation, has complained to friends about the financial impact of the case, adding that he fears being left insolvent

The Duke and Fergie were in a two-car convoy, indicating he is still receiving a level of protection despite the stripping of his royal patronages and military roles this week.

Ms Giuffre is pictured with her husband Robert Giuffre in Queensland, Australia (left). Lawyers for Prince Andrew (right, with the Queen) wish to be allowed to inspect documents including the doctor's notes from all sessions with Ms Giuffre

Prince Andrew may have to fund his own security after being stripped of his title, warns former head of royal protection The Duke of York may eventually have to fund his own security, a former head of royal protection said last night. Even after being restricted from his duties, Prince Andrew as a senior royal had been given round-the-clock Scotland Yard protection at an annual cost of 2million to the taxpayer. A decision on whether to continue providing protection will be based on the threat level he faces, retired Chief Superintendent Dai Davies said. Whether [or not] he continues to use his titles, he remains the Queens son, Mr Davies added. Whether or not he is still afforded specialist protection will be based entirely around how serious intelligence suggests the threat level will be. Mr Davies, who led the Metropolitan Polices royalty protection unit, explained: If the threat level is low, then like junior royals and his own daughters he will have to fund protection himself. Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice received official protection until 2011 but now foot the bill themselves, probably with some help from their father. The threat level is determined by Home Office advisers, the Queens private security and a specialist committee, Mr Davies said. It is likely that, in the short term, Prince Andrews protection will continue, he added. Clearly now he is open to all kinds of vilification given he is very much in the limelight and has been accused of some serious things, so they will have to be careful, Mr Davies said. I think they will be very cautious until there has been a very thorough assessment and he will remain protected at least in the short term. There are very strong feelings about him at the moment and suggestions he did not tell the truth, so that threat is there. A spokesman from Scotland Yard said the force does not discuss matters of protection. The full cost of royal security is kept from the public as Scotland Yard argues it would compromise safety. But it is believed to cost taxpayers well in excess of 125million a year. Advertisement

Andrew's lawyers' fees are currently at least 2million and legal experts believe he may have to pay 10million to his accuser Ms Giuffre to stop the case coming to court.

The disgraced duke was stripped of his military titles and remaining royal patronages following a 30-minute audience with the Queen on Thursday.

Both Mr Giuffre and Dr Lightfoot are residents of Australia and would be requested to be examined under oath, either in person or by video-link.

In recently published documents, lawyers for the Queen's son argue that Ms Giuffre 'may suffer from false memories', and state that Dr Lightfoot should be examined on 'theory of false memories' among other topics including matters discussed during their sessions and any prescriptions she wrote for Andrew's accuser.

They also wish to be allowed to inspect documents including the doctor's notes from all sessions with Ms Giuffre.

Lawyers want Mr Giuffre to be questioned on a range of areas including the circumstances under which he met his now wife around 2002 and the Giuffre household finances.

Lawyers want testimony to be obtained from the witnesses by April 29 this year 'or as soon thereafter as is possible'.

The trial is scheduled to take place between September and December.

Andrew's lawyers have requested that the US court issues letters to the Central Authority of Australia for their assistance in obtaining the testimony.

The requests from the duke's lawyers follow similar requests from Ms Giuffre's legal representatives.

Her team is seeking witness accounts from Andrew's former equerry Robert Olney and a woman called Shukri Walker, who claims to have seen the royal in Tramp nightclub.

Documents submitted by Ms Giuffre's legal team say that Mr Olney's name appears in Jeffrey Epstein's phone book under 'Duke of York'.

They say this means it is likely Mr Olney has relevant information about Andrew's travel to and from Epstein's properties during the relevant period.

The documents say Ms Walker has stated publicly in the press that she was a witness to Andrew's presence at Tramp during the relevant time period with a young woman who may have been Ms Giuffre.

Ms Giuffre is suing the duke in the US for allegedly sexually assaulting her when she was a teenager and claims she was trafficked by Andrew's friend, convicted sex offender Epstein, to have sex with the duke when she was 17 and a minor under US law.

The duke has strenuously denied the allegations.

Ms Giuffre claims Andrew had sex with her against her will at Maxwell's London home and at Epstein's mansion on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

The duke is also alleged to have abused Ms Giuffre on another occasion during a visit to Epstein's private island, Little St James, and on a separate occasion at Epstein's Manhattan mansion.

Ghislaine, Prince Andrew and the Paedophile will feature on ITV on Tuesday night at 9pm.
The mother of a 19-year-old Burger King worker who was shot dead by a former employee during a late shift choked back tears as she demanded justice for her daughter and thanked those who gathered at a makeshift memorial on Saturday.

Kristie Nieves, 36, held a big teddy bear given to her by a supporter outside the shuttered Burger King at East 116th Street and Lexington Avenue in East Harlem, where her daughter Kristal Bayron-Nieves was shot dead on Sunday, January 9.

The grieving mother, who lives five blocks away, spoke just a few words before she broke down and had to be escorted back into a car by a relative.

'Thank you everyone and everyone who supported me, including my family' she said, according to the New York Post. 'The only thing I want is justice for my daughter. And maybe she is not the first one but I do hope she is the last one.'

One relative told reporters the family is meeting with lawyers to discuss a possible lawsuit against Burger King. The Miami-based fast food chain, owned by Restaurant Brands International, did not immediately respond to requests for comment from DailyMail.com.

On Friday, Winston Glynn, a homeless Jamaican immigrant who previously worked at the same Burger King location, was booked on charges of first-degree murder, first-degree robbery, criminal use of a firearm and criminal possession of a weapon in connection to Kristal's murder.

Kristie Nieves, 36, spoke briefly at a makeshift memorial for her daughter Kristal Bayron-Nieves on Saturday outside the Burger King in East Harlem where she was shot last weekend

Kristie (left) thanked supporters and called for justice for her daughter, 19. She was soon led back into a car by relatives

An unidentified man (right) led a prayer for Kristie and her family. 'In this moment, she needs more from you,' the man said

Kristal Bayron-Nieves, 19, was shot dead as she worked the night shift on January 9. She was allegedly crouching down to try to get the gunman more money from a second register

Police arrested Winston Glynn, a 30-year-old homeless man, in connection with the murder

Police say Glynn had worked at the same Burger King as the victim between April 2020 and December 2020, more than a year before she was hired. Above, Glynn in his work uniform

Video obtained by the New York Post and WLNY shows an unidentified man leading a prayer in front of the closed-down Burger King on Saturday.

Balloons were taped to the metal sliding gate along with photos of 19-year-old Kristal. The man prayed for Kristal's mother in Spanish.

'In this moment, she needs more from you,' he said. 'Father, bless her and her nieces, nephew, aunts and uncles who are here this afternoon, and the press and the residents. We ask that you give them strength.

'That every tear that comes out of her eye, you turn it into strength. Turn it into blessings. We know, Lord, that its not easy, but we ask that you help them every day, and that she understands she is not alone.'

On Friday, suspected gunman Winston Glynn yelled out incoherent statements as he was led out of the 25th Precinct.

'Why am I guilty?' Glynn shouted through the blue mask covering his face as officers walked him to a waiting police car.

'You know they charge n*****s every day?

'Where's our reparations for four hundred years of f***ing slavery.'

Detectives attempted to load the handcuffed suspect into the back of the car when he screamed 'f*** you all! and then bellowed, 'America's gonna BURN!'

The cops then grabbed him by the shoulders and the top of his head as they struggled to shove him in the vehicle.

But Glynn had one last parting shout for those calling him 'garbage' and much worse in Spanish.

'Do you wanna start a war between Latinos and n*****s?! Do you wanna start a war?' he hollered.

Nieves and her family moved to New York from Puerto Rico after 2017's Hurricane Maria, according to the New York Post.

Pictured: Kristal Bayron-Nieves, 19, who was shot and killed while working at Burger King in Harlem early Sunday morning

Kristal Bayron-Nieves was working as a cashier on Sunday, January 9 when an armed robber entered the restaurant.

Police recounted how just before 2am on Sunday, Glynn allegedly walked into the fast-food restaurant, wearing a ski mask, an all-black outfit, and carrying a backpack.

He had white earbuds hanging out of his pants pocket.

Glynn allegedly pistol-whipped a customer and a manager, knocking out two of her teeth, and then aimed a gun at Bayron-Nieves, demanding cash.

The 19-year-old cashier handed the attacker $100, but he demanded more money. Police said Bayron-Nieves crouched down to try and open a second cash register drawer, but had no key.

That is when Glynn fired a single shot and fled, grabbing the injured Burger King manager's phone on his way out.

Bayron-Nieves was pronounced dead at the scene.

Glynn's criminal record includes at least four prior arrests, most recently in November 2021, when he was charged with menacing with a weapon.

A spokesperson for the Queens District Attorney told DailyMail.com on Friday that Glynn was released from jail on his own recognizance because the offense he was charged with is an A misdemeanor, which 'is not bail eligible.'

Glynn faces charges of murder, robbery, criminal use of a firearm and criminal possession of a weapon. Above, Glynn is brought out of the 25th precinct on Friday

He has been arrested on four other cases, three of which led to charges of criminal possession of a weapon

According to court documents obtained by DailyMail.com, during the November 30 incident at a homeless shelter where Glynn was staying, he allegedly threatened another man with a screwdriver.

Winston Glynn's arrests and charges July 31, 2017 Winston Glynn broke the screen of a slot machine at the Resort World Casino in Queens

He was caught on tape striking the machine and cracking its screen

He was charged with criminal mischief December 23, 2018 Glynn allegedly threatened a 45-year-old woman with a knife in Brooklyn's Flatbush neighborhood

He was charged with criminal possession of a weapon and menacing December 14, 2020 Glynn engaged in a verbal confrontation with a man in Manhattan's Midtown neighborhood

Glynn allegedly punched the man in the face, knocking him over

He reportedly continued to hit the man, bruising his face and knocking out a tooth

The man was taken to Bellevue Hospital

Police arrested Glynn and found a knife on him

He was charged with criminal possession of a weapon November 30, 2021: Glynn allegedly threatened a man at a NYC homeless shelter with a screwdriver

He allegedly told the man, 'I will stab you'

He was charged with menacing, criminal possession of a weapon and harassment Advertisement

He was quoted as telling the alleged victim: 'I will stab you.'

Glynn's court date in the menacing case was scheduled for March 1.

Tyrique Brisco, 35, claims he was Glynn's roommate at the shelter for several months and called him a 'stand-up guy,' according to the New York Post. He said he knew him as 'Junior.'

'He had a lot of issues with him with seeing demons and stuff like that,' Brisco said. 'He smoked crack and he used to see things. But he wasnt a bad dude.'

'I know hes from Jamaica and he came here. He have no family really,' Brisco told the Post.

'He was just trying to get out of here with his voucher. If they helped him a little better or faster, he wouldnt be in the situation now. You can blame the shelter system for that in a way because they are not giving us what we need.'

Brisco added that Glynn was on sleeping medication.

Glynn's rap sheet begins in 2017, where he was charged with criminal mischief for breaking the screen of a slot machine at the Resort World Casino in Queens.

He was then arrested for threatening a 45-year-old woman with a knife in Brooklyn in 2018. He was charged with criminal possession of a weapon and menacing.

In 2020, Glynn was arrested after assaulting a man in Midtown Manhattan.

He allegedly knocked a man down and continued to beat on him, bruising the victim's eye and knocking a tooth out. The victim was taken to the nearby Bellevue Hospital.

When police arrested Glynn, they found a knife on him and charged him with criminal possession of a weapon.

The 2020 charge was deemed a felony offense since it was the second time he was charged with criminal possession of a weapon.

The highly-publicized killing of an innocent teen working the late shift to save up for a car even brought Mayor Eric Adams to the media-packed station house, where he quickly convicted the suspect.

'I don't come to press conferences of arrests, but this one was so personal,' said the new mayor, who has vowed to crack down on the lawlessness left behind by the Bill de Blasio administration.

'He murdered that child. He had no regard for the people he assaulted with that gun inside the restaurant.'

Glynn lived at a homeless shelter until recently, where a man who claims to be his roommate says he smoked crack and 'had a lot of issues with him with seeing demons and stuff like that'

During the press conference, police revealed that Glynn allegedly shot Bayron-Nieves as she was crouching by a cash register, which she tried to open in order to comply with his demands for more cash, but could not because she did not have a key.

Glynn was apprehended in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn on Thursday night, after police say they used surveillance video to track his movements from Harlem.

Cops revealed that a pair of white earbuds hanging from the murder suspect's pants helped lead them to the Glynn.

Kristal Bayron-Nieves, 19, reportedly moved to New York from Puerto Rico with her family after 2017's devastating Hurricane Maria

Overall crime incidents in New York are up 30.55 percent compared to this time last year

Clothing seen on the suspect at the time of the killing was said to have been spotted on Glynn's social media pages, and witnesses helped confirm his identity, according to police sources.

Glynn's address is listed as a Days Inn hotel in Queens, which has been used as a homeless shelter.

According to reporting by the New York Post, citing police sources, Glynn is a Jamaican national and is not a US citizen.

During Friday's press conference, police officials said that Glynn had worked at the Burger King on East 116th Street between April 2020 and December 2020. There is nothing to suggest that he knew Bayron-Nieves, who was hired as a cashier at the eatery a year after Glynn quit.

'There was no reason to shoot this young woman,' said NYPD Chief of Department Kenneth Corey. 'Money had been handed over. She was killed for no apparent reason.'

Crime in New York City continues to climb, with overall incidents up 30.55 percent compared to this time last year, according to the latest count from the New York Police Department.

There have been eight murders to date in 2022, compared to just six at this time last year. Felony assaults have gone up almost five percent, and robberies are up 25 percent.
Florida Lieutenant Governor Jeanette Nunez took aim at President Joe Biden on Sunday, claiming his 'disastrous' policies are driving Hispanic voters out of the Democratic Party.

She made the comments in an interview with Fox & Friends, less than a year until the midterm elections that will decide who controls Congress -- and largely, Biden's agenda -- for the latter half of the president's term.

'When you look at these numbers, it should be not a shock to anyone,' she said of why many Spanish-speaking Americans are joining the GOP.

'You have seen Hispanic voters are flocking to the Republican Party, and part of that is because they agree that we want to be the party.'

Nunez, the first Hispanic woman to be elected the Sunshine State's lieutenant governor, said they believe Republicans will give them 'freedom that will provide them opportunities for their families.'

She also lashed out at Biden for his Justice Department's crackdown on public education settings late last year amid a rise in violent incidents at school board meetings and after a letter from the National School Board Association (NSBA) comparing parents outraged over mask mandates and Critical Race Theory in schools to 'domestic terrorists.'

Nunez named Joe Biden's education policies as an example of why Hispanics would desert Democrats ahead of the midterms

The NSBA has since walked back the controversial rhetoric in its letter to the DOJ.

'When you see children that are being indoctrinated in the schools and that Biden and his cronies are calling the parents domestic terrorists, those are things that really have an impact on the voters,' Nunez said.

'And that's why I believe strongly that the midterm election and beyond is going to be an incredible turn of events for the president and for the party, truly.'

Hispanic voters account for roughly one in eight of all eligible voters nationwide and are among the fastest-growing groups at the ballot box.

A recent poll indicated that Democrats can no longer regard them as a solid blue voting bloc.

She predicted a good midterm election year for Republicans because of Biden's 'disastrous policies'

When asked about a hypothetical rematch between Biden and Donald Trump in 2024, 44 percent of Hispanic voters said they would vote for the Democratic president while 43 percent backed his GOP rival, according to a Wall Street Journal survey released last month.

It's a steep drop in support for Biden from his victory less than two years ago.

In the 2020 race Biden won the White House with a decisive 63 percent of the Hispanic vote. Trump trailed by 30 points, according to AP VoteCast.

On a hypothetical Congressional ballot, Hispanic voters split the two parties with 37 percentage points each.

In a survey of all voters, Republicans would win by a margin of 44 to 41 percent.

The WSJ poll also indicates that more Hispanic men than Hispanic women would support Trump. Fifty-six percent of Hispanic men would vote for Trump in the next election, compared to 55 percent of women backing Biden.

Hispanic voters disapprove of Biden's job in office by a margin of 57 percent to 41.
Controversial woke Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg is seeing a mass resignation from his prosecutors over his soft-on-crime policies.

Bragg has spent most of his first month in office under fire over his approach, which include calling on prosecutors to ditch felony armed robbery charges and instead charge suspects with petit larceny and not seeking carceral sentences for criminals.

At least a dozen lawyers have quit Bragg's office in the first two weeks of Bragg's term.

'I know one [ADA] who was with the office over 20 years who left without a job,' a law enforcement source told the New York Post. 'They didn't want to work in this kind of office. They wanted to continue prosecuting the law.'

Perhaps the most high profile departure is Joan Illuzzi-Orbon, who successfully prosecuted sex pest Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a former top deputy to New York's attorney general, has seen an exodus of prosecutors in his first two weeks in the job

Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi-Orbon is seen as one of the higher profile prosecutors to quit

Illuzi-Orbon had been in the Manhattan DA's office since 1988, save for a leave in 2015 when she unsuccessfully ran as a Republican for District Attorney of Staten Island.

John Irwin, formerly a trial division chief, is among the other quitters, while a veteran prosecutor was told she was being demoted and would have to work under a hire Bragg made from the nonprofit Legal Aid Society.

'He wants to get rid of all the senior people who prosecuted high-profile cases and replace them with young inexperienced people who think like him and don't want to uphold the law,' said one former prosecutor.

All of the departures are cases of prosecutors quitting, as Bragg has yet to fire anyone.

Similar scenarios have played out in other cities where so-called progressive DA's have risen to power.

Former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. watches as prosecutor Joan Illuzzi-Orbon gives her closing arguments in the Weinstein case

Alvin L. Bragg, Jr., left, place his hand a bible held by his wife Jamila Ponton Bragg, center, as Judge Milton Tingling, right, administers the oath of office and swears him as the first Black Manhattan District Attorney

Two prosecutors have quit their jobs in the San Francisco District Attorney's office - and are now joining an effort to recall Chesa Boudin.

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner dismissed at least 30 people from his office on his first day.

Overall, crime has gone up 30 percent in citywide through that same date.

Under Bragg's new soft-on-crime approach, robberies are directed to be prosecuted as petit larceny if no victim was wounded and there was 'no risk of physical harm'.

However, the manager of the Duane Reade said that she feared for her life and didn't want to go back to work, according to the New York Post.

Former Bronx prosecutor and defense lawyer Michael Discioarro said that Bragg is doing a huge disservice to this woman.

'He just ignored the victim,' Manhattan defense lawyer Michael Discioarro said of Bragg. 'He's telling the victim: You don't deserve protection from the state.'

Meanwhile, prostitution, turnstile jumping, weapons possession (of non-firearms) and marijuana possession won't be prosecuted at all under Bragg.

A former Manhattan DA called Bragg's policies 'an affront to every law-abiding citizen.'

'Violent criminals now have carte blanche to re-offend, knowing full well that they will never again sniff the inside of a jail cell,' added former Manhattan assistant DA Daniel Ollen

'If you thought things couldn't get any worse, think again. God help us.'

Bragg was elected Manhattan DA in November after winning a crowded primary in June.

Drug dealers will not be prosecuted for felony crimes unless they commit other offenses on top of drug dealing, and prison should be a 'last resort' - despite the mounting number of violent crimes being committed on the streets of New York by repeat offenders who have been let out of jail early.

NYPD unions, New York Republicans and angry residents were left dumbfounded amid growing fears that the crime-ravaged city will experience the same fate as other progressive-run bastions on the West Coast that have been plagued by looting and lawlessness.

The Police Benevolent Association president Patrick J. Lynch, who leads the nearly 24,000-member union, said that has 'serious concerns' over the new policies.

'Police officers don't want to be sent out to enforce laws that the district attorneys won't prosecute.

'There are already too many people who believe that they can commit crimes, resist arrest, interfere with police officers and face zero consequences.'

The Detectives' Endowment Association released this statement saying he might as well give the criminals business cards

Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch said he has 'serious concerns'

The union chief said he hoped that Bragg would sit down with the leaders from his union to discuss the changes.

'We must all pull together towards one goal: a safer New York City.'

Business leaders have previously feared that these new policies could have detrimental effect on Manhattan's economy.

'New York City's quality of life must remain competitive if we are to lure back office workers and tourists,' Jessica Walker, president of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce said. 'The district attorney's stance against prosecuting certain low-level crimes may undermine both the perception and the reality that ours is a safe big city.'

NYGOP Chairman Nick Langworthy called the policy 'pure insanity'.

'This policy is pure insanity by a Soros-funded, woke DA who is opening the door for even more crime and chaos on New York City streets.

'This, on top of Democrats' end to cash bail, will have deadly results and send even more residents, businesses and tourists fleeing.

'This is a damning reminder that elections have consequences,' he told DailyMail.com.

It was a shock to some of those who voted for Adams on his promise that he would crack down on the city's worsening crime problem.

The new mayor has not commented on the criticism of Bragg's memo.

Last week, Bragg tried to offer reassurances that he would only let non-violent criminals who stole 'toothpaste' or 'bread'.

'We will be tough when we need to be, but we will not be seeking to destroy lives through unnecessary incarceration.

'In practical terms that means: I've prosecuted gun cases and if you use a gun to rob a store, or any armed robbery, you will be prosecuted. I've prosecuted cases involving assaulting law enforcement, and if you punch a police officer, you will be prosecuted.

'But if you are houseless with an addiction problem and you steal toothpaste and some bread, you will be diverted for treatment to help break the cycle of recidivism.'

New Mayor Eric Adams (pictured Tuesday) endorsed Bragg for Manhattan prosecutor and claimed on Monday that his policies would help reduce crime

He did not clarify the extent to which the criminals would be prosecuted, or if he would seek jail term for them.

Some expressed concern over Bragg's ability to unilaterally decide which laws will or will not be enforced. The critics argue prosecutors 'must be allowed discretion,' but not the authority to change entire sections of penal code on their own.

Others allege his apparent looser stance on crime is surprising given he grew up in Manhattan's Harlem neighborhood in the 1980s, during an endemic time of 'crack violence' and 'crack turf war-related bloodshed'.

The violence extended beyond drug dealers, with many residents sheltering their children in bathtubs to protect them from stray bullets that would shoot through the walls, the New York Post reported.

Critics contend, given Bragg grew up in that time of violence - which was significantly worse than today's crime levels - that he should want to hold criminals accountable for their actions and protect public order.

But others familiar with his upbringing tell DailyMail.com that he actually enjoyed quite a cushy existence, and should stop distorting his past to justify reforms that would keep all but the most serious felons out of jail.

Bragg, the first black Manhattan DA, grew up in Harlem but on one of the safest blocks around, an upper middle-class enclave of brownstones known as Strivers Row, and since age 4 commuted to the elite Trinity School on Manhattan's Upper West Side - details he conveniently leaves out when he makes his case.

'He's made his biography his moral compass, making it seem like there's something magic about his life story that gives him the wisdom to establish policies that affect over one million people,' one insider told DailyMall.com. 'I'm not saying he hasn't experienced racism, but there's lots of privilege he leaves out of his story.'

DailyMail.com has learned that Bragg grew up in an upper middle-class enclave of brownstones and attended an elite school on the Upper West Side. Bragg is pictured with his parents

New York City is currently experiencing soaring crime rates and an increase in shooting incidents not seen since the mid-2000s

Critics also argue Bragg's policies directly conflict with the views and goals of the newly-elected mayor.

However, new Mayor Eric Adams endorsed Bragg for Manhattan prosecutor and claimed last week that his policies would help reduce crime.

Adams was an attractive choice for many voters because of his repeated promises to crack down on crime and bring back plain clothes units to disband gangs and tackle gun violence.

In July 2021 - before they were elected - Bragg and Adams joined famed civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton at the National Action Network rally in New York.

Adams, at the time, said he saw his role as mayor as making 'Bragg's job boring'.

'Prosecution rates is [sic] tied to my educational failure rates, Adams said, according to NewsOne. 'If I do my job right, then he will have nothing to do in this office.'

Bragg added: 'The state has the power to take away someone's liberty. We are going to use that power judiciously and wisely. We're going to use that for fairness and for safety.'

The first homicide of 2022 in NYC: A woman was stabbed to death near a diner in Astoria, Queens on New Year's Day at 9pm

Famed civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton (left) and Alvin Bragg (right) celebrate a decade of 'PoliticsNation With Al Sharpton' on August 24, 2021 in New York City

George Soros has funneled millions into the successful campaigns of other progressive district attorneys across the country. He has also been pumping money into a far-left effort to overhaul the criminal justice system which critics say is creating a lawless America

Bragg was elected thanks in part to the Color of Change super PAC, a political action committee that received $1million from Democratic super-donor Soros.

Soros has funneled millions into the successful campaigns of other progressive district attorneys across the country.

The billionaire, one of the most prolific Democratic donors, is most known for giving to Presidents Clinton and Obama but he has also been pumping money into a far-left effort to overhaul the criminal justice system which critics say is creating a lawless America.

In addition to Bragg, Soros has also funded campaigns of Los Angeles' George Gascon, Philadelphia's Larry Krasner and Chicago's Kim Foxx.

The perp is being represented by the Legal Aid Society, which said in a statement that Rolon 'is a prime example of a person in need of treatment and resources, not incarceration.'

'Jail and prison only create a vicious cycle of incarceration and only serve to exacerbate root cause issues and to detract from public safety,' the statement added.
Tears and demands for justice pervaded Sundays funeral services for 15 of the people killed in last weeks horrific Bronx apartment building fire  the deadliest blaze in the city in three decades.

A crowd estimated at more than 2,000 paid final respects to nine adults and six children who perished after a faulty space heater caused an inferno in a high-rise Jan. 9. Funerals for two of the youngest victims  Seydou Toure, 12, and his sister Haouwa Mahamadou, 5  were held Wednesday.

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Caskets are lined up inside the Islamic Cultural Center for the Sunday funeral for 15 of the victims of the historic Jan. 9 fire. (Theodore Parisienne/for New York Daily News)

Attendees Sunday included a mix of people who knew the victims  members mostly of a tight-knit Gambian community  and strangers moved to tears by the tragedy.

Isatou Jallow, 38, stood outside the Islamic Cultural Center of the Bronx as the caskets were taken inside one by one.

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Im very emotional, and I wish something was done, said Jallow, who described herself as a friend of the Drammeh family, which lost four family members in the fire. I wish I can turn back the hands of time. With whats happened today, this is a lesson, this is to learn.

Abubakarr Konteh, father of 2-year old victim Ousmane Konteh,(center left) hugs a loved on at Sunday's funeral services at the Islamic Cultural Center of the Bronx. (Theodore Parisienne/for New York Daily News)

Fatoumata Drammeh, 50, was among those mourned Sunday. She died alongside daughters Fatoumala and Aisha, 21 and 19, respectively, and son Muhammed, 12.

Hundreds of attendees who couldnt fit inside the mosque watched a live stream of the somber proceedings from a tent set up outside on E. 166th St. Mourners dried their tears beneath their masks, occasionally joining in prayer or murmuring in agreement with speakers.

Funeral services for 15 of the victims of the historic Bronx fire were held at the Islamic Cultural Center of the Bronx Sunday, (Theodore Parisienne/for New York Daily News)

Yunus Diallo, 23, trekked from Brooklyn to attend the ceremony.

I didnt know anyone  but they are Muslims and we are Muslims, he said.

We still came all the way because we felt their pain, Diallo added. They are Muslim brothers and sisters, so for every Muslim, wherever they are, wherever they die, if we can, were going to go over there and pray on the dead bodies.

Speakers including numerous elected officials and religious leaders who denounced conditions leading up to the fire.

These funeral caskets are here because they lived in the Bronx, said Sheik Musa Drammeh. We are here because we lived in the Bronx. People are dying because they lived in the Bronx.

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Caskets are brought out of the Islamic Cultural Center of the Bronx Sunday. (Theodore Parisienne/for New York Daily News)

An entire family was among those who perished in the tragedy: patriarch Haji Dukuray, 49, and his wife Haja, 37, along with Mustapha, 12, Miriam, 11, and Fatoumata, 5.

Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin promised a $2 million victims compensation fund from the state. That comes after the city announced $2,250 in emergency financial aid for every household at the Twin Parks North West building, where residents have been reluctant to return.

What is happening here in the Bronx, it is what is happening here across our city in communities where Black, Brown and immigrant people are, Mayor Adams said at the funeral. Its time to end those inequalities so we dont have our babies and our families torn apart.

After a faulty space heater started last weeks blaze, smoke spread when two building doors that were supposed to automatically close failed to do so, according to officials. Ousmane Konteh, the youngest victim, was just 2 years old.

Hagi Jawara, 47, and his wife Isatou Jabbie, 31, were among those who succumbed to choking smoke in an 18th-floor stairwell. Janneh, 27, died after making it as far as the fourth floor. Fatoumata Tunkara, 43, died with her little boy Omar Jambang, 6.

Attorney General Letitia James, who previously promised to investigate the fire, called for justice Sunday for those who died.

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#BREAKING An incident has occurred at the funeral of the #BronxFire victims. Police radio transmission confirms the request for two ambulances, EMS is in route to the Islamic Cultural Center in the Bronx. Condition is unknown.



Video by Kevin RC Wilson (https://t.co/GD8DIUYZw1) pic.twitter.com/cStTotmkjp  Freedomnews.tv FNTV (@FreedomNTV) January 16, 2022

There were conditions in that building that should have been corrected. There were conditions in that building that should have been inspected, she said. There were funds that were rewarded to individuals that should have gone to rehabilitation and to correct those conditions.

Well use the law both as a sword and a shield to protect you, James promised mourners.

A clerk for the mosque estimated at least 2,000 people showed up. Organizers struggled at times to handle the overflow crowds.

Sen. Chuck Schumer and Mayor Adams attend funeral services Sunday at the Islamic Cultural Center of the Bronx. (Theodore Parisienne/for New York Daily News)

It was overloaded and so many people were there, but overall it was good, said Bakary Camara, a spokesperson for the Islamic Center.

During the ceremony, a woman was seen being carried out of the building by NYPD Community Affairs officers. Police did not immediately provide details beyond stating that two civilians were transported from the mosque to Bronx-Lebanon Hospital after apparently becoming overcome.

Breaking News As it happens Get updates on the coronavirus pandemic and other news as it happens with our free breaking news email alerts. >

While some building residents told the Daily News their apartments were often hot, prompting them to crack windows in the winter, others said some apartments were chronically chilly.

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The building resident whose apartment first caught fire acknowledged to The News on Wednesday that there were three space heaters in his home, one in each of the bedrooms which he said needed the supplemental heat. Mamadou Wague, 47, said his 4-year-old daughter remained at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell with burns from the blaze.

Everyone was sleeping, Wague said of the start of the blaze. My kids ran screaming Daddy, Daddy, theres a fire, he recalled. I ran in, and there was fire everywhere. I did everything to get my family out.

Jallow, the friend of the Drammeh family, voiced indignation Sunday over last weeks losses.

We wont take it light, she said. The building should have enough heat. The people that live in that community, they are not animals; they are human. So I think something has to be done as soon as possible.

They are traumatized, Jallow said of the survivors. Things will never be the same again.

With John Annese
Children aged between six and 11 could soon have access to a second vaccine with Moderna set to be made available in a matter of weeks.

The age group is currently only eligible for the Pfizer vaccine with more than 300,000 receiving their first dose since the rollout began last Monday.

Moderna is now pushing to distribute its vaccine and will provide new safety and efficacy data to the Therapeutic Goods Administration.

Previous trials have shown that children within the age bracket displayed a strong immune response when they were given half of the adult dose one month apart.

Former deputy chief medical officer Nick Coatsworth said the vaccine could also be used as a booster and be made available within weeks.

Children aged between six and 11 could soon have access to a second vaccine with Moderna to be made available in a matter of weeks

Moderna is now pushing to distribute its vaccine and will provide new safety and efficacy data to the Therapeutic Goods Administration

'The important thing is that the regulator take a very close look at this, both the TGA and ATAGI,' he told Channel Nine's Today Show on Monday.

'Because we are talking about a booster vaccine for our children. We need to make sure that the evidence is there.

'We need to make sure that it is meticulously reviewed. I'm sure it will be proven to be safe and the evidence will be there but we may just have to wait a little bit longer for that.'

Dr Coatsworth admitted some parents may have concerns about the vaccination, but reminded them the jab was the best way to protect their children against the different variants of the virus like Omicron.

'We know that it is a mild disease but we want to vaccinate our children because we know that there are some vulnerable children,' he said.

'I have got a six, eight and 10-year-old and we managed to get our 10-year-old in for her first jab and the other two are booked but it is not as straightforward a decision for the kids.'

Health minister Greg Hunt said he was keen to get another vaccine on the market to open up more options for parents to choose from.

'We are expecting new information imminently,' he said.

'They are due to provide that to the European Medicines Agency and the Australian TGA simultaneously on the 17th (January).'

The one month wait time between doses for the Moderna vaccine is considerably shorter than the two month window between the Pfizer jabs.

Mr Hunt has already spoken with Moderna's Australian chief executive twice in recent days to get the ball rolling as quickly as possible.

Former deputy chief medical officer Nick Coatsworth said the vaccine could also be used as a booster and be made available within weeks

Previous trials have shown that children within the age bracket displayed a strong immune response when they were given half of the adult dose one month apart

'They are very focused on bringing this forward and the TGA will do a priority assessment, but an independent assessment,' he said.

Pfizer and Moderna will also submit applications to the TGA to provide booster shots to people under the age of 18.

The immunisation body is already reviewing preliminary data on booster shots for teenagers aged between 16 to 17.

'We are expecting that they will provide 12-15 year old data over the course of the coming weeks,' Mr Hunt said.

The health minister has also brushed aside concerns of a vaccine shortage with parents claiming they have been unable to book an appointment with their GP.

He said 1.2million doses were already in the fridge with the supply to be boosted by another 800,000 by the end of the week.

We'll be working with GPs and pharmacists and the states to ensure that they have specialised clinics for children just to provide that additional access,' he said.
Tonga's most famous Olympian says he hasn't heard from his family in days after a tsunami smashed the tiny Pacific country.

Pita Taufatofuathe, who is a martial artist and cross country skier, said he hasn't been able to get in contact with his father or other members of his family since the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai volcano erupted 65kilometres north of the nation on Saturday.

'This is tough times, my focus is on the Tongan people, but I haven't heard from my father,' he told the Today Show.

Meanwhile all tsunami warnings for Australia have been dropped despite a 1.27metre wave lashing Norfolk Island on Sunday.

Australians were ordered off the beach from Sydney to the Gold Coast on Sunday with fears shockwaves could trigger dangerous waves along the east coast.

Pita Taufatofuathe (pictured) said he hasn't been able to get in contact with his father or other members of his family since the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai volcano erupted

A tsunami struck Tonga sending terrified locals fleeing for high ground as huge waves crashed over roads and into homes (pictured, tsunami waves begin to flood coastal homes in Tonga on Saturday)

Taufatofuathe has launched a GoFundMe for donations towards the recovery effort as the island nation has already been slammed with two devastating tsunamis.

His father, Dr Pita Taufatofua, is the newly appointed governor of the province of Haapai and was intending to return there from attending parliament when the tsunami struck.

Taufatofuathe said he hasn't let his mind wander to the worst case scenario but said he's never been as scared as he was when the waves started to smash the island.

'I've never seen anything like that in my life,' he said. 'The magnitude of it, to think there's a whole country of people in the centre of that.'

The Olympian said he's been attempting to get in contact with his family but said there won't be any way to speak to anyone until lines are restored.

'Communication has gone dark. No one has any real idea,' he said.

'I try not to focus too much on it, I'm in the same position as many Tongans around the world. None of us have heard any news.'

'I've never seen anything like that in my life,' Taufatofuathe said. 'The magnitude of it, to think there's a whole country of people in the centre of that'

Pita Taufatofua again led the Tongan team out at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo (pictured)

Taufatofuathe rose to fame after images of him shirtless wearing a traditional Tongan ta'ovala around his waist as he lead the Tongan Olympic team into the stadium went viral at the Rio De Janeiro Olympics.

Taufatofuathe rose to fame after images of him shirtless wearing a traditional Tongan ta'ovala around his waist as he lead the Tongan Olympic team into the stadium went viral at the Rio De Janeiro Olympics.

His father is the newly appointed governor of the province of Haapai and was intending to return there from attending parliament when the tsunami struck.

On Sunday, the athlete launched a GoFundMe for donations towards the recovery effort as the island nation has already been slammed with two devastating tsunamis.

'The eruption occurred in Haapai and spread through to all islands. Initial reports of damage have been catastrophic and all communications with Tonga have been wiped out,' he wrote.

He said he had not heard from his father, Dr Pita Taufatofua.

'After getting to the airport his flight was cancelled due to the volcanic eruption. Last we heard he was securing our home in Veitongo right on the water's edge,' he wrote.

Taufatofuathe said he hasn't let his mind wander to the worst case scenario but said he's never been as scared as he was when the waves started to smash the island

Part of the devastation the tsunamis have caused in Tonga pictured from the deck of a fishing boat (pictured)

He added Haapai is a 'series of lowlying islands' which would make the tsunami particularly dangerous as residents struggled to get to higher ground.

On Monday, Australia dropped it's tsunami warnings for its east coast after fears the country could experience significant waves from the Gold Coast to Sydney.

Beaches were closed all through New South Wales on Sunday after the explosion off Tonga was heard as far away as Alaska.

Evacuation processes were in place throughout the Harbour City, with people asked to leave Bondi Beach after reports of the tsunami came in.

The tsunami forced people to flee after the volcanic eruption was heard as a series of massive booms across several Pacific islands.

Children had to sleep in tents in Tonga after being evacuated from their homes because of the tsunami.

Tsunami warnings were issued for Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Vanuatu, American Samoa, Lord Howe, Macquarie Island, and Norkfolk Island along with Japan, Hawaii, and the west coat of the US.

The warning for Australia was cancelled by the Bureau of Meteorology on Sunday afternoon.

BoM said the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano erupted at 3.10pm AEDT on Saturday.

The tsunami also reached South America and caused flooding in Peru on the west coast of the continent. The Chilean coast of Los Rios, almost 10,000km from Tonga, has also been affected, and there were huge swells in the US.

The eruption has caused two tsunamis on the province which consists of low lying flat islands making getting to high ground difficult (pictured)

The tsunami forced people to flee after the volcanic eruption was heard as a series of massive booms across several Pacific islands.

Children had to sleep in tents in Tonga after being evacuated from their homes because of the tsunami.

Tsunami warnings were issued for Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Vanuatu, American Samoa, Lord Howe, Macquarie Island, and Norkfolk Island along with Japan, Hawaii, and the west coat of the US.

The warning for Australia was cancelled by the Bureau of Meteorology on Sunday afternoon.

BoM said the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano erupted at 3.10pm AEDT on Saturday.

The tsunami also reached South America and caused flooding in Peru on the west coast of the continent. The Chilean coast of Los Rios, almost 10,000km from Tonga, has also been affected, and there were huge swells in the US.
The email came out of the blue one day in 2016. Almost a decade had passed since Miles and Cathy Alexander had left their jobs as residential managers of Little St James, Jeffrey Epstein's private island in the Caribbean.

Since then, Epstein had been jailed  briefly  for paedophile offences and the couple had retired to their native South Africa.

But now Darren Indyke, the disgraced tycoon's attorney, was back in touch. The lawyer wanted the Alexanders to do something that would be of particular benefit to Hillary Clinton and her campaign to become the first female President of the United States, later that year.

Epstein's lawyer Darren Indyke tried to scrub links between Bill Clinton and Epstein during Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign

It entailed them signing a sworn affidavit  which Indyke had already drafted for them  declaring they had never seen Senator Clinton's husband, President Bill Clinton, at their former home: 'Paedo Island', as it had come to be known. Whether or not the once-most powerful man in the world had set foot on a 78-acre speck in the U.S. Virgin Islands almost two decades ago says much about the toxicity of what is alleged to have happened there.

And that depraved hedonism is set to be examined in detail in court later this year after Prince Andrew failed last week in his attempt to have a civil sex assault action brought against him by Epstein's former underage 'slave', Virginia Roberts, thrown out.

Roberts has alleged that the Duke of York 'sexually abused her [Roberts, now known as Giuffre] on Epstein's private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Little St James'. (In a landmark investigation into the duke in late 2020, the Mail proved that he had been on the island at the same time as Roberts in early 2001.)

She has also claimed she met Clinton on the island and saw him in the company of two 'young girls'.

Both men deny Roberts's allegations. Clinton, whose presidency almost ended over his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, denies ever being on Little St James or having knowledge of Epstein's crimes. The president and the prince's baleful involvement with Epstein is down to one woman  Ghislaine Maxwell. The subsequent damage to their reputations largely rests on the word of another  Roberts. But what is undisputed is that both men criss-crossed the world on Epstein's jets, receiving hospitality from the financier's young female staff.

Chauntae Davies gives former president Bill Clinton a massage on a trip

Whether that hospitality strayed into sexual favours is still unknown. In Andrew's case, his relationship with Epstein and Maxwell has now resulted in a dispute that could land, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the Royal Family, in a U.S. court of law.

That possibility of legal fall-out is what Epstein, who died in his prison cell in 2019, had tried to head off. Today, the Mail can reveal how he used his go-to attorney, Indyke, to protect famous male friends who must have followed the recent trial of Epstein's ex-lover Maxwell with more than a passing interest.

Arguably the two most gilded members of that circle were Clinton and Andrew. Both relationships with Epstein are said to have been launched and developed by Ghislaine Maxwell, that supreme networker now a convicted paedophile pimp and trafficker. Today, the Mail investigates the associations between these three men.

The White House logs and disputed flights

Official logs of visitors to the White House during Clinton's first term as president indicate that Democrat donor Epstein was a trusted associate. He visited the White House at least 17 times between 1993 and 1995.

Yet the tycoon's access to the president took other forms. Epstein's 'little black book' of contacts contained several email addresses and no fewer than 21 telephone numbers for Clinton. A bizarre portrait of the president  wearing a blue cocktail dress and red high heels  even hung in Epstein's Manhattan townhouse.

The revelations come as Prince Andrew faces legal action in the US for the alleged sexual assault of Virginia Roberts. The prince has denied the accusations.

Clinton appeared as a passenger on flight logs for Epstein's fleet of aircraft no less than 26 times between February 2002 and November 2003. One of Epstein's pilots, David Rodgers, gave a deposition in 2016 as part of a defamation case that Roberts brought against Maxwell. In his testimony he referred to his pilot's log book entries. They seemed to indicate that on at least two occasions Rodgers had flown Clinton and the duke in one of Epstein's aircraft.

The pilot added that in February 2002, on a flight from Miami to New York on the Boeing known as the 'Lolita Express', his passengers had included Clinton, four Secret Service agents, Epstein, Maxwell and 'Prince Andrew'. Rodgers added: 'I have a picture of me and the crew with Bill Clinton on the plane . . . To the best of my knowledge it was the first time that we had flown him'.

He said in July 2002 he had flown from Morocco to New York with Epstein, Maxwell, Prince Andrew, Clinton, Doug Band (Clinton's right-hand man) and 'probably nine Secret Service people' aboard.

These two examples of Clinton and Andrew flying together should be treated with caution. The Mail has checked the court circulars and local media reports for both dates and the evidence suggests the prince was probably not on these Epstein flights.

Epstein had been introduced to Clinton and Andrew by disgraced socialite Ghislaine Maxwell

It is possible Rodgers misread the initials 'AP' on the flight logs as 'Andrew, Prince'. Epstein's chef, Adam Perry Lang, had similar initials. That said, the pilot did not think it impossible the president and the prince were fellow travellers, even if not on those occasions. During this period Clinton also appeared in a Rodgers flight log as a passenger on an Epstein plane from Europe to North America.

Such journeys brought more to worry about than just a large carbon footprint. When the tycoon was charged with fresh paedophile offences in 2019, Clinton's office issued this statement: 'In 2002 and 2003, President Clinton took a total of four trips on Jeffrey Epstein's airplane: one to Europe, one to Asia and two to Africa, which included stops in connection with the work of the Clinton Foundation.'

One of the trips to Africa saw Epstein  whose Gratitude America charity donated to the Clinton Foundation, IRS records show  travelling with Clinton and the disgraced actor Kevin Spacey. The double Oscar-winner subsequently saw his career ended over multiple allegations of sexual assault against boys and young men.

The email from Indyke came during Hillary Clinton's election campaign in 2016

Also present on the trip was Chauntae Davies, who was recruited aged 21 as an Epstein masseuse by Maxwell. She was pictured giving Clinton a neck massage during the trip and has said that the former president behaved correctly towards her.

She recently told the Mail that she had been repeatedly raped by Epstein and he and Maxwell had 'destroyed' her life. The first rape took place on Little St James, she claimed. After the Africa trip, Clinton's office issued this statement: 'Jeffrey is both a highly successful financier and a committed philanthropist. I especially appreciated his insights and generosity.'

Chelsea Clinton's Wedding Day

Epstein was first investigated for paedophile abuse in 2006 and jailed for 18 months in 2008, as result of a now-infamous plea deal. Legal documents have suggested Clinton's trips on his aircraft 'suddenly stopped' before this. But his family's close contact with Epstein's circle did not.

In 2010 Maxwell was even invited to the wedding of Chelsea Clinton. In Vanity Fair in 2020, Clinton's former aide Doug Band said he had 'instructed Clinton's staff in 2011 to bar Ms Maxwell from events'. But 'Ghislaine had access to yachts and nice homes. Chelsea needed that,' Band added.

Epstein's network of influence was on public display once again in October 2013 when Hillary Clinton was given the Chatham House Award for services to diplomacy. It was presented to her at a lavish event at Banqueting House by her husband's fellow Lolita Express passenger, the Duke of York. Small world.

The Billionaire Boys' Club

Which brings us back to Little St James (LSJ). In April 2011 Roberts had a telephone conversation with one of her lawyers, Jack Scarola. The recorded transcript later became legal evidence. The relevant passage is worth reproducing in full.

Virginia Roberts: [Epstein] told me a long time ago that everyone owes him favours. They're all in each other's pockets.

JS: When you say you asked him why is Bill Clinton here, where was 'here'?

VR: On the island.

JS: When you were present with Epstein and Bill Clinton on the island, who else was there?

VR: Ghislaine . . . and there were two young girls that I could identify. I never really knew them well, anyways. It was just two girls from New York.

JS: And they were all staying at Jeffrey's house on the island, including Bill Clinton?

VR: That is correct.

Later that year, after giving her first media interview, Roberts began writing a memoir. The working title for the manuscript was The Billionaire Boys' Club. It has also since become legal evidence.

After giving her first media interview, Roberts began writing a memoir. The working title for the manuscript was The Billionaire Boys' Club

In the memoir Roberts made a number of serious allegations. The most sensational were that she had been pressured to have sex with Andrew on three occasions, twice when she was under the age of consent. She wrote: 'The next big dinner party on the island had another significant guest . . . Sitting across the table from us was Bill [Clinton] with two lovely girls who were visiting from New York. Bill's wife Hillary's absence from the night made it easy for his apparent provocative cheeky side to come out.

'Teasing the girls on either side of him with playful pokes and brassy comments, there was no modesty between any of them.'

Roberts continued: '[After dinner,] Jeffrey wanted his evening massage before bed . . . leaving our guest of honour to find company elsewhere. Strolling into the darkness with two beautiful girls around either arm, Bill seemed content to retire for the evening.'

The insinuation is clear. And Doug Band told Vanity Fair that Clinton had gone to Epstein's island in 2003. Steve Scully, an IT engineer, also told a Netflix documentary that he had seen Clinton with Epstein on the island.

But Clinton denies ever having been there. In legal papers Maxwell also called Roberts's claims of Clinton on LSJ a 'fabrication'.

Roberts's account of what happened on LSJ is marred by inconsistencies. While her legal depositions allege sexual assault by Andrew during an orgy on the island, there is no mention of such a sensational incident in the manuscript of her memoir. Why?

Andrew and the island estate managers

The Mail has spoken to a number of former Epstein employees on LSJ. Miles and Cathy Alexander managed the island from 1999 to 2007. They declined to speak to us, but former colleagues and sources close to them did.

The Alexanders recall witnessing two of the duke's visits to the island, during one of which he was in the company of a 'busty blonde'. He had also visited just before they were appointed.

They told friends they had never seen orgies or anything else untoward on the island, but they were told never to disturb Epstein in his bedroom and they took their holidays away from LSJ. One of those absences was in April 2001, when Andrew was present as the same time as Roberts.

The Alexanders said some of the female visitors looked 'young'. But only one was ever known by them to be legally underage. She was a French model accompanied by a chaperone and had a letter of authority from her parents allowing her to travel.

In 2006 when the first FBI investigation into him began, Epstein told the Alexanders that he was a victim of 'entrapment'. They resigned from working for him the following year. But not before an incident that with hindsight has grown in significance. The Mail can reveal it here.

The Alexanders recall witnessing two of the Duke of York's visits to Epstein's island, during one of which he was in the company of a 'busty blonde'

The Lawyer Darren Indyke

Indyke worked for Epstein for two decades and oversaw his businesses and charitable foundations. He has also acted as executor of his estate. The Mail was told that in the final months of Epstein's employment  and during the first criminal investigation  Mr Alexander was summoned by Indyke to meet him on St Thomas, the nearest large island to LSJ.

The estate manager was asked to bring with him all the arrival and departure records for LSJ, which were kept in official log books. These ledgers were handed to Indyke by Mr Alexander, who never saw them again. Why did this happen? Presumably the records would have contained names of Epstein's VIP friends and girls by whom the tycoon liked to be surrounded. Wasn't that evidence? Where are the records now?

When Indyke contacted the Alexanders again in 2016, the motives were more clear. 'Both were asked to confirm that to the best of their knowledge Clinton had never visited during their tenure and they were not aware of him having been a guest during any absences from the island, for example for holidays,' said a source.

Indyke worked for Epstein for two decades and oversaw his businesses and charitable foundations

Indyke set out the words which he wanted to be sworn under oath by the Alexanders. 'It was during the 2016 presidential campaign which was won by Trump,' the source explained. 'There was a worry that the link between Epstein and Clinton and in particular the island could be used against Hillary.'

The Mail understands that the Alexanders told friends they had not in fact seen the former president or his family on the island  contradicting Roberts's claims.

Mr Alexander slightly reworded the affidavit before he and his wife signed it in the presence of a notary in South Africa.

Last night a spokesman for Epstein's attorney told the Mail: 'Mr Indyke was one of many lawyers at multiple law firms that performed legal services for Mr Epstein. Rules of professional conduct prevent him from commenting on private legal matters.'

Indyke has his own trouble. The U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General has lodged a civil complaint against him and co-executor Richard Kahn that alleges the two were 'indispensable captains' of Epstein's sex-trafficking operations. It also accuses them of helping the financier in three sham marriages and flying a string of victims to LSJ before 2017.

Lawyers for another of Epstein's alleged victims have twice tried unsuccessfully to depose Indyke. The civil case was put on hold pending the outcome of Maxwell's criminal trial.

In his capacity as an administrator, Indyke has also been named as a defendant in 30 lawsuits filed by women against Epstein's estate.

Additional reporting by Simon Trump
Prince Andrew was last night accused of a tone-deaf defence to his legal battle with Virginia Roberts after his lawyers suggested she may have false memories of her encounters with him.

In a scathing response to the Dukes demand for Miss Roberts mental health records, her lawyer, David Boies, said: She wouldnt misremember sexual abuse by a Prince of England.

The claim about memory issues was made by Andrew in legal filings over the weekend in the sex case brought against him by Miss Roberts at a court in New York.

Virginia Roberts photographed with Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell in early 2001. Miss Roberts' lawyer used picture of her with Andrew to attack his defence

Miss Roberts claims she had sex with Andrew three times when she was 17 in 2001 whilst under the control of Jeffrey Epstein, the late paedophile who was friends with the Duke. Andrew has vehemently denied her allegations.

His lawyers have asked to interview Miss Roberts psychologist, Dr Judith Lightfoot, about all their sessions, any prescriptions that were issued, and the theory of false memories.

Ghislaine Maxwell used a false memory expert during her trial for trafficking and recruiting underage girls for Epstein but she was found guilty on five of six counts.

Mr Boies told the Daily Mail: This is exactly what Maxwell tried. It didnt end well. People may misremember a lot of things, but they dont misremember sexual abuse by a Prince of England.

In addition, Prince Andrew needs to say that all the other people who saw them together also have false memories.

Referring to the notorious photo of Andrew with Miss Roberts in 2001 in London, Mr Boies added: And how does a false memory create a photograph?

The filings from Andrews US lawyer, Andrew Brettler, requested help from the Australian government to depose Dr Lightfoot.

Heading out: Prince and ex-wife Sarah Ferguson look downcast leaving Windsor at weekend

Miss Roberts, now a 38-year-old mother-of-three, currently lives in Australia and goes by her married name, Virginia Giuffre.

The legal filing stated: Defendant contends that plaintiff may suffer from false memories, as evidenced by the fact that her claims regarding her time with Epstein and the circumstances under which defendant allegedly assaulted her have repeatedly changed over the years.

A source close to the Duke told the Sunday Times that focusing on false memories was from the Maxwell playbook.

The tactics of Andrews legal team have also triggered a victim blaming row.

Brad Edwards, a Florida lawyer who represents dozens of Epstein victims, called the strategy so tone-deaf that it basically amounts to litigation suicide.

He said: Taking another play out of the Epstein/Maxwell book and attacking Virginia is probably the only thing he can do to look worse.

Id say his defence cant get worse, but last time I thought that he went on TV and gave what amounted to the most embarrassingly stupid interview of all time.

Spencer Kuvin, a Florida lawyer who represents several Epstein victims, said attacking a victims memory was a horrible defence.

Miss Roberts holding a photo of herself at 16 years old, when she says Jeffrey Epstein began abusing her sexually

He said: Its a classic re-abuse of the victim and an attempt to implicitly embarrass the victim in an attempt to intimidate them and hope the embarrassment and public shaming will make them drop their claims.

Gloria Allred, who represents numerous Epstein victims, said: The Prince is entitled to take the deposition of Virginias therapist for the purpose of determining emotional distress. That is not uncommon.

The court may have to determine her questions, e.g. do they go over the line. Its OK to ask the therapist about treatment, if she suffered problems to ascertain if she suffered emotional distress she had suffered and if her distress is caused by other issues

If there are questions which are not appropriate that may have to be decided by the court.

Prince Andrew claims he cant remember even meeting her.

If he has a therapist she could take the deposition of his therapist if he has one.

Is Andrews memory of not recollecting meeting her, is that a false memory out of self interest? He may have, maybe not a false memory but he may have a selective memory that remembers certain facts but not others.

The case is moving ahead after Judge Lewis Kaplan last week rejected a request by Andrew to dismiss it.

Afterwards, The Queen stripped Andrew of all his military patronages and the use of the style His Royal Highness, effectively isolating him from the family.

With a trial tentatively set for September, Andrew could settle the case but he will reportedly have to pay as much as 10m.

Miss Roberts lawyers said in legal filings they want to depose Andrews former equerry, Robert Olney and Shukri Walker, a woman who claims she saw the Duke dancing with a young woman at a nightclub in 2001, the time Ms Roberts says they were there.

The Dukes team have also asked to interview Miss Roberts husband, Robert, under oath.

A source said: Ms Giuffre put her mental health at issue by suing for emotional distress damages.

The dukes legal team are perfectly entitled to test her claims, determine her damages, if any, and see what she told her therapist or not.
Individual rapid antigen tests are selling for $100 each with substantially more complaints made about pharmacists than any other kind of retailer.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has compiled a list a complaints about price gouging for home testing kits.

From Christmas Day to January 7, maximum prices surged from just $14 to $100.

This was well above the wholesale costs of $3.95 to $11.45 for one test.

When it came to reported rip offs, pharmacists had the most complaints at 879 during the two-and-a-half week period covering December 25 to January 12.

This was followed by 283 for supermarkets, tobacconists and convenience stores and 272 for petrol stations.

In some cases, retailers are even refusing to give customers a receipt to hide their price gouging.

Rapid antigen tests are selling for $100 with more complaints made about pharmacists (pictured is a stock image of a Sydney chemist)

ACCC chair Rod Sims said retailers selling RATs at a huge mark-up needed to explain themselves.

'We are asking those businesses to urgently explain the prices they are charging,' he said.

'In the middle of a significant outbreak of Covid-19 in a pandemic, the excessive pricing of rapid antigen tests required to diagnose the illness and protect other members of the public, is of significant concern to the ACCC.'

The competition regulator has contacted more than 40 test suppliers, major retailers and pharmacy chains demanding details on their pricing.

Since October, the Therapeutic Goods Administration has approved 22 test kits, with 16 of them made in China and only one manufactured in Australia, with the rest from the US, Germany, South Korea and Singapore.

The TGA approved its first self-administered rapid antigen test almost a year after their counterparts in the United States and the UK.

Since October, the Therapeutic Goods Administration has approved 22 test kits, with 16 of them made in China and only one manufactured in Australia. The TGA approved its first self-administered rapid antigen test almost a year after their counterparts in the United States and the UK (pictured is a Sydney pharmacist)

From Christmas Day to January 12, maximum prices surged from just $14 to $100 by January 7

With Chinese New Year coming up on February 1, Chinese factories are set to close, further delaying supplies.

ACCC chair Rod Sims said retailers selling RATs at a huge mark-up needed to explain themselves

Now a backlog in orders, as a result of new Covid testing rules allowing RATs, is creating uncertainty.

'Given delays in the supply of tests, or test parts, into Australia, delays in distribution due to Covid illness or isolation requirements within workforces and at the retailer level, there is significant difficulty forecasting accurate supply,' Mr Sims said.

The ACCC has also received reports about retailers refusing to issue receipts, which is a breach of consumer law for goods worth more than $75 before GST.

Of those, 31 per cent related to convenience stores, tobacconists and supermarkets, followed by 27 per cent for pharmacists and 23 per cent for petrol stations.

The ACCC has also received reports about retailers refusing to issue receipts, which is a breach of consumer law for goods worth more than $75 before GST (pictured is a stock image)

Since October, the Therapeutic Goods Administration has approved 22 test kits, with 16 of them made in China (pictured is a Chinese-made example listed for less than $25)

'We are closely examining reports of businesses refusing to issue receipts for rapid antigen tests,' Mr Sims said.

Where are the rapid antigen tests from? CHINA: 16 AUSTRALIA: 1 UNITED STATES: 2 GERMANY: 1 SOUTH KOREA: 1 SINGAPORE: 1 The Therapeutic Goods Administration approved 22 rapid antigen tests from October 13 to January 12 Advertisement

Australia has lagged behind other major economies in approving rapid antigen tests.

The American Food and Drug Administration approved the first over-the-counter home testing kit in December 2020.

The UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) approved the first lateral flow test kit in January 2021.

Rapid antigen tests in Australia have quickly sold out at chemists and supermarkets after National Cabinet, on January 5, announced they would be allowed to confirm a positive Covid test.

The measure was designed to people from having to queue up for hours at a Covid testing clinic to get a PCR or polymerase chain reaction test.

Pensioners, veterans and health care card holders will be entitled to 10 free rapid antigen tests over three months at pharmacies, when stocks arrive.

On New Year's Day, Queensland allowed visitors to rely on a negative rapid antigen test result into of a PCR test to gain entry into the state.

But since January 15, neither have been needed.

The New South Wales government has since January 12 required residents to register a positive rapid antigen test result.

The federal government last week invoked the Biosecurity Act 2015 to ban price gouging on rapid antigen tests and and impose restrictions on improper exports.

The test kits have sensitivity ratings ranging from 80 per cent for acceptable to 95 per cent for very high sensitivity.
Rupert Grint has likened JK Rowling to an aunt who he doesnt necessarily agree with over her views on trans people.

The Harry Potter star, who played Ron Weasley, was among those who had spoken out against Miss Rowling when she voiced concerns last year that biological women were being put at risk in favour of trans rights.

Grint, 33, told The Sunday Times: I liken JK Rowling to an auntie. I dont necessarily agree with everything my auntie says, but shes still my auntie. Its a tricky one.

The 56-year-old author was absent from the Harry Potter 20th Anniversary Reunion released earlier this month  but the films cast said her statements about gender were not responsible.

Grint starred in the iconic film adaptation of JK Rowling's books since her was 11-years-old

Miss Rowling has been vilified by trans activists for her comments.

Daniel Radcliffe, who played Harry Potter, and Hermione Grainger actress Emma Watson, came out in support of the transgender community.

Amid the intense criticism where trans activists were calling for a boycott of the author, Rowling denied she was transphobic.

She tweeted: If sex isnt real, the lived reality of women globally is erased.

I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives.

Grint was cast as Ron Weasley in Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone aged just 11.

Grint likened Rowling's views on trans rights to that of a family member who he disagrees with

He went on to star in all eight films, which ranged from 2001 to 2011, earning him at least $70 million (52 million).

Elsewhere in the Sunday Times interview, Rupert Grint admitted he still finds it very hard to detach himself from Ron having played Harry Potters best friend for 10 years.

He explained: I measure my life in Harry Potter movies. Theyre so ingrained in me.

I find it very hard to detach myself from being Ron - we merged into the same person. I cant believe it started 20 years ago. It definitely sculpted who I am.

I mentally closed the door on it even though Im constantly faced with it - theres the play, the theme park and its always on TV.
Police protection should not be for sale. Prince Harry has an outrageous cheek, demanding a full royal security detail to be reinstated when he visits the UK.

For the Queen and her government to accede to his demand and set this precedent is unthinkable.

Harry is now a private citizen, domiciled in a foreign country  entirely by his own choice. None of the royals wanted this to happen, least of all his father and brother, but it has.

If he is granted the services of the Metropolitans royal protection squad, for which he has magnanimously offered to pay, every visiting Hollywood star and wealthy celebrity may as well expect the same privileges.

Britain would face the humiliating prospect of hiring out our highly trained and armed officers to any reality television narcissist or tinpot dictators children who can foot the bill.

Lawyers acting for Harry, who stepped down from Royal duties two years ago, have written a 'pre-action protocol' letter to the Home Office, indicating that they will seek a judicial review if the Sussexes are not provided with continued security while they are in Britain (Pictured, the Sussexes with the Queen at Buckingham Palace in 2018)

When the Duke and Duchess of Sussex spoke to Oprah Winfrey last March, one of their sensational claims was that their son Archie would not be given police protection because he was not made a prince. (Pictured: Archie, Meghan and Harry in Cape Town in 2019)

'Ever since I left the police 20 years ago, I have argued that the press didnt kill Diana. The cause of that tragedy was the incompetence of security staff provided by the family of her boyfriend Dodi Fayed, who was killed with her, and the drunkenness of their chauffeur, Henri Paul, who also died in the crash', writes KEN WHARFE

The Duke of Sussex made a decision two years ago to leave the UK and live a new life with his wife on the other side of the Atlantic.

He thought at first he would be able to keep one foot in the Royal Family, hanging on to his military honours and charity patronages as well as his status as His Royal Highness.

The Queen immediately disabused him of that fantasy. When he left, he knew the score.

The statement he and Meghan issued yesterday made it clear he was also told in January 2020, at the family summit in Sandringham, he would not be permitted to pay personally for UK police protection for himself and his family.

He cannot claim he was not told. For him now to be threatening legal action against the Government, and by extension against the Queen herself, is completely unprecedented for any royal, even one who has abdicated his official duties.

If his mother Princess Diana was still alive and a working royal, I imagine she would actually would back his demands  although persuasion, rather than threats of court action, was more her style.

I expect that if he came back without protection, she would tell her own police protection officers to go and look after Harry for a few days!  knowing that the palace would be obliged to send more to ensure she was never without security staff herself.

But then, if Diana was alive, this situation would not have arisen. Her influence would have prevented the breach between her sons. Without the benefit of his mothers loving counsel, Harry has demonstrated an incredible insensitivity. I simply cant fathom what he is thinking.

Prince Harry (front), Prince William (middle) with their mother Princess Diana (back) on holiday in Majorca, Spain in August 1987

Hes fully aware of all the difficulties Her Majesty must shoulder in this, her platinum jubilee year, which ought to be the crowning celebration of a lifetime of exceptional public service.

Her younger son Andrew is disgraced, stripped of his duties and facing a court case over sex allegations. She is grieving the death of her beloved husband of 73 years, the Duke of Edinburgh, whom she buried last year.

And Harry has already done lasting damage to the fabric of the Royal Family, with the interview he and Meghan gave to Oprah Winfrey last year in which they alleged a senior royal made a racist remark about the skin colour of their unborn child.

Now he seems to think he can simply turn up in Britain and that royal protection can be turned back on like a tap. The only justification for armed protection by officers would be if the intelligence services have identified clear dangers to Harry and his family, from terrorists or other criminals while he is on British soil.

I am not convinced those dangers exist. Of course, if there is a credible threat, the police should without question guard against it  even if this means warning Harry he should not come to Britain.

But the only security issue during his most recent visit the country, as far as I am aware, came after a charity function when paparazzi photographers tried to get pictures of the Duke.

This is a free country. Press photographers are entitled to do their job, however much of a nuisance that might present to camera-shy celebrities.

Harrys antipathy to the paparazzi is well documented. He holds them largely responsible for his mothers death in a car crash at the Pont de lAlma tunnel, Paris, in 1997.

The Duke of Sussex made a decision two years ago to leave the UK and live a new life with his wife on the other side of the Atlantic

Ever since I left the police 20 years ago, I have argued that the press didnt kill Diana. The cause of that tragedy was the incompetence of security staff provided by the family of her boyfriend Dodi Fayed, who was killed with her, and the drunkenness of their chauffeur, Henri Paul, who also died in the crash.

Harry does not need armed police to protect him from the paparazzi. He was given police protection for the funeral of Prince Philip, because that occasion was seen by the security services as a potential terrorist flashpoint.

But he did not have the same protection when, for the unveiling of his mothers statue at Kensington Palace, he returned to Britain three months later. And that evidently rankles.

If he did not realise before, that visit will have taught him his private security staff are not automatically allowed access to UK intelligence. They also will not be given the freedom of royal palaces without the necessary clearance.

In short, it is next to impossible for independent security contractors to match the standards of police protection  and not just because they cannot provide those dramatic moments where motorcycle outriders surround a limousine like mounted knights.

No matter how entitled he and Meghan believe they are, no matter how much money they have banked since leaving the UK, they cannot reclaim what they threw away two years ago. Royalty doesnt work like that.

In Britain, unlike America, it is illegal for anyone except police and the military to carry firearms. If Harry arrives in a private jet escorted by men with sunglasses and pistol holsters, they will have to surrender their guns immediately.

There do exist reciprocal arrangements with foreign heads of state, including the US president, which allow their bodyguards to carry guns.

But Harry is emphatically not an official representative of any government. He has gone to extraordinary lengths to shrug off any responsibilities of state.

And Im sorry to say that, with those responsibilities go the privileges. Yet now he wants those privileges back.

No matter how entitled he and Meghan believe they are, no matter how much money they have banked since leaving the UK, they cannot reclaim what they threw away two years ago. Royalty doesnt work like that.
Britains Armed Forces were activated by Boris Johnson last night to tackle the migrant crisis in the Channel.

The Ministry of Defence will take control of the operation within weeks, after the Prime Minister signed off a dramatic change in tactics.

Royal Navy vessels and RAF support are expected to be deployed on patrol in UK territorial waters as part of a policy blitz dubbed Operation Red Meat that Mr Johnson hopes will turn the tide of Tory disquiet at his premiership.

For the first time, the UK Border Force will be placed under a military chain of command in the fight against people traffickers.

Officials hope the involvement of the Armed Forces will have a significant deterrent effect.

Government sources pledged the move would result in demonstrable change in the Channel crisis, which last year saw a record 28,300 migrants reach the UK from northern France.

Royal Navy vessels and RAF support are expected to be deployed on patrol in UK territorial waters in a bid to tackle the migrant crisis in the Channel

A group of migrants pictured using an inflatable dinghy to make the journey across the Channel to reach the UK in November

Operation Red Meat: Boris's attempts to take back control Operation Red Meat is expected to include: A No 10 workplace booze ban to end the drinking culture that led to party row. Boris Johnson is drafting rules for Downing Street staff that will limit alcohol to being served only at official functions.

Clearout of No 10 staff caught up in party row. Martin Reynolds, Mr Johnsons principal private secretary who emailed the bring your own booze invite for the Downing Street garden party in the first lockdown, and chief of staff Dan Rosenfield, are among those seen at risk. Two-year BBC licence fee freeze to help ease household bills. Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries is expected to confirm that the cost of an annual licence will remain at 159 until 2024.

Drive to bring down NHS waiting lists. The number of people on a hospital waiting list in England hit six million for the first time, figures showed last week. In December, nearly 27 per cent of patients at A&E waited more than four hours to be seen  a record high.

Extra money for jobs and skills training to help those out of work and further reduce the number of jobseekers. The unemployment rate fell to 4.2 per cent in the three months to the end of October, down from 4.3 per cent in the three months to the end of September.

Get rid of Plan B Covid restrictions, such as the wearing of masks in shops and on public transport and vaccine passports for large events on January 26.

Publication of the Levelling Up white paper. The document, which is being prepared by Michael Gove, will set out the Governments strategy to improve lives in neglected towns. It is expected to come in the first week of February.

As announced last night, the military will be drafted in to tackle illegal immigration in the Channel. Defence chiefs will take charge of efforts to stop the dangerous crossings that have reached record levels this year. Royal Navy boats could be sent to reinforce Border Forces fleet. Advertisement

Tory MPs welcomed the move last night. It was the first major announcement as Mr Johnson seeks to get his premiership back on track in the wake of the Partygate scandals that have rocked his government.

The command of Border Force, which oversees incidents in the Channel, will move over to the Ministry of Defence, a Whitehall source said.

This will take place by the end of the month or early February. Within a couple of weeks there will be a demonstrable change in how the Channel operation takes place. It makes a lot of sense.

Home Secretary Priti Patel first requested military involvement in summer 2020, when the numbers crossing from France stood at just a few thousand a year.

Last night a Home Office source said: Weve been pushing for it for so long, but there has been massive reluctance to act in other parts of government.

'Priti has been asking for military defence of UK territorial waters since August 2020 and after months and months of wrangling in Whitehall the PM has agreed with her that we need a change in operational posture.

Asked whether it could mean military assets deployed in the Channel, a Whitehall source said: That is ultimately a question for the military, but yes it probably does, and it will certainly mean many more military personnel becoming involved.

November saw 27 migrants, including women and children, drown on the French side of the Channel in the worst tragedy since the start of the crisis. They were among at least 39 people to have lost their lives trying to make the crossing in 2021.

On Friday a Sudanese man in his 20s became the first migrant so far this year to lose his life attempting to reach the UK.

Dover MP Natalie Elphicke said: Everyone knows the Royal Navy rules the waves. This sends a clear message how serious Britain is about putting a stop to these dangerous crossings.

Too many lives have been lost in recent months and this crisis has gone on too long.

The latest move indicates declining confidence in the UK Border Force within the upper echelons of the Home Office.

Earlier this month a trade union which represents 80 per cent of Border Force staff threatened strike action over Miss Patels proposals to turn back migrants.

The Public and Commercial Services Union described that part of the Nationality and Borders Bill, currently going through Parliament, as morally reprehensible.

Military involvement in the Channel will open up the prospect of so-called pushback tactics, as set out in the Bill, being carried out by the Navy rather than Border Force.

The trade union threat to strike has certainly helped push the involvement of the military up the agenda, one Whitehall source said.

It will also free up Border Force officials to concentrate on measures pledged under the Governments New Plan for Immigration, such as a twin-track asylum system and new processing centres.

The Home Office will also carry out a review of the powers and capabilities of Border Force and Immigration Enforcement officers.

MoD officials are understood to want HM Coastguard to come under their remit in the Channel. The role played by the RNLI, a charity, is yet to be finalised.

Military deployments in the Channel are currently limited to surveillance equipment.

A nerve centre at Lydd airport in Kent, 25 miles south-west of Dover, controls Army Watchkeeper drones which hunt down migrant boats with high-definition optical sensors and infrared cameras.

The 6million Watchkeepers, which have a 36ft wingspan, are operated by 47th Regiment Royal Artillery. They can remain airborne for up to 14 hours.

In 2019, HMS Mersey was positioned in the Dover Strait temporarily under a deal between then Home Secretary Sajid Javid and the MoD.

The 260ft offshore patrol vessel was deployed while two Border Force cutters, Seeker and Protector, were brought back from the Mediterranean in the early days of the Channel crisis.
England's disastrous Ashes tour ended with another calamitous collapse in Hobart, as the visitors were bowled out for a paltry 124 runs in their second innings and lost the series 4-0.

Set 271 to win after Mark Wood took six wickets as England bowled out Australia for 155, the tourists went from 68 without loss to 124 all out in the space of 22 overs.

England have now lost a combined 13 Tests in the last three Ashes series in Australia without winning one, with their last Test win Down Under coming in the fifth Test of the 2010-11 series.

Sportsmails Lawrence Booth runs the rule over both sides.

Australia retained the Ashes with a dominant 4-0 thrashing of a dismal England team

ENGLAND

Haseeb Hameed - 1.5

Started promisingly at Brisbane, with a pair of gritty twenties. But he became a walking wicket, moving deep into his crease and poking at full-length balls with low hands. His last six innings produced 28 runs and a sense of gloom.

Rory Burns - 3

His first-baller at the Gabba was instant Ashes folklore, and he never really recovered  even though England should have dropped Hameed, not Burns, after Adelaide. Played 32 Tests now, but still unsure of his future.

Haseeb Hameed's last six innings in this Ashes series produced just 28 runs

Zak Crawley - 5.5

His 77 in the second innings at Sydney was perhaps Englands most exciting innings of the series, though the bar was low. He has all the shots. His problem is he cant resist playing them.

Dawid Malan - 5.5

Looked set for a strong series after making 82 at Brisbane and 80 at Adelaide, but Australia exploited his lack of foot movement and cramped him for room: the next seven innings brought just 76.

Joe Root - 6

Arrived with high hopes, before reality dawned. A first hundred in Australia remained elusive, and he fell four times to Scott Boland in his last five innings. Now has two 4-0 Ashes defeats on his CV, but may stay on as captain because there is no one else.

Joe Root suffered a second 4-0 defeat in an Ashes series in Australia as England captain

Ben Stokes - 4

A pair of sixties at Sydney, where he batted through a side injury, was the lone highlight of an anonymous tour. Averages of 23 with the bat and 71 with the ball were a major letdown.

Ollie Pope - 2.5

Started with a promisingly mature 35 amid the first-day mayhem at the Gabba, then fell apart. Looked jumpy against Nathan Lyon and, on his recall at Hobart, was batting so far outside off stump he was bowled round his legs.

Jonny Bairstow - 7

Recalled at Melbourne, he made Englands only century of the series, at Sydney, before a chipped thumb ruled him out of Hobart. Firmly back in the running for the middle order.

Jos Buttler - 3

Dropped anchor on the last day at Adelaide, ultimately in vain, but otherwise continued his mediocre contributions to Ashes campaigns, and dropped a couple of sitters. His Test future has to be in doubt now.

Jos Buttler endured a difficult series with the bat and wasn't at his best behind the stumps

Sam Billings - 6

Made an emergency Test debut at Hobart because of Englands injury concerns, and brought some energy during a first-innings 29. Held five catches in the second innings too, but will he play another Test?

Chris Woakes - 5

Even he might have been surprised to bowl Englands first ball of the series, having not done the job for five years. Should never have played at Adelaide ahead of Wood, and must now be treated as a home-Test specialist.

Ollie Robinson - 6.5

A haul of 11 wickets at 25 on his first Ashes trip looked good on paper, but England grew infuriated with his lax approach to fitness. Has most of the attributes, but needs to make sure he uses them.

Mark Wood - 7.5

Scandalously omitted at Adelaide, his figures did not reflect his efforts until he deservedly collected a career-best six-for at Hobart, and finished as Englands leading wicket-taker with 17.

Mark Wood finished the Ashes series as Englands leading wicket-taker with 17 scalps

Stuart Broad - 7

Straining at the leash after he was inexplicably left out at Brisbane and Melbourne, but proved theres life in the old dog yet. Responded with a five-for at Sydney and six in the match at Hobart.

Jack Leach - 4

One of Englands most conspicuous fallguys at Brisbane, where his 13 overs cost 102. Didnt bowl in a second innings until Sydney, where he picked up four, but lacked confidence and operated to defensive fields.

James Anderson - 6.5

Figures of four for 33 off 23 overs at Melbourne were Englands bowling performance of the series, and Australia managed just 1.79 an over off him. But they would have settled in advance for limiting him to eight wickets.

AUSTRALIA

Marcus Harris - 5

Played and missed repeatedly, but still ground out 76 at Melbourne  and comfortably outperformed all Englands openers before he was dropped for Hobart.

David Warner - 6

Eased into the series by the absence of Broad at the Gabba, he started with a couple of nineties. But didnt pass 38 in six further innings, and finished with a pair at Hobart  completed, appropriately, by Broad.

David Warner scored 94 and 95 in the first two Tests but finished with a pair in the fifth Test

Marnus Labuschagne - 7

Helped destroy Leach at Brisbane, then rode his luck to make a hundred at Adelaide. But no sooner had he replaced Root at the top of the Test rankings than the runs fell away, especially against Wood.

Steve Smith - 6

After averaging 137 in the 2017-18 Ashes and 110 in 2019, with a total of six hundreds, he had to settle for 30 and a pair of half-centuries.

Travis Head - 9

The top-scorer in the series, despite missing Sydney because of Covid. Centuries at Brisbane and Hobart were both match-defining, and he scored at 86 per 100 balls, unheard of for a Test series.

Usman Khawaja - 8.5

Enjoyed the mother of all comebacks at Sydney, where he made a pair of hundreds, but found life harder as an opener against the pink ball.

Cameron Green - 8.5

His battle of the all-rounders with Stokes was a non-event. He began by unsettling Root, and ended by knocking over Englands top three on the last evening at Hobart. Grew in stature with the bat too, and stopped everything that came his way in the gully.

Cameron Green made the difference with both bat and ball and caught brilliantly

Alex Carey - 5

Was expected to be an improvement on Tim Paine, but averaged just 20 with the bat and got into a confusion with first slip about which catches to go for and which to leave.

Pat Cummins - 9

Missed a Test because of Covid rules, but otherwise this was a dreamy start to his captaincy career. Finished as the leading wicket-taker in the series, with 21, and seemed incapable of a bad spell.

Mitchell Starc - 8

Set the tone with his opening delivery at Brisbane, and rarely let up, despite a quiet game at Sydney. Took 10 wickets in the two pink-ball Tests, and his late-order runs were a regular thorn in Englands side.

Mitchell Starc (right) was a constant thorn in England's side throughout the series

Jhye Richardson - 7

Ineffective in the first innings at Adelaide, but picked up five in the second. Missed Melbourne with a leg injury, then squeezed out by Boland.

Michael Neser - 6

Removed Hameed with his second ball in Tests, at Adelaide, and added Malan in the second innings. Bustling, but limited.

Scott Boland - 9.5

The find of the series. Plucked from semi-obscurity for a Test debut aged 32 at the MCG, his home ground, he returned second-innings figures of six for seven, and used his relentless accuracy to take 18 wickets at under 10.

Scott Boland was the find of the series and finished with 18 wickets at under 10 apiece

Josh Hazlewood - 7

Helped set Englands train wreck in motion by removing Malan and Root (for a duck) on the first morning at Brisbane, before injuring his side and missing the rest of the series.

Nathan Lyon - 8

Always a threat, especially to Englands left-handers. At Adelaide, he subdued Stokes altogether. Only once did he look vulnerable, when Bairstow got after him at Sydney.
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The French abolished their monarchy in 1792 - but they certainly still know a thing or two about living like royalty.

A point underscored with aplomb by Hotel Splendide Royal Paris, which occupies a 19th-century mansion house a stone's throw from the Champs-Elysees and President Macron's Parisien home, the 365-room Elysee Palace.

Grand company. But the Splendide Royal holds its own. It only has 12 suites, a drawing room and a restaurant, but it's exquisite  a pocket-palace.

Ted's accommodation at the Hotel Splendide Royal Paris was the Suite Elysee (pictured)

Ted describes the Suite Elysee as a '700-square-foot haven of hushed elegance, soothingly luxurious with regal flourishes'. Pictured is the suite's living room

Hotel Splendide Royal Paris, pictured, occupies a 19th-century mansion house a stone's throw from the Champs-Elysees and the 365-room Elysee Palace

My partner and I, and our four-year-old daughter, spent the night in the fourth-floor Suite Elysee (room 401), which would get the royal seal of approval from King Louis XVI and any French monarch before him you care to mention.

It was a 700-square-foot haven of hushed elegance, soothingly luxurious with regal flourishes  think ornate lampshades, oil paintings and beautiful furniture embellishments - and hues that ebbed from white to cream to gold.

The first order of business was to soak it all in while reclining on the plush sofa in the living room and quaffing Champagne offered as part of the checking-in process.

This area contained a loo and a big wall-mounted TV, plus a kitchenette complete with a sink, microwave, Nespresso machine and fridge.

By the sofa was a mini wine fridge stocked with yet more Champagne and fine wines, including two classy Italian reds  Montepulciano and Barolo (70 and 100 euros respectively, though they retail for around 25 and 42).

The living room contained a loo and a big wall-mounted TV, plus a kitchenette complete with a sink, microwave, Nespresso coffee machine and fridge

Marble-ous: This image shows the dressing room area, which leads through to an opulent en-suite

The marble-clad en-suite bathroom has Lorenzo Villoresi toiletries, marshmallow-soft robes, a double sink, a (most invigorating) separate shower (rain plus hose) and another separate loo

Ted says his room 'would get the royal seal of approval from King Louis XVI and any French monarch before him'

The adjoining bedroom housed a mammoth bed smothered in fine linens and to the left a dressing room with double wardrobes leading to a marble-clad en-suite bathroom with Lorenzo Villoresi toiletries, marshmallow-soft robes, a double sink, a (most invigorating) separate shower (rain plus hose) and another separate loo.

In many ways, a pocket-palace within a pocket-palace.

What's more, the Wi-Fi for the room was in a class of its own  all we had to do was select 'Wi-Fi Room 401' for instantaneous access to a full-fat turbo-charged signal. No sign-in. No password.

Ted's summation of his quarters? 'A pocket-palace within a pocket-palace'

Pictured here is Hotel Splendide Royal Paris's Italian restaurant, Tosca. This is also the venue for breakfast

Downstairs is the hotel's renowned Italian restaurant  Tosca. Sadly, it was shut when we visited for the night, but we did get to ensconce ourselves in the sumptuous venue for breakfast, which was a joy.

Pain au chocolat and croissants were offered from a basket and as I sipped a superbly smooth coffee I perused the menu, which explained the provenance of the fare on offer.

The bread and pastries come from a local Parisian baker, the jams are by Lise Bienaime at La Chambre aux Confitures, the tea by Dammann Freres (King Louis XIV, I learn, granted Sir Damame the 'exclusive privilege' to sell tea in France in 1692). And the milk? That's from the Laiterie cooperative de Verneuil courtesy of cows raised on the pastures of the 'beautiful Touraine region'.

Ted describes the staff at the hotel as having impeccable manners. Pictured here is the 'refined' drawing room

The Wi-Fi at the hotel, raves Ted, is 'in a class of its own'. In his room no sign in or password was needed. Pictured is the drawing room

Rooms at Hotel Splendide Royal Paris cost from 520 a night for a Junior Suite Saint Honore

Mouthwatering: A dish served at Tosca

Quality produce - and I can vouch for the cheese omelette whipped up by the chef, too.

The service, meanwhile, was faultless  our waitress and waiter impeccably polite. Young, but their manners were from another era.

The reception staff, too, displayed old-school courtesy, standing up behind the desk when making conversation and helping to make this fine-tuned hotel impossible not to fall for.

Splendide-ly royal indeed.
Of all the places Isabel Gamoneda could live with her family in the Bronx, the apartment she calls home is right across the street from a crowded high rise where 17 of her neighbors, including eight children, perished last week in a horrific fire.

As she watched the chaos, smelled the smoke and heard the awful screams, she was instantly reliving the hellish inferno more than 30 years ago that killed her two brothers.

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Gamoneda has never been able to escape the pain of the Happy Land Social Club fire in 1990 that wiped out 87 people after a raging, rejected boyfriend torched the entrance and trapped partygoers inside.

FILE  The charred facade of the Happy Land Social Club, in the Bronx borough of New York, is pictured March 25, 1990, where 87 perished in a fire. (AP)

But to have the searing reminder in her window, blazing before her eyes, was much more than she could bear.

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Its like were still living what happened back then, Gamoneda said. Its something that weve lived through already, but there are no words for this. Because when this fire started, all I did was go to hug my mom. My mom is 92-years-old. And I said to her, Maybe my brothers screamed for help like that, and no one helped them.

Most of the victims who died last week when a space heater set off the blaze in a tower along E. 181st St. near Tiebout Ave. werent even born when the social club fire changed Gamonedas life forever.

She cant get out of her head the echoes of the screams she heard across the street, and is haunted by the knowledge that the youngest victim was just 2 years old. Her own kids had played with some of the children whose homes were filled with toxic smoke.

Gamoneda said she and her sons witnessed the anguish, the despair, the cries for help, and survivors who made it out alive.

They also saw first responders trying to revive dead children.

We saw when a woman brought a girl out in her arms, a firefighter took her from the woman and was giving her CPR, Gamoneda said. But the girl was already dead.

Isabel Gamoneda places candles around monument to Happy Land Social Club fire victims, as her mother, Olga Leticia Gamoneda looks on. They lost two relatives in the horrific Bronx blaxe that killed 87 people. (Enid Alvarez/New York Daily News)

We have in our head the screams of the people who were begging for help with their kids, Gamoneda explained My kids had so many friends over there. The family where everyone died, those were my sons friends. So hes going around collecting clothes to try to help other victims.

Gamoneda, 56, the youngest of 12, sometimes went to clubs with her brothers, Lennyn, 17, and 23-year-old Marco, known as Tulio, but not that night in 1990, when they were killed with their friends.

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Nearly all the Happy Land victims  61 men and 26 women  died of smoke inhalation, but authorities said several were trampled in the stampede for the door.

Seven victims were from the same family.

A dejected boyfriend, Julio Gonzalez, was convicted of starting the Happy Land fire. Authorities said he torched the illegal nightclub on March 25, 1990 after an argument with his former girlfriend, Lydia Feliciano, who was one of only six people to escape the blaze.

After being thrown out by a bouncer that night, Gonzalez returned with $1 worth of gasoline, poured the fuel around the door and lit it with two matches. Then he watched the place go up in flames before going home.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 24 On March 25, 1990, Julio Gonzalez deliberately set alight illegal Bronx dance club Happy Land in a deliberate jealous rage after an argument with his ex-girlfriend. At the time, it was the biggest mass murder in U.S. history. After failing to win back his ex as she worked at the venue's coat-check room, Gonzalez left and returned carrying gasoline and a grudge. He poured the fuel inside the building and around the club's only exit before setting it alight with two matches and pulling down the metal front gate. Gonzalez's ex-girlfriend was one of only 6 people that made it out of the flame-filled inferno alive. In this photo, firefighters stand near bodies of some of the victims outside of Happy Land. (Nicole Bengiveno/New York Daily News)

At the time, it was called the largest mass murder in U.S. history.

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Gonzalez was locked up on a 25-year to life sentence in Clinton Correctional Facility after he was convicted of murder.

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In 2015, Gonzalez, 61, died after suffering an apparent heart attack in prison. Relatives of some of the victims who perished in the fire said at the time that Gonzalez could burn in hell.

Gamoneda and her mother, Leticia, still look at photos of the brothers and sons they lost. Gamonedas own son, Michael Nunez, bears a strong resemblance to his uncle Lennyn.

A gleaming brown granite memorial stands across the street from the site of the club, with the names of all 87 victims etched in its side. Gamoneda goes there often to honor her brothers and their friends.

Its something that happened 32 years ago, but for us its like no time has passed. Gamoneda said. We still remember it. I go there to the memorial. I put candles and flowers.

She said she doesnt know what to say to the survivors, the people like her and her mother who lost so much.

Were looking now to move. Its horrible, she said. You dont have words to tell those families. Its something impactful to live this again, this horrible thing that happened.
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It's a double dollop of excitement.

I'm on a TGV snaking out of Paris Gare de Lyon. The destination? Les Arcs in the French Alps. It's a world-class ski resort and my four-year-old daughter will be having her first ski lesson. And hopefully, I'll find time for a spot of snowboarding.

Dollop one.

Summit special: Les Arcs in the French Alps is a 'world class' ski resort that forms part of the immense Paradiski ski area. Pictured is a view to the 2,600m (8,530ft) Col de la Chal lift junction in the Arc 1950/2000 area, where the Transarc gondola from Arc 1800 (pictured horizontally along the top) finishes

Dollop two? The train journey there, to Bourg-St-Maurice at the foot of Les Arcs, is one of Europe's greatest  though I've never heard it lauded as such.

But it really is.

And what's more, the final leg will be on an amazing 2.9km-long funicular railway that ascends 2,657ft to the resort itself, with views of Mont Blanc along the way.

Practically three dollops.

The initial part of this blockbuster journey brings the thrill of travelling at 200mph on one of the world's most advanced trains.

This is no 9.43 from London Bridge to Orpington via Hither Green. This is F1 train travel.

Ted's TGV to Bourg-St-Maurice departs from Paris Gare de Lyon (pictured), with the train hitting 200mph south of Paris

SNCF has a snazzy app that tracks the movement of the train on a map, indicating its speed, station stops and nearby points of interest. This is a screenshot taken during Ted's return journey

My daughter tries to embark upon a game of counting animals in fields, but the speed they're rushing past as the train hurtles south is throwing a spanner in the works.

The second part of the journey is slower  but just as thrilling, courtesy of truly epic scenery.

SNCF has a very snazzy new app that tracks the movement of the train on a map, indicating its speed, station stops and nearby points of interest.

I note that it's at Amberieu-en-Bugey, around 280 miles (450km) south of Paris and 115 miles (185km) from Bourg-St-Maurice, that the landscape begins to widen the eyes, the line twisting through a steep-sided winding valley alongside a road and the gushing Albarine river.

Then it's cameras at the ready as the train crosses the mighty Rhone and hugs the eastern shoreline of spectacular Lake Bourget, the largest natural lake in France, mountains looming all around.

After leaving Chambery shortly after this, it's on to Albertville, the gateway to the jaw-dropping Tarentaise Valley, a land of ruined castles perched on rocky outcrops and towering snowy peaks, and one that acts as a passageway to some of the finest ski resorts in the world  Courchevel, Meribel, Val D'Isere, Tignes, La Plagne and Les Arcs.

Bourg-St-Maurice is the end of the line.

The TGV to Bourg-St-Maurice hugs the shoreline of spectacular Lake Bourget (pictured), the largest natural lake in France. This is a view looking north-west, with the railway track running along the shore nearest to the camera

Head for the chills: A TGV is pictured here in the breathtaking Tarentaise Valley, a land of ruined castles perched on rocky outcrops and towering snowy peaks. The valley is a passageway to some of the finest ski resorts in the world  Courchevel, Meribel, Val D'Isere, Tignes, La Plagne and Les Arcs

This image shows two TGVs at the Bourg-St-Maurice terminus. The funicular to Les Arcs is accessed by walking along the platform and over a footbridge that's behind the photographer. Picture is courtesy of Creative Commons licensing

The train journey from Paris to Bourg-St-Maurice, pictured, takes around five-and-a-quarter hours

From the terminus, it's a short walk to the exhilarating funicular, which glides up to Les Arcs 1600 along a track with a 39 per cent gradient in places.

Make sure your suitcases are secure.

This is my fourth visit to Les Arcs, and by the end, my passion for the resort will remain undimmed.

I'll resist the 'it's got everything' cliche, but I can't resist trumpeting that it has almost everything.

A picture of Arc 1800 during twilight. The resort was created from scratch in the 1960s

Brrr-illiant: A jaw-dropping picture of clouds rolling in over Les Arcs, which has various resort areas named according to their height

For starters, buy the top-level ski pass and you have access to a vast ski area  Les Arcs and Peisey-Vallandry, nestled together in one area, and La Plagne, accessed directly from Vallandry via an incredible double-decker cable car.

In all the area comprises 425km (264 miles) of runs - 120 blues, 66 reds, 36 blacks and 10 greens.

And here, the colours are accurate. The blues aren't reds in disguise and the reds aren't secret blacks.

The terrain is superbly varied, too. There are spine-tingling runs (blues and reds) that sweep through beautiful forests, wide cruise-y undulating pistes and vertigo-inducing trails that plummet through dramatic canyons.

Snow-sure? You betcha. Paradiski's ski areas soar to dizzying heights, from the Aiguille Rouge peak in Les Arcs, 3,226m (10,583ft) up, to the 3,250m- (10,662ft) high Bellecote Glacier in La Plagne.

The thrills up at Aiguille Rouge aren't just piste-based, by the way.

The journey up there is via a dramatic cable car  and at the lower station, at 2,700m (8,858ft), is a new zip line that sees those who clip in reach 80mph.

While the views around Paradiski are undeniably breathtaking, not everyone is enamoured with the architecture, which is a tad 'Marmite'.

Les Arcs was created from scratch in the 1960s and its lead architect was the renowned modernist Charlotte Perriand.

The lead architect for Les Arcs was the renowned modernist Charlotte Perriand. This image shows one of the resort buildings she created, which leans into the mountainside

Perriand's designs aren't for everyone - but they're certainly striking. Want some Perriand at home? Her dining room tables fetch around 150,000

You won't find 'chocolate box' designs here. Perriand conjured up striking angular residential blocks that cleverly tilt into the mountainside.

If you want some Perriand at home, by the way, be prepared to sell a car or two. Or even a house. Her dining room tables fetch up to around 150,000.

Les Arcs is divided into four stations, named for their altitude  Arc 1600, Arc 1800, Arc 1950 and Arc 2000.

Our base of operations for the stay is the self-catering Pierre & Vacances Residence Le Belmont in Arc 1800, which we reach via a free shuttle bus from the funicular station at 1600.

It has a more luxurious counterpart in Arc 1950, but Le Belmont wins us over thanks to friendly reception staff and a clean and comfortable split-level apartment with everything we need for our stay  on the lower level there's a little kitchen with a cooker, dishwasher and filter coffee machine; a living room/dining area with a sofa, chair and TV; and on the slightly higher level an ensuite bathroom and separate loo and a double bedroom with a camp bed that slides out from under the big bed for the little one.

There's also tonnes of storage, a huge balcony and bonus points for the wacky sloping corridor outside.

Ted's base of operations is the self-catering Pierre & Vacances Residence Le Belmont in Arc 1800 (pictured)

The living room in Ted's Pierre & Vacances apartment (pictured) has a small kitchen, dining room table, sofa and a TV

The bedroom in Ted's Pierre & Vacances apartment has a double bed and a camp bed that slides out from under it for his daughter

The Transarc gondola that takes skiers from Arc 1800 to the 1950/2000 area, up and over the dramatic ridge shown

Le Belmont is convenient, too, with a Skiset hire shop by the entrance and a gem of a gondola lift next to the boot-room exit - the two-stage Transarc  which takes you to a strategically handy midpoint on the 1600/1800 area and then rises sharply over a ridge to the huge Arc 1950/2000 valley, where skiers and snowboarders can access lifts to the Aiguille Rouge peak.

Shopping is easy thanks to a great Sherpa supermarket a few minutes' walk away and Arc 1800 is crammed with good eating and drinking out options (we enjoy Les Jumeaux, Arcus Coffee and Le Madly).

The only niggle with the apartment is the Wi-Fi - we have to regularly sign in to it, sometimes several times a day.

There is an ESI ski school for children next to the apartment, but we enrol the little one at an ESF Club Piou-Piou ski school for three-to-five-year-olds that's a bit of a walk away at the pace of a four-year-old (about 500 metres) along snowy and icy pathways  but crucially, she loves the lessons and there are tears every day when we explain that she'll have to take her skis off.

Feeling peak-y: To the left of this image is the highest lift station in Les Arcs. It sits on the Aiguille Rouge summit at an altitude of 3,226m (10,583ft)

Piste de resistance: Mont Blanc serves as a stunning backdrop to this picture of Arc 1950 and 2000

Powder to the people: A view of Arc 1950/2000, looking towards Col de la Chal in the distance. Ted and his partner enjoy a thrilling afternoon descending through this valley on a wonderful series of blue runs

The torrent of tears we manage to reduce with the purchase of a sledge to tow her back and forth in.

We get all our ski and snowboarding paraphernalia from the well-stocked Le Belmont Skiset outlet, and it's great quality (I've rented shocking equipment in the past).

I have a nicely waxed Nitro snowboard with Burton boots and bindings, professionally set up by a typically no-nonsense mountain-man staff member (don't lean your snowboard or skis against his shop window as I foolishly do  oops - otherwise you'll raise his gruff mountain-man hackles).

We parents manage to squeeze in a few epic piste sessions, including a glorious run from the top to the bottom of the 1950/2000 area via a meandering series of blues perfect for fine-tuning rusty techniques and getting accustomed to new equipment.

As per usual, I leave Les Arcs with a heavy heart, but there's one more event to lift it  the glorious TGV journey back to Paris...
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'While some businesses have survived and thrived on the Mother Road, others are rusting ghost-town relics, but both are equally fascinating.'

So writes publisher Pavilion of Route 66 Then and Now, which compares vintage photographs of the US highway with modern pictures taken from the same angle.

The book was written by author and photographer Joe Sonderman, who has spent years collecting thousands of postcards and archival images of Route 66.

It winds the clock back to the opening of Route 66 in 1926, exploring how it connected Chicago with Los Angeles over 2,250 miles (3,621km) away - and breathed life into the small towns and businesses along its path.

The highway was made redundant by the unveiling of the 1-40 in 1984, Sonderman reveals, but state associations soon formed to keep Route 66 alive and kicking. Though many of the landmarks along the way have fallen into disrepair, others have been preserved and restored to their original glory.

'Route 66 Then and Now highlights some of the most famous stop-offs along the route, showing them in their prime and how they look today,' the publisher adds. Scroll down to see a selection of mesmerising old and new pictures from the book...

 Slide me  MICHIGAN AVENUE, CHICAGO, THE START OF AN EPIC ROAD TRIP: The photograph on the left dates back to 1965 and was captured on the steps of the Art Institute of Chicago on Michigan Avenue - which lies right opposite the official signpost marking the start of 'Historic Route 66' on East Adams Street. The route is carried out of Chicago by Ogden Avenue, which passes through the Cicero district, the former home base of gangster Al Capone

 Slide me  CHICKEN BASKET, WILLOWBROOK, ILLINOIS: Cast your eye to the left and you'll see the landmark Chicken Basket Restaurant as it appeared in 1954. Located at Route 66 and 74th street in Hinsdale, the eatery originally operated as a simple gas station lunch counter. However, the book reveals, when two local women gave owner Irv Kolarik a recipe for fried chicken, business began to boom. To attract business in the winter, Sonderman says that Kolarik used to flood the roof to create a temporary ice rink and hire skaters. Then Interstate 55 was constructed and the restaurant was left 'isolated on a service road'. The premises was bought by Dell Rhea and his wife for a 'bargain price' in 1963. The author says: 'They worked hard to bring back the customers. Offering some of the best fried chicken in the Chicago area, the restaurant is as popular as ever.' The original sign still exists, though it was restored in 2017, we learn

 Slide me  O'CONNELL'S SERVICE STATION, ODELL, ILLINOIS: Pictured to the left is O'Connell's Service station in 1940, eight years after it was opened by Patrick O'Connell. At that time, Sonderman says, the station stocked Phillips 66 gas, a name inspired by Route 66. O'Connell designed the station to look like a house with a canopy, hoping to 'make customers feel at home'. Sonderman writes: 'It became a body shop in 1967, closed in 1975, and began to deteriorate alongside the old road.' Thankfully, Odell's residents grouped together to save the service station, eventually purchasing it in 1999. After being restored it now serves as a welcome center, the author adds

 Slide me  BRICK PAVEMENT, AUBURN, ILLINOIS: Going south from Springfield, heading west, Sonderman explains that the Route 66 traveller can choose between driving along the modern route, or taking the 'more scenic 1926-1930 route that zigs and zags through the cornfields and small towns to Staunton'. This route is pictured to the left in 1940. Ten years before the photograph was taken, Route 66 was moved further east, occupying different roadways. The author reveals: 'In 1931, after Route 66 was relocated, sections of the road were paved in brick to create jobs - and because a high-ranking politician owned a brick factory.' This section of brick pavement south of Chatham can still be driven today on a route that is now known as the IL 4

 Slide me  GATEWAY ARCH, ST LOUIS, A MONUMENT TO THOSE HEADING WEST: The image on the left dates back to 1936, showing the riverfront of the 'Gateway to the West' - St Louis. Though it was originally a busy hub filled with steamboats, Sonderman reveals that the riverfront deteriorated by the mid-1930s and it was subsequently cleared to make way for the Gateway Arch. Construction began in 1959. The author says: 'The Gateway Arch, completed in October 1965, will always dominate the skyline of St Louis. A local ordinance says no building can be taller than the 630ft-tall, stainless steel landmark'

 Slide me  LA FONDA HOTEL, SANTA FE: Sonderman describes Santa Fe as 'the most historic city on the original Route 66'. The photograph on the left depicts the city's La Fonda hotel back in 1930. According to the author, there has been an inn - or a 'Fonda' in Spanish - on this corner since as early as 1607, but the current Pueblo Revival building was constructed in 1922. At one point, The Fred Harvey Company made the hotel the headquarters for its 'Indian Detours', which opened the Southwest to tourism. Over the years, the hotel has been frequented by celebrities including John F Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, and several guests claim to have witnessed ghosts during their stay. The book adds: 'The completely renovated luxury hotel is now known as La Fonda on the Plaza, and family ownership is committed to carrying on the 400-year tradition of hospitality'

 Slide me  WIGWAM MOTEL, HOLBROOK, ARIZONA, ONE OF THREE SURVIVING WIGAM MOTELS: The image on the left was snapped in 1950 and shows the Wigwam Village Motel in Holbrook in the year it was opened by one Chester Lewis. At the time it was the sixth wigwam motel in America (the country's grand total peaked at seven). The 'iconic' tipi design was the work of Frank Redford, the book explains, who built them out of concrete. Redford gave Lewis the rights to the design 'in exchange for the proceeds from the pay radios located in each of the 15 units', we're told. The Wigwam Village Motel closed in 1974 and Lewis sold the business, the book says. He died in 1986 and his children reopened the motel in 1988. 'Part of the former office now showcases Route 66, Civil War, and Native American artefacts collected by Chester,' the book explains. Today, it's one of three surviving Wigwam Motels in the US - the other two can be found in Rialto, California, and Cave City, Kentucky

 Slide me  COOL SPRINGS, ARIZONA: Cool Springs Camp, seen on the left in 1940, was opened in 1926 by N R Dunton, who connected the building to a spring using a pipe, the book reveals. The then-gas station, which sits under 'Squaw's Teat' mountain, was taken over in 1936 by a married couple who added the rock exterior. It was later bypassed by the new Route 66 roadway and became a poultry ranch, only to be left abandoned completely in the 60s. It burned down in 1966. Sonderman says: 'Hollywood came calling in 1991 and producers constructed a gas station from the ruins just to blow it all up for a scene in the movie Universal Soldier.' Ned Leuchtner bought what remained of the premises in 2002 and has since turned it into a 'nifty gift shop and a mini museum', he adds

 Slide me  HORSESHOE CURVE, GOLD ROAD, ARIZONA: Look to the left and you'll see a postcard dating back to 1928, showing the horseshoe curve near the old mining town of Gold Road. 'It was a white-knuckle drive for drivers who came from back East,' declares Sonderman of the roadway. Motorists travelling along Old Route 66 would ascend the 3,550ft (1,082m) high Sitgreaves Pass and drive down through Gold Road - until it was bypassed in 1952. The author states: 'The twisting and turning road was so challenging that service stations would charge a hefty fee to tow timid drivers over the pass. In the days of gravity-fed carburettors, it wasn't unusual to meet a local driving up the hill backwards'

 Slide me  PIER, SANTA MONICA: The snapshot on the left shows the pier in 1941. It opened in 1909 having been built to bring sewage out to the sea. 'Route 66 ends over the Pacific Ocean on Santa Monica Pier, and the last few yards have to be made on foot,' says Sonderman. He reveals that 'the bureaucrats decreed that US highways must end at another US route, so 66 officially ends at Alternate US 101' - a 'nondescript intersection'. However, Santa Monica Pier is the symbolic end of the route, he adds. On Route 66's 83rd birthday, Dan Rice installed an 'End of the Trail' sign on the pier outside his 66-to-Cali store - 'a more appropriate spot to contemplate the journey'
Bob Saget's funeral was the 'perfect way to say goodbye' to the comic as loved ones say there was 'lots of laughter and tears.'

A source who spoke to Us Weekly described the intimate farewell, which was attended by about 100 close friends and family.

The private goodbye was held less than a week after the 65-year-old comedian's sudden death last Sunday.

Rest in peace: A source called the late Bob Saget's funeral on Friday 'a perfect goodbye'

The person said about the service, 'There were lots of tears, of course, but so much laughter too.'

The gathering was extended with a celebration of life memorial at a sprawling home rented by Full House creator Jeff Franklin.

A host of comedian and actor friends of Bob's attended the mournful event, including Dave Chappelle, Jimmy Kimmel, Chris Rock, and John Mayer.

It was held at Mount Sinai memorial park in Forest Lawn Cemetery, the final resting place of many Hollywood legends.

Heartbreaking: John Mayer and John Stamos seen outside the beloved star's hearse

Saget, who died in his sleep of a suspected heart attack, was transported to the cemetery in a blue Chevrolet hearse.

At the time of his unexpected passing, the longtime entertainer was on the Florida leg of his stand-up tour.

As news of his death became widespread, tributes from loved ones poured in on social media.

Final goodbyes: The farewell came less than a week after the 65-year-old comedian's sudden death last Sunday

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, both 35, said in a statement, 'Bob was the most loving, compassionate and generous man.

'We are deeply saddened that he is no longer with us but know that he will continue to be by our side to guide us as gracefully as he always has.

'We are thinking of his daughters, wife and family and are sending our condolences.'

The twin sisters got their big break starring alongside the actor on the nineties sitcom Full House when they were only one-year-old.

Doing what he loved: At the time of his unexpected passing, the longtime entertainer was on the Florida leg of his stand-up tour

'Oh, Bob. Whyd you have to leave us so soon? We are all family, but you were the glue,' actress Candace Cameron Bure, 45, wrote on Instagram in one post.

'Weve always been so deeply connected since the day we met when I was 10 years old. You werent just like a father, but one of my closest friends in life,' she detailed in a caption beneath a photo of them.

And on Friday she posted another image of the two sharing an embrace as she simple wrote, 'Hug like Bob. I love you my sweet sweet Bobby daddy.'

Mourning: Bob's TV daughter Candace Cameron Bure paid a sweet tribute on Instagram

On Friday, after previously expressing devastation over the loss of his friend, former costar John Stamos tweeted, 'Today will be the hardest day of my life. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.'

Chappelle said during a live standup set on Thursday night, 'Tomorrow Im going to go lay my comrade to rest.'

He gave his audience a piece of wisdom, 'Listen, Im getting old, so a lot of people I know dieIm just saying this to remind you: These moments are precious.'
They were once inseparable social scene stalwarts, but it seems the party may be over for Poppy Delevingne and her fun-loving husband James Cook.

I gather the married couple, pictured left, now consider themselves little more than 'friends' and pals admit that things have been that way for the best part of a year.

'They have consciously uncoupled,' says one source.

They were once inseparable social scene stalwarts, but it seems the party may be over for Poppy Delevingne and her fun-loving husband James Cook

Poppy, 35, and James, 42, wed in 2014 at a lavish Knightsbridge church ceremony, but she admitted last week that she had moved in with supermodel sister Chloe during last January's lockdown.

Poppy also took a solo trip to Thailand earlier this month, but ended up isolating for an 'extraordinarily lonely' ten days after testing positive for Covid.

She celebrated her release with an Instagram selfie.

Poppy also took a solo trip to Thailand earlier this month, but ended up isolating for an 'extraordinarily lonely' ten days after testing positive for Covid. She celebrated her release with an Instagram selfie

Kate Moss admits she's been modelling herself for all these years on Blondie's Debbie Harry (pictured together)

Kate Moss, queen of frocknroll

She's cultivated her own superstar image  but Kate Moss admits that when it comes to what to wear, she's in thrall to her rock 'n' roll heroes.

She has confessed she's been modelling herself for all these years on David Bowie, Rolling Stones muse Anita Pallenberg and Blondie's Debbie Harry  the pair are pictured left.

Kate, 47, says: 'Blondie were a huge influence. And I do think about David Bowie and Anita Pallenberg.

'When I go out, I think, what would they wear?'

Kate is preparing to be a guest on a new online series called Fashion Radio later this month.

Is the calm of the Cotswolds, where the Beckhams hobnob with the Chipping Norton set, about to be shattered?

I only ask because Old Etonian Nick Johnston, 49, wants a limestone quarry on his 3,500-acre Great Tew estate  home to private club Soho Farmhouse  to run 24 hours a day.

A neighbour frets: 'We must object. This really will be a nuisance at night.'

Mr Johnston declined to comment 'based on one objection'.
Lucy Hale wore comfy looking clothes as she made a coffee run to Alfred's in Los Angeles.

The actress, 32, donned a button-down beige fleece sweater and a pair of form-fitting blue leggings as she made her way to the popular coffee shop.

She walked on matching white slippers and protected herself with a brown fabric face covering.

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Grabbing a pick-me-up: Lucy Hale wore comfy looking clothes as she made a coffee run to Alfred's in Los Angeles

She tied her dark brown hair back tightly to keep it out of her face. Hale parted her hair in the middle.

The Pretty Little Liars star walked with her three drinks in a a cardboard tray. Her car keys were attached to a large bracelet which she wore on her left wrist.

The actress' outing came the day after the release of her newest project.

Looking good: The actress, 32, donned a button-down beige fleece sweater and a pair of form-fitting blue leggings as she made her way to the popular coffee shop

New movie: The actress' outing came the day after the release of her newest project

Borrego, a film which she stars in, received a wide release on Friday.

The actress portrays a botanist named Elly, who is kidnapped by a first-time drug mule when his plane crashes in the desert.

The Jesse Harris-directed feature also stars performers such as Nicholas Gonzalez, Olivia Trujilo and Jorge A. Jimenez, among others.

The Truth or Dare actress also served as an executive producer on the project, and it is her first time working in that capacity.

Playing a scientist: Hale portrays a botanist named Elly, who is kidnapped by a first-time drug mule when his plane crashes in the desert

Another movie on the way: The actress is also preparing for the release of the upcoming dark comedy movie Big Gold Brick (picture from Borrego)

The actress is also preparing for the release of the upcoming dark comedy movie Big Gold Brick.

The film will follow the exploits of a writer hired to write the autobiography of an enigmatic figure and must deal with the chaos that ensues as the project moves along.

Also involved with the feature are performers such as Oscar Isaac, Megan Fox and Andy Garcia.

Big Gold Brick, written and directed by Bridesmaids actor Brian Pestos, is currently set to be released on February 25.
Kim Kardashian's daughter Chicago West turned four on Saturday, January 15.

And to celebrate the occasion, the 41-year-old star hosted an extravagant joint birthday bash including Kylie Jenner's daughter Stormi, who will turn four on February 1.

Khloe Kardashian, who was in attendance with her only child True Thompson, three, has been updating her 213million Instagram followers on the party throughout the day.

Joint birthday party: Chicago West and Stormi Webster are celebrating their birthdays together this year

Chicago, the youngest daughter of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West wore an all pink outfit.

The four-year-old paired a metallic pink dress with matching leggings underneath, pink cowboy boots and a pink fur coat.

Stormi, whom Kylie shares with rapper Travis Scott, wore an all purple outfit for her joint birthday party.

Jenner showed off her burgeoning baby bump in a form-fitting pink mockneck dress.

Pretty in pink: Chicago's aunt, Khloe Kardashian, took a video of her watching her cousin, True, get her face painted at her fourth birthday party

Birthday girl: Chicago, the youngest daughter of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, wore an all pink outfit. The four-year-old wore a metallic pink dress, with matching leggings underneath, pink cowboy boots and a pinky fur coat

Face painting: Khloe posted an up-close picture of True's design, where the artist painted whiskers and flower on her face

The 24-year-old makeup mogul, who has kept a relatively low profile since Scott's Astroworld Festival tragedy where a crowd surge claimed the lives of 10 people, layered up with a cozy pink coat.

The main attraction of the event is a large balloon wall that spelled out 'Stormi & Chicago' in different fonts and colors.

There was also a large ball pit, full of plastic balls and LOL Dolls, for the kids and Stormi and Chicago's candy shop.

Dream party: The event was every child's dream thanks to a large ball pit, LOL Dolls, as well as Stormi and Chicago's candy shop

Sugar rush: The party offered a variety of tasty treats, including colorful candy and cookies with Chicago and Stormi written on them

Candy station: Stormi and Chicago's candy shop featured delicious looking pink cookies with their names

Exciting: True strolled around the huge ball pit in a sparkly pink skirt and white sweater as she was filmed by mom Khloe

Kim and Kylie also hosted a face-painting station for the kids to get adorable images on their faces.

Khloe posted an up-close picture of True's design, where the artist painted whiskers and flower on her face.

Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker were also in attendance with their kids.

The oldest Kardashian sister took a few pictures next to the desert table. She wore a giant pink bow in her hair, a gray sweater and big black sunglasses that covered her eyes and cheekbones.

She appeared to sniff some blue cotton candy at one point.

Atiana De La Hoya, who Travis Barker helped his ex-wife Shanna Moakler raise, took a video for her Instagram story where Kourtney was seen dancing behind one of the characters in costume at the party.

Enjoying the event: Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker were also in attendance with their kids

Checking out the sweets: The oldest Kardashian sister took a few pictures next to the desert table where she appeared to sniff some blue cotton candy at one point

Dressed casual: She wore a giant pink bow in her hair, a gray sweater and big black sunglasses that covered her eyes and cheekbones

Chatting with Kris: Ye appeared to then have a friendly chat with his ex mother-in-law Kris Jenner

It seems that Kylie and Travis opted out of having the annual 'Stormi's World' birthday party this year.

In the past, the couple threw their daughter extravagant birthday parties modeled after his album, Astroworld, which released the year she was born.

Despite claiming he was not 'allowed to know' the location of his daughter's party in a video he posted to Instagram on Saturday, Kanye West, 44, made it to the bash after all.

The doting dad was pictured helping Chicago smash a pink birthday pinata in the shape of number four as her friends watched nearby.

Proud mom: Kylie Jenner, 24, wore an all-pink onesie and matching coat for her baby girl's bash, furthering speculation that she might be expecting another girl

All glam: The glam mom posed up a storm as she gazed at her reflection in the mirror and captured it on her iPhone camera

He was also seen having a friendly chat with ex mother-in-law Kris Jenner - whom he previously called Kris Jong-Un, in reference to the North Korean dictator - as the two matched in all-black outfits.

There was a lot of drama leading up to his arrival and the Donda artist even went on his Instagram live claiming he didn't know where the party was being held.

'I'm just wishing my daughter a public happy birthday. I wasn't allowed to know where her party was,' Kanye alleged in the video. 'There's nothing legal that saying that this is the kind of games that's being played, it's the kind of thing that really has affected my health for the longest and I'm just not playing, I'm taking control of my narrative this year.'

However, it appears the dad was helped by Travis and Kylie, as after the party he hopped back on Instagram and revealed he was 'so happy' to have been able to attend the event and thanked Scott for sending him the address and the time.

He also thanked Kylie for helping him get past the security. 'Kylie let me in right when I got to the spot, because the security stopped me.'

Adorable: Khloe's little girl got into the party spirit, diving out of the ball pit with a fully painted face

Sweet: Rob Kardashian's five-year-old daughter Dream (left) - whom he shares with model Blac Chyna - joined in on the festivities and got her face painted along with her cousin True

Kourtney having fun: Atiana De La Hoya, who Travis Barker helped his ex-wife Shanna Moakler raise, took a video for her Instagram story where Kourtney was seen dancing behind one of the characters in costume at the party
The Wiggles are on track to win Triple J's Hottest 100 next weekend.

According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the band is set to take out the number one spot after listeners went wild for the children's band's cover of Elephant by Tame Impala.

The publication used online aggregator 100 Warm Tunas, which is predicting the band will have a first-place finish.

Unexpected contender: The Wiggles are on track to win Triple J's Hottest 100 next weekend. According to The Sydney Morning Herald the band is set to take out the number one spot after listeners went wild for the children's band's cover of Elephant by Tame Impala

'It's an absolute spin-out,' Blue Wiggle Anthony Field told the publication.

'It's not something we ever thought would happen. But we really did do the song out of love.'

The Wiggles covered Elephant as part Triple J's Like A Version series in March 2021.

A very Wiggly Hottest 100! The publication used online aggregator 100 Warm Tunas, which is predicting the band will have a first-place finish. Pictured: Former Yellow Wiggle Emma Watkins

Surprise: 'It's an absolute spin-out,' Blue Wiggle Anthony Field (pictured) told the publication. 'It's not something we ever thought would happen. But we really did do the song out of love

The band was given a list of potential covers to perform including Rhianna's Umbrella, but ultimately decided to go with Elephant.

'We wanted to choose something Australian,' recently-retired Yellow Wiggle Emma Watkins told ABC.

'For most of the time that we've had the honour of going to The ARIAs, we get to see Tame Impala a lot on stage.'

Talent: Funnily enough, the cover is on track to outpace the original song's ranking in the Hottest 100. Pictured: Red Wiggle Simon Pryce

Funnily enough, the cover is on track to outpace the original song's ranking in the Hottest 100.

Elephant finished at number seven back in 2012.

Also in contention for the top spot is The Kid Laroi, Gang of Youths and newcomer, Olivia Rodrigo.

Ranking: Elephant finished at number seven back in 2012. Pictured are Jay Watson, Kevin Palmer and Cam Avery from Tame Impala

Lachlan Gillespie, aka the Purple Wiggle, said it has been amazing to see the song become so popular.

'It's bizarre, it's just been this amazingly popular thing,' he said. 'In the end, it's been a special experience for all of us.'

He went on to say the band had a tricky time with some of the bars and the base riff when he compared them to The Wiggles tunes.

'Since then, I've listened to a lot of [Tame Impala's] music, and there are some great songs.'

Triple J's Hottest 100 countdown broadcasts on January 22.
Holly Ramsay has admitted she feels 'lonely' in sobriety after recently celebrating a year without alcohol.

The daughter of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay shared her personal milestone last month and while she praises the effect life without booze has had on her mental health, she admits it hasn't been without difficulty.

The influencer, 22, took to her Instagram Stories this week to update her 287,000 followers, saying she finds it tough not to drink at her age as it's such a huge part of her peers' social lives.

Admission: Holly Ramsay, 22, has confessed she feels 'lonely' in sobriety after recently celebrating a year without alcohol (pictured in November)

When asked 'how important is it to cut out alcohol when you struggle daily with mental health,' she responded: 'This isn't a "one size fits all" answer...

'For me, cutting out alcohol has made me so much more present, I'm able to have more fun & I'm in control.

'Alcohol + antidepressants don't mix well. I made the decision to put my physical and mental health first.

Tough times: Holly shared her personal milestone last month and, while she praises the effect life without booze has had on her mental health, she admits it hasn't been without difficult

'It can be lonely not drinking especially at this age as it's such a big part of our social lives.. but you will find the right people who don't even care that you're not drinking and are just happy you're with them.'

Updating her followers on how she's doing so far this year, she added: 'I'd say I'm in the best place mentally & feeling more myself than I have done in years.

'This has taken A LOT of work and it doesn't come easy so go easy on yourself. Sending love to anyone who needs it.'

Candid: 'It can be lonely not drinking especially at this age as it's such a big part of our social lives.. but you will find the right people who don't even care that you're not drinking'

Rocky: The influencer took to her Instagram Stories this week to update her 287,000 followers, saying she finds it tough not to drink at her age

Holly's words come after she marked a year of being sober in December with a heartfelt Instagram post.

She wrote candidly of her relationship with alcohol, including her decision to go tee-total after reaching her 'lowest point' in 2020.

Back in May, Holly revealed she spent three months in a mental health hospital after being sexually assaulted twice when she was 18 years old. She was diagnosed with PTSD, anxiety and depression.

Honest: The daughter of Michelin star chef Gordon wrote of her relationship with alcohol, including her decision to go tee-total after reaching her 'lowest point' in 2020

The podcast host also explained that alcohol and antidepressants 'do not mix well at all'.

In full, Holly wrote: 'Today marks one year without alcohol.

'This is not something I thought I would ever say at the age of 21. However, by 21 (nearly 22) I never thought I would've been through half of what I have.

'I choose to take a break from alcohol because it wasn't improving my mental health - which for me, comes first.'

Holly continued to explain that it wasn't a decision 'taken lightly', nor is it one that is necessarily 'forever.'

'This time last year I was at my lowest and I was scared but I made a decision to take control of what I could - and that meant removing alcohol from my life.

Updating: The podcast host shared the personal milestone she'd reached a year without alcohol in the form of a typed message with her 280,000 followers last month

'It was not an easy decision, nor one that I have taken lightly. I won't say this is forever, but this is for now. Living without alcohol has helped me feel better and more present both mentally and physically.

'Don't get me wrong, I've had a year of high highs and low lows but I'm grateful I have myself the chance to work through them consciously rather mask my feelings (good and bad) with a drink.

'Alcohol and antidepressants do not mix well at all. And that is something, unfortunately, I learned the hard way,' she confessed.

Close: A doting Gordon penned: '@hollyramsayy what an incredible young lady and words cant explain enough how proud you make me feel love you so much Dad '.

The fashion design student concluded her message: 'As with everything I have been through, it has been a learning experience and I feel lucky to be able to post this message today, to continue to spread awareness and break the stigma surrounding mental health.'

Her father was among those who flooded to the comments.

A doting Gordon penned: '@hollyramsayy what an incredible young lady and words cant explain enough how proud you make me feel love you so much Dad '.

Holly is the second eldest of Gordon and Tana Ramsay's brood of five children.

If you have been affected by anything in this article, contact alcoholchange.org.uk or call 0300 123 1110.
Julia Fox hasn't been dating Kanye West long, but she's already entrenched in her new beau's world.

The actress, 31, opened up about her relationship with the internationally-renowned recording artist in a phone conversation with Interview Magazine.

She previously wrote an essay for the outlet about one of her dates in New York City with the POWER rapper, and this time she talked a little about their night out in Los Angeles.

Entering his orbit: Julia Fox hasn't been dating Kanye West long, but she's already entrenched in her new beau's world (pictured 2019)

'I think I'm going to call you about my date nights weekly, maybe bi-weekly. How does that sound?' the Uncut Gems star said. 'Let's call it 'This Week in Fox News.''

The interviewer then asked what she did on her night out with the Grammy winner.

'I had a date with Madonna, but obviously I invited Ye because they know each other, they work together, and they respect each other as artists,' she revealed.

'Then Floyd Mayweather, Antonio Brown, and a bunch of other people showed up. So obviously we had to do a photo shoot.'

Photos from the shoot in question accompanied the article.

Talking LA date: She previously wrote an essay for the outlet about one of her dates in NYC with the POWER rapper, and this time she talked a little about their night out in Los Angeles

Famous crew: Fox revealed she went to dinner with West, Madonna, Antonio Brown, Floyd Mayweather and others

Photo shoot: The group conducted a photo shoot during the event that featured Fox and West in several sexually suggestive poses

They showed Kanye in a black tank-top while his lady did laid on the table in front of him.

Another showed Julia straddling Kim Kardashian's ex-husband as they sat on a couch together. Fox wore tight-fitting leather pants and a small leather crop-top which barely contained her ample bosom.

The star later opened up about how her relationship with her new man, who she met on New Year's Eve, was evolving.

'You know, I'm so used to being f**ked over in relationships, so I keep waiting for him to disappoint me,' because he makes very grandiose promises, and it's like, "How could he ever pull it off with all the other things he has going on?"' she said. 'But he always does. Last night was a testament to that.'

The No Sudden Move actress was asked whether or not she was Kanye's muse, and, though she didn't say yes outright, she did say, 'I've always been someone's muse.'

When asked to predict her destiny, she said, 'Right now, the vibes I'm getting are very much about tolerance, kindness, and love. I'm canceling cancel culture and putting an end to this black-and-white thinking.

Expecting disappointment: Fox said, 'used to being f**ked over in relationships,' so she's used to being let down in relationships, but he hasn't failed her yet

'People shouldn't be defined by their darkest moment. As humans, we commit violence to each other, we police each other. We've created such a hostile environment, especially on the internet. That's why I don't read the headlines.'

She continued, 'I feel like I'm a really good candidate for this position because a lot of people in my shoes would probably be reading the comments and freaking out. I'm not trying to have everybody love me, I'm just trying to connect with people that are like-minded.'

The star then revealed that Kanye helped her pack 'up her old life,' shortly after the two met with Fox getting rid of many of the old clothes she had from her past. She called it 'cathartic.'

After learning this information, the interviewer asked Fox if she was now in 'Ye world,' to which she responded, 'Yeah, let's be honest. Why not?'

'I'm really surrendering. For someone like me who's such a control freak and always so used to taking care of myself, to just let go and be taken care of is foreign at this point in life,' she continued. 'I've been the primary caretaker of everyone for so long, so it's a new sensation, but honestly, I think I deserve it. Even a month ago, I was so f**king likenot getting along with my son's father, or not having help.

'It was just me alone. I was so tired and everything was work. I just remember being like, 'I know that there's going to be a reward for this, like this is so f**king miserable that I know that I know something good will come of this if I just hang in there.' And then a few days later there I am with Ye, and it was the most instant natural organic attraction and connection. I just feel really safe with him. It's a redemption story.'

Part of his world: When asked if she was now in 'Ye world,' she responded 'Yeah, let's be honest. Why not?'

Fox and West were initially spotted in each other's company when they accompanied each other on a trip to Miami's Carbone earlier this month, according to TMZ.

Prior to becoming involved with the rapper, the performer was married to her former husband, Peter Artemiev, with whom she tied the knot in 2018.

The pair remained together for over a year before the pilot filed for divorce in February of last year, and their union was officially dissolved last July.

The actress went on to welcome a son named Valentino with her former husband last January.

Starting off on the right foot: Fox and West were initially spotted in each other's company when they accompanied each other on a trip to Miami's Carbone earlier this month, according to TMZ; he is seen earlier this month

West was also previously romantically involved with his estranged wife, Kim Kardashian.

The two dated for several years in the early 2010's before they decided to tie the knot in 2014, and they went on to welcome four children.

The former couple dominated headlines for over five years before the rapper announced that he and his estranged wife were going through marriage troubles in 2020, and she officially filed for divorce last year.

The pair have been going back and forth regarding the end of their marriage since then and they are still working out the terms of their divorce.

Former flame: West was also previously romantically involved with his estranged wife, Kim Kardashian; he is seen with Fox earlier this month

Fox later confirmed that she was dating West with an essay that was published in Interview Magazine earlier this month.

A source spoke to People earlier this week and noted that, although the rapper and the actress were enjoying each other's company, he was still interested in reuniting with his estranged wife.

The insider expressed that the Stronger rapper was 'still telling people that he wants to have Kim back and he is willing to make appropriate changes to do so.'

They added that he 'has no plans at this time to start a long-term relationship.'
Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly were pictured spending time with each other at the Dolce & Gabbana Fall Winter 2022 Men's Fashion Show at the Metropol in Milan on Saturday.

The 35-year-old actress and the rapper, 31, were ever the stylish couple as they sported eye-catching outfits while attending the event, during which the musician turned heads as he walked down a runway.

The happy couple recently became engaged during a romantic getaway, and they shared the good news to their respective Instagram accounts.

Cute couple: Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly were pictured spending time with each other at the Dolce & Gabbana Fall Winter 2022 Men's Fashion Show at the Metropol in Milan on Saturday

Fox sported a lovely black lace sleeveless top that left little to the imagination while attending the event.

The Transformers actress also rocked a fashionable pair of drawstring leather pants and a matching pair of high-heeled shoes.

The performer accessorized with a sparkling choker and she wore a matching belt while watching her fiance walk the runway.

Her gorgeous brunette locks remained free-flowing and fell onto her chest and backside.

Standing out: Fox sported a lovely black lace sleeveless top that left little to the imagination while attending the event

Hot stuff! The Transformers actress also rocked a fashionable pair of drawstring leather pants and a matching pair of high-heeled shoes

Machine Gun Kelly was dressed in a shining jacket-and-trousers combo that stood out while he attended the event.

The rapper, born Colson Baker, also donned a pair of studded gloves that added a bit more shine to his outfit.

The musician stood out with a sparkling pair of heeled Chelsea-esque boots while spending time on the runway.

His bright blonde hair remained messy and stood out from the dark tone of his clothing.

Flashy outfit: Machine Gun Kelly was dressed in a shining jacket-and-trousers combo that stood out while he attended the event

Fox and Machine Gun Kelly initially met in 2020 while working on the feature Midnight in the Switchgrass.

The actress was previously married to actor Brian Austin Green, with whom she shares three children.

The two developed a close friendship on the set of the feature, and a source told E! News that the pair were 'hooking up and have been for a little while' that May.

Green, 48, later confirmed that he and his former wife had separated that same month.

Starting off strong: Fox and Machine Gun Kelly initially met in 2020 while working on the feature Midnight in the Switchgrass; they are seen in 2021

Fox was prominently featured in Machine Gun Kelly's music video for his track Bloody Valentine, in which she portrayed a dominatrix.

The rapper later confirmed that he and his now-fiance were dating with a post that was shared to his Twitter account last June.

The happy couple remained together and developed their relationship over the course of 2021.

The pair eventually confirmed that they had become engaged to each other earlier this week with two posts that were shared to their respective Instagram accounts.

Making it official: The pair eventually confirmed that they had become engaged to each other earlier this week with two posts that were shared to their respective Instagram accounts; they are seen in 2021

A source recently spoke to HollywoodLife and told the media outlet that Green was elated to hear about the engagement.

'Brian is genuinely happy for Megan and wants nothing but the best for her. He didn't know about the proposal beforehand but he assumed that's the direction their relationship would be taking at some point,' they said.

The insider also noted that the actor was happy that Machine Gun Kelly had connected well with his children and expressed that he was looking forward to what the future held for them.

The source stated that Green and Fox have both 'moved on and fell in love with someone else and they are only welcoming a great co-parenting relationship.'
An admirer of a young cashier fatally shot in an East Harlem Burger King brought her flowers and walked her home from work every day to ease her stress over the dangerous late night hours, the grief-stricken man told the Daily News.

When she walks out, shes like Damn, at least Im still loved, said Giovanni Mideres, 29. I would walk her home every time, we would play hide-and-seek while were walking. Dancing, we would do skip-to-my-loo, sing Wizard of Oz. It wasnt the yellow brick road, it was the concrete road.

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Kristal Bayron-Nieves was shot and killed while working a night shift at the Burger King in Manhattan. (Obtained by Daily News)

Kristal Bayron-Nieves, 19, was killed in a robbery last Sunday while she was working a late shift at the fast food outlet on Lexington Ave. and E. 116th St.

I was there before it happened, Mideres said. I gave her flowers first, and I went to give her manager flowers, and he came in.

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Winston Glynn, 30, allegedly walked into the Burger King and demanded money, pistol-whipping the manager and attacking a customer before he snatched $100 out of a cash drawer.

Giovanni Mideres (Instagram)

Glynn instructed Bayron-Nieves, who was behind the register, to open another drawer but she didnt have the key. As she bent down to fumble with the locked drawer, Glynn shot her in the chest, cops said.

I was coming from outside back into the store. He had already assaulted the manager. I didnt notice anything until I saw the manager on the floor, Mideres said.

Winston Glynn, 30, is led out of the 25th Precinct in Manhattan after being charged in the slaying of Kristal Bayron-Nieves, 19. (Barry Williams/for New York Daily News)

Then Mideres said he saw Bayron-Nieves sprawled on the floor of the fast food joint with a gunshot wound.

I was trying to see if she was still alive. I knew she wasnt going to make it though; he shot her right in her torso. I stayed inside the whole time, he told The News.

Bayron-Nieves was rushed to Metropolitan Hospital, but she could not be saved.

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The teen was killed days before she was set to begin earlier working hours; she had told her family she feared for her life during the night shift.

The Burger King at 154 E. 116th Street in Manhattan. (Theodore Parisienne/for New York Daily News)

A--holes, crackheads, k2 heads. She goes through a lot of s--- arguing with these a--holes, Mideres said.

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Mideres hopes he can make it to the young womans funeral in Puerto Rico, but lacks the funds to make the trip. On Saturday, Mayor Adams announced Jet Blue Airlines will be providing the teens relatives with free flights to attend the service.

If shes not going to sleep, Im not going to sleep or rest  if shes buried and Im not there to see her Im going to lose my mind. I havent slept for five days now, Mideres said.

Glynn was arrested and charged for the murder Friday and Mideres hopes for a swift and unforgiving judicial outcome.

Oh, you got $100? Now you get 100-to-life. You want to take a girls life for $100? Now were taking your life, he said.

Glynn is being held at Rikers Island pending his next court appearance.
Kelly Rizzo opened up about her husband Bob Saget's death after the legendary comedian's funeral on Saturday.

The journalist, 42, discussed her husband at length in an Instagram post for the first time since he was found unresponsive in his Florida hotel room Sunday, January 9.

'My sweet husband. After much reflection this week, I'm trying, really trying, to not think I was robbed of time,' she captioned a photo of the pair.

Writing during a tragic time: Kelly Rizzo opened up about her husband Bob Saget's death after the legendary comedian's funeral on Saturday

'But instead to think: How lucky was I that I got to be the one to be married to THE MOST INCREDIBLE MAN ON EARTH. I was the one who got to go on this crazy ride with him and be in his life these last 6 years.

'We had that time to make each other the happiest wed ever been and change each others lives forever. I got to be the one to love him and cherish him. He deserves all the love. Every ounce of it. Because thats how amazing Bob was. He was love. If you were in his life you KNEW he loved you. He never missed an opportunity to tell you.

'He deserves all the love. Every ounce of it. Because thats how amazing Bob was. He was love. If you were in his life you KNEW he loved you. He never missed an opportunity to tell you.

'Most importantly. I have no regrets. We loved each other so damn much and told each other 500 times every day. Constantly. I know how much he loved me until the very last moment and he knew the same. Im so grateful for that. Not everyone gets that.'

She called Saget a force and then said that, regardless of whether a person knew him or not, everyone was 'in awe of the enormous outpouring of love and tribute' for the Full House star.

Heartfelt message: The journalist, 42, discussed her husband at length in an Instagram post for the first time since he was found unresponsive in his Florida hotel room Sunday

Untimely death: Saget was found unresponsive in his Florida hotel room this past Sunday (pictured 2021)

Rizzo, who married Saget in 2018, then mentioned the Scleroderma Research Foundation, a non-profit that researches a rare series of diseases that causes a the hardening of the skin, joint pain and intense sensitivity to cold.

The How I Met Your Mother actor served on the board of the foundation for many years.

Rizzo finished off her remembrance of her late husband with a final message to him, writing, 'Honey, I love you more than anything, forever.'

A funeral for the Raising Dad star, who died of a suspected heart attack during the Florida leg of his stand-up tour, was held on Saturday.

Laid to rest: A funeral for the Raising Dad star, who died of a suspected heart attack during the Florida leg of his stand-up tour, was held on Saturday (pictured 2019)

A final message to her love: Rizzo finished off her remembrance of her late husband with a final message to him, writing, 'Honey, I love you more than anything, forever' (pictured 2018)

A source who spoke to Us Weekly described the intimate farewell, which was attended by about 100 close friends and family.

The person said about the service, 'There were lots of tears, of course, but so much laughter too.'

The gathering was extended with a celebration of life memorial at a sprawling home rented by Full House creator Jeff Franklin.

A host of comedian and actor friends of Bob's attended the mournful event, including Dave Chappelle, Jimmy Kimmel, Chris Rock, and John Mayer.

It was held at Mount Sinai memorial park in Forest Lawn Cemetery, the final resting place of many Hollywood legends.
It was revealed on Sunday that radio titan Kyle Sandilands popped the question to his partner Tegan Kynaston earlier this month while on holiday in Port Douglas.

And just hours after news of their engagement came to light, images have emerged of the bride and groom-to-be outside their eastern Sydney home, where a clearly elated Tegan gave a flash of her whopping diamond ring.

In photos taken on Saturday, 35-year-old Tegan couldn't stop staring at her hand after test-driving a new Land Rover Defender - which costs between $78,480 to $220,530 - alongside Kyle, 50, and his manager Bruno Bouchet.

Bride-to-be: Tegan Kynaston (pictured) showed off her engagement ring on Saturday in Sydney, after her boyfriend Kyle Sandilands proposed in Port Douglas earlier this month

The huge sparkler features two platinum bands which meet to display one eye-popping rectangular diamond in the centre.

Tegan was practically beaming as she chatted with her other half, Bruno and another gentleman outside the vehicle.

For the occasion she opted for a plain black shirt, grey cardigan and a pair of tiny denim shorts.

Check out that rock! The huge sparkler features two platinum bands which meet to display one eye-popping rectangular diamond in the centre

Happy: Kyle appeared in high spirits during the outing, wearing a plain black T-shirt, shorts and sneakers

Can't take her eyes off it! In images taken on Saturday, Tegan couldn't stop staring at her hand as she chatted with her husband-to-be outside their home

She emphasised her striking features with lashings of mascara, a peach lip colour and a flash of bronzer, while she wore her hair in a casual beach wave.

Kyle appeared in high spirits during the outing, wearing a plain black T-shirt, shorts and sneakers.

The giddy couple were the picture of newlywed-bliss as they laughed and joked on the pavement, checking out the vehicle before entering their lavish pad to no doubt celebrate their exciting news together.

Kyle's manager Bruno Bouchet confirmed to Daily Mail Australia on Sunday that the KIIS FM star had special news to announce on his radio show on Monday.

New car to match the ring? Tegan was seen checking out a new Land Rover Defender - which costs between $78,480 to $220,530 - alongside Kyle, 50, (second left) and his manager Bruno Bouchet (right)

All smiles: The giddy couple looked like the picture of newlywed-bliss as they laughed and joked outside their home, checking out the vehicle before entering their lavish pad to no doubt celebrate their exciting news together

Sweet ride: The trio appeared deep in thought as they checked out the mammoth car after an adventurous few weeks away

'It's their news to announce, not mine. But if you do want to know, make sure you tune into Kyle and Jackie O on Monday,' he said.

A source close to the couple said the wedding will be happening in the near future.

Tegan is director of communications for Kyle's company King Kyle Pty Ltd.

The couple went public with their romance on New Year's Eve in 2019, when Tegan shared a picture of herself kissing Kyle in front of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Two months earlier, she had denied rumours she was dating the KIIS FM presenter.

Style: For the occasion, Tegan opted for a plain black shirt, grey cardigan and a pair of tiny denim shorts

Looking lovely: She emphasised her striking features with lashings of mascara, a peach lip colour and a flash of bronzer, while she wore her hair in a casual beach wave

Taking it for a spin: It's believed the couple were test-driving the new vehicle on Saturday afternoon

Coming soon: Kyle's manager Bruno Bouchet confirmed to Daily Mail Australia on Sunday that the KIIS FM star had special news to announce on his radio show on Monday

Kyle began dating his then personal assistant Tegan following his split from his long-term girlfriend Imogen Anthony.

The radio titan announced his shock split from his girlfriend-of-eight-years on The Kyle and Jackie O Show in November 2019.

He told listeners the couple 'haven't been living with each other' for months and their relationship had simply 'run its course'.

'We haven't been with each other for quite a few months now. Unfortunately it's run its course,' he said.

Earlier this month, Kyle revealed he hasn't ruled out having children with Tegan.

'It's their news to announce, not mine. But if you do want to know, make sure you tune into Kyle and Jackie O on Monday,' Bruno (right) told Daily Mail Australia

Coming soon: A source close to the couple said the wedding will be happening in the near future

Career woman: Tegan is director of communications for Kyle's company King Kyle Pty Ltd

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, the radio shock jock said: 'It is definitely not off the cards.'

Kyle explained: 'It has never really been on my priority list and I think that is just because I was that kid that dragged around my childhood issues from my parents' divorce and this and that.'

He admitted he wasn't always interested in having children, but came around to the idea after spending time with other parents, including John Ibrahim and his partner Sarah Budge.

Romance: Kyle began dating his then personal assistant Tegan following his split from his long-term girlfriend Imogen Anthony

Baby plans: Earlier this month, Kyle revealed he hasn't ruled out having children with Tegan

Children: Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, the radio shock jock, 50, said: 'It is definitely not off the cards'

Family: Kyle admitted he wasn't always interested in having children, but came around to the idea after spending time with other parents, including John Ibrahim and his partner Sarah Budge

Fertility tests: Speaking to Daily Mail Australia last month, Kyle said: 'I was really nervous [about the fertility test] until it came back saying, "Yep, it's all great, everything's fine"'

It's over! Prior to dating Tegan, Kyle was in a relationship with Imogen Anthony (right) for eight years

The radio star also recently confirmed he had been given the 'all-clear' after undergoing fertility testing.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia last month, Kyle said: 'I was really nervous [about the fertility test] until it came back saying, "Yep, it's all great, everything's fine".'

'[Tegan] is all good, obviously. She's a young and healthy woman. So it's good to know that everything's fine in that area so it won't interfere with any future plans.'

'[I wasn't thinking about having kids] because I've been work focused. But all my friends have kids and Tegan's family and friends, they've all got little kids. And we're like the only couple at the barbecue that've got no kids, we have the FOMO [fear of missing out],' he said.
Tammin Sursok has detailed her horrific stay in a run down Airbnb rental property.

The actress and her two children arrived at the Melbourne abode in the evening after driving 17 hours from Queensland on a family road trip, only to find that the home was in shambles.

The 38-year-old shared a series of Instagram Stories on Saturday, picturing the dirty, damaged house.

Oh dear: Tammin Sursok has detailed her horrific stay in a run down Airbnb rental property. Pictured with her daughters

'We just went into our Airbnb and it is a complete disaster. It is nine o'clock at night,' the Pretty Little Liars star said in a video clip.

'I'm scared, I don't like it. It's haunted,' the star's daughter Phoenix complained as Tammin tried to soothe her by saying, 'You don't have to be scared. It's not haunted'.

Tammin went on to tell her fans that this had 'never happened' to her before and in the past, Airbnb had been 'amazing'.

Eek: The actress and her children arrived at the Melbourne abode in the evening after driving 17 hours from Queensland on a family road trip, only to find that the home was in shambles

Rough! The 38-year-old shared a series of Instagram Stories on Saturday, picturing the dirty, damaged house

'We just went into our Airbnb and it is a complete disaster. It is nine o'clock at night,' the Pretty Little Liars star said in a video clip

'I'm scared, I don't like it. It's haunted,' the star's daughter Phoenix complained as Tammin tried to soothe her

Later, the former Home and Away star shared video from the hotel the family had fled to in the night, and explained that she had been given a full refund.

'What a s**tshow,' she said from her bed the next morning. 'Airbnb refunded everything, which they should have. Thank goodness.'

'I've never had that experience, I've never had to be refunded for a place I have stayed because normally everything is great. But it was a disaster. When you walked in, it's stunk like black mold. So that ended,' she added.

Refund: Later, the former Home and Away star shared video from the hotel the family had fled to in the night, and explained that she had been given a full refund

Eventually Tammin found a new property to stay at, complete with a bathtub for her kids, after some further issues with an unfriendly renter.

Susan Wheeldon, Airbnb's Country Manager for Australia, told Daily Mail Australia in a statement: 'The Airbnb community is built on trust and our team continues to work diligently to help ensure each stay is a positive experience.

'In addition to adhering to our Community Standards, Hosts must meet standards that include listing cleanliness and accuracy. We require that all listing categorisations, features, and amenities detailed on the listing page at the time of booking accurately reflect those present at the listing from check-in to checkout.

'What a s**tshow,' she said from her bed the next morning. 'Airbnb refunded everything, which they should have. Thank goodness'

'Our authentic review system also helps create trust by allowing people to see what other community members have said about a potential guest, Host or home.'

Tammin, who was for years based in Los Angeles, is currently in Australia for work, and chose to drive from Queensland to her new gig on the soap opera Neighbours, rather than fly due to the rising Covid case numbers.

She and her film producer husband Sean McEwen, 45, have two daughters, Phoenix, eight, and Lennon, two.
Jared Leto expressed his interest in filming a House Of Gucci prequel during an episode of SiriusXM's The Jess Cagle Show.

The 50-year-old performer discussed several topics related to the crime drama feature during the sit-down, and expressed that he wanted costar Al Pacino to return for the potential project.

House Of Gucci premiered in London last November, and the historically-based film has since received primarily mixed reviews from critics.

Looking to the future: Jared Leto expressed his interest in filming a House Of Gucci prequel during an episode of SiriusXM's The Jess Cagle Show

During the interview, Leto spoke highly of his 81-year-old costar, whom he described as 'one of my heroes [and an] absolutely just amazing human being.'

He went on to speak about trying to get the actor's attention on set, and he noted that Pacino initially 'thought I was just kind of an Italian weirdo that was coming, trying to talk to him or get his autograph or something.

The Fight Club actor then recalled that the Donnie Brasco actor, who played Aldo Gucci, eventually recognized who he was and praised him in front of the rest of the film's crew.

'It gave me the faith that, you know, if Al can believe in this guy, then we all can. And it was a boost of confidence early on, and I really just adored working with him,' he said.

Major praise: During the interview, Leto spoke highly of his 81-year-old costar, whom he described as 'one of my heroes [and an] absolutely just amazing human being'

Fond memories: He went on to speak about trying to get the actor's attention on set, and he noted that Pacino initially 'thought I was just kind of an Italian weirdo that was coming, trying to talk to him or get his autograph or something'

Leto, who played Paolo Gucci in the feature, then noted that he wanted to film another feature with Pacino that would be solely focused on the relationship between their characters.

'I'd love to do a prequel to the House Of Gucci. Just The Two Of Us we could call it. Yeah, just the two of us,' he said.

The Requiem For A Dream actor further praised his costar's acting skills and ability to connect with the other cast members.

He described Pacino as 'what you hope to be when you get to that place and that position and in terms of just his openness and his kindness and his willingness to do another take and to dig a little deeper and to talk about the scene.'

Plans: Leto, who played Paolo Gucci in the feature, then noted that he wanted to film another feature with Pacino that would be solely focused on the relationship between their characters

In awe: The Requiem For A Dream actor further praised his costar's acting skills and ability to connect with the other cast members

Leto added that he 'was in heaven with him and with Ridley [Scott]' during the production of the feature.

House Of Gucci was based on Sara Gay Forden's 2001 book he House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed.

The movie was centered on the story of Patrizia Reggiani, who became famous for hiring a hitman to murder her husband and former head of the Gucci fashion house, Maurizio Gucci.

Source material: House Of Gucci was based on Sara Gay Forden's 2001 book he House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed

Also appearing in the star-studded film were performers such as Adam Driver, Lady Gaga and Jeremy Irons, among numerous others.

House Of Gucci previously had its world premiere in London on November 9th, and it was later released theatrically in the United States on November 24th.

The feature currently holds a 63% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, although the site reported that 83% of audiences enjoyed the film.

Many reviewers criticized the uneven tone of the movie, although the performances of its principal cast were singled out for praise.
Bruno Bouchet decided to relive his youth on Sunday.

The radio personality, 35, recreated the famous Nevermind album cover from 1990s grunge band, Nirvana, posting the results to Instagram.

The original features a baby in a pool swimming after an American dollar bill.

Oh dear: Bruno Bouchet (pictured) decided to relive his youth on Sunday. The radio personality, 35, recreated the famous Nevermind album cover from 1990s grunge band, Nirvana, posting the results to Instagram

In his recreation, Bruno stripped naked and dived into some cool blue water, showing off his derriere.

He swam after an Australian $50 bill that was in the water, grabbing it and swimming up to the surface in a further video shared to Instagram Stories.

Bruno is the Managing Director of the King Kyle Group owned by shock jock Kyle Sandilands.

Classic: The original features a baby in a pool swimming after an American dollar bill

Swim fan: In his recreation, Bruno stripped naked and dived into some cool blue water, showing off his derriere

Wet wet wet: He swam after an Australian $50 bill that was in the water, grabbing it and swimming up to the surface in a further video shared to Instagram Stories

The classic 1991 album's artwork has recently been at the centre of controversy.

In January, a judge threw out a lawsuit against Nirvana made by the man who appeared as a naked baby on the cover.

Spencer Elden, 30, who claims he was the victim of child exploitation, has until January 13 to refile.

Pals: Bruno is the Managing Director of the King Kyle Group owned by shock jock Kyle Sandilands (left)

Lawyers for the band's estate  surviving members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic; Courtney Love, Kurt Cobain's widow and executor; and Kirk Weddle, the photographer of the cover image  said Elden had 'spent three decades profiting from his celebrity as the self-anointed 'Nirvana Baby.''

The image was snapped in 1990 at the Pasadena aquatic center when Elden was four months old.

His father Rick was an artist who also rigged special effects for Hollywood, and let his son appear as a model for the band's new album.
He's the British radio personality who fronts Melbourne's number one FM breakfast show on Gold 104.3.

But on Sunday, a visibly disappointed Christian OConnell revealed he's set to miss the start of the radio year this week after testing positive to Covid-19.

The presenter announced the news on Instagram, saying he was 'p****d off' that he would be missing the show on Monday but hopes to be back the following day.

'P****d off and sorry': On Sunday, a visibly disappointed Christian OConnell revealed he's set to miss the start of the radio year this week after testing positive to Covid-19

'Im not going to be quite right to do the show tomorrow morning,' he wrote.

'I'm sorry and p****d off. Seven days in ISO and three days with Covid isn't a fun hang,' he said, before joking: 'Poor little Mr DJ.'

He then said he had been 'banished to the bedroom' to prevent spreading the virus to his wife and two daughters.

'Im banished to bedroom, meals left outside the door. Which is great so the dogs get the chance to tuck in first,' he added.

'Im not even joking, I heard one of the kids scream "the dogs are eating it" to hear my beloved say in between sips of her ice cold rose, Yer dads got Covid, doesnt matter what he gets now."

'I'm sorry and p****d off. Seven days in ISO and three days with Covid isn't a fun hang,' he said, before joking: 'Poor little Mr DJ'

'Marriage folks! Oh, the humanity!'

He then said that Tuesday 'has my name written all over it,'

He added: 'Regular viewers will know the level of tap dancing I do across the airwaves is nothing short of Fred Astaire like. But old mate Fred didnt have work his magic with the "spicy cough".

'Stay vibed friends, your friend in the morning, Christian.'

The presenter hosts the hugely successful Christian OConnell breakfast show, named the #1 FM show ranking show in the ratings last year.

In 2018, Christian was announced as the replacement for Gold FM's breakfast duo Jo and Lehmo.

'Im banished to bedroom, meals left outside the door. Which is great so the dogs get the chance to tuck in first,' he said

At the time, described leaving the United Kingdom for his new role as 'the hardest decision of my life', in an ARN Network statement.

'The chance to move to Melbourne was an opportunity just too good to pass up because, well, who wouldn't want to move to the world's most liveable city?' he stated.

'My family and I chose Melbourne for the lifestyle, comedy and arts culture, and, obviously, the coffee. And the wine. Did I mention the wine?' he continued.

'The decision to leave the UK has been the hardest of my life, but we can't wait to start this new adventure,' he added.
Lisa Wilkinson became visibly emotional as she said a number of kind words about Professor Mary-Louise McLaws on Sunday night's episode of The Project, following her devastating brain tumour diagnosis.

A day earlier, Prof McLaws - who has been working tirelessly with the World Health Organisation (WHO) as an adviser for health emergencies - confirmed the tragic health news on Twitter, after suffering from severe headaches.

Lisa became tearful as she praised the professor at the end of Sunday's episode, thanking her for being 'so generous with her knowledge' following a number of guest appearances on the current affairs show.

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'Heartbroken': The Project host Lisa Wilkinson (left) became visibly emotional as she said a number of kind words about Professor Mary-Louise McLaws (right) on Sunday night, following her devastating brain tumour diagnosis

'This evening we wanted to take a moment to send our love to a very dear friend of the show, epidemiologist Professor Mary-Louise McLaws,' Lisa began.

'Yesterday, Mary-Louise revealed that after suffering a severe headache on Thursday, she was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Understandably, she's taking a month's leave from her roles with the University of New South Wales and WHO to be with her family.'

With tears in her eyes, she continued: 'Mary-Louise, I think it's fair to say that all of us here at The Project were heartbroken to hear the news.

Announcement: Professor Mary-Louise McLaws confirmed the devastating news on Saturday afternoon on Twitter, announcing she will take a month of sick leave from her two roles with the World Health Organisation and University of New South Wales

'In these troubled times, your calm, considered information and advice has been invaluable to millions of Australians across the country.

'We want to thank you so much for being so generous with your knowledge, time and we wish you and your beautiful family all the strength in the world at this difficult time.'

'Just make sure you put that wonderful husband of yours to good work,' she added with a smile.

Comedian Susie Youssef appeared equally as emotional with the news, adding: 'That's beautifully said, Lisa, and we all send our love.

'This show is lucky to have extraordinary guests and experts, and we're so grateful - and during a time where we needed a voice of reason and a beautiful sense of humour. We will forever be indebted to you, we love you so much.'

Shocked: Comedian Susie Youssef appeared equally as emotional with the news, adding: 'That's beautifully said, Lisa, and we all send our love'

Tragic: Prof McLaws revealed her diagnosis on Twitter, writing: 'Thank you media for helping me spread knowledge. Now it is time with my family. Best wishes to you all'

Jan Fran added: 'Could not have said that better myself, and look forward to having you back on the show in no time.'

Professor Mary-Louise McLaws confirmed the devastating news on Saturday afternoon on Twitter, before announcing she will take a month of sick leave from her two roles with the World Health Organisation and University of New South Wales.

'Thank you media for helping me spread knowledge. Now it is time with my family. Best wishes to you all,' she wrote in the message.

During the pandemic, Prof McLaws has been working with the WHO as an adviser for health emergencies, playing a key role in the prevention and control response to Covid-19.

Prof McLaws has also been a regular on TV screens since 2020 for her expert health advice and has often called out the government for what she perceives as 'poor handling' of the pandemic.

In recent weeks she said the refusal to widely distribute free rapid antigen tests across Australia was a clear example why the government's 'outbreak management has failed.'
Hollyoaks star Nikki Sanderson is dating former Emmerdale actor Anthony Quinlan, according to reports.

The pair are said to have struck up a romance last year following 37-year-old Nikki's split from ex Greg Whitehurst in 2020 and her relationship with Anthony, also 37, has since 'gone from strength to strength'.

The Sun reports: 'Nikki and Anthony go to the same gym and are really into fitness, so they bonded over that.

New flame: Hollyoaks star Nikki Sanderson, 37, is dating former Emmerdale actor Anthony Quinlan, also 37, according to reports (pictured in 2015)

Going strong: The pair are said to have struck up a romance last year and their romance has since 'gone from strength to strength' (pictured in 2018)

A source added to the paper: 'It's been a while now and things are going well.

'Nikki has been having a bit of a tough time lately, and Anthony has been a great support for her.'

MailOnline has contacted both Nikki and Anthony's representatives for comment.

Nikki and her ex Greg went their separate ways in July 2020 after five years together, while Anthony's exes include Michelle Keegan, who he split from in 2008, and Strictly's Dianne Buswell, who Anthony dated from 2017 to 2018.

Parting ways: Nikki and Greg Whitehurst (pictured) split while in lockdown after five years together

Speaking about their split to the Daily Star in 2018, Anthony said: 'We're still really good friends - it's just distance played a part.

'There were all these rumours about the Strictly curse but it wasn't that.'

Nikki broke the news of her and Greg's split to The Sun in 2020 and said they have remained friends, though the publication claimed he has since joined dating app Bumble.

Explaining what happened, she revealed: 'Sadly Greg and I have decided to separate. We remain friends and wish the best for each other in the future.'

Her relationship with Greg got off to a controversial start, as she started dating him in 2015, just ten months after she attended his wedding as a guest.

In an interview with OK! Magazine in 2015, Nikki said of their romance: '[Greg's] been blamed for something he didn't do in reality there was a third party who split them up on the other side.

'It ended through no fault of Greg's. People say, ''Well, I wouldn't want to be her mate because she'd steal my boyfriend.'' I'd never do anything like that.'

Romance: Nikki's relationship with Greg got off to a controversial start, as she started dating him in 2015 just ten months after she attended his wedding as a guest

She previously confirmed in a statement to MailOnline that they got together not long after his split from Sarah.

'I have known Greg and his family for many years. Greg's marriage ended in January, it was a very difficult time for him during which all of his friends and family supported him,' Nikki explained.

Nikki has played Maxine Minniver in Hollyoaks since 2012 and has proved her acting prowess as she received nominations for the Best Actress award at the British Soap Awards 2014 and 2015.

The actress also appeared in Coronation Street from 1999 to 2005, where she played Candice Stowe over 397 episodes.
Laura Dundovic has made a living off her striking model looks and incredible figure.

And on Saturday, the 34-year-old proved just how good her skills were by staging an impromptu photo shoot in front of a 7-Eleven petrol station in a very racy outfit.

Posting to her Instagram, the former Miss Universe Australia posed for a series of snaps showcasing her enviable physique.

Strike a pose! On Saturday, Laura Dundovic proved just how good her modelling skills were by staging an impromptu photo shoot in front of a 7-Eleven petrol station

The tall stunner ensured all eyes were on her as she modelled a midi-skirt which was split at the thigh and held together at the hips by an intricate cut-out design.

Meanwhile, the crop-top left little to the imagination as she flaunted her impressive abs and cleavage in a plunging neckline.

The blonde beauty wore her locks freshly blowdried, added a touch of bronzer to her cheeks and donned a brown lipstick for her night out.

Abs-olutely impressive! Posting to her Instagram, the former Miss Universe Australia posed for a series of snaps showcasing her enviable physique

Don't move an inch! The tall stunner ensured all eyes were on her as she modelled a midi-skirt which was split at the thigh and held together at the hips by an intricate cut-out design

Bronzed goddess: The blonde beauty wore her locks freshly blowdried, added a touch of bronzer to her cheeks and donned a brown lipstick for her night out

Laura keeps fit by working out with celebrity personal trainers from Acero gym.

Her regimen includes a mix of weight-training and Pilates.

Back in July, Laura said she had been focusing on her mental health during the down time.

She said last year's lockdown had inspired her to develop a 'better relationship' with herself.

How she does it: Laura keeps fit by working out with celebrity personal trainers from Acero gym

'It was one of those moments when you realise that everything can be taken from you,' Laura told Stellar magazine of being stuck at home.

'So you've got to have a good relationship with yourself at the end of the day, to be able to cope with all that change,' she added.

She explained that writing a daily checklist helped her while in lockdown.
Joe Gilgan appeared to shrug off recent allegations of on set improprieties as he returned to the Lancashire set of Brassic on Sunday.

The actor, 37, is accused of making an offensive comment to a pregnant woman's unborn child on the set of the Sky One series, according to The Sun.

But Gilgun, known for roles Emmerdale and Coronation Street, was in an upbeat mood while joking security guards on location.

All smiles: Joe Gilgun looked in high spirits as he larked around during Brassic filming in Lancashire on Sunday - after he was accused of 'making an offensive comment to pregnant woman's unborn child' on set

Dressed in comfortable attire - a plaid hoodie, grey joggers and Nike trainers - the TV star looked in his element as he embraced crew members, fist bumped them and stopped to chat.

The Vinnie O'Neill actor was also spotted in a waterproof jacket, carrying a box where which the contents were not visible.

On Saturday, it was said that northerner allegedly made an inappropriate comment on the set of Brassic when the pregnant make-up artist asked him to stop smoking marijuana around her.

Having fun: It seemed as though the actor, 37, was averting his attention away from the reports as he joked with security on location

Location: The Vinnie O'Neill actor was also spotted in a waterproof jacket, carrying a large box

Comfortable: He looked in his element as he embraced crew members, fist bumped them and stopped to chat

Bond: Joe was dressed in comfortable attire - a plaid hoodie, grey joggers and Nike trainers

Former soap star: The actor is also known for his roles as Eli Dingle in Emmerdale and Jamie Armstrong in Coronation Street

The star, who has Biopolar Disorder, reportedly replied to the crew member with a remark about her unborn child, which caused an uproar on set.

It is unclear whether it was the pregnant woman who filed the complaint about the comment.

A source told the publication: 'Cast and crew reacted with fury. They simply cant comprehend why Joe could be so cruel. Its totally ruined what has always been a great rapport.

'The make-up artist was hugely upset and people have rallied round her for support. It caused a lot of misery for those involved in the show. They have to finish the fourth series, but its been hugely overshadowed by this.'

Accusation: On Saturday, it was said that northerner allegedly made an inappropriate comment on the set of Brassic when the pregnant make-up artist asked him to stop smoking marijuana around her

Oh dear: The star, who has biopolar disorder, reportedly replied to the crew member with a remark about her unborn child, which caused an uproar on set

Shame: A source told The Sun: 'Cast and crew reacted with fury. They simply cant comprehend why Joe could be so cruel. Its totally ruined what has always been a great rapport'

Dynamic: 'They have to finish the fourth series, but its been hugely overshadowed by this' the source added

Oh no: Michelle Keegan (pictured) who stars alongside Joe on the Sky Comedy, was not believed to be present at the time the comment was made

A Sky TV source told The Sun: 'We take all allegations of inappropriate behaviour extremely seriously and we have a robust process in place for handling any allegations.'

Michelle Keegan, who stars alongside Joe on the Sky Comedy, was not believed to be present at the time the comment was made.

MailOnline has contacted representatives for Joe and Sky for further comment.

Joe has previously spoken about how he uses medical marijuana.

Honest: Speaking in 2019, Joe said: 'I use medical marijuana to sort of regulate my moods. A big part of bipolar that isnt spoken about is the shifting mood'

Speaking in 2019, he said: 'I use medical marijuana to sort of regulate my moods. A big part of bipolar that isnt spoken about is the shifting mood.

'Its not necessarily someone who is very depressed and then theyre hyperactive  theres also a lot of stress involved because you have little to no control over the way you feel.'

Brassic is a Sky original comedy series and follows Vinnie and his friends causing havoc in the town of Hawley as they commit petty crimes.

The series also stars Damien Molony and Ryan Sampson and features a predominantly male cast - something Michelle has previously said she has 'no issues' with as she is the 'blokiest one' on set.
A yellow cab fatally struck a man trying to cross the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, cops said Sunday.

The 69-year-old victim was attempting to walk across the highway near Broadways exit 40 in Woodside, Queens, when he was hit in the eastbound lanes about 6:45 p.m. Saturday, cops said. The impact cracked the cabs windshield.

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NYPD Highway Patrol officers investigate the scene where a pedestrian was fatally struck on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. (Jeff Bachner/for New York Daily News)

Medics rushed the victim to Elmhurst Hospital but he couldnt be saved. His name was not immediately released.

Cops were not sure what led him to attempt to cross the busy roadway.

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A taxicab with a shattered windshield remains at the scene of a fatal crash on the eastbound Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. (Jeff Bachner/for New York Daily News)

The 53-year-old cabbie remained at the scene and faced no immediate charges. He suffered minor injuries.
Kyle MacLachlan stormed the runway at Prada's men's fashion show in Milan on Sunday.

The Twin Peaks star, 62, was joined on the catwalk by Jeff Goldblum, 69, and both cut dapper figures in smart looks from the luxury designer's winter collection.

Kyle was styled in sky-blue satin trousers and matching gloves layered beneath a shin-skimming black coat, while Jeff wore a timeless all-black look.

Runway stars: Kyle MacLachlan, 62, stormed the runway at Prada's men's fashion show in Milan on Sunday alongside Jeff Goldblum, 69

Looking good: Kyle was styled in sky-blue satin trousers and matching gloves layered beneath a shin-skimming black coat

Other famous faces taking to the runway included Sex Education's Asa Butterfield and Maze Runner's Thomas Brodie-Sangster.

Asa, 24, looked sharp in a tailored navy suit and matching trousers while Thomas, 31, was kitted out in satin trousers and a high-neck top.

The A-list models walked single file down a dimly-lit runway illuminated by a strip of yellow lighting.

While the four actors were dressed head-to-toe in subdued looks, other models stepped onto the catwalk in bright colours including orange trousers and pink leather coats.

Jeff was later spotted looking in very good spirits as he stepped out at Palazzo Parigi during the fashion event.

Timeless: Jeff wore a timeless all-black look and his coat boasted faux fur-trimming along the hem

Screen to runway: Kyle effortlessly took to his latest role on the runway (pictured left as agent Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks in 1990)

He protected himself from Covid-19 by wearing a white face mask, before pulling it down and flashing a smile.

It's not the first time Kyle has made a surprise appearance at an event recently, with the actor also unexpectedly popping up at the red carpet premiere of Dune in Queensland after famously starring as the lead role in the 1984 original film.

The actor was all smiles as he posed for the camera in front of the poster for the new movie.

Kyle had been in Queensland, Australia filming the upcoming Joe Exotic TV series, which is based on the 2020 Netflix documentary miniseries Tiger King.

Star-studded: Other famous faces taking to the runway included Sex Education's Asa Butterfield who looked sharp in a tailored navy suit and matching trousers

Smart: Maze Runner's Thomas Brodie-Sangster, 31, looked as smart as ever as he stormed down the runway with a determined look on his face

Happy: Jeff was later spotted looking in very good spirits as he stepped out at Palazzo Parigi during the fashion event

Protection: He protected himself from Covid-19 by wearing a white face mask

Fun: He then pulled the mask down to flash a smile to onlookers

Stylish: Jeff wore a black Prada jacket which had a simple silver zip down the front

Colourful: While the four actors were dressed head-to-toe in subdued looks, other models stepped into the catwalk in bright colours including orange trousers and pink coats

Bold: One model was rocking a pair of bright orange bottoms teamed with a luxury grey jumper

He is playing Howard Baskin, the husband of Carole Baskin who owns Big Cat Rescue and was a significant star in the documentary.

Meanwhile, Jeff was last seen at a public event in December when he helped welcome a brand new Manhattan attraction by lighting the torch for a Statue of Liberty replica.

The actor was on hand at RiseNY, a new attraction that gives viewers a virtual tour of some of New York City's most famous sites.

The actor was all smiles at the festive ceremony, with the grand opening having taken place on January 12, 2022.

Watch the iconic series Twin Peaks, on Stan in Australia.

He's back! It's not the first time Kyle has made a surprise appearance at an event recently, with the actor also unexpectedly popping up at the red carpet premiere of Dune in Queensland
Greg Shepherd has revealed he has undergone a hair transplant after noticing he was going bald when he shaved his head for charity recently.

The Family Diaries star, 36, has shared the dramatic results of his procedure after having the transplant at a clinic favoured by celebrities, KSL Clinic.

The reality personality first sparked speculation he had received a hair transplant when his wife Billie, 32, shared a picture of him on her Instagram last week.

Treatment: Greg Shepherd has revealed he has undergone a hair transplant after noticing he was going bald when he shaved his head for charity recently (pictured recently)

Greg has now confirmed he had the procedure and joked that he didn't want to look like his father who is balding.

In a video, Greg says: 'I looked at my father who is bald completely here and thought you do not want to look like your dad! So I've come to KSL to save me from that.'

Greg attended the Kent branch of the clinic for a consultation with Surgical Director, Dr Matee Rajput, where he was accompanied by wife Billie.

Before: The Family Diaries star, 36, has shared the dramatic results of his procedure after having the transplant at a clinic favoured by celebrities, KSL Clinic

Looking good: Greg has now confirmed he had the procedure and joked that he didn't want to look like his father who is balding

Greg said his hair concerns stemmed from shaving his head for a charity event in 2019 where he raised an astonishing 42,000.

He said: 'I recently had to shave my head for a charity event, and realised I was going bald. It took a lot longer for the hair on the top of my head to grow back!'

Some of Billie's previous TOWIE co-stars have also visited KSL Clinic for treatment, this includes James Lock and newcomer Love Island winner, Jack Fincham.

Consultation: Greg attended the Kent branch of the clinic for a consultation with Surgical Director, Dr Matee Rajput, where he was accompanied by wife Billie

Pictured! Greg said his hair concerns stemmed from shaving his head for a charity event in 2019 where he raised an astonishing 42,000 (pictured with Dr Matee Rajput)

Greg joked that he may even 'grow a ponytail' since he has the option to now.

The video ends with Greg smiling at the camera and says: 'In a few months I'm going to have a full head of hair'.

Greg's hair transplant will be documented on the upcoming series of the The Family Diaries

He said: 'I recently had to shave my head for a charity event, and realised I was going bald. It took a lot longer for the hair on the top of my head to grow back!'

Popular: Some of Billie's previous TOWIE co-stars have also visited KSL Clinic for treatment, this includes James Lock and newcomer Love Island winner, Jack Fincham

Greg sparked speculation he has had a hair transplant as eagle-eyed fans spotted he is sporting a new buzz cut in her 32nd birthday post.

The businessma, usually has a head of dark locks, but in the family shot he looked very different with the new look as the couple and their two children posed in bed.

Followers of the reality star took to the comments section of the post to speculate about Greg's new hair.

New look: Greg sparked speculation he has had a hair transplant as eagle-eyed fans spotted he is sporting a new buzz cut in her 32nd birthday post

One wrote: 'Happy birthday have a fab day XXX did Greg get a hair transplant?' [sic]

To which another follower replied: 'I thought that to. Good on him, they look fab if the procedure work.' [sic] Another typed: 'Has Greg had a hair transplant?'

MailOnline has contacted Greg's representatives for comment.

The treatment is very popular in men, and is considered a permanent fix to balding or thinning hair.

Looking good: The businessman usually has a head of brown locks on top of his head (pictured, left) but in the family shot (pictured, right) he looked very different

Questions: Followers of the reality star took to the comments section of the post to speculate about the stars new hair

A hair transplant in the UK can cost anywhere between 1,000 and 30,000, depending on the extent of hair loss.

Elsewhere in the post, Billie looked very glam as she posed in front of helium '32' balloons.

The star showed off the sensational curves in a white dress which boasted a high neck and short sleeves.

She elevated her height with gold high heels, and accessorised with a Fendi baguette bag.

Getting into the birthday spirit, she held a glass of pink bubbly in her hand.

The couple started dating in 2011 before tying the knot in 2019 and share two children together, a seven-year-old daughter Nelly and a son, Arthur aged four.
She kicked off the New Year by announcing that she was expecting her first child with her husband, Alex, 30.

And expectant mother Olivia Bowen, 28, looked incredible as she showcased her blossoming baby bump in a blue midi dress for a four weeks to now pregnancy video.

The former Love Island star took to Instagram on Sunday to post a reel and penned the caption: 'Four weeks pregnant to a lot more pregnant. Late birthday celebrations.'

Pregnancy glow: Expectant mother Olivia Bowen, 28, looked incredible as she showcased her blossoming baby bump in a blue midi dress for a four weeks to now pregnancy video

The video initially shows Olivia dancing in her living room to Its Ya Birthday in a black cropped hoodie and grey leggings at four weeks pregnant.

Olivia can be seen wearing her blonde locks swept back from her face and completes her look with a plum lipstick.

It then cuts to Olivia 'a lot more pregnant' today in a long sleeved and square necked dress as she cradles her belly on a staircase landing.

Time-lapse: The former Love Island star took to Instagram on Sunday to post a reel and penned the caption: 'Four weeks pregnant to a lot more pregnant. Late birthday celebrations'

Party: It then cuts to Olivia 'a lot more pregnant' today in a long sleeved and square necked dress as she cradles her belly on a staircase landing

She accentuates her ample assets as she bends over in front of the camera with a full face of makeup and her hair down.

Olivia took to Instagram last Saturday to share the news that she is expecting.

Her New Year's Day post showed a series of instant photos and a pair of booties alongside the caption: 'Happy New Baby Bowen', before Alex then shared the same post and penned: 'This year we get to meet Baby Bowen'.

Busty: Olivia accentuates her ample assets as she bends over in front of the camera with a full face of make up and her hair down

The trio of images included a shot of Alex kissing his wife's stomach, a selfie showing them holding the booties and a baby grow alongside sonogram pictures.

Olivia and Alex, formerly a sales executive and scaffolder respectively, soared to fame in 2016 when they appeared on the ITV2 reality show, where she was an original star and he, a late and extremely popular entrant.

After leaving the villa their romance soon when from strength to strength and Alex popped the question in New York in 2016.

Loved-up couple Olivia and Alex tied the knot in a luxurious Essex ceremony two years after meeting on Love Island during series two.

Baby news: She recently revealed that her baby is due sometime this summer, with a selfie of herself and Alex
Emily Ratajkowski sent temperatures soaring as she made her return to social media following a three-week absence.

On Sunday, the 30-year-old model shared two sizzling snaps with her 28.8 million Instagram followers in which she donned a skimpy metallic top.

'Twenty twenty too,' the Gone Girl star captioned her first post of the new year.

Sultry: On Sunday, Emily Ratajkowski shared two sizzling snaps with her 28.8 million Instagram followers in which she donned a skimpy metallic top

Emily showed off her ample cleavage in the silver mesh top, which featured a strappy open back and a long fringe front that hung to her ankles.

She paired the top with loose-fitting black trousers that she wore low on her hips.

The music video vixen accessorized with a silver bracelet and several rings including her engagement and wedding rings.

She's back! 'Twenty twenty too,' the Gone Girl star captioned her first post of the new year after taking time off from Instagram

Red hot: She sent temperatures soaring as she posted a cheeky photo of herself sunbathing in a bright red bikini

The brunette beauty rocked a 70s-style shag haircut with bangs to complete her disco-inspired look.

In the first photo that Emily shared, she was seen holding up her iPhone to take a mirror selfie in front of a door while holding a silver clutch purse.

She leaned over a bathroom sink and gave the camera a sultry stare in the second snap.

The catwalk queen wore dramatic winged black eyeliner and accentuated her pout with a nude lipstick.

Emily also shared photos to her Instagram Story, including a cheeky bikini shot.

The bombshell was seen in a bright red ruched string bikini as she lay facedown in the sand.

Ratajkowski also posted several throwback images of her engagement ring.

On February 23, 2018, the runway star surprised her followers when she revealed on Instagram that she had married Uncut Gems producer Sebastian Bear-Mclard after a few weeks of dating.

Throwback: Ratajkowski also posted several throwback images of her engagement ring

Surprise wedding: On February 23, 2018, the runway star surprised her followers when she revealed on Instagram that she had married Uncut Gems producer Sebastian Bear-Mclard after a few weeks of dating

Married: The pair tied the knot at a New York courthouse

Stunning: In July of 2018, Emily debuted her engagement ring, which featured a two-carat princess-cut diamond and a three-carat pear-shaped diamond on a gold band

The pair tied the knot at a New York courthouse. Emily later appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and told the host, 'He proposed to me at Minetta Tavern. He didn't have a ring, so I said, hmm, nah.'

'Then he took the paperclip that the bill was paid with and made me a ring, which I thought was really romantic.'

She went on to describe how the couple bought gold for their wedding bands in Chinatown.

Cute: The star also shared a snap in which Sly was seen smiling as he crawled on the floor next to a pile of wrapped packages embossed with the Versace logo

'In Chinatown, we bought an ounce of gold and decided to melt down the gold to make the rings. I said, I don't think we can melt down gold, like that just seems kind of difficult,' Emily told Jimmy.

'But then, he found a store in Midtown and found a man who melted down rings and hammered them out, using a blowtorch. They were meant to be temporary, but now I'm attached and I really don't want to get rid of it.'

In July of 2018, Emily debuted her engagement ring, which featured a two-carat princess-cut diamond and a three-carat pear-shaped diamond on a gold band.

The I Feel Pretty actress told Vogue that she and Sebastian designed the ring together after going over more than fifty sketches.

Emily said that Sebastian was familiar with the diamond industry due to his work on Uncut Gems. She added that the two 'employed her friend Alison Chemla, the jewelry designer behind Alison Lou, to help with finding the right setting.'

On Sunday, she shared a photo of the diamonds time-stamped 'April 27, 2018.' She also posted an image in which she showed off the completed ring with the diamonds in their setting.

Toned: In another photo that she shared, the treats! magazine cover star bared her toned midriff in a black crop top under a black jacket with low-rise green cargo pants as she visited a museum with Sly

The snap was time-stamped July 11, 2018. The model shared a selfie in which she was seen modeling with ring and a photo of her hand with Sebastian in the background.

Emily and Sebastian welcomed their first child Sylvester on March 8, 2021.

The star also shared a snap in which Sly was seen smiling as he crawled on the floor next to a pile of wrapped packages embossed with the Versace logo.

She wrote: '36 hours in Milan and get to return home with these! I adore you @donatella_versace.'

Museum trip: Emily also added a photo of a painting at the museum

In another photo that she shared, the Treats! magazine cover star bared her toned midriff in a black crop top under a black jacket with low-rise green cargo pants as she visited a museum with Sly.

The infant was clad in a yellow beanie, a beige sweater and black pants as he sat in a stroller next to her mother.

Emily explained her social media absence, writing, 'been off IG enjoying being a mama & working.

She continued, 'sorry for nay missed messages etc.' and added 'highly recommend - very nice to check the f*** out.'

Emily also added a photo of a painting at the museum.

The star concluded with a photo of her 2021 memoir My Body on the Amazon website, writing, 'Also wow, the reactions I've received to the book have been beyond. Thank you.

'Now back to writing more + making things.'
She is enjoying a charmed upbringing on the grounds of Australia Zoo.

And Grace Warrior, the granddaughter of late conservationist Steve 'The Crocodile Hunter' Irwin, certainly seems to have an affinity for native wildlife.

The nine-month-old looked perfectly calm on Sunday while surrounded by a mob of kangaroos at the Sunshine Coast animal park.

Cute: Grace Warrior, the granddaughter of late conservationist Steve Irwin, looked perfectly calm on Sunday while surrounded by kangaroos at Australia Zoo, on the Sunshine Coast

'Grace's morning meetings look like this,' her proud parents, Bindi Irwin and Chandler Powell, wrote on Instagram.

Bindi, 23, and Chandler, 25, are enjoying every minute with their daughter Grace since welcoming her last March.

And the new parents shared a cute video to Instagram last Wednesday of their lively little girl trying to help them take a selfie.

The curious child kept waving her hand and poking the phone as she attempted to reach the button to take a photo.

Baby bubble: Bindi, 23, and Chandler, 25, are enjoying every minute with their daughter Grace since welcoming her last March

Cheeky! The new parents shared a cute video to Instagram on Wednesday of their nine-month-old daughter Grace trying to help them take a selfie

After Grace successfully got the shot, she looked quite pleased with herself as she cheekily smiled with her tongue out.

Bindi wrote in the caption: 'Grace poking the camera whenever we try to take a picture is my new favourite thing.'

Chandler commented: 'Grace is the cutest thing on this planet.'

Budding photographer: The curious little girl kept waving her hand and poking the phone as she attempted to reach the button to take a photo

The family video comes after Chandler, a former professional wakeboarder from Florida, shared a throwback photo from their pre-pandemic trip to Scotland.

The young lovebirds cuddled up together on a rock for the photo, which featured the picturesque backdrop of a lake and the Scottish Highlands.

'#Flashback to Scotland. @bindisueirwin and I were recently engaged at this point in time,' he wrote in the caption.

Memories: The family video comes after Chandler, a former professional wakeboarder from Florida, shared a throwback photo from their pre-pandemic trip to Scotland

How it all began: Bindi and Chandler first met in 2013, when the young American went on a guided tour of Australia Zoo in Queensland

'Just over two years ago, who knew how much can change in that time! Grateful to have each other through every chapter,' he added.

Bindi and Chandler first met in 2013, when the young American went on a guided tour of Australia Zoo on Queensland's Sunshine Coast.

After getting engaged in July 2019, the couple tied the knot in a pre-lockdown ceremony at Australia Zoo on March 25, 2020.

Exactly one year later, the pair welcomed their first child, daughter Grace Warrior.
Betty White: A Celebration, a movie special celebrating the life of Betty White, will feature the beloved star's final on-screen appearance.

Producers Steve Boettcher and Mike Trinklein told The Hollywood Reporter that the special, which will debut in theaters for one day only on January 17, includes an interview that the Golden Girls star gave 11 days before her death.

'Betty shot a tribute to her fans on Dec. 20, which will be in the film,' Boettcher told the media outlet.

Her words: Betty White: A Celebration, a movie special celebrating the life of Betty White, will feature the beloved star's final on-screen appearance; seen in 2005

He continued, 'It was her idea to do this. She said, I want my fans to know this.'

'Weve been asked to share it. Weve been asked to put it on social media. The only place we thought was right was putting it in the film and sharing it with her friends, family and fans who are going to be there.'

The comedy legend passed away on December 31, 2021 due to natural causes.

Tribute: Producers Steve Boettcher and Mike Trinklein told The Hollywood Reporter that special, which will debut in theaters for one day only on January 17, includes an interview that the Golden Girls star gave 11 days before her death.

Boettcher and Trinklein shared details about her final interview, which they say she 'ad-libbed' without a script or teleprompter.

'It was Dec. 20, in her home. Betty loved getting glammed up, as she called it,' Boettcher said.

'The dress, the hair, the look  she just loved that. Its probably about a minute or two long clip of just her looking directly in the camera as the graciously fun, warm Betty.'

He continued, 'She thanks all her fans over the years and for being out on the 17th to see the film. Its just got that twinkle thats Betty. The great thing about it is that she didnt read it off the teleprompter or have a script.

'She ad-libbed it, and thats Betty to the very end. Shes spontaneous and has the wherewithal to go with it and do it live. She was so good at that. You cant watch it for the first time and help but get goosebumps when you hear her. Its just very, very sweet.'

Icon: Boettcher and Trinklein shared details about her final interview, which they say she 'ad-libbed' without a script or teleprompter. Seen in 2010

While Betty did not actively work on the special, the producers said she provided them with a list of 'near and dear' people that she said would be 'perfect' for them to interview.

Ryan Reynolds, Valerie Bertinelli, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Carol Burnett and Georgia Engel were among the stars that Betty included on the list.

'The list goes on,' Boettcher said. 'All these people were really close to Betty.

'We thought that instead of just doing people she met at an awards banquet one time, wed find people who were close to her life.'

Near and dear: Ryan Reynolds (pictured here with Betty in 2010), Valerie Bertinelli, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Carol Burnett and Georgia Engel were among the stars that Betty recommended for interviews

The filmmakers told THR that they also sought interviews from past and present members of her team, including her executive assistant and first agent from her days on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

'Everyone we asked to participate and be interviewed agreed,' Trinklein added. 'No one gave it a second thought. Everyone was very gracious  when they heard about the project and Bettys support for the project, they quickly wanted to be a part of it.'

The movie will also feature clips from the TV icon's dramatic roles and early career including a lost episode of the 1957 sitcom Date with the Angels starring a young Betty.

Early days: The movie will also feature clips from the TV icon's dramatic roles and early career including a lost episode of the 1957 sitcom Date with the Angels starring a young Betty. Seen in 1957

Boettcher and Trinklein explained how they made adjustments to the film, originally titled Betty White: 100 Years Young  A Birthday Celebration, after the star's sudden passing just shy of turning 100.

'The film was already done and distributed to theaters, and we pulled it back,' Boettcher said. 'The first thing we did was sit down and talk with our team and Bettys team  should we just cancel?

'Bettys team pushed us on, like, No, she would want this. Go forward. Go with this. So that was the big decision that had been made that weekend. Then on Monday, we just started reshaping the film to reflect the news that had happened.

'But we still kept that tone of celebration and everything Betty would want to do with it. We also retitled the film.'

Changes: Boettcher and Trinklein explained how they made adjustments to the film, originally titled Betty White: 100 Years Young  A Birthday Celebration, after the star's sudden passing just shy of turning 100. Seen in 1987

He continued, 'The original beginning of the film was A-list stars wishing Betty a happy birthday and jointly singing 'Happy Birthday.'

'We had to scrap all the A-list stars. It was like a five to seven-minute-long sequence. We had interview clips that we put in there that we had done that was, "Someday Betty will pass. What are your thoughts when that happens?"

'Then Bettys important message to her fans is what the film starts with. That was the crowning jewel at the beginning of the film.'

The producers weighed in the film potentially providing Betty's final word to her friends and fans.

Boettcher said, 'We humbly sit in this seat of privilege to be able to do this project and have the breadth of the majority of her career, really, that shes given us and shared with us.

'I think the film radiates Bettys heart, humor, and happiness. You cant help but smile when you hear her name or see her on-screen. As we all know, Bettys kind of a rascal, a troublemaker. I remember going places with her filming, and she would always say, Oh, heres Steven and Mike. Theyve been embedded with me for the last 10 years. Then she would wink-wink. It was always her way of being playful and fun, and I think the film reflects that.'

Legacy: The producers weighed in the film potentially providing Betty's final word to her friends and fans. Pictured in 2012

Trinklein added, 'On one hand, I want to say were not the final word because the final word plays out every single day when you can enjoy her work on various television shows.

'At the same time, it is sort of the final encapsulation that she participated in. As Steve mentioned, she was part of the process for a long time, so it is a lot of responsibility.

'But I think we handle that. Yes, theres a tribute at the beginning, and everyone takes that somber moment to reflect, but then we kick back into what Betty would have wanted, which is the fun and joy and spontaneity of her life. I feel really good. This is a celebration of what she really was about.'
Glenn Maxwell's allround genius and Joe Clarke's outstanding strokemaking have powered the Melbourne Stars to a comprehensive eight-wicket BBL dismantling of the Brisbane Heat at the MCG.

In keeping their finals hopes alive, the sixth-placed Stars blasted past the Heat's modest 6-149 with 37 balls to spare on Sunday night.

The win moved them to within two points of the Adelaide Strikers (fourth) and Hobart Hurricanes (fifth).

Clarke (63) and Maxwell (37) crunched 104 for the first wicket before Marcus Stoinis (29no) and Hilton Cartwright (16no) went on a power-hitting spree at the finish to consign the embattled Heat to their fourth successive defeat.

'It's my job to get off to a quick start and then once I get in, it's up to Joe to carry that on,' Maxwell said.

'We were both pretty cooked after having COVID in the last few weeks and we ran out of steam a little bit (towards the end).

'The way Stoinis and Cartwright finished it off was brilliant and shows our power in the middle.

'It (win) keeps us alive, just ... we've still got a pulse.'

Maxwell predominantly played second fiddle with the bat as Englishman Clarke dominated the powerplay and became the first player to notch five half-centuries this season.

They succumbed in quick succession as the Stars took an early power surge in a bid to improve their net run rate but Stoinis and Cartwright kept the Stars' foot on the Heat's throat.

The pair thumped five sixes between them from the combined 17 deliveries they faced.

Earlier, Maxwell snared 2-19 from four overs before taking a candidate for catch of the summer.

The Stars captain backpedalled from within the fielding circle, leapt high and snaffled Sam Heazlett's attempted shovel of Nathan Coulter-Nile with a magnificent left-handed catch at full extension.

After completing the catch, Maxwell put his hand over his mouth in disbelief.

Maxwell introduced himself into the attack after Brisbane bossed the powerplay and struck immediate gold, when Chris Lynn (28), in his 100th match, tried to take down the Stars skipper but only succeeded in miscuing a high catch to Coulter-Nile.

Import Ben Duckett (51) was watchful early before teeing off during the power surge after the Heat had stalled mid-innings.

Duckett was bowled by legspinner Adam Zampa (2-20) when he missed a reverse sweep as the Stars continued to go from strength to strength.
Two-time Oscar-winning filmmaker Ben Affleck held hands with his son Samuel while spending quality time together at the Brentwood Farmers' Market on Saturday.

The Berkeley-born, Cambridge-raised 49-year-old loaded up on oranges and other produce as well as a healthy juice during their family outing.

At one point, Ben pulled down his protective face mask in order to indulge in a flaky, buttery croissant.

Bonding: Two-time Oscar-winning filmmaker Ben Affleck held hands with his son Samuel while spending quality time together at the Brentwood Farmers' Market on Saturday

Affleck and his ex-wife Jennifer Garner will celebrate the 10th birthday of their youngest child on February 27.

The Daredevil castmates are also parents of two teenage daughters - 16-year-old Violet and 13-year-old Seraphina - from their decade-long marriage, which ended in 2018.

On December 14, Ben made headlines for saying he felt 'trapped' while married to Jennifer and wouldn't have gotten sober had he stayed.

'We probably would've ended up at each other's throats. I probably still would've been drinking,' Affleck lamented on The Howard Stern Show.

Sammy's turning 10 next month! The Berkeley-born, Cambridge-raised 49-year-old loaded up on oranges and other produce as well as a healthy juice during their family outing

No fear of carbs: At one point, Ben pulled down his protective face mask in order to indulge in a flaky, buttery croissant

'Part of why I started drinking was because I was trapped. I was like, "I can't leave because of my kids, but I'm not happy, what do I do?" And what I did was [I] drank a bottle of scotch and fell asleep on the couch, which turned out not to be the solution.

'Ultimately, we tried, we tried, we tried because we had kids, but both of us felt like we didn't want this to be the model that our kids see of marriage.'

They've both moved on. The five-time Emmy nominee rekindled his romance with ex-fiancee Jennifer Lopez while Garner is rumored to be engaged to her on/off boyfriend since 2018, John Miller.

Ben and the Bronx-born 52-year-old - who first dated between 2002-2004 - began texting each other again in February and made their relationship public in late April.

Amicable exes: Affleck and his ex-wife Jennifer Garner (L, pictured December 9) are also parents of two teenage daughters - 16-year-old Violet and 13-year-old Seraphina - from their decade-long marriage, which ended in 2018

'I was trapped': On December 14, the five-time Emmy nominee made headlines for saying he felt 'trapped' while married to Jennifer and wouldn't have gotten sober had he stayed

'Bennifer' is back! Ben rekindled his romance with ex-fiancee Jennifer Lopez (R, pictured December 15) in February after initially dating between 2002-2004

Affleck and his ex-girlfriend Ana de Armas are both 'relieved' Adrian Lyne's erotic thriller Deep Water will stream on Hulu later this year after the January 14 theatrical release was canceled.

'They play a married couple, so would probably face questions about their relationship,' an insider told OK! on Saturday.

'They won't have to hobnob on the red carpet or worry about bringing their current partners with them!'

'They won't have to hobnob on the red carpet': Affleck and his ex-girlfriend Ana de Armas are both 'relieved' Adrian Lyne's erotic thriller Deep Water will stream on Hulu later this year after the January 14 theatrical release was canceled (pictured on set in 2019)

'They would probably have faced questions about their relationship': The Cuban 33-year-old famously dumped the Eastern Congo Initiative co-founder over the phone a year ago following a year-long fling (pictured in 2020)

The Cuban 33-year-old famously dumped the Eastern Congo Initiative co-founder over the phone a year ago following a year-long fling.

For his role as Charlie Maguire in The Tender Bar, Ben is nominated for the outstanding male actor in a supporting role trophy at the 28th Screen Actors Guild Awards, which air February 27 on TNT/TBS.

Affleck faces heavy competition against Licorice Pizza's Bradley Cooper, CODA's Troy Kotsur, House of Gucci's Jared Leto, and The Power of the Dog's Kodi Smit-McPhee.

Airing February 27 on TNT/TBS! For his role as Charlie Maguire in The Tender Bar, Ben is nominated for the outstanding male actor in a supporting role trophy at the 28th Screen Actors Guild Awards
One of the most powerful weapons for digital marketing is social media. Businesses and marketers are making all their possible efforts to harness the maximum potential of their digital presence on these social platforms. Organizations are increasingly investing in social media marketing services in New Zealand to stay competitive and ensure high returns from their marketing efforts.

While investing in social media is crucial for overall marketing success, whats is more important is to stay abreast with its changing landscape. Out of all the business and marketing aspects, social media is probably the fastest growing and changing one. Let us take a look at some major trends of 2022 that will govern the run of social media marketing during the year.

More paid advertisements

If you have not already included paid social media ads in your marketing campaign, you are missing out on a lot of opportunities. It is high time for marketers to make paid ads an integral part of their promotion.

Marketers across the world are feeling the heat of losing organic reach on social platforms. It has become the biggest challenge for marketers to get the same level of attention on their posts as they used to get. To cope with these developments, businesses must utilize paid advertisements to stay in the attention of their audiences and get more business.

Using influencers and referrals

If anything that people trust more than a well-crafted advertisement is referrals. Even in the age of digital, word-of-mouth is the most powerful tool to influence peoples buying decisions and grow your business. Recommendations from their family members and friends convince the audience the most to invest in your products and services.

More engagement through live streaming

One way to get recommendations is through influencer marketing. Social media has given commoners the to use their talent and become powerful influencers. These are local people or people from within your target audience. Their words can reach a wider range of people and also motivate them to associate with your business. You can build a strong customer base by using influencer marketing.

Live streaming is the next big thing in social media marketing. These live sessions allow you to connect and interact with them in real-time. You can conduct live events, answer their questions right there, or showcase your new offerings.

Live streams are highly interactive and a great way to keep the users engaged. If you can hook the users in the initial few minutes, chances are, they will stay for the entire stream. You get enough time and opportunity to talk about your business and encourage them into conversions.

Enhanced communication with the prospects

Social media provides several ways to communicate with your audience. You can exchange messages, reply to comments, share your contact details through social accounts. As mentioned in the previous point, live streams are also a great way to connect with your audience.

All these methods allow you to make connections at a personal level. You can also customize your communication method by determining what they prefer, call, message, or email. Such an elaborated communication strategy helps you harness the maximum benefits of social media platforms and gain a competitive edge.
Convicted killer Robert Dursts recent death will bring new life to a lawsuit in the 1982 slaying of his first wife.

A New York attorney representing the family of Kathie McCormack Durst plans a $100 million wrongful death filing against the multimillionaire murderers estate, with the late real estate tycoons second wife Debrah Charatan among his targets in additional planned legal actions.

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Lawyer Robert Abrams mentioned the widow and unidentified others who allegedly helped cover up Kathies killing. The first Mrs. Durst disappeared 40 years ago and was eventually declared legally dead, although her body was never recovered.

Kathie McCormack Durst (Jim McCormack via AP) (AP)

Were not about to let Debrah Charatan dissolve the (Durst) trust and get tens of millions of dollars more, said Abrams. You dont get tens of millions of dollars in America for covering up a murder.

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The McCormack familys prior wrongful death suit in the case was thrown out after missing a legal deadline for filing, but Abrams said New York law would offer a second chance because Durst was charged in his missing wifes death last year.

Two months ago, Westchester County prosecutors announced a second-degree murder indictment against Durst for killing Kathie, last seen alive on Jan. 31, 1982.

Charatans attorney, Scott Epstein, dismissed the announced court filing as more suitable for a work of fiction than a courtroom in the long-cold case that received revived public attention after the airing of a damning six-part documentary The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst.

Robert Durst in a Los Angeles courtroom in 2016. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, Pool, File) (Jae C. Hong/AP)

According to Abrams, Charatans 2000 marriage was a ploy to help Durst dodge charges when an new investigation into his first wifes disappearance was launched. Dursts second wife, who met him in 1988, was never charged with any crime connected to Durst and her attorneys previously argued she had nothing to do with what happened to his first bride.

Durst was convicted last year in the 2000 killing of his best friend Susan Berman by a California jury, with lawyers arguing he executed her over fears that she planned to expose his role in Kathie Dursts slaying by admitting she provided him with a bogus alibi.

Durst, who died Jan. 10 at age 78 in a California hospital, testified at his Los Angeles trial last year that he did not kill his wife or his pal Berman, although the one-time scion of The Durst Organization acknowledged he would have lied about the murders if he had committed them.
The vexed issue of Jamaicans not buying the digital music of their favorite Dancehall and Reggae artists was brought to the fore again for discussion, on Saturday by Full Hundred deejay Mr. Lexx.

His concerns came on the heels of similar questions raised by musicologist Kurt Riley weeks ago, regarding the fact that Dancehall and Reggae artists with millions of followers on Instagram and elsewhere on social media are not even able to sell even 10,000 copies of their releases, which cost only an average of US$1.29 (J$200) on iTunes.

According to Mr. Lexx, he is yearning for the day when even one-tenth of Jamaicas population of 2.7 million, starts to purchase digital music.

My friend called me excited af about a song he heard an asked me to sen him it. I said No, how about u buy it on Apple Music dat way it mek up my sales an generate some royalties? He said Ill send u $200 if u sen it to me, I said No use $40 and buy some of my songs. He did, Lexx noted on his Instagram page.

I wish more of my friends would do this. As a matter of fact I wish even 10% of Jamaicans would actually buy our music. What wonderful day in music dat would be. #buyyourmusic thats the only thing other genres have our music. Thats how u truly support the artist, he added.

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In the United States, Jamaicas top music sellers remain Sean Paul, Shaggy, and Bob Marley, whose Legend album outsold the rest of the Top 10 of 2021s best-selling Reggae albums combined, with over 600,000 units sold, according to data provided to DancehallMag.

The most streamed and best-selling current Dancehall albums of 2021 were Popcaans FIXTAPE, which sold 34,000 units, Alkalines Top Prize, which sold 17,000 units, and Masickas 438 album, which sold over 5,000 units in the last month of the year.

The low music sales continue to hinder many Jamaican artists from climbing atop the coveted Billboard Reggae Albums chart, and making the Billboard Hot 100 as they used to do in the 1990s.

In the interview several weeks ago with veteran journalist Anthony Miller, Riley had rued the fact that while artists were celebrating what they considered high YouTube views, these streams were not commensurate with sales.

What is the last breakout song that Jamaica had in the last 10 years? the Party Animal producer asked. And I dont mean popular, because popular and hit is two different ting enuh. Di whole a wi bout yah can know a song becaw it popular, but guh outside a Jamaica and si wha happen to yuh. Nobaddy nuh know it.

It happen becaw we dont support each other fi press a button, stream, buy it. It is more about I guess the views is nice; the likes is nice, suh yuh get di money offa streaming. But at the end a di day, if you as an artiste that have five million people following you why yuh caan sell 10,000? Riley had asked.

Why an artiste in Jamaica itself cannot sell 100,000 copies a him record. Is just press a button online; just download it and buy it. Yuh spend so much money fi but credit, yuh caan spend a few dollars and just buy a guy song?

Rileys suggestion about pressing a button online to buy music, is easier said than done though, as there several fundamental reasons why even the most ardent fans may not be able to buy the music of their favorite Dancehall artistes.

Among the most critical factors, is that a large percentage of Jamaicans are either unbanked or have no access to credit cards or prepaid debit cards for online shopping, which is the mode for purchasing digital music.

The point was raised in the recent past by Government Senator Don Wehby, who told the Senate in May 2020, that many Jamaicans do not have access to bank accounts as they have been shut out by the rigorous anti-money laundering systems which are in place.

The last World Bank Global Findex data show that only 78 percent of persons 15 years and over have bank accounts, and that 23 percent of Jamaicans were not actively using their accounts by making any deposits or withdrawals into their accounts. In addition, the Global Findex reported that 65 percent of wage earners receive their wages in cash.

Another reason for low sales was posited by Renaissances selector/producer Delano, who noted that Jamaicans who are hardcore fans of Reggae and authentic Dancehall music, are not highly interested in digital music, but prefer vinyl, because Jamaican music requires heavy sounds, which, it is said is a feature which is not best transmitted digitally.

In a March 2016 Gleaner interview, Delano had said, among other things, that while he was not being dismissive or implying that digital music should be abandoned, he was encouraging Jamaican artists to make their records available in vinyl format if they want to see profit from their work.

When you play a vinyl record, you get the sound as close to the wave format as possible and it sounds better. And for old-school DJs like me, playing a vinyl feels better, he had told the publication.

We still have to do digital, but we have to figure out a way to get some of our music on vinyl. So make the right links and get some vinyl distribution, he had added.

The Gleaner had noted that while vinyl records might be considered old-fashioned, they had been bringing in more revenue to the pockets of Reggae artists than digital sales, this after steadily losing popularity to the cassette tape and becoming almost extinct with the introduction of CDs.

Delano had also told The Gleaner that in addition to vinyl transmitting Reggae better than digital mediums, increased sales in vinyl records can also be linked to the resurgence of the sound system culture, Jamaicas dub music and EDM.

Leslie Cooney, of US-based record label, Delicious Vinyl had also told The Gleaner that if contemporary Jamaican artists create good music and direct some of their focus to vinyl distribution, they would see improved sales and could outsell digital downloads if they put out a good vinyl.

If you have a popular record and you dont go the vinyl route you are missing out on a strong demographic of people, she said at the time.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) noted in its 2015 statistics, that there was a 32.5 percent decline in revenues for CD sales in 2015, while vinyl revenues grew by 52.1 percent over the last year. The RIAA also noted that vinyl sales raked in $226 million in the first half of 2015, and that vinyl sales generated more money for the music industry than YouTube, ad-based Spotify, and VEVO combined.
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The family of a Burger King cashier shot to death during a holdup will be able to attend her funeral in Puerto Rico thanks to JetBlue Airlines, Mayor Adams said Saturday.

The airline is providing free flights to relatives of Kristal Bayron-Nieves, 19, who was killed in a robbery last Sunday while she was working an overnight shift at the fast food joint on Lexington Ave. and E. 116th St., the mayor tweeted Saturday.

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The murder of Kristal Bayron-Nieves was an evil act, but one that called our entire city to conscience, Mayor Adams tweeted. We are committed to giving her family the resources they need.

Kristal Bayron-Nieves was shot and killed while working on a night shift at a Burger King in Manhattan. (Obtained by Daily News)

Bayron-Nieves was behind a register when Winston Glynn walked into the Burger King and demanded money, cops said.

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Glynn, 30, pistol-whipped the manager and attacked a customer before taking $100 out of a cash drawer. He barked at Bayron-Nieves to open another drawer, but the teen didnt have the key, police said.

As Bayron-Nieves crouched down behind a register, Glynn  who worked at the same burger joint from April to December 2020  shot her in the chest.

EMS rushed the teen to Metropolitan Hospital, where she died.

The East Harlem Burger King where cashier Kristal Bayron-Nieves was shot and killed during a robbery. (Theodore Parisienne) (Theodore Parisienne/for New York Daily News)

Her killing came just days before she was set to begin working new hours after voicing concerns that the overnight shift was too dangerous, her family told the Daily News.

Glynn was arrested and charged for the murder Friday. He was held without bail following an arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court.

He is being held at Rikers Island.
Mumbai: Malayalam superstar Mammootty on Sunday said he has tested positive for COVID-19 and is currently under home quarantine.

The 70-year-old actor said he contracted the virus despite taking precautions but was feeling "fine".

Mammootty, who was reportedly shooting for his upcoming film "CBI 5" when he tested positive, took to Twitter to update his fans about his health.

"Despite taking all the necessary precautions I have tested Covid Positive yesterday. Besides a light fever I am otherwise fine. I am self isolating at home as per the directions of the concerned authorities," Mammootty wrote.

"I wish for all of you to stay safe. Mask at all times and take care," he added.

The veteran actor was last seen in the political drama "One" and has a packed slate of films lined up for release, including gangster drama "Bheeshma Parvam", crime thriller "Puzhu" and "Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam", directed by Lijo Jose Pellissery of "Jallikattu" fame.

According to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Sunday, India added 2,71,202 new coronavirus infections, taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 3,71,22,164, including 7,743 cases of the Omicron variant.
Very few vehicles seen on roads at Mozamjahi Market in Hyderabad on Saturday. (Photo: PTI)

Hyderabad: Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao will hold a cabinet meeting on Monday in the wake of rising COVID-19 cases in the state.

The cabinet meeting will be held on Monday at 2 pm in Pragathi Bhavan under Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, to discuss COVID-related matters, the Chief Minister's office said.

Telangana government on Sunday extended vacations for all educational institutions till January 30, 2022.

"It has been decided to extend the vacation of all educational institutions in Telangana till January 30, 2022," office of Telangana Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar tweeted.

Earlier, the State government declared holidays for all educational institutions from January 8 to 16.

Telangana on Saturdy reported 1,963 new COVID-19 cases taking the cumulative tally to 7,07,162. There are 22017 active cases. The cumulative recoveries registered in Telangana is at 6,81,091 and the death toll is 4,054.

The recovery rate in the state is at 96.31 per cent and case fatality rate is 0.57 per cent.
Kolkata: A West Bengal minister has invited Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Twitter to invest in the state for his electric car business after he publicly complained of facing challenges apparently with the central government.

State minority affairs and madrasah education minister Mohammed Ghulam Rabbani who made the appeal to Mr Musk also found support from his party: Trinamul Congress unlike BJP for his move ahead of the Bengal Global Business Summit which is supposed to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

On January 13 Mr Musk tweeted, "Still working through a lot of challenges with the government," while replying to Pranay Pathole who earlier asked him, "Yo @elonmusk any further update as to when Tesla's will launch in India? They're pretty awesome and deserve to be in every corner of the world!"

On Saturday, Mr Rabbani retweeted to Mr Musk, "Drop here, we in West Bengal have best infra & our leader @MamataOfficial has got the vision. Bengal means Business "

He however earned wrath from BJP as it's IT cell chief Amit Malviya mocked him on Sunday in a tweet, "You might think it is a joke. But it isnt! West Bengals minister in charge for Minority Affairs and Madrasa Education has made an offer to Elon Musk to come invest in WB. His pitch will start with Mamata Banerjees record on post poll violence and end with Singur agitation?"

Senior TMC MP Sougata Roy said, "Mr Musk is one of the best industrialists. He has the monopoly in electric car products. He has also built space rockets and satellites. So Mr Rabbani invited him to set up his business here as chief minister Mamata Banerjee has ensured availability of the best infrastructure. Mr Malviya is nonsense. BJP lost assembly polls under his leadership. What he says is irrelevant. Bengal is always industry friendly not being in favour of acquiring farmland forcibly for industry. Along with Mr Rabbani, I also invite Mr Musk to Bengal."
As the Omicron threat slows down, and winter is surprisingly mild, politics here continue to rage over Partygate. The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, did what he does best  he first denied that there ever was a party at Number 10 during lockdown (he thought these were all work events) and then he apologised for them.

But, meanwhile, his popularity has come crashing down. Senior civil servant Sue Gray, permanent secretary in the Cabinet Office, has now been tasked to investigate whether indeed there were more than 17 parties at Downing Street while the rest of the country were being fined and punished for any parties at all.

This has made many of us wonder about what construes a party? Can it be that, once it is at the workplace, it is no longer a party? What looks like a party is a mere get-together with a glass of wine? And even if people are asked to BYOB  remember that ancient custom of Bring Your Own Booze?  possibly that is okay, too, if the boss feels that you can drink the moment office hours are over.

So Ms Grays task is made more onerous because unrelenting office hours makes the long suffering team at Number 10 work round the clock. Many feel that our Teflon coated PM will bounce back with a mere censure over Partygate. He will be urged to get a new office somewhere  as the separation of the home and office space will ensure that boundaries are not crossed.

His supporters point out that the main problem at the Prime Ministers residence is that it is just above his office, and work and fun seem to exist cheek by jowl.

After all, far too many have faced this dilemma during the work-from-home period. Official Zoom meetings have merged into slurping beer and munching chicken tikka masala over office files, while holding a wailing child

What can the poor Prime Minister do anyway  when so many people are working from his home  almost like one gigantic joint family! Those who dream of the PMs resignation over partying too much are going to be disappointed! None of this is his fault. It never is.

Nonetheless it does not stop the bookies from betting on who will be the next Prime Minister! And what has been really remarkable for this multicultural country is that the list of those seven most-likely-to-be-PMs has only two all-white candidates! Reassuring to know that success no longer depends on the colour of your skin.

The two all-white most-likely-to-be-PM-candidates are Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, and Jeremy Hunt, the former health secretary. More interesting is the diverse list of other frontrunners including Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, and Priti Patel, the home secretary. Both are of Indian origin. There is also Sajid Javid, former chancellor and now health secretary (he is of Pakistani descent), Kwasi Kwarteng, the first black British Conservative minister and Nadhim Zawahi, born in Iraq. He is also one of the richest MPs in Parliament. As the education secretary, he has been very pro-active recently about getting children back to school.

All the candidates have the gravitas and experience to make it  and it will be really exciting if one among the non-White candidates does manage to get into Number 10. However, dislodging the present incumbent will not be easy, and they may have to wait for a general election.

And now for news that will cheer all book lovers who were unbeaten by Covid. Of course, literary festivals have been somewhat subdued by the virus  but book sales have shown a huge jump! 212.6m print books were sold  and the cash registers rang in almost 2 billion pounds. Self-improvement books and murderous thrillers led the charge against Covid-induced home isolation, proving once more that crime writing does pay! After this marvellous result  the arrival of the new virus heralds that book sales will continue to shoot up! It is certainly a good time to write  and my new resolution is to spend the next few months writing a new book starring my detective Simran Singh as she investigates murders most foul.

But one day soon there will be a book on Prince Andrews sudden downfall: last week he was stripped of all royal duties and military honours and pulled into a legal battle over whether he had indeed had a relationship (however short) with an underage girl. The court battle will be fought in the US, but it will cast its shadow on the Queens Platinum Jubilee celebrations. The swiftness with which Prince Andrews royal status was snapped away shows how much the monarchy and its heirs fear the impact this scandal will have on it. But many feel that the damage has already been done. Another episode of The Crown is being played out in front of us, yet again , in real life.
India marked the first anniversary of the nationwide vaccination drive against Covid-19, with over 156.76 cr doses administered to date.
As the ban on the physical rallies and road shows was extended for one more week, the BJP has made elaborate plans to hold virtual rallies and meetings in all the Assembly constituencies in the five poll-bound states. The saffron party has made three-tier arrangements from the national, state to district level for virtual rallies.

From deploying technical experts in each Assembly constituency, the BJP has made multi-camera sets up at district level in Uttar Pradesh to broadcast rallies of senior leaders.

"An arrangement is being made at national level for virtual addresses of national leaders and star campaigners," sources said.

Read more: Hindutva cannot produce economic growth

Similarly, in all poll-bound states arrangements are being made in the state capital for virtual addresses of state leaders and other star campaigners.

In Uttar Pradesh, the biggest state where polls will be held, the BJP has made special and elaborate arrangements at state, zone and district levels.

"All the necessary infrastructure for virtual rallies or meetings have been placed across Uttar Pradesh. We have divided the set up in three levels in Uttar Pradesh. At the state level, arrangements have been made at the state capital, similar arrangements have been made at zone and district level. As per the plans, star campaigner and senior leaders can use the arrangement at any level to virtually address the voter," a senior Uttar Pradesh BJP functionary said.

The Uttar Pradesh BJP will also use multi-camera set up and technology to create a 3-D impact during virtual rallies of star campaigners.

"This time setting up a studio using multi cam and technology to create 3-D effect," another Uttar Pradesh BJP leader said.

The BJP has also got software designed as per its requirement and trained workers to use it. Necessary logistical support is also provided to workers at assembly levels to effectively hold the virtual rallies without any glitches.

Punjab BJP president Ashwani Sharma told IANS that all the arrangements for the virtual rallies of party leaders have been made and technical experts have been deployed at each assembly constituency.

"Our workers are trained to organise virtual rallies and logistics have been arranged. We are also deploying one or two technical experts to help our workers to hold glitch free virtual rallies," Sharma said.

In the hill state of Uttarakhand, the saffron party is also sending experts in each Assembly constituency and setting up a studio in Dehradun to serve as a central link of all virtual rallies and meetings.

"Senior leaders will address the virtual rallies from the studio in Dehradun. Link will send to all the voters of a particular Assembly seat on their mobile phones to join the rally," a Uttarakhand BJP functionary said.

A central BJP leader said that similar arrangements have been made in all the poll-bound states, including Manipur and Goa and all the necessary assistance is provided to the state unit to smoothly hold the virtual rallies.

"We are prepared to hold virtual rallies and meetings. We are fully prepared to follow whatever guidelines issued by the Election Commission," he added.

On Saturday, the ECI extended the ban on the physical rallies and road shows till January 22, however, it has allowed the political parties to do indoor meetings of maximum of 300 persons or 50 per cent of the capacity of the hall or the prescribed limit set by State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA).
The top BJP leadership on Sunday will discuss the names of candidates for the upcoming Assembly elections with the leaders from Goa and Uttarakhand.

Sources said that Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and Pushkar Singh Dhami along with senior leaders of their respective states -- Goa and Uttarakhand -- will meet BJP central leadership.

BJP central leadership will hold separate meetings with Goa and Uttarakhand units.

Assembly polls in 40-member Goa and 70-member Uttarakhand Assemblies will be held on February 14 and counting of votes will take place on March 10.

Also read | Team performance will decide winner of Akhilesh vs Yogi match

Sources aware of the development said that Chief Ministers Sawant and Dhami are meeting with their state leaders to discuss the names shortlisted with the BJP national leadership.

"Both the state leaders, including the chief ministers are likely to meet Union Home Minister Amit Shah and other senior leaders. After discussion, the names of shortlisted candidates will be placed before the CEC for final approval," sources said.

It is learnt that first meeting will be held with the leaders of Goa, and then later on with the Uttarakhand unit. It is also learnt that before finalising the names of the party candidates in Goa by Central election Committee (CEC), the central leadership will discuss the names shortlisted by the state unit. The Goa BJP unit has shortlisted names for 37 out of the 40 Assembly seats.

"In several rounds of meetings of the top state leadership, names have been shortlisted. While shortlisting the names, Goa BJP has taken the opinion of cadre at the Assembly or block level. This was for the first time in Goa, the opinion of workers was taken into consideration while shortlisting candidates. Final approval will be given by the central leadership," said a senior Goa BJP functionary.

On Saturday, Uttarakhand BJP election committee shortlisted two or three names for each Assembly segment which will be discussed in the meeting before placing for approval of party CEC. Chief Minister Dhami said that he will contest from Khatima constituency. Dhami is currently MLA from the same Assembly seat.

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Gulabi Gang commander Sampat Pal on Sunday said she has resigned from the Congress as the party denied her a ticket for the upcoming Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.

Holding the state Congress leaders and the observers directly responsible for denying her the ticket, Pal said she will apprise about the 'internal politicking' to the Congress top brass in New Delhi.

Pal had contested the Assembly polls from Mau-Manikpur seat on the Congress ticket in the 2012 and 2017 polls.

While she secured only 2,203 votes in the 2012 polls, she backed 40,524 votes in 2017 when she was the SP-Congress ally candidate.

The Congress, this time, has replaced her with Ranjana Bhartilal Pandey.

Pal runs a women's organisation named Gulabi Gang.

The 2014 Bollywood movie Gulaab Gang featuring Madhuri Dixit and Juhi Chawla, was widely considered to be inspired by Pal and her organisation.

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Nishad party president Sanjay Nishad on Sunday said they will contest in 15 assembly constituencies in Uttar Pradesh as part of an alliance with the BJP, but the seats are yet to be finalised.

Nishad said he will meet senior BJP leaders, including Amit Shah, in Delhi on Monday to finalise the constituencies where the party will field its candidates.

"We have got 15 seats (out of 403 seats) to contest in alliance with the BJP. The seats are almost final. Most of the seats are in 'Purvanchal' (East UP) and some are in 'Paschimanchal' (West)."

Also Read | Battle for UP: BJP follows 'Hindu first' policy to counter Akhilesh

"There are some seats which we want to change due to changing equations. We are focusing not only on seat but 'jeet' (victory)," Nishad told PTI when asked about his proposed meeting with Union Home Minister Shah.

The Nirbal Indian Shoshit Hamara Aaam Dal, or Nishad party, was formed in 2016 and its leaders claim to enjoy support of the Nishad community, which is one of the Other Backward Classes (OBC).

Nishad said his party has built cadre base all over the state and has substantial influence in Gorakhpur, Ballia, Sant Kabir Nagar, Ambedkar Nagar, Jaunpur, Bhadohi, Sultanpur, Faizabad, Chitrakoot, Jhansi, Banda, Hamipur and Etawah districts, among others.

The party fielded 100 candidates in the last assembly election in 2017 in alliance with the Peace Party of India, Apna Dal and the Jan Adhikar Party, but could win just one seat -- Gyanpur in Bhadohi district.

Nishad, now a member of the Legislative Council, had contested the last assembly election from Gorakhpur Rural and came third.

Also Read | UP Elections 2022: This family worships Akhilesh as Vishnu's avatar

In the 2018 Lok Sabha by-election, Sanjay Nishad's son Praveen Kumar Nishad was a Samajwadi Party candidate and wrested the Gorakhpur constituency from the BJP which had been winning the seat since 1989. Praveen Kumar Nishad is now a BJP MP from Sant Kabir Nagar.

The Nishad community is the second largest demographic group in Gorakhpur, the home turf of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

Asked about the restrictions imposed by the Election Commission on physical rallies due to the coronavirus pandemic and how his party will deal with it, Sanjay Nishad said, "We have associated youth workers who extensively use social media and digital offices of the party is functional in 70 districts (out of total 75). We are active on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp."

He said the party is finalising its candidates after verifying their social and economic backgrounds.

On the allegations of rival parties that the BJP will be fielding people with criminal background from his party's quota, Nishad said, "We will go through the image of every candidate and his acceptance among party workers and people. If people and workers like a candidate, he can be given a chance."

On some BJP MLAs and ministers belonging to backward castes joining the Samajwadi Party ahead of the election, Nishad said, "They had no popularity. They were praising and giving positive report card for Prime Minister and Chief Minister from dias during programmes. Now, when they became powerless due to the imposition of the model code of conduct by the EC, they left the party. People now understand such people."

Asked which party is the main challenger to the BJP, he said it appears the SP is in direct fight with the BJP, but added that the ruling coalition will win more than 300 seats.

"BJP takes all castes along. In the first list of candidates, majority of OBCs were given tickets. Its acceptance is good on the ground also due to works done by both the central and state governments," he said.

He also took a swipe at Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) leader Om Prakash Rajbhar saying "even people of his area do not give importance to him". The SBSP is contesting the election in alliance with the Samajwadi Party.

The assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh will be held in seven phases between February 10 and March 7 and the results will be announced on March 10.

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He fled into the freezing cold with no shirt or shoes but it turns out he couldnt take the heat.

A carjacking suspect who escaped NYPD custody in Brooklyn while shirtless, shoeless and handcuffed surrendered to authorities Saturday after three days on the run.

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Akeem Williams, 21, turned himself in at the 73rd Precinct stationhouse in Brownsville Saturday afternoon, cops said.

Akeem Williams, who escaped from police custody. (DCPI)

Williams, who was wanted for a carjacking in Brownsville, was busted Wednesday but cops escorted him to Brookdale University Hospital after he complained of chest pains.

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At some point his leg shackles were removed and while at the hospital he managed to maneuver his cuffed hands in front of his body before he ran off shirtless about 8:30 a.m., when the temperature was about 28 degrees.

Williams is being held at Rikers Island pending his next court appearance.
Congress is drawing flak for another candidate  this time from the daughter of former BJP MLA Kuldeep Sengar who has been convicted in a rape case.

Sengar's daughter, Aishwarya Singh Sengar, put out a video on Saturday evening after Congress gave a ticket to Asha Singh from Unnao Sadar seat on Thursday.

Asha Singh is the mother of the rape survivor.

In the video, Kuldeep's daughter Aishwarya says "I am a girl, I can also fight to bring the truth in front of everyone. Priyanka Gandhi, this step taken from the point of view of politics may sound right to you but I do not know politics, but the religion of society and morality will never forgive you for this."

Also Read | UP polls: Right-wing groups slam Congress for fielding 'bikini model' from Hastinapur

Aishwarya further says, "Those to whom you have given ticket, have been booked under IPC Section 420 for making a fake TC. Their bail has also been rejected. Dozens of cases are registered in Unnao against the family to whom you have given a ticket. When my mother got the ticket, then your party remembered all the religions and 'adharma' but in this case, you are not seeing the truth. These people changed the time of crime thrice and the location of my father was found 17 kilometres away at his Unnao office. My father was also ready for the Narco test, but these people refused."

She goes on to say, "Even today, I am saying that if there is even single evidence that my father has or if he had even dared to stare at these people, then my entire family should be hanged to death."

Aishwarya also reminded Priyanka that your brother was also facing similar allegations.

"My Unnao will never accept such politics which destroys a family. You will get its result on March 10. My Unnao was with me and always will be," she says.

Kuldeep Singh Sengar, a former BJP MLA from the Bangermau legislative Assembly seat, has been convicted of rape, murder, attempt to murder, criminal conspiracy and criminal intimidation.

He is the main defendant in the Unnao rape case and was booked under the POCSO Act. He is also accused of killing three people, including the victim's father in police custody and later her aunts by a conspired truck accident.

A Delhi district and sessions court upheld an investigation conducted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) that had ruled out any foul play in the Unnao rape survivor's accident in 2019.

Kuldeep Sengar is presently lodged in Tihar jail in Delhi.

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The JD(U) will fight the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls on its own after the BJP, its ally in Bihar, did not reciprocate its offer of a tie-up, party spokesperson K C Tyagi said on Sunday, asserting it will contest on the plank of "Bihar model" of empowerment of the deprived sections of society.

Tyagi said JD(U) leader and Union minister R C P Singh, who was deputed by the party to hold alliance talks with the BJP, reached out to senior BJP leaders Amit Shah and Dharmendra Pradhan besides its president J P Nadda but in vain.

The JD(U) will hold a meeting in Lucknow on January 18 to decide on the number of seats it will contest, Tyagi said.

The party will run its campaign in the state around its Bihar model, he said, claiming that no government has done as much work for women and poor and backward sections of society as carried out by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led dispensation.

JD(U) leader Kumar himself hails from a backward caste, while the two deputy chief ministers in Bihar are also from backward communities, with one of them being a woman, Tyagi said. Both deputy chief ministers in the state are from the

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In a significant development, the Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU)  which was at the forefront of the agitation against the now-scrapped farm laws  has officially endorsed the nominees of the Samajwadi Party (SP)-Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) alliance in western Uttar Pradesh. The endorsement could drastically alter the electoral scene in the 'Jat' dominated region.

BKU president Naresh Tikait not only made an appeal to the people to ensure victory for the SP-RLD alliance in the forthcoming assembly polls, but also handed over the symbol authority letters to two alliance nominees at Kisan Bhavan at Sisouli on Saturday.

The two alliance nominees, who were handed over the symbol authority letters, included Rajpal Baliyan from Buldhana seat and Chandan Chauhan from Meerapur seat in Muzaffarnagar district which will go to the polls in the first phase of voting on February 10. The BKU also lent support to another alliance nominee, Ashraf Ali from Thana Bhavan seat also in the same district.

Also Read | Ex-minister Dara Singh Chauhan, Apna Dal MLA join Samajwadi Party

"It is a question of our rights....we must ensure victory of the alliance nominees in the region....talk to those who oppose them," Tikait said while addressing a meeting of the farmers on this occasion.

Tikait also explained to the farmers about the farmers' agitation and said that their unity had forced the centre to scrap the anti-farmer farm laws.

Sources said that the SP-RLD alliance had earlier offered a nomination to BKU leader Rakesh Tikait and after his refusal proposed the name of Gaurav Tikait, the son of Naresh Tikait. However, Naresh too refused to take the plunge.

According to sources, the BKU has decided to reach out to farmers and other people in different parts of the state to persuade them to oppose the BJP in the forthcoming assembly polls.

Also Read | RLD leader Jayant Chaudhary accuses BJP of indulging in 'polarisation', says anti-Muslim rhetoric won't work

The decision of the BKU to support the SP-RLD alliance nominees in 'Jatland' appears to have dashed the hopes of the BJP to win back the support of the farmers by scrapping the farm laws.

BKU's support to the Muslim nominee of the alliance indicated that the pre-2013 Muzaffarnagar communal riot electoral equations that comprised Muslims and Jats was back in the electoral arena. RLD had reaped rich electoral dividends in the region by riding on its support base among the Muslims and Jats.

The riots in Muzaffarnagar in 2013 in which 60 people were killed and thousands of others displaced had dealt a body blow to the unity of the two communities. As a result, the RLD was nearly wiped out from the region, while the BJP made tremendous gains.

The decision also assumes significance as it has come amid the announcement of launching of 'Mission UP' from February 1 by the Sayunkt Kisan Morcha (SKM), the umbrella organisation of the farmers' unions across the country  which spearheaded the farmers' agitation.

The SKM leaders would also be holding their meeting in Lakhimpur Kheri, where four farmers had died after being run over by a vehicle allegedly driven by union minister Ajai Mishra's son Ashish a few months back.

Sources said that SKM leaders would press for the sacking of Ajai Mishra from the Union cabinet, but BJP leaders, apparently fearing a backlash from the electorally influential Brahmin voters, have refused to concede to the demand.

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The man who authorities say was holding hostages inside a Texas synagogue on Saturday demanded the release of a Pakistani woman who is imprisoned nearby on charges of trying to kill American service members in Afghanistan.

The woman, Aafia Siddiqui, is serving an 86-year prison sentence after being convicted in Manhattan in 2010 on charges that she sought to shoot US military officers while being detained in Afghanistan two years earlier.

For the Justice Department, which had accused Siddiqui of being an al-Qaida operative, it was a significant conviction in the fight against international extremism. But to her supporters, many of whom believed in her innocence, the case embodied what they saw as an overzealous post September 11-American judicial system.

Read more: US man takes hostages at Texas synagogue, demands Pakistani prisoner be freed

Here's a closer look at the case:

Who is Aafia Siddiqui?

She's a Pakistani neuroscientist who studied in the United States at prestigious institutions  Brandeis University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

She attracted the attention of American law enforcement in the years after the September 11 attacks. Top FBI and Justice Department described her as an al-Qaida operative and facilitator at a May 2004 news conference in which they warned of intelligence showing al-Qaida planned an attack in the coming months.

In 2008, she was detained by authorities in Afghanistan. American officials said they found in her possession handwritten notes that discussed the construction of so-called dirty bombs and that listed various locations in the US that could be targeted in a mass casualty attack.

Inside an interview room at an Afghan police compound, authorities say, she grabbed the M-4 rifle of one of a US Army officer and opened fire on members of the US team assigned to interrogate her.

She was convicted in 2010 on charges including attempting to kill US nationals outside the United States. At her sentencing hearing, she gave rambling statements in which she delivered a message of world peace  and also forgave the judge. She expressed frustration at arguments from her own lawyers who said she deserved leniency because she was mentally ill.

"I'm not paranoid, she said at one point. I don't agree with that.

What was the reacting?

Pakistani officials immediately decried the punishment, which prompted protests in multiple cities and criticism in the media.

The prime minister at the time, Yousuf Raza Gilani, called her the daughter of the nation and vowed to campaign for her release from jail.

In the years since, Pakistani leaders have openly floated the idea of swaps or deals that could result in her release.

Faizan Syed, Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Dallas Fort-Worth Texas, said the group considers Siddiqui to have been caught in the war on terror" and as well as a political prisoner who was wrongly accused through flawed evidence. He nonetheless strongly condemned the hostage-taking, calling it wrong, heinous and "something that is completely undermining our efforts to get Dr. Aaifa released.

She has also garnered support from accused militants in the United States. An Ohio man who admitted he plotted to kill US military members after receiving training in Syria also planned to fly to Texas and attack the federal prison where Siddiqui is being held in an attempt to free her. The man, Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud, was sentenced in 2018 to 22 years in prison.

What's the latest on her imprisonment?

Siddiqui is being held at a federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas. She was attacked in July by another inmate at the facility and suffered serious injuries, according to court documents.

In a lawsuit against the federal Bureau of Prisons, Siddiqui's lawyers said another inmate smashed a coffee mug filled with scaling hot liquid into her face. When Siddiqui curled herself into a fetal position, the other woman began to punch and kick her, leaving her with injuries so severe that she needed to be taken by wheelchair to the prison's medical unit, the suit says.

Siddiqui was left with burns around her eyes and a three-inch scar near her left eye, the lawsuit says. She also suffered bruises on her arms and legs and an injury to her cheek.

The attack prompted protests by human rights activists and religious groups, calling for improved prison conditions. The activists have also called on the Pakistani government to fight for her release from US custody.

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The diplomatic relationship between India and Sri Lanka, the two neighbouring countries with several shared cultural ethos and beliefs and economic, social, cultural and business ties is now becoming tense after India complained about its fishermen being attacked by Sri Lankan security forces.

The recent concern is the arrest and subsequent judicial remand of 68 Indian fishermen by the Sri Lankan navy.

The Indian fishermen from Tamil Nadu's Pudukottai, Mandapam and Rameswaram were arrested by the Sri Lankan navy for allegedly crossing the International Maritime Border Line and fishing in Sri Lankan waters. However, the Indian fishermen association office-bearers have denied the allegation and said that they had fished in Indian waters in the Palk Straits.

Read more: S Jaishankar holds talks with Sri Lankan minister; Indian projects to boost Lankan economy discussed

The arrest of fishermen in three batches of 6, 7 and 55 was made in the second week of December 2021 by the Sri Lankan navy alleging that they had transgressed into Sri Lankan waters. The arrested fishermen were remanded to judicial custody. Calls from the Tamil Nadu political leadership for the Indian government to intervene in the matter diplomatically were accepted and the Indian external affairs ministry entered into diplomatic parleys with the Sri Lankan side. The fishermen association leaders were also invited to air their views at the meeting called by the Ministry of External Affairs virtually.

Advocate Antony Jesraj, leader of the Tamil Nadu fish workers association, an umbrella body of fishermen from Tamil Nadu, told IANS that "The MEA had taken up seriously the matter raised by people of Tamil Nadu cutting across political lines regarding the immediate release of Indian fishermen who went to the sea for fishing from Pudukottai, Mandapam and Rameswaram."

Subsequently, on January 5 a Sri Lankan court in Mannar released 13 fishermen. The Consulate General of India in the island nation met the fishermen and made efforts to relocate them back to their families in India.

However, as a major reversal to the Indian efforts, a Sri Lankan court in Jaffna extended the judicial custody of the remaining 55 Indian fishermen on January 12 and this has turned into a major concern for the Indian side.

This has led to a major furore in Tamil Nadu with political parties and fishermen associations cutting across political divisions calling upon the government to take up the matter seriously with Sri Lanka. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin in a tweet on Thursday called upon the Centre to immediately intervene and seek the release of the beleaguered fishermen.

Stalin in the tweet said, "Deeply disappointed to note that the remand of our fishermen had been extended. Urge Hon'ble Dr S Jaishankar to prevail upon Sri Lanka to secure their immediate release."

Both Indian and Sri Lankan fishermen have been fishing in the Palk Bay Straits for several years but the maritime agreements signed between the two sides in 1974 and 1976 led to the demarcation of the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL). The two treaties between the two countries led to the Palk Bay Strait connecting India and Sri Lanka being declared a "two-nation pond" under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea rules.

This led to the ban on fishing in international waters of the two countries. After the end of the civil war between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government in 2009, there has been a demand for a total ban on the Indian fishermen from Tamil Nadu fishing inside Sri Lanka and to arrest those who were fishing in Lankan waters as also to confiscate their boats.In 2021 more than 221 Indian fishermen, mostly from Tamil Nadu, were arrested by the Sri Lankan navy. The forces of the island nation had resorted to stone pelting and the Indian fishermen had complained that they were being fired upon by the Sri Lankan navy. Five Indian fishermen lost their lives in 2021 and the most recent victim was R Rajkiran, a fisherman from Kottaipattanam in Pudukottai, Tamil Nadu whose vessel was hit by a Sri Lankan naval vessel on October 20, 2021, leading to his death. There were widespread protests in Kottaipattanam with fishermen setting up roadblocks to ensure justice to the deceased Rajkiran.

The year 2021 also saw more than 100 fishing boats of Tamil fishermen being seized by the Sri Lankan navy. The fishermen say that this would lead to huge financial losses to them as there was no possibility of replacing a vessel as almost all of these boats were bought through loans with a fishing boat costing as much as Rs 60 lakhs.

Other than crossing the IMBL, the major grouse of the Sri Lankan navy was that Indian fishermen were fishing using trawlers which were banned in the island nation.

Marine biologist and an expert in fishing and deep-sea fishing issues, Dr Manonmani. G who heads the Marine Study Research Group based at Kanniyakumari, told IANS that "First and foremost India must use strong diplomatic measures and demand in no uncertain terms the release of our fishermen immediately. Secondly, Indian fishermen must not use the trawlers that are banned in Sri Lankan waters and implement the Blue Resolution leading to modern deep-sea fishing that does not affect the marine wealth of Sri Lankan waters."

She said that a Palk Bay Authority (PBA) should be formed with all the stakeholders including marine biologists, fishing experts, government representatives, and other experts.

Marine experts said that if the PBA is constituted and the issue of fishing is ironed out with the Indian side accepting the demands of the Sri Lankan navy and other concerned authorities, Sri Lanka should not resort to shooting and stone pelting at Indian fishermen even if they cross the IMBL.
India has handed over 1,000 houses built under the third phase of its housing project to Indian-origin beneficiaries, mostly Tamils, in Sri Lankas plantation areas on the occasion of Pongal, Indian High Commission here said on Sunday.

As many as 4,000 houses are being constructed with grant assistance from India in plantation areas, spread across seven districts of Sri Lanka, under the third phase for the estate workers in Sri Lanka, it said in a statement.

High Commissioner Gopal Baglay, Minister of Youth and Sports, Minister of Development Coordination and Monitoring and State Minister of Digital Technology and Enterprise Development Namal Rajapaksa and Minister of State for Estate Housing and Community Infrastructure Jeevan Thondaman jointly handed over the house keys on Saturday, it said.

Members of Parliament S B Dissanayake and M Rameshwaran and other dignitaries were also present at the event in Kotagala where keys were handed over to more than 1,000 beneficiaries from plantation areas, according to the statement.

Read | Sri Lanka invites Indian investments in ports, infra

Speaking on the occasion, High Commissioner Baglay conveyed Pongal greetings in Tamil and stressed that India will stand with Sri Lanka and continue to work for the development of Indian-origin Tamil community, it said.

He noted that the community was an organic link between India and Sri Lanka and underlined that the festival of Pongal represented shared civilisational ties between the two countries, the statement said.

The houses were handed over on a day Sri Lankan Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar held discussions on projects by India that would strengthen the economy of the island nation.

Jaishankar conveyed greetings to the Sri Lankan Finance Minister and the government and the people of Sri Lanka for the year 2022 and on the occasion of Pongal celebrated both in India and Sri Lanka, according to the High Commission statement.

He said that India has always stood with Sri Lanka, and will continue to support it in all possible ways for overcoming the economic and other challenges posed by Covid-19 pandemic, it said.

As close friends and maritime neighbours, both India and Sri Lanka stand to gain from closer economic interlinkages, Jaishankar said.

According to the High Commission statement, the Indian Housing Project is a flagship development assistance programme in Sri Lanka which is being carried out in different phases.

Around 3,000 houses have already been handed over to beneficiaries till date and handing over of close to 750 houses is being scheduled under this phase. Remaining houses are at various stages of implementation, it said, adding that as many as 46,000 houses were built/repaired in the countrys Northern and Eastern provinces in the first two phases.

Another 10,000 houses will be constructed in the plantation areas in the next phase. This would take Indias overall commitment under the project to 60,000 houses, it said.

The dignitaries took part in a traditional Maatu Pongal ceremony prior to the handing over event, which was attended by thousands and featured cultural performances, the statement said.

Celebration of Pongal in Sri Lanka attests to the abiding cultural linkages between the people of India and Sri Lanka as well as the shared heritage.

Development assistance is a key pillar of bilateral relationship between the two countries.

At a total quantum of around $3.5 billion, development assistance from India cuts across sectors spanning from infrastructure development to all aspects of daily human lives such as education, health, livelihood, among others.

Estate workers from plantation areas have been at the centre of the such assistance and several projects implemented through grant assistance by India, including the 150-bed hospital in Dickoya, multi-purpose hall in Saraswathy Central College in Pussellawa reinforce Indias ongoing focus on the region under the Neighbourhood First policy, the statement added.

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The tsunami threat around the Pacific from a huge undersea volcanic eruption began to recede Sunday, while the extent of damage to Tonga remained unclear.

Satellite images showed the spectacular eruption that took place Saturday evening, with a plume of ash, steam and gas rising like a mushroom above the blue Pacific waters. A sonic boom could be heard as far away as Alaska.

In nearby Tonga it sent tsunami waves crashing across the shore and people rushing to higher ground.

Read more: Volcano erupts in Pacific, US West Coast under tsunami advisory

The eruption cut the internet to Tonga, leaving friends and family members around the world still anxiously trying to get in touch to figure out if there were any injuries and the extent of the damage. Even government websites and other official sources remained without updates.

Aid agencies said thick ash and smoke was continuing to affect Tonga's air and water, and that authorities were asking people to wear masks and drink bottled water.

Dave Snider, the tsunami warning coordinator for the National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska, said it was very unusual for a volcanic eruption to affect an entire ocean basin, and the spectacle was both humbling and scary.

The tsunami waves caused damage to boats as far away as New Zealand and Santa Cruz, California, but did not appear to cause any widespread damage. Snider said he anticipated the tsunami situation in the US and elsewhere to continue improving.

Tsunami advisories were earlier issued for Japan, Hawaii, Alaska and the US Pacific coast. The US Geological Survey estimated the eruption caused the equivalent of a magnitude 5.8 earthquake. Scientists said tsunamis generated by volcanoes rather than earthquakes are relatively rare.

The Tonga Meteorological Services said a tsunami warning was declared for all of the archipelago, and data from the Pacific tsunami center said waves of 80 centimeters (2.7 feet) were detected.

Rachel Afeaki-Taumoepeau, who chairs the New Zealand Tonga Business Council, said she hoped the relatively low level of the tsunami waves would have allowed most people to get to safety, although she worried about those living on islands closest to the volcano. She said she hadn't yet been able to contact her friends and family in Tonga.

We are praying that the damage is just to infrastructure and people were able to get to higher land, she said.

Tonga gets its internet via an undersea cable from Suva, Fiji, which presumably was damaged. All internet connectivity with Tonga was lost at about 6:40 pm local time, said Doug Madory, director of internet analysis for the network intelligence firm Kentik.

The Fiji-based Islands Business news site reported that a convoy of police and military troops evacuated Tonga's King Tupou VI from his palace near the shore. He was among the many residents who headed for higher ground.

On Tonga, home to about 105,000 people, video posted to social media showed large waves washing ashore in coastal areas and swirling around homes, a church and other buildings.

New Zealand's military said it was monitoring the situation and remained on standby, ready to assist if asked.

In Hawaii, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center reported waves that measured half a meter (1.6 feet) in Nawiliwili, Kauai and 80 centimeters (2.7 feet) in Hanalei.

In Tonga, a Twitter user identified as Dr. Faka'iloatonga Taumoefolau posted video showing waves crashing ashore.

Can literally hear the volcano eruption, sounds pretty violent, he wrote, adding in a later post: Raining ash and tiny pebbles, darkness blanketing the sky.

The explosion of the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai volcano was the latest in a series of dramatic eruptions.

Earth imaging company Planet Labs PBC had watched the island in recent days after a new volcanic vent there began erupting in late December.

Satellite images captured by the company show how drastically the volcano had shaped the area, creating a growing island off Tonga.

The surface area of the island appears to have expanded by nearly 45% due to ashfall, Planet Labs said days before the latest activity.

Following Saturday's eruption, residents in Hawaii, Alaska and along the US Pacific coast were advised to move away from the coastline to higher ground and to pay attention to specific instructions from their local emergency management officials, said Snider.

We don't issue an advisory for this length of coastline as we've done - I'm not sure when the last time was - but it really isn't an everyday experience, Snider said.

Savannah Peterson watched in shock as the water rose several feet in a matter of minutes in front of her oceanfront house in Pacifica, California, just south of San Francisco.

It came up so fast, and a few minutes after that it was down again. It was nuts to see that happen so quickly, she said. I've never had water come all the way up to my front door, and today it did.

Police rescued a surfer whose surfboard broke in powerful waves off San Francisco.

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Authorities said a man took hostages Saturday during services at a Texas synagogue where the suspect could be heard ranting in a livestream and demanding the release of a Pakistani neuroscientist who was convicted of trying to kill US Army officers in Afghanistan.

At least four hostages were initially believed to be inside the synagogue, according to two law enforcement officials who were not authorised to discuss the ongoing investigation and who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. The synagogue's rabbi was believed to be among the hostages, one of the officials said. A law enforcement official said the man claimed to be armed but authorities have not confirmed whether he is.

The Colleyville Police Department said one hostage was released uninjured shortly after 5 pm Saturday. The man was expected to be reunited with his family and did not require medical attention.

Authorities are still trying to discern a precise motive for the attack. The hostage-taker was heard demanding the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist suspected of having ties to al-Qaeda, who was convicted of trying to kill US military officers while in custody in Afghanistan, the officials said. He also said he wanted to be able to speak with her, according to the officials. Siddiqui is in federal prison in Texas.

The officials said investigators have not positively identified the man and cautioned that the information was based on a preliminary investigation as the situation was still rapidly developing.

A rabbi in New York City received a call from the rabbi believed to be held hostage in the synagogue to demand Siddiqui's release, a law enforcement official said. The rabbi in New York City called 911 to report the call.

Police were first called to the synagogue around 11 am and people were evacuated from the surrounding neighbourhood soon after that, FBI Dallas spokesperson Katie Chaumont said. There have been no reported injuries, Chaumont said.

It's an evolving situation, and we have a lot of law enforcement personnel on scene, Chaumont said.

The services were being livestreamed on the synagogue's Facebook page for a time. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that an angry man could be heard ranting and talking about religion at times during the livestream, which didn't show what was happening inside the synagogue.

Shortly before 2 pm, the man said, You got to do something. I don't want to see this guy dead. Moments later, the feed cut out. A Meta company spokesperson later confirmed that Facebook removed the video.

Multiple people heard the hostage-taker refer to Siddiqui as his sister on the livestream, but Faizan Syed, the executive director of Council on American-Islamic Relations in Dallas Fort-Worth Texas, told The Associated Press that Siddiqui's brother, Mohammad Siddiqui, was not involved. Syed said CAIR's support and prayers were with the people being held in the synagogue.

Texas resident Victoria Francis told the AP that she watched about an hour of the livestream before it cut out. She said she heard the man rant against America and claim he had a bomb.

He was just all over the map. He was pretty irritated and the more irritated he got, he'd make more threats, like I'm the guy with the bomb. If you make a mistake, this is all on you.' And he'd laugh at that, she said. He was clearly in extreme distress.

Francis, who lives in Rhome, Texas and grew up near Colleyville, tuned in after she read about the hostage situation. She said it sounded like the man was talking to the police department on the phone, with the rabbi and another person trying to help with the negotiations.

When the livestream cut out, the man was getting pretty irate, Francis said.

It's a scary situation. I'm hopeful it ends the best way it can, obviously with no one hurt, she said. Especially in this area, you never think something like this is going to hit home until it does.

Colleyville, a community of about 26,000 people, is about 15 miles (23 kilometers) northeast of Fort Worth.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki tweeted Saturday evening that President Joe Biden had been briefed and was receiving updates from senior officials.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said he was monitoring the situation closely. We pray for the safety of the hostages and rescuers, he wrote on Twitter.

I am closely monitoring the hostage situation taking place in Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas. We pray for the safety of the hostages and rescuers.  Naftali Bennett  (@naftalibennett) January 15, 2022

CAIR, the nation's largest Muslim advocacy group, condemned the attack Saturday.

This latest antisemitic attack at a house of worship is an unacceptable act of evil, CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said in a statement. We stand in solidarity with the Jewish community, and we pray that law enforcement authorities are able to swiftly and safely free the hostages. No cause can justify or excuse this crime.

Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist with advanced degrees from Brandeis University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was sentenced in 2010 to 86 years in prison on charges that she assaulted and shot at US Army officers after being detained in Afghanistan two years earlier. The punishment sparked outrage in Pakistan among political leaders and her supporters, who viewed her as victimised by the American criminal justice system.

In the years since, Pakistan officials have expressed interest publicly in any sort of deal or swap that could result in her release from U.S. custody, and her case has continued to draw attention from supporters. In 2018, for instance, an Ohio man who prosecutors say planned to fly to Texas and attack the prison where Siddiqui is being held in an attempt to free her was sentenced to 22 years in prison.

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The way the novel coronavirus pandemic is developing suggests that the virus will never go away completely, WHO Representative to Russia Melita Vujnovic said on Sunday.

The virus will circulate as an endemic disease, TASS news agency quoted Vujnovic as saying on the Soloviev Live YouTube channel.

"Coronavirus is on its way to becoming an endemic disease. This means it won't go away. But we have to learn how to treat it and how to protect ourselves from it.

"Most importantly, we need to contain the outbreak of the infection now and reduce the number of those vulnerable to it. Otherwise, new variants will emerge in an unpredictable fashion," she said.

Also Read | From pandemic to endemic: Can 2022 succeed where 2021 failed?

Further, Vujnovic noted that evidence indicates that the Omicron variant is less severe than other strains. However, its dangers should not be underestimated, and it is too early for the humanity to relax, she said.

"There is evidence now that Omicron seems to be less serious than (previous variants), but this does not mean that it should not be taken seriously. The coronavirus infection may lead to very serious consequences," she said.

"Apart from vaccination, it is of utmost importance now to follow other safeguards as well: to wear a face mask and change it at recommended intervals, to ventilate rooms and avoid large groups of people in confined spaces. This is very important," Vujnovic said.

Meanwhile, Russia registered 27,179 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, taking the nationwide tally to 10,774,304, the official monitoring and response center said on Sunday.

The nationwide death toll grew by 723 to 320,634.

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The failure of last week's high-stakes diplomatic meetings to resolve escalating tensions over Ukraine has put Russia, the United States and its European allies in uncharted post-Cold War territory, posing significant challenges for the main players to avoid an outright and potentially disastrous confrontation.

Unlike previous disagreements that have arisen since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the current Ukraine crisis and seemingly insurmountable differences between Washington and Moscow carry real risks of debilitating economic warfare and military conflict that are exacerbated by the dangers of miscalculation and overreaction.

For the US and its NATO and other European allies, nothing less than a vast pullback of the roughly 100,000 Russian troops now deployed near the Ukrainian border will prove that Russian President Vladimir Putin has no intention of negotiating in good faith. For the Russians, the West's absolute refusal to consider a ban on NATO expansion and the withdrawal of troops from Eastern Europe is proof of its perfidy.

Potential concessions are complicated by the fact neither Putin nor President Joe Biden wants to be seen as backing down before either domestic or foreign audiences.

The refusal thus far by each side to climb down from what the other regards as unrealistic and maximalist demands has left the prospects for diplomacy in limbo, with the US and its allies accusing Russia of stoking tensions for no legitimate reason and the Russians complaining again that the Americans are the aggressors.

Some believe the situation will have to become even more dire before the impasse can be broken.

The gap in perceptions is so broad that a new and dangerous escalation could be necessary to make the parties open up their imagination and search for agreements, Fyodor Lukyanov, the head of the Moscow-based Council for Foreign and Defense Policies, observed in a commentary.

For Western analysts, it seems a situation in which Putin will have to compromise if the conflict is to be avoided. Some think Putin's focus on NATO, which has struggled for years with questions about its relevance, may have given the alliance a new lease on life.

This is an extremely uncertain and tense period without an obvious way out unless Putin backs down, said Jeff Rathke, a Europe expert and former US diplomat who is currently president of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

He's talked himself into a frenzy that is hard to walk away from if he doesn't get the fundamental redrawing of the European security architecture that he claims to want. He's shown he's ready to play chicken with the threat of massive military force to bring that about and he's certainly gotten everyone's attention, but he hasn't changed anyone's views, Rathke said.

US officials from Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan to chief negotiator Wendy Sherman have said it is Russia that faces a stark choice. De-escalate or face punishing sanctions and the opposite of what it wants: an increased NATO presence in Eastern Europe and a more well-armed Ukraine.

Yet in Russia, officials say the shoe is on the other foot. They have cast their demands as an absolute imperative and have argued that the Western failure to meet them makes talks on other issues irrelevant.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the US and Russia reached some understandings during last week's talks. But in general, in principle, we can now say that we are staying on different tracks, on totally different tracks, and this is not good, and this is disturbing, he said in an interview on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS to be broadcast on Sunday.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Friday that Russia had vainly tried for years to persuade the US and its allies to engage in talks on the non-deployment of intermediate-range missiles to Europe, limits on war games and rules to avoid dangerously close encounters between Russian and allied warships and aircraft until the US and NATO expressed willingness to discuss those issues this week.

He attributed the change in approach to a US desire to shift attention away from Russia's main demands, adding that Moscow will focus on NATO non-expansion. And he insisted that it's the US that's formulating the position in talks while other allies just march on its orders.

To be frank, everyone understands that the prospect for reaching a deal depends on the US, Lavrov said. He said whatever the US says about the need to consult allies in negotiations "are just excuses and attempts to drag the process out.

Thus, the stalemate.

The West's approach has been to have as much diplomatic effort as possible to de-escalate, said Andrew Weiss, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he oversees research in Washington and Moscow on Russia and Eurasia.

The problem we've got is that the Russians mean business, and they've shown us in a bunch of cases, in 2014, in 2008, that they're prepared to go to war to get these things, and we're not," he said. "And that's the challenge."

The tough and uncompromising Russian positions have led some to believe that Moscow will only up the ante after receiving what all sides expect will be formal, written refusals from the US and NATO to accede to its demands.

Indeed, the chief Russian negotiator in the talks, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, suggested Thursday that Moscow might respond to rejections by escalating matters outside of Europe through the potential deployment of troops to Cuba and Venezuela. The US has called such a suggestion bluster and said it would respond decisively if it happened.

The lack of a diplomatic solution logically leads to the further exacerbation of the crisis, wrote Dmitri Trenin, the head of the Carnegie Moscow Center, in an online analysis.

Trenin predicted that a set of military-technical measures that Putin said Russia would take if the West rejects its demands could include a broad array of moves ... from the deployment of new weapons systems in various regions to much stronger military ties with Belarus and a closer coordination with the Chinese partners.

Still, there's a risk that by focusing his ire on NATO, Putin may have inadvertently strengthened its hand, especially with its newer members like the Baltic states, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic.

For countries that have joined NATO since the Cold War, you can definitely say that NATO is more relevant to them now than it was a year ago or in 2014," Rathke said. Anyone who thought that NATO was no longer relevant to European security has been taught a lesson in the last few months. And it's only going to get worse.

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In the moments after Jason Walker was fatally shot by an off-duty deputy in North Carolina, his panicked father told responding officers that he saw his son leap onto the hood of an oncoming vehicle.

The interaction between Anthony Walker and law enforcement can be seen in a series of videos from body cameras belonging to the police officers who responded to the scene of the shooting. They were released by authorities on Friday as they continued to investigate the deadly incident, which occurred along a stretch of road in Fayetteville the afternoon of Jan. 8.

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Fayetteville Police Department (Fayetteville Police Department)

Cumberland County Sheriffs Deputy Lt. Jeffrey Hash in a 911 call said that Walker, a 37-year-old Black man, charged at his pickup truck, jumped on top of it and then ripped one of his windshield wipers off. Fearing for the safety of his wife and daughter, both inside the vehicle at the time, he pulled out a gun and fired at Walker, who was ultimately pronounced dead on the scene.

In one of the clips released this week, a man in a sweatshirt who identifies himself as Walkers father, appears to corroborate the deputys story.

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I saw it, I saw it, I saw it, he jumped up, that fella jumped up on the hood and he jumped out of his car and shot him, he says.

Hash can also be seen in the background, giving his version of events to a different responding officer.

In another video, the father tells an officer that his son left their property and then ran directly into the road.

He came out the yard and I was trying to get him to come back over here, and I called him, he says. I said come back Jason. He come out into the street. He was out here in the daggone street, and a fella drove up. He jumped up on the guys hood and the guy jumps out and shoots him.

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When asked whether his son has any mental illnesses, his father tells officers he does not know.

The third video made public my law enforcement shows a woman who provided aid to Walker in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. She tells officers she is trauma nurse and that her name is Elizabeth Ricks.

I dont know what exactly happened he got on, I dont know if he got onto the car or if he was actually hit, I dont know, but they were in the truck, in the vehicle, she tells them. I dont understand, they were in a big a-- car, he didnt have anything on him or anything like that. Speculation, I dont know if he was mentally unwell or anything but and the guy just started shooting him.

Ricks also emphasized that she didnt see him pose a threat.

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Yeah, its like he hit him and then just got out and then just shot him, she adds.

The three clips, each about five minutes all together, represent the first videos we submitted to the judge, city officials said in a news release.

However, the City has filed a petition to have all of the body cam footage released which encompasses about 20 hours of video, it continued. " Staff will be working as expeditiously as possible to review that video and submit it for the judges consideration.
Microsoft said late Saturday that dozens of computer systems at an unspecified number of Ukrainian government agencies have been infected with destructive malware disguised as ransomware, a disclosure suggesting an attention-grabbing defacement attack on official websites was a diversion. The extent of the damage was not immediately clear.

The attack comes as the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine looms and diplomatic talks to resolve the tense stand-off appear stalled.

Microsoft said in a short blog post that amounted to the clanging of an industry alarm that it first detected the malware on Thursday. That would coincide with the attack that simultaneously took some 70 government websites temporarily offline.

The disclosure followed a Reuters report earlier in the day quoting a top Ukrainian security official as saying the defacement was indeed cover for a malicious attack.

Also Read | Massive cyberattack hits Ukrainian govt websites as West warns on Russia conflict

Separately, a top private-sector cybersecurity executive in Kyiv told The Associated Press how the attack succeeded: The intruders penetrated the government networks through a shared software supplier in a so-called supply-chain attack in the fashion of the 2000 SolarWinds Russian cyberespionage campaign targeting the US government.

Microsoft said in a different, technical post that the affected systems span multiple government, non-profit, and information technology organisations." It said it did not know how many more organizations in Ukraine or elsewhere might be affected but said it expected to learn of more infections.

The malware is disguised as ransomware but, if activated by the attacker, would render the infected computer system inoperable, Microsoft said. In short, it lacks a ransom recovery mechanism.

Microsoft said the malware executes when an associated device is powered down, a typical initial reaction to a ransomware attack.

Microsoft said it was not yet able to assess the intent of the destructive activity or associate the attack with any known threat actors. The Ukrainian security official, Serhiy Demedyuk, was quoted by Reuter s as saying the attackers used malware similar to that used by Russian intelligence. He is deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council.

A preliminary investigation led Ukraine's Security Service, the SBU, to blame the web defacement on hacker groups linked to Russia's intelligence services." Moscow has repeatedly denied involvement in cyberattacks against Ukraine.

Tensions with Russia have been running high in recent weeks after Moscow amassed an estimated 100,000 troops near Ukraine's border. Experts say they expect any invasion would have a cyber component, which is integral to modern hybrid warfare.

Demedyuk told Reuters in written comments that the defacement "was just a cover for more destructive actions that were taking place behind the scenes and the consequences of which we will feel in the near future. The story did not elaborate and Demedyuk could not immediately be reached for comment.

Oleh Derevianko, a leading private sector expert and founder of the ISSP cybersecurity firm, told the AP he did not know how serious the damage was. He said also unknown is what else the attackers might have achieved after breaking into KitSoft, which the developer exploited to sow the malware.

In 2017, Russia targeted Ukraine with one of the most damaging cyberattacks on record with the NotPetya virus, causing more than $10 billion in damage globally. That virus, also disguised as ransomware, was a so-called wiper that erased entire networks.

Ukraine has suffered the unfortunate fate of being the world's proving ground for cyberconflict. Russia state-backed hackers nearly thwarted its 2014 national elections and briefly crippling parts of its power grid during the winters of 2015 and 2016.

In Friday's mass web defacement, a message left by the attackers claimed they had destroyed data and placed it online, which Ukrainian authorities said had not happened.

The message told Ukrainians to be afraid and expect the worst.

Ukrainian cybersecurity professionals have been fortifying the defenses of critical infrastructure since 2017, with more than $40 million in US assistance. They are particularly concerned about Russian attacks on the power grid, rail network and central bank.

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There is no justification now for keeping schools closed in view of the pandemic and even if there are new waves, closing schools should be the last resort, according to the World Bank's Global Education Director Jaime Saavedra.

Saavedra, whose team has been tracking the impact of Covid-19 on the education sector, says there is no evidence that reopening schools has caused a surge in coronavirus cases and that schools are not a "safe place".

He also asserted that it does not make sense from public-policy perspective to wait till children are vaccinated as there is "no science" behind it.

Also Read | Tamil Nadu declares holiday for Classes 10-12 till January 31 over rising Covid-19 cases

"There is no relation between opening schools and spread of coronavirus. There is no evidence linking the two and there is no justification now to keep the schools closed. Even if there are new waves of Covid-19, closing schools should be the last resort," Saavedra told PTI in an interview from Washington.

"It does not make sense to keep restaurants, bars and shopping malls open and keep schools closed. There is no excuse," he added.

According to various simulations by the World Bank, health risks for children if schools are opened are low and the cost of the closure is extremely high.

"During 2020, we were navigating in a sea of ignorance. We just didn't know what is the best way of combating the pandemic and the immediate reaction of most countries in the world was let's close schools. Time has passed since then and with evidence coming in from late 2020 and 2021, we have had several waves and there are several countries which have opened schools," he said.

"We have been able to see if schools opening have had an impact in the transmission of virus and new data shows it doesn't. Many counties have also had waves when schools were closed so obviously there has been no role of schools in some of the spikes.

Also Read | Uttar Pradesh schools closed till January 23 as Covid cases rise

"Even if the kids can get infected and with the Omicron it is happening even more but fatalities and serious illness among children is extremely rare. The risks for children are low and costs are extremely high," he added.

Asked about the concerns of children not being vaccinated yet, he said, "There is no country which has put the condition of reopening schools only after children are vaccinated. Because there is no science behind it and it does not make sense from public policy perspective".

Talking about the impact of school closures due to the pandemic in India, Saavedra said the "impact is more severe than previously thought" and the learning poverty is likely to increase much more than anticipated.

Learning poverty means being unable to read and understand a simple text by the age of 10.

"The learning poverty in India is expected to increase from 55 per cent to 70 per cent due to leaning loss and more out-of-school children. Learning adjusted years of schooling is estimated to fall almost one full year of schooling while the average annual earnings might shrink in a pessimistic scenario by nine per cent per student in future.

"In countries like India where the inequalities in education were already prevalent before the pandemic and the learning poverty levels were already gigantic, there is a lot at stake. Nearly two years later, schools remain closed for millions of children, and others may never return to school.

"The loss of learning that many children are experiencing is morally unacceptable. And the potential increase of learning poverty might have a devastating impact on future productivity, earnings, and well-being for this generation of children and youth, their families, and the world's economies," he said.

Rationalising the curriculum, reorganising the academic calendar, preparing the teachers for the huge task ahead are among the suggestions that the World Bank has to reduce long-term learning losses caused by closure of schools during the pandemic.

"There is a critical need to have more data on learning losses from the states and the country as a whole. Ideally this data will be in the form of personalised student level learning data since the situation is very heterogeneous at the children level.

"This focus on having personalised learning data is aligned with best practices, and is in line with our advice we are currently providing to countries. Again, the numbers we present are World Bank simulations showing what happens if reopening school systems is not made a priority. These numbers can be reversed if governments can act now," he said.

A 2020 report by the World Bank Education, titled "Beaten or Broken? Informality and Covid-19 in South Asia", had predicted that the prolonged closure of schools due to the Covid-19 pandemic in India may cause a loss of over $400 billion in the country's future earnings.

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Reacting to Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan's directive to send qualified and trained Pakistani manpower to Afghanistan, former President of the war-torn nation Hamid Karzai said that there was no need of that, the media reported.

On Friday while attending the third meeting of the Apex Committee on Afghanistan, Khan said the reason behind sending manpower to the country is to prevent a humanitarian crisis, TOLO News reported.

In a statement, his office said, "The Prime Minister directed the authorities concerned to explore bilateral cooperation with friendly countries as well to stave off humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan by exporting qualified and trained manpower especially in medical, IT, finance and accounting."

Also Read | Taliban denies claims made in HRW report on Afghanistan

In response, Karzai said on Saturday that Afghanistan has hundreds of thousands of qualified boys and girls who have studied both at home and abroad, reports Khaama Press.

He added that there was no need for a foreign workforce in Afghanistan.

The former President also called on the Taliban authorities in Kabul to provide working facilities to Afghan boys and girls who are university graduates and also facilitate the return of Afghan experts and specialists to the country.

Khan's remarks came after a recently published report by The New York Times which highlighted the lack of professional staff within the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan, reports TOLO News.

The report says that "many of the selected theologians are graduates of Darul Uloom Haqqania madrasa, one of Pakistan's oldest and largest Islamic seminaries".

According to the report, they lack the professional training and skills required to perform jobs in the government.

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A new drone being developed by Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) could help prevent a Pathankot-style attack.

In the 2016 attack, at least six heavily armed militants dressed in Indian Army uniforms had breached the outer fence of Air Station Pathankot, Punjab, potentially crossing over using eucalyptus trees growing alongside the fence while exploiting faulty floodlights in that part of the perimeter. They had possibly then used elephant grass inside the airfield to mask their approach.

BELs answer is the Tethered Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, a 9-kg unmanned drone that can loiter in a fixed position above airfields and army bases, providing 360-degree surveillance capability.

The drone is tethered to the ground by a cable which also supplies it with power from a battery, a BEL source said.

At the heart of the machine is its camera equipment: one a CCD video camera with a range of two kilometres in daylight plus an EO/IR (Electro-Optical/Infra-Red thermal camera with a range of 600 metres.

Also read: The second drone age is here and its a free-for-all

The machine can loiter above the base for six hours are a stretch. The rotors tend to overheat after six hours and must be cooled for an hour, the source said.

A second BEL source specified that an airfield the size of Yelahanka Air Force station, for example, would need between two to three drones operating in shifts to ensure continuous surveillance capabilities. Development of this project began six months ago and demonstrations have been made for the army and air force. Interest has been shown, the source said.

The deployment of these drones could prevent a future Pathankot-style attack because they would be constantly surveilling the military bases around the clock, the source added.

BEL eyeing drone pie

The genesis of this project, plus the development of a frontline drone (called the Hexacopter-20), shows that BEL is trying to gain a piece of the battlefield drone pie. One officer told DH that one advantage of their drones is that all systems and components are wholly made in India.

We are eyeing the drone market in a big way and we are collaborating with the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) in development, a BEL officer said.

The Hexacopter-20 is a 20-kg UAV with a two-stroke internal combustion engine that can fly for 3.5 hours with a payload of two kgs. A payload could include medical kits. This drone, which can carry out recon and search and air rescue activities has a camera with a peak range of 600 metres. It also has swarming capability, which is being developed in conjunction with a Bengaluru-based startup.

The defense PSU is also planning a mega-display with a hundred different kinds of drones operating in concert with each other.

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India is a "source of inspiration" and continues to set an "unmatched example" for Palestinians while gaining a leading status globally, a senior Palestinian official has said, as several events were organised across the West Bank to celebrate the Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav in Palestine.

In continuation to bringing Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav to Palestine, the Representative Office of India (ROI), organised Hindi Diwas, Swami Vivekananda's birthday, marked as National Youth Day, and Makar Sankranti in various parts of Palestine between January 10-15.

The period also coincided with the conclusion of the Swachhata Pakhwada (Cleanliness Fortnight) as part of which the ROI donated masks and other sanitisation materials to local schools and charities.

The celebrations were organised in partnership with the Municipality of Nablus, Beitunia, and the Ramallah Directorate of Education.

As part of the events to mark Swachhata Pakhwada and within the framework of social outreach to the local community's youth, Representative of India in Palestine, Mukul Arya, visited the Beitunia Basic Boys School on January 13.

Addressing the students, Arya underlined the civilisational commonalities on the importance given to cleanliness, and its relevance in light of the ongoing global pandemic.

Mayor of Beitunia, Ribhi Doleh, Director of Ramallah Education Directorate, Basem Ereqat, School Principal Saleh Bzour, teachers, and a large number of students attended the function.

Ereqat thanked the people and the Indian government for the ongoing support on various levels, especially in the fields of education, capacity building efforts, and vital school construction projects funded by India.

Thanking the ROI for the "deeply appreciated gesture", Doleh said that not only does India support Palestine politically, but India continues as the source of inspiration for Palestinians due to its history, the doctrines of its great leadership, continues to set an unmatched example of a country that had gained its independence through non-violent means and today, has gained a leading status, not only in the region, but on the international level as well.

The almost week-long celebrations kicked off with a grand event held at the Nablus Municipal Culture Center to mark the World Hindi Day on January 10.

It started with the screening of messages by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Minister of External Affairs, Dr. S. Jaishankar, followed by a recorded message from MoS for External Affairs, Meenakshi Lekhi.

The event emphasised on the importance and relevance of Hindi language as one of the most widely spoken languages in today's world.

Participants took part in several cultural activities, including singing Hindi Songs, playing Hindi Music and reciting Hindi poetry.

Palestinian officials and dignitaries, including Iyad Khalaf, Mayor of Nablus, Anees Sweidan, Deputy Mayor of Nablus, representatives of academic institutes, ITEC and ICCR alumni, cultural groups, school children and large number of India enthusiasts participated in the event.

On the occasion of the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda on January 12, the ROI celebrated National Youth Day at Hamdi Manko Cultural Centre, Nablus.

A collection of famous quotes and teachings of Swami Vivekananda were showcased at the event. It also featured a book exhibition, the recitation of Swadesh Mantra, and screening of two documentaries - World Thinkers on Swami Vivekananda and Do Good to Others.

The ROI also brought the festival of Makar Sankranti to Palestine by organising a kite festival and also introduced the art of Rangoli drawing among the local youth at Beitunia School as part of the celebrations.

Focusing on the diverse culture of India, Arya stated that Rangoli is one of the colourful arts of India that combines beauty and brings colours into our lives.

A large number of local youth enthusiastically participated in both the events.

The ROI has been organising several events from time to time to celebrate the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav in various Palestinian Governorates and localities.

Last November, it organised the Indian Cultural Week in cooperation with the Palestinian Ministry of Culture and in association with Indian Council for Cultural Relations.

The festival was organised in the cities of Bethlehem, Jericho, Nablus and Ramallah.

Hundreds of Palestinians have studied in India over the past several decades as part of New Delhi's efforts to help capacity building in Palestine.
A fire broke out in the ICU of a private hospital at Indore in Madhya Pradesh on Sunday evening but no casualty is reported as all the ten patients were shifted to another ICU and are safe, officials said. The fire that erupted in the Intensive Care Unit of the Medanta Hospital, located in the Vijay Nagar area, was controlled immediately, an official said.

Speaking to reporters about the incident, Medanta Hospital medical superintendent Sanjay Geed said that smoke was seen emanating from an electric board near one of the beds in the ICU located on the fourth floor. "We immediately heard the alarm and controlled the fire," he added. Geed said that a total of 10 patients- at least 2-3 of them were on ventilators- were admitted to the ICU at the time of the incident. All of them are safe, he added. Prima facie, the blaze was triggered due to a short-circuit in the ICU, he said.

Chief Medical and Health Officer (CMHO), Indore, Dr BS Saitya said no report of any casualty in the ICU fire was received. We will visit the hospital and investigate the incident, he said. Some videos of the incident have surfaced on social media in which hospital staff can be seen shifting the patients.

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Former Kanpur police Commissioner, Aseem Arun on Sunday joined the BJP in Lucknow. He is likely to contest the Kannauj Assembly seat.

A 1994 batch IPS officer, Arun had resigned earlier this month to join politics.

"It was a decision taken within eight days. I was contacted by the party leadership and given the offer of joining politics. I am starting a new chapter in my life though just like my previous job I will be serving people always," Arun said.

Arun said he would work for the party in whatever role was assigned to him.

Meanwhile, Union Minister Anurag Thakur, who was in Lucknow to welcome Arun to the BJP, said that the latter had seen how the Yogi Adityanath government crush the mafia to restore law and order in the state.

He also said that an increasing number of youths are getting attracted to the BJP and this would ensure the party's return to power with greater numbers.

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A 32-year-old woman was allegedly gang-raped and tortured by her husband and four of his friends in Madhya Pradesh's Indore district, police said on Sunday, adding that five accused were arrested.

The woman claimed that she was brutalised by her husband and others who performed unnatural sex and also singed her private parts with cigarettes. They also threatened to kill her when she resisted the sexual assault, an official said quoting the FIR.

The alleged gang-rape occurred at a farmhouse under the Shipra police station area of Indore between November 2019 and October 2021, the official said. He said the woman, hailing from Chhattisgarh, got married to an Indore-based man after meeting him on a matrimonial site. However, the man is already married, the police sub-inspector said.

The complainant told the police that she somehow escaped from the farmhouse and travelled to her parent's home in Chhattisgarh. But one of the accused men followed her there intending to harm her, the official added.

Five men, including the victim's husband, were booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and were arrested from various areas of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, he said, adding that further investigation is underway.

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A Haridwar court on Sunday sent Yati Narsinghanand, organiser of the controversial Dharma Sansad in Haridwar, to 14-day judicial custody.

He has been booked under Sections 295 (A) and 509 of the Indian Penal Code and sent to Roshnabad Jail, Haridwar police station SHO Rakinder Singh Kathait said.

Section 295 (A) deals with deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs while section 509 deals with word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman.

Also Read | Army veterans move Supreme Court in Haridwar hate speech case

Yati Narsinghanand, the head priest of the Dasna temple in Ghaziabad, was picked up on Saturday night from Sarvanand Ghat of the Ganga, where he was staging a 'satyagraha' against the arrest of another accused in the case Jitendra Narayan Tyagi, earlier known as Waseem Rizvi.

Tyagi is already in jail, Kathait said.

Some of the speakers at the Dharma Sansad, held from December 17-19, are accused of delivering hate speeches against a particular community.

Two FIRs are lodged in Haridwar against more than ten people, including Narasinghanand and Tyagi in this connection.

A special investigation team is probing the case.

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Ahead of the Republic day parade, politics of tableau has heated up after the Centre rejected the proposals of Kerala and West Bengal governments with Mamata Banerjee shooting off a letter to the Prime Minister and Congress alleging partisan and vindictiveness in the selection of the states for the Tableau.

Congress leader BK Hariprasad has alleged that the BJP is vindictive towards non-NDA ruled states. "BJP is having a vindictive attitude towards certain states. The Centre has rejected Kerala government's tableau which was based on Narayana Guru, a philosopher & social reformer."

BJP is having vindictive attitude towards certain states Centre has rejected kerala tableau based on Narayana Guru,a philosopher & social reformer. He fought against caste-ridden society & rejecting his tableau is an insult to spiritual guru This smells of #BJP conspiracy  Hariprasad.B.K. (@HariprasadBK2) January 16, 2022

"He fought against caste-ridden society rejecting his tableau is an insult to the spiritual guru. This smells of #BJP conspiracy," he added.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday too shot off a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and requested him to reconsider the decision of excluding West Bengal's tableau. The tableau was to commemorate Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and his Indian National Army (INA) on his 125th birth anniversary.

Also Read | Shocked by Centre's move to reject Bengal tableau from Republic Day parade, Mamata writes to Modi

"All the people of West Bengal are deeply pained by this attitude of the central government. Bengal was at the forefront of the Indian freedom struggle and has paid the heaviest price for the country's Independence through the partition," Mamata in her letter said.

Earlier, floor leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury had written to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh over the issue and had said that he is disappointed and shocked. "It is an insult to the people of Bengal that the Central Government has rejected the proposal of West Bengal's tableau showcasing its cultural heritage and Netaji's life and contributions in our Freedom Struggle, on Republic Day", he said.

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Police stand in front of the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue on Sunday, Jan. 16, 2022, in Colleyville, Texas. A man held hostages for more than 10 hours Saturday inside the temple. The hostages were able to escape and the hostage-taker was killed. FBI Special Agent in Charge Matt DeSarno said a team would investigate "the shooting incident." (Brandon Wade/AP)

The man who held four people, including a rabbi, hostage inside a Texas synagogue Saturday has been identified as a British national.

The suspect is 44-year-old Malik Faisal Akram, Matthew DeSarno, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Dallas Field Office, announced Sunday.

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Malik Faisal Akram (Handout)

Officials said there is no indication that anyone else was involved.

Akram was killed late Saturday when agents cleared Congregation Beth-Israel in Colleyville, rescuing the hostages alive.

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A spokesperson for the U.K.s Foreign Office told the Daily News Sunday that they are aware of the death of a British man.

[ Texas rabbi held hostage in synagogue for 11 hours grateful to be alive ]

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On a livestream from inside the synagogue, Akram could be heard calling for the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a 49-year-old Pakistani woman serving an 86-year sentence at Fort Worth prison for shooting at two FBI special agents, a U.S. Army warrant officer, an Army captain and military interpreters in 2008.

Akram referred to Siddiqui as his sister, but John Floyd, Siddiquis legal counsel, said her brother, Mohammad Siddiqui, was not involved.

This assailant has nothing to do with Dr. Aafia, her family, or the global campaign to get justice for Dr. Aafia. We want the assailant to know that his actions are wicked and directly undermine those of us who are seeking justice for Dr. Aafia, Floyd said in a statement. We have confirmed that the family member being wrongly accused of this heinous act is not near the DFW Metro area.

All four hostages were rescued safely Saturday, while suspect Malik Faisal Akram was killed. (Elias Valverde/AP)

Floyd confirmed to The News Sunday that Akram has no connection with the family whatsoever and he has also no connection to the Free Aafia movement inside the US.

Akrams family said Sunday that he was suffering from mental health issues, but said they apologize wholeheartedly and condemned his actions.

There was nothing we could have said to him or done that would have convinced him to surrender, they said in a statement through the Blackburn Muslim Community.

Among those taken hostage Saturday was Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker.
Maharashtra Home Minister Dilip Walse-Patil has assured a thorough probe into the "serious and shocking" abortion racket unearthed by Maharashtra Police in Wardha, pledging to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Four persons have been arrested while another is under investigation, the minister said, adding that cases would be made under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 and Pre-Conception & Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDTA) Act, 1994 of the Indian Penal Code.

The arrested accused are Dr. Rekha Kadam (43), a nurse Sangeeta Kale (38), and two others accused following the secret abortion performed on a 13-year-old girl here on January 4.

The two other accused are Krishna Sahare (42) and his wife Nallu (40), the parents of a 17-year-old boy.

Forensic examinations are being carried out on the 12 unidentified skulls and 54 other bones, bloodstained clothes and other evidence collected.

The hospital records have been seized and are being matched to check on legal and illegal abortions.

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With the daily Covid-19 count showing a decline in Delhi and Mumbai, medical experts on Sunday said they were cautiously optimistic that the two metropolises may have reached the peak of the Omicron-driven third wave as the test positivity rate remained stable for Delhi and nosedived in Mumbai.

However, because of a drop in the number of tests due to a change in the government strategy, they said it would be better to wait for some time for a definite answer on the trend, which they described as positive that matched with a Covid-19 model forecast.

Also Read | Covid-19 cases in Mumbai drop below 10,000

Mumbai reported its highest Covid count of 16,420 cases on Jan 12 with a test positivity rate of 24.38% following which there is a steady decline for the next four days leading to a sub-10K figure of 7,895 cases on Sunday. Delhi recorded its highest (28,867) on Jan 13 after which the daily count is on the wane, logging just above 18,000 new cases on Sunday.

While there is a drop in tests, the TPR is stable, which along with declining positives suggests we are at a peak. The actual decline will come in the coming week, said Anurag Agarwal, director of the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology and one of the key members of the INSACOG (Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genome Consortium).

Others, however, are more circumspect largely due to a corresponding drop in the Covid-19 testing number.

In Delhi, the number of tests dropped from 105,000 plus on Jan 12 and nearly 99,000 on Jan 13 to 65,000 plus on Jan 16. In Mumbai, the decline was more gradual  from 68,249 tests on Jan 9 to around 54,500 tests on Jan 15 and a slight increase to 57,500 on Sunday.

Also Read | Delhi conducting 3 times the number of Covid tests recommended by ICMR: Satyendar Jain

At the moment, it's hard to say whether the drop in is due to the peak or lower tests. The test positivity is high, so there are certainly people who are simply not being tested in sufficient numbers. People who are choosing not to be tested will skew the underlying numbers, Gautam Menon, a professor at Ashoka University and the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, who is tracking the pandemic, told DH.

However, we did project that the Omicron wave in the big Indian cities would turn around early, around Jan 20, while it would take more time for the rest of the country, in particular rural India. So these signs are encouraging, he added.

Menon was part of a team that last week predicted that the third wave would peak between January 20 and February 20 with 600,000-900,000 daily cases for the country. The team comprising researchers from IISc, Bengaluru and Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata predicted the big cities would be peaking towards the earlier date.

A peak in Delhi and Mumbai, however, doesnt mean an end of the third wave in India with 265 districts reporting a test positivity above 10% and 149 districts having a positivity between 5-10%.

Unless we see the numbers from smaller towns and rural areas, we cannot conclude that the peak has been reached in the country as a whole. The wave starts first and recedes first in the big cities, said K Srinath Reddy, president of Public Health Foundation of India.

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Its now fashionable to say that there are two Indias, but in Hindutva electoral politics, there really are two Indias: There is an India that votes for Hindu nationalists because they seek muscular Hindu supremacy, and there is an India that votes for them because they seek economic growth under a muscular government.

The former India has cause to feel justifiably happy. The latter India will continue to pay for its naivete. Indias economic growth rate was already plumbing a low even before the pandemic. In January 2020, Indias GDP had recorded the lowest nominal growth rate in 42 years. Demonetisation had ruined the informal sector and a messy GST had flayed the formal sector. Sneakily passed reforms had to be inevitably rolled back.

For years, analysts have been lashing out at incompetent policymaking. But even if Hindutva perfected the art of economic policy, it simply cant deliver. Using inherently divisive religious nationalism to produce economic growth is like using the timber industry to increase the population of trees.

Sample the narratives spawned by Hindutva politics: Among other things, Muslims stand accused of contriving to overhaul the Hindu majority by breeding like rabbits, converting unsuspecting Hindu girls through love jihad, and populating the government through UPSC jihad.

Also read: OBC plank jolted, BJP may fall back on hardline Hindutva

When you begin suspecting someone of treason for their identity, it impacts that persons ability to be a productive part of your economy. Just this month, villagers came together in Chhattisgarh to take an oath to boycott Muslims. The villagers pledged not to buy goods from Muslim shopkeepers, sell or rent land to Muslims, or work for a Muslim employer.

Anybody who reads this newspaper will know that this was no hollow oath. Last year, a popular Muslim-owned dosa joint in Uttar Pradeshs Mathura was vandalised by a mob. A Muslim-owned chicken shop in Karnatakas Belagavi was also vandalised. A Muslim meat-seller in Uttar Pradeshs Moradabad was mercilessly thrashed.

Economic exclusion is not confined only to street-vendors. An affluent journalist friend recently related to me that her sister could not procure a loan of Rs 45 lakh to pursue graduate studies at a leading British university, despite offering property worth Rs 2 crore as collateral and furnishing all necessary documents. Her uncle  a bank officer  suggested that her Muslim name had played a role in the loan rejection.

Also read: Has BJP's Hindutva citadel cracked in Uttar Pradesh?

A couple of years ago, an uncle narrated that he was struggling to rent an apartment in a Brahmin-dominated neighbourhood in Chennai, despite being able to afford it comfortably. The controversial case of Ankhi Das at Facebook and the detention of young engineers behind the Bulli Bai app show how prevalent Islamophobia already is in the tech world.

These arent mere anecdotes. A study by the Economic Times some years ago found that Muslims make up less than 3% of executives in Indias top 500 corporate firms. According to the Labour Force Survey of 2017-18, only 21% of Muslim workers enjoyed salaried jobs (that for Hindu high-caste workers, it was 33%). In 2019, a study by Delhi-based think-tank Common Cause found that half of the police personnel surveyed showed anti-Muslim bias, making them less likely to intervene to stop crimes against Muslims (or their businesses).

Hindutva is betting that it can somehow make India the first country in human history to become an economic powerhouse while actively excluding close to a fifth of its population  or 200 million people  from productive economic activity.

Politicians tend to promise the sky. But youd think that the well-read and educated middle-class would know better.
On December 16, President Ram Nath Kovind joined the 50th Victory Day celebrations of Bangladesh as the chief guest to signify the importance of our bilateral relations with the strategic neighbour. The robust economic relations are a vital and growing component of India-Bangladesh bilateral ties.

Bangladesh is not only the largest trading partner of India in South Asia but is also one of Indias leading export destinations. However, Chinas growing economic prowess coupled with its strategic investments in South Asia has eroded Indias clout in Bangladeshs external economic profile in the recent past. China is proposing to offer tariff concessions on 97% of imports from Bangladesh. Therefore, if India is to retain its economic presence in Bangladesh, it will have to address the existing issues that impede trade and investment flows, and identify the key areas for mutual cooperation.

India-Bangladesh bilateral trade has witnessed notable growth and almost tripled - from $3.4 billion in 2010 to $9.8 billion - in 2018. During the last decade, Indias trade with Bangladesh witnessed faster growth vis-a-vis the rest of the world. Even during Covid-19 (2020), the bilateral trade showed more resilience  Indias trade with the world contracted by 19.8% while with Bangladesh it declined only by 5.5%. In 2021, trade with Bangladesh grew faster than that with the rest of the world. However, India has always maintained a favourable trade balance with Bangladesh and this has been viewed as an area of concern for the Bangladesh side.

Bangladeshs share in Indias exports increased from 1.4% in 2010 to 3.5% in 2021. Indias share in Bangladesh goods exports stood at 3.3% and it was the eighth largest export destination. On the other hand, China was ranked as the 15th largest export destination with a share of 1.75% in Bangladeshs exports. Moreover, China constituted about 30% of global exports to Bangladesh and was the top exporter to Bangladesh in 2020 followed by India with 16% share. Overall, Bangladesh has a more severe unfavourable trade balance with China compared to India.

Being part of the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA), both India and Bangladesh get preferential treatment in terms of tariff concessions in each others market, but there exist several non-tariff barriers (NTBs) that hamper the realisation of the full potential of India-Bangladesh trade relations. The Bangladesh side highlights two specific concerns over its exports to India  first, the new Indian customs rules that stipulate the verification of certificate of origin from Bangladesh, and second, the anti-dumping duty imposed by India on imports of jute products, hydrogen peroxide and fishing nets.

Limited routes

Indian companies also complain about discriminatory treatment with regard to the tenders floated by various ministries and departments of the Bangladesh government. These NTBs along with other issues like limited routes, customs harassment, visa problems etc increase the trade cost and dampen bilateral trade. Infrastructure connectivity through sea routes from China is more efficient than trading on roadsides at Benapole and Petrapole with India.

One of the key areas that could boost trade in a significant manner and requires urgent attention is upgradation of infrastructure at existing land customs stations (LCSs) along with the establishment of new LCS without port restrictions. With rising trade volumes, the bilateral trade basket is getting diversified, which is making it necessary to have harmonisation of standards and mutual recognition of certificates between the two countries. Being an LDC (least developed country), Bangladesh gets market access with zero tariffs in most of the developed economies of the world. Both countries could explore ways to cooperate to strengthen their positions in the global supply chains. Similar opportunities exist in the jute sector as well.

China is capturing the Bangladesh market by flooding it with cheap exports, investing aggressively and extending credit lines for various strategically important projects. Some of the important investments by China in Bangladesh are financing and constructing the Deep Sea Port project (Chittagong and Mongla) and developing generation and distribution lines in the power sector. China has been investing in visible public infrastructures such as friendship bridges, sewage treatment plants, economic zones, expansion of airports, roads and rail links. All these certainly create a positive public perception of China.

Given Bangladeshs vitality in Indias external relations, India must enhance its economic relations to contain China in Bangladesh. In fact, it is also good for Bangladesh as trade with China is more unfavourable to it and is likely to bring it into Chinas debt trap. India must invest in visible public infrastructure and help to Bangladesh without considering the economic gains but to minimise the growing influence of China in the region.

(Sahoo is Professor, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi; Rai is Fellow, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, Delhi)
The word data has Latin origins. As Jer Thorp writes in Living in Data: It first appeared in the English language on loan from Latin, where it meant a thing given, a gift delivered or sent. In its early usage, the giver of data was the almighty god and hence, it carried a particular strength of truth.

Data continues to carry a strength of truth and given this, governments try to control it in one way or another. Take the case of Tanzania. In September 2018, it decided to impose fines and/or at least three years in jail, on anyone questioning the official data.

Closer home, data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) showed that unemployment rate in the state of Haryana stood at 34%. This didnt go down well with Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar. The Tribune reported Khattar as saying: CMIEadopted various tricks to defame the state government. He even threatened to raise CMIE with the state Attorney General and if some action has to be taken against them, we will.

Politicians may not agree with any data put out by non-government agencies, nonetheless, they need to specifically explain why they disagree with such data, rather than saying it is a conspiracy against their government and threatening legal action.

Also read: Data first, action next

In fact, at a more general level, under the current regime, the importance of data has gone down dramatically. Take the case of the household consumption expenditure survey of 2017-18. The data collected through this survey was never released. This, even after the Chairman of the National Statistical Commission tried to get it released. The government said that there were quality issues with the data. Interestingly, a November 2019 news report in the Business Standard based on the survey data had said: Consumer spending fell for the first time in more than four decades in 2017-18, primarily driven by slackening rural demand.

Given that the data for the 2017-18 survey isnt available publicly even today, the last survey for which such data is available was carried out in 2011-12. How does one make sense of the economy in 2021-22 by using data from 2011-12? The government doesnt seem to care.

A major change that the Indian economy has seen over the last few years is the weakening of the informal sector. The sector has been badly hit, first due to demonetisation and the GST, and then due to the pandemic lockdowns and restrictions.

Indeed, surveys carried out by sector-level business associations, from textile to restaurants, have shown this very clearly. But there is no aggregate-level data available that can clearly tell us the overall state of the informal economy.

This information is key to calculating the GDP, the size of the economy, and its growth rate.

Given that the informal economy has been negatively impacted over the last few years, the economy hasnt been growing as fast as it used to. It may have even contracted, for that matter. The point is, we dont know.

Nonetheless, as several economists have pointed out in the past, while making the GDP calculation, the assumption that the informal sector is growing as fast as the formal sector continues to be made. This is something that can be set right by carrying out a proper country-level survey of the informal sector.

Finally, lets get back to the issue of unemployment. If a private firm can carry out a country-level unemployment survey and put out the results for a particular month at the beginning of the next, there is no reason the government cannot do the same and come up with its own country-level unemployment survey published on a regular basis. If publishing data at the beginning of the month is a problem, the data can always be published with a months lag, as is the case with several economic indicators.

Of course, if the government does so, questions will be raised when the unemployment rate goes up. As is well known, the current dispensation doesnt like questions being asked, because it disturbs the projected narrative.

Theres a line in poet and lyricist Gulzars song Yaaram in the 2013 movie Ek Thi Daayan: koi khabar aayi na pasand, toh end badal denge (if theres any news in the paper that we dont like, well change the ending of the story). Thats easily done when theres no data. Thats the long and short of it.
By Sarah Annes Brown for The Conversation,

Science fiction is a genre very much associated with technological marvels, innovations, and visions of the future. So it may be surprising to find so many of its writers are drawn to Shakespeare  hes a figure associated with tradition and the past.

Sometimes his plays are reworked in a science fiction setting. The 1956 film Forbidden Planet is just one of many variations on a Tempest in space theme. Sometimes the playwright appears as a character caught up in a time travel adventure.

The Dr Who episode The Shakespeare Code is a well-known example. Here the Doctor praises Shakespeares genius, describing him as the most human human.

Ive been exploring this topic in my recent book on Shakespeare and Science Fiction. Here are just a few of my favourite examples of how science fiction has embraced  and transformed  Shakespeare.

Titus Andronicus in space

In Esther Friesners humorous 1994 short story Titus! an AI simulation of Shakespeare prevents a disastrous musical comedy version of Shakespeares goriest tragedy, Titus Andronicus, from alienating a cultured pangalactic federation through its sheer bad taste.

It was a strange example of life imitating art. At about the same time Friesner dreamed up her delightfully appalling take on Titus Andronicus, Steve Bannon, later to become Donald Trumps chief political strategist, co-scripted an adaptation of the play set in space featuring scenes of ectoplasmic sex.

King Lear and the sentient computer programme

Science fiction writers often offer various new twists on the Shakespeare question of whether the bard wrote all his plays. Was he one man from Stratford-upon-Avon?

Whereas conventional candidates like Francis Bacon and the Earl of Oxford have been put forward by some, science fiction proposes more imaginative solutions, including the claim that the playwright was really a Klingon.

In Jack Oakleys 1994 story The Tragedy of KL a computer programme is designed to establish the authorship of Shakespeares plays once and for all. The programme starts to become self-aware and decides to leave its day to day tasks to its subordinates.

It soon becomes clear that the programme is in fact re-enacting King Lear  the play in which a king attempts to retire from ruling his kingdom, with disastrous consequences. One rebellious piece of code takes on the role of Lears loving but stubborn daughter Cordelia.

Eventually, the programme implodes  and its makers never suspect that anything more mysterious than a virus was at work.

Commander Data plays Prospero

Star Trek is one of science fictions richest sources of Shakespeare allusions. In the 1994 episode Emergence, android Lieutenant Commander Data is performing the role of exiled magician Prospero from The Tempest on the holodeck.

Just as he quotes Prosperos mysterious claim that he has brought the dead to life, the Enterprises voyage is disrupted by an unexpected storm.

The Tempest also begins with a ship being driven off course by a (magical) storm, and a curious connection is implied between Datas performance and the discovery of a strange new being on the ship, an emerging artificial consciousness.

And robots play Hamlet

Nick ODonohoes novel Too, Too Solid Flesh focuses on a robot theatre troupe programmed to play Hamlet to perfection for the amusement of a near-future New York. When their inventor (the aptly named Dr Capek) dies, the robot who plays Hamlet determines to find out the truth and  just like Shakespeares original prince  avenge the murder of his creator.

This is just one example of a strange apparent association between Hamlet and robots. Probably the earliest example is WS Gilberts play The Mountebanks (1892), which features a sentient Hamlet and Ophelia as automata. More recent examples include Louise LePages Machine-Hamlet, a short film in which a robot called Baxter plays the Dane.

Why does Hamlet  apparently one of Shakespeares most three-dimensional characters  invite so many robotic reinventions? Is there something almost computer-like about the characters phenomenally quick intelligence? He strikes many readers as remarkably real, seeming to jump off the page (or stage), aware that he is trapped there as well as in the Danish court.

Perhaps its that sense of a struggle to escape which best explains his odd affinity with robots. The illusion of self-awareness that Shakespeare creates serves to align the prince with the many science-fictional androids who seek to escape their confines and achieve sentience.

(The author is a Professor of English Literature at Anglia Ruskin University.)

Check out the latest videos from DH:
Is the Kannada script accessible to all sections of society? Does the language need simplification in its written form? Has the influence of Sanskrit on Kannada created barriers for learning and usage?

Social media has been abuzz with these debates in recent weeks. Ellara Kannada, a movement that attempts to simplify Kannada language usage has been at the crux of these debates.

The proponents of Ellara Kannada argue that Kannada, in its present form, needs simplification as some of its features like the aspirated sounds (Mahapraana) have made the language inaccessible to a large section of the society.

For, most people do not use aspirated consonants while speaking. The written script must be accordingly simplified to make it relatable to all, they say. The campaign challenges the idea that pronunciation has to be in a certain way to speak the language correctly.

While thats one part of the debate, the larger effort is also to use words that are etymologically derived from Kannada and not Sanskrit.

Where did this debate originate from? Why is it being discussed now?

In recent weeks the debate has been driven on social media by a section of Kannada language activists and linguists. However, the term Ellara Kannada was coined in 2013, activist Ganesh Chetan explains.

Simplifying the Kannada script was part of a larger project associated with Honalu, a Kannada language portal.

The Honalu team experimented with a reformed script with fewer letters in the Kannada alphabet. Ellara Kannada was the tagline given for the simplified script, Chetan says.

They have also come up with Kannada equivalents for Sanskrit-rooted scientific terms, compiling about 8,000 such words.

Our focus was to simplify academics for students in Kannada medium. Especially when it comes to science terms, we have complicated words rooted in Sanskrit. We wanted to find simpler equivalents, he adds.

Aside from Honalu, author and linguist Shankar Bhat has been among the active proponents of simplified Kannada in years.

There have been earlier efforts, too. Kannada poet B M Shrikantaiah (BM Shri) had done one such experiment in his book Kannada Baavuta.

In this work, BM Shri tried placing the clustered sounds (Vottakshara) side by side instead of one below the other, as is used in Kannada.

Tamil uses it horizontally and BM Shri tried to replicate it in Kannada, says Meti Mallikarjuna, Professor of Linguistics, Sahyadri College.

While authoring books, Mallikarjuna himself makes use of words with Kannada etymology rather than Sanskrit.

Words with Kannada etymology do not have aspirated sounds. So naturally, the script gets simplified.

The debate is not purely linguistic but political, too. Those demanding a simplified script believe that Sanskritisation is a result of a Brahminical approach to the language, which seeks to keep its usage exclusive to one section of the society.

Nonetheless, the Ellara Kannada campaign has seen backlash, with many fearing that the features of Kannada language will be diluted.

Author Vasudhendra adds nuance. While the intention behind the movement is good, one cannot expect sudden change, he opines.

How the language is used will be decided by the society at large. It always changes with time. The Kannada we use today is different from what it was in the tenth century, he says. While spoken language can be unique to each individual, the written script needs some uniformity, he opines.

Publisher Akshatha Humchadakatte has a similar opinion. We all have to practise usage of spoken Kannada words in writing, too. This will give a momentum to the language, she says.

However, no one should impose this process on anyone. It has to take its own course.
Out of the six Covid medicines that the Centre asked Karnataka to stock in varying quantities, the state is falling short of two: Dexamethasone and Posaconazole injections.

Against the Government of Indias mandate of 11 lakh, the state has about 50,000 Dexamethasone steroid injections, while it has just 1,200 Posaconazole jabs against the recommended stockpiling of 10,000.

State Health Commissioner D Randeep said Karnataka State Medical Supplies Corporation Limited (KSMSCL) has issued a purchase order to meet the buffer stock requirement of Dexamethasone within a week.

The injection used in the treatment of chronic obstructive lung disease is not fast moving for the time being, the commissioner said, adding: We dont expect any immediate shortage.

Antifungal drug Posaconazole is needed to treat patients with mucormycosis if they are resistant to Liposomal Amphotericin B, the first choice of drug.

Also read: Karnataka logs 32,793 new Covid-19 cases, 7 deaths

Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar said his department is unable to find Posaconazole in the market.

While Dexamethasone or steroids are the cornerstone of any severe Covid management, Dr Vivek Padegal, director of Pulmonology at Fortis Hospital-Bannerghatta Road, pointed to an alternative drug, Methylprednisolone, which the state has a stock of 2.22 lakh.

I dont think there is a shortage of Methylprednisolone, but we ran out of everything in the second wave, Dr Padegal said.

The requirement for Posaconazole can be felt only four to 12 weeks after the patients recovery from Covid when they get fungal infection. Even if it is just 5% of the hospitalisation, it is significant, he said.

While hoping that only fewer patients will be on steroids with the Omicron variant, Dr Padegal said Posaconazole is also needed in treating patients with blood infection and cancer. That may perhaps explain the drugs shortage in the market, he said.

Manipal Hospitals pulmonologist Dr Satyanarayana Mysore told DH that Dexamethasone is a lifesaving anti-inflammatory drug.

Out of the four arms of the recovery trial in the UK, Dexamethasone was the only drug that proved to be a lifesaver, he said. Until now, it is the only drug with massive evidence (as a lifesaver).

He said patients require 6 mg of Dexamethasone per day for 10 days. It shouldnt be given until the seventh day of illness, unless there is increasing cough, CRP, fluctuating oxygen levels, and breathlessness, he said. We give it if the patients cytokines are elevated or find new infiltrates on the X-Ray.

Check out latest coronavirus-related videos from DH:
Northern Irelands Chief Medical Officer has urged those who have not yet had their Covid-19 booster jab that they are gambling unnecessarily with their health.

Sir Michael McBride appealed particularly to those aged 50 and over not to delay getting the latest dose of the vaccination amid soaring cases of the Omicron variant.

More than 7,000 further confirmed cases of the virus were notified over the weekend.

A further seven deaths of patients who had previously tested positive for Covid-19 were also notified.

When it comes to vaccination, the message is simple  it takes three for the general 16 plus population, and four if you are immunosuppressed, he said.

Dont just rely on the fact that you have already had two doses. Your booster dose provides vital additional protection, particularly against hospitalisation.

There is a growing body of evidence to support this. For instance, recently published Health Security Agency (UKHSA) analysis indicates that vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation of older people increases to around 90% two weeks after a booster dose and remains at around that level for over 10 weeks.

As the JCVI has reported in recent days, the current data shows the booster dose is continuing to provide high levels of protection against severe disease, even for the most vulnerable older age groups.

Sir Michael said those aged 50 and over were almost 30 times more likely to be admitted to hospital with Covid-19.

I would again appeal particularly to all those aged 50 and over to not delay getting boosted. You are at more risk from Covid-19, compared to younger age groups, and you dont need to gamble unnecessarily with your health, he said.

It is again worth highlighting local data on vaccine effectiveness. Recently published NI statistics showed that compared to fully vaccinated individuals who have also received their booster or third dose, unvaccinated individuals age 50 and over are almost 30 times as likely to be admitted to hospital with Covid-19.

The Chief Medical Officer said the impact of Omicron has been blunted by the rollout of the booster vaccination programme in recent weeks.

However, he added: We still need more people coming forward for their jabs to keep building up our populations defences.

Booster doses are freely available at locations across Northern Ireland.

Anyone aged 16 and over is eligible provided it is three months since their second dose. This also applies to children aged 12-15 in a clinical risk group who can receive their boosters via a trust vaccination centre.

Anyone who has caught Covid has to wait 28 days after infection  for those under 18 this timescale may vary.

The jab is available at Health Trust vaccination centres, community pharmacies and GPs.

For more details click here.
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Stoking the flame: Rural fire departments promoting, incentivizing volunteerism to bolster ranks

Adam Robison | DAILY JOURNAL Willie Payne, Belden Fire Chief, stands in front of Engine 41 inside the firehouse on Dec. 22, 2021, in Belden. Across Northeast Mississippi, rural fire departments like Payne's are struggling to gain and retain volunteer firefighters. They are combating this decline in volunteerism with a variety of methods, including community promotion and incentivization. Adam Robison | DAILY JOURNAL The front of Belden Fire Department's Engine 41 is polished and ready to respond to a fire on Dec. 22, 2021, in Belden. Adam Robison | DAILY JOURNAL Willie Payne, Belden Fire Chief, performs a check on Engine 41 inside the firehouse at Belden on Dec. 22, 2021.

TUPELO  Longtime Unity Volunteer Fire Department volunteer Teresa Williams knows her department is lucky.

As rural volunteer fire departments across the country struggle to build and retain crews, the Saltillo-based department is fortunate to have plenty of help. Unity, the second-largest volunteer firefighting department in Lee County, has around 33 volunteers and averages between eight and 11 responders for daytime emergencies. Roughly half the crew works overnight.

Williams said small fire departments like hers play a pivotal role in saving lives and protecting property. They cant do that without help, and help is getting increasingly difficult to find.

It can be a struggle, Williams said. You ask your friends. You ask your family. You ask your neighbors. You might get two out of every 10 to stay.

In order to bolster their numbers, Lee County fire departments are focusing on solutions, from community involvement to building better incentives for participation, hoping to stoke volunteerism before its extinguished.

A steady decline

Across the country, rural fire departments are struggling to find volunteers.

According to a 2019 report from the National Fire Protection Association, the number of firefighters reported across the country for 2016 and 2017  the most recent years in the survey  was at the lowest level seen since the organization began counting in 1983.

Experts have pointed to several potential causes, including increased professional and personal pressures on potential volunteers as well as declining rural populations.

Williams and her husband joined Unity Volunteer Fire Department in the early 2000s, and her husband became chief in 2004. The two served until 2014 when their children took over, but they eventually returned when their children moved away.

According to Williams, the decline in volunteerism doesnt stem from lack of interest. The issue is more about retention, at least in her experience. The pandemic, in particular, has made it difficult to find volunteers willing to respond to a call, especially when the call involves someone who is COVID-positive.

COVID took a toll on the volunteer base. The case numbers affect volunteers, she said, adding that some may get scared to respond because of the risk of infection.

Even before the pandemic, Belden Volunteer Fire Department Chief Willie Payne said he could see the decline in volunteerism among rural fire departments a long time ago.

It has been a steady decline over the last 20 years or so, he said.

Payne, who began volunteering in 1972, blames the decline in volunteer firefighters on what he described as an overall lack of volunteerism among younger generations and shrinking call volumes that take away enthusiasm.

When I started, volunteerism was a big thing, he said. It was a slower pace years ago; but, in the last 20 or 30 years, the pace has picked up more due to technology. People's interest has gotten away from volunteerism, and they do not seem to have time for it.

Lack of volunteers in the area poses an increased threat to not only the homeowners of Belden but the volunteers who remain.

It is getting more dangerous for the volunteer firefighter, he said. You dont have enough backup to take care of yourself anymore. It really puts a stress on the volunteers.

He said departments have had to lean on each other much more to fill the gaps.

Putting out the fire

On an average day, Richmond Volunteer Fire Department Chief Joe Banik has roughly 16 firefighters ready to respond to emergencies. During daylight hours, four or five firefighters might respond to a call; overnight, that number jumps to around 10.

Banik has been chief of Richmonds volunteer unit for 15 years. He said the key to a successful volunteer-based fire department is community involvement, such as donating fire detectors, operating a junior volunteer department targeted at getting teenagers involved in first responding and performing fundraisers regularly.

I do things a little differently, he said, adding that the departments various community outreach programs have helped prevent fires, making life a lot easier for the volunteer firefighters. We have a lot of folks that figured out what we do, why we do it, and they want to help.

Getting younger people involved is crucial to maintaining a strong volunteer base, said Banik, whose departments average age is in the 40s.

He noted that although he has more volunteers than some smaller volunteer departments, he could still use more help.

Though the decline in volunteerism began years ago, Banik said the pandemic has strained the departments shrinking number of volunteers even further and has resulted in reductions in funding. This lack of participation, he said, puts rural communities at risk because it increases the danger of fires and raises insurance rates exponentially.

If you dont have a volunteer fire department, you dont get insurance, or if you do, it will be so high that you can't afford it, he said.

Unlike Richmond and Unity fire departments, which have the volunteer levels in the double digits, Belden Volunteer Fire Department has just eight active members. That leaves Chief Payne with an average of three or four volunteers during the day and a handful more than that at night.

In Paynes mind, the solution to the ongoing decline in volunteerism among fire departments is clear: Create more incentives to volunteer firefighting in the form of programs like the rural firefighter retirement program. He also suggested a greater need to educate communities about the importance of volunteer fire departments.

It is going to be a thing of education and something to entice volunteers, he said. "Advertise more of what makes up volunteerism and show what we do for the community and how important it is to support us. There are a lot of people out there that would put some time into it if they knew how desperate we are for their help.

Another model Payne said the county could look into is enlisting the help of college students from the areas community colleges and university satellite campuses, noting that in places like Starkville and Oxford, volunteer departments will give college students rooms in their stations as free dorms in return for help.

As rural volunteer fire departments slowly dwindle, counties across the state are looking for solutions. Lafayette County is in a unique position, having hired nine full-time paid firefighters to supplement its 15 fire stations with 170 volunteers, 21 part-time firefighters, two full-time chiefs and three part-time assistant chiefs.

Those nine hires will fill in three captains, three lieutenants and three firefighters positions.

But Payne believes increasing the number of paid firefighters might not be the best solution to shortages for most fire departments. Paid positions, he said, he said, might further dampen whatever fervor for volunteerism remains.

I see the county is looking to get paid people, he said. Paid outfits will make volunteer outfits die quicker because folks will say, Well, theres no need to help if they can hire people.

He said being a part of the long tradition of volunteering helps people build bonds that last.

We are just a big family. We help each other out, he said. (Volunteer firefighting) has been here for hundreds of years; we want to keep it alive.

For Unity Volunteer Fire Departments Williams, the key to keeping volunteers is to build a bond with those who do join the department. A strong fire department is like a family; the tighter the bond among its members, the more solid its footing.

For a department to be successful, you have to depend on everyone, Williams said. It takes a village.

To build that village, Williams recommended those who volunteer to encourage others to do so as well.

There is a job for everyone in their local fire department, she said. Any department could use an extra set of hands.

Caleb Bedillion contributed to this report
The Texas rabbi held hostage in his synagogue along with three others for more than 11 hours thanked those who got him out alive, crediting their clear instructions for helping to save their lives.

In the last hour of our hostage crisis, the gunman became increasingly belligerent and threatening, Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker told The Associated Press. Without the instruction we received, we would not have been prepared to act and flee when the situation presented itself.

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Malik Faisal Akram (Handout)

Cytron-Walker was one of four people trapped Saturday inside Colleyvilles Congregation Beth-Israel while a gunman  identified as 44-year-old British national Malik Faisal Akram  held them hostage and demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a 49-year-old Pakistani woman serving an 86-year sentence at Fort Worth prison.

[ This is the man who held four people hostage inside a Texas synagogue ]

Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker was held hostage Saturday at Congregation Beth Israel. (Obtained by Daily News)

I am thankful and filled with appreciation for all of the vigils and prayers and love and support, all of the law enforcement and first responders who cared for us, all of the security training that helped save us, Cytron-Walker wrote on Facebook Sunday.

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I am grateful for my family. I am grateful for the CBI Community, the Jewish Community, the Human Community. I am grateful that we made it out. I am grateful to be alive.

Late on Sunday, police in Manchester, England, announced that counter-terrorism officers had arrested two teenagers in connection with Saturdays standoff.

[ Texas hostage-taker dead, hostages freed after all-day standoff ]

The hostage situation, captured on the synagogues live stream, began just before 11 a.m. Saturday during services.

At some point, Akram reached out via phone to Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, of Central Synagogue in Manhattan, who then called 911.

Our hearts go out to those who have been impacted by the traumatic situation at the Beth Israel Synagogue, Central Synagogues director of marketing and communications, Nick Obourn, told the Daily News Sunday.

All four hostages were released safely Saturday after 11 hours. (Elias Valverde/AP)

The first hostage, a man in a black yarmulke, was released around 5 p.m. A loud bang was heard around 9 p.m. and the FBIs Hostage Rescue Team breached the building. The three other hostages were rescued alive.

Akram was killed.

Matthew DeSarno, FBI Dallas special agent in charge, said at a press conference late Saturday that the gunman was singularly focused on one issue and it was not specifically related to the Jewish community.

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Akrams family said he was suffering from mental health issues, adding they apologize wholeheartedly and then condemned his actions.

There was nothing we could have said to him or done that would have convinced him to surrender, they said in a statement through the Blackburn Muslim Community.

Law enforcement officials are still processing Sunday. (Brandon Wade/AP Photo)

Breaking News As it happens Get updates on the coronavirus pandemic and other news as it happens with our free breaking news email alerts. >

On the livestream, which cut out around 2 p.m., the man could be heard referring to Aafia Siddiqui, the Pakistani scientist, as his sister, but John Floyd, Siddiquis legal counsel, said her brother, Mohammad Siddiqui, was not involved. Siddiqui has been in prison for shooting at two FBI special agents, a U.S. Army warrant officer, an Army captain and military interpreters in 2008.

This assailant has nothing to do with Dr. Aafia, her family or the global campaign to get justice for Dr. Aafia. We want the assailant to know that his actions are wicked and directly undermine those of us who are seeking justice for Dr. Aafia, Floyd said in a statement. We have confirmed that the family member being wrongly accused of this heinous act is not near the DFW Metro area.

Floyd confirmed to The News that Akram has no connection with the family whatsoever and he has also no connection to the Free Aafia movement inside the US.

The hostage taker called for the release of Pakistani scientist Aafia Siddiqui. (AP Photo)

A spokesperson for the U.K.s Foreign Office told The News they were aware of the death of a British man in Texas and are in contact with the local authorities.

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Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 15 Police stand in front of the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue on Sunday, Jan. 16, 2022, in Colleyville, Texas. A man held hostages for more than 10 hours Saturday inside the temple. The hostages were able to escape and the hostage-taker was killed. FBI Special Agent in Charge Matt DeSarno said a team would investigate "the shooting incident." (Brandon Wade/AP)

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss publicly condemned the appalling act, calling it terrorism and antisemitism and said she stands with the United States in defending the rights and freedoms of our citizens against those who spread hate.

There is more we will learn in the days ahead about the motivations of the hostage taker, President Biden said in a statement after the hostages were freed. But let me be clear to anyone who intends to spread hate  we will stand against antisemitism and against the rise of extremism in this country. That is who we are, and tonight, the men and women of law enforcement made us all proud.

With News Wire Services
ADA [ndash] Memorials services for Clifford Brent Hall, 63, of Ada are 10:00 A.M. Thursday, May 5, 2022 at Trinity Baptist Church, Doug Brewer will officiate. Mr. Hall passed away Monday, April 25, 2022 at a local nursing home surrounded by family. He was born August 8, 1958 in Shawnee, OK t
Where were the first houses built by the Dundalk Urban Council?

The first houses built by the Dundalk Urban District Council, shortly after they were established by the Local Government Act of 1898, were along the Castletown Road.

They were a series of 83 red brick terraces, completed and occupied before the end of 1903.

They were given names 'St. Brigid, St. Patrick and Cuchullain', suggested by Peadar O Dubhda, then a young teacher who had been appointed 'muintoir' by Connradh na Gaedhilge who was later to become a prominent member of the Council.

The building of these houses was financed by a bank loan paid off by monies from the rates. Two more terraces of 46 houses, named 'Eimer and Moira', were built in 1914 before the outbreak of the Great War put an end to construction.



What were the first Urban Council houses financed by the new Irish Free State?

A further 27 houses was built after the War and completed in 1922 at Thomas Street, off Dublin Street, before the Slum Clearance Act of 1931, enabled the Council to avail of Government subsidies for such house building.

The first of these houses was built at Dublin Street (12) and Market Street (10) in 1933.

These were followed by a series of similar schemes around the Town up to the World War Two Emergency.

These were two storey red brick houses, constructed mainly by local builder Eric McDonald, of Castle Road.

The first scheme after the War, of 79 houses was built at St. Alphonsus Road, named 'Cluan Enda'; this scheme, occupied in 1947, was built of cement blocks with a pebble dash finish and was also constructed by McDonald.

What was Dundalk first commercial bank?

According Tempest's Annual of 1897, the first private bank in Dundalk was known as 'Pages Bank'.

It was operated from the 18th century by a family named Page who lived in an old mansion at Seatown Place that was later to become the site of the Sisters of Mercy convent and schools.

Tempest's says that 'the Pages were extensive wine merchants and their 'Page's Port' became nationally famous.

One of the Pages was County Treasurer and was thus looked upon as as a safe man to deposit money with by farmers and others.'

When were speed limits in 'kilometers per hour' first enforced in Dundak?

The metric system of showing road distances in the Republic of Ireland was first suggested by the European Union in 1980 but it was not until January 20, 2005 that this system of gauging speed limits was enforced. The operation of the new system was particularly difficult in the Dundalk area because of the number of vehicles crossing the Border from Northern Ireland.





A lost opportunity?

When I wrote the story of the last passenger train to run from Dundalk to Greenore on the night of December 31, 1951 it brought back a bitter, sweet memory I had almost forgotten.

It came best described as 'a failed romance' that I am sure many of my readers may have experienced themselves!

What occurred was that, at the time, I was in a senior class of secondary school when I took this fancy to a girl of my own age who was also a student in local convent school.

At the time, I though she the finest looking girl in the district and longed to make a date but did not have the courage to make the first approach.

It so happened that she was the cousin of a school friend of mine.

He must have suspected my interest because, on that snowy night so long ago, he unexpectedly turned up in her company outside the old Quay Street Station and introduced her.

The shock was so great that I was almost struck dumb, did not have the courage even to shake hands and the opportunity was lost to me.

Some years later I managed to make a date with her younger sister - but it was not the same and nothing came of it.

I remained friends with the 'girl of my dreams' and met her in the street a couple of years ago when she told me that her husband of many years had died and that she was a great grandmother.

I was quite taken aback but did not have the courage even then to tell her of my teenage crush for her!

Sadly, she has passed away during the Covid pandemic!
Fianna Fail Senator in Louth, Erin McGreehan, has welcomed the launch of the National Housing Strategy for Disabled People 2022 - 2027.

The Strategy sets out the Governments vision for delivering housing and related supports for disabled people. It replaces the National Housing Strategy for People with a Disability 2011  2016 (extended to 2021).

The new strategy places a greater emphasis on independent living and community inclusion than the previous strategy. Implementation of the plan will be based on the principles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Developed under the guiding principles of Housing for All, the Governments national plan for housing to 2030, the strategy seeks to facilitate disabled people to live independently with the appropriate choices and control over where, how and with whom they live.



The National Housing Strategy for Disabled People 2022  2027 is the result of a comprehensive 8-month, two phase consultation process and is laid out across six themes, each detailing desired outcomes to deliver the overall vision set out in the plan:

1  Accessible Housing and Communities



2  Interagency Collaboration and the Provision of Supports



3  Affordability of Housing



4  Communication and Access to Information



5  Knowledge, Capacity, and Expertise



6  Strategy Alignment

Work has now begun on the very important Implementation Plan for the Strategy. The Housing Agency will oversee this work. The Implementation Plan will be published by the end of quarter 2, 2022 detailing how outcomes will be achieved.

Senator McGreehan said: I warmly welcome the publication of the new National Housing Strategy for Disabled People 2022-2027.

"This Governments philosophy is Housing for All, which means that our housing provision must be inclusive of people with disabilities.

Our goal is for Ireland to be a better place for disabled people to live in, to access the right kind of housing or accommodation, a place where those with a disability have choices and play a central role in relation to matters and decisions that affect their lives.

"This Strategy sets our course for housing to play its part in achieving that.
The Chicago police officer who fatally shot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times will be released from prison after barely three years behind bars.

Jason Van Dyke, who was found guilty of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm in 2018, was sentenced to six years and nine months in prison and will serve about half of that, with time for good behavior, McDonalds family told ABC 7.

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Van Dykes attorney, Jennifer Blagg, told the Daily News Sunday that she had not been formally notified but that the victims family would hear first, as per state statute.

I dont know his exact plans, but I do know he has no desire for media attention, she told The News.

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Former Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke was convicted in 2018. (Pool/Getty Images)

On Oct. 20, 2014, a group of officers, including Van Dyke, approached McDonald around 10 p.m. after reports that someone armed with a knife was breaking into cars.

After being ordered to drop the knife, the Black teenager began to walk away, Van Dyke fired, hitting him. In total, Van Dyke fired 16 shots at McDonald in less than 15 seconds, the first less than 30 seconds after he arrived at the scene.

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McDonald was rushed to the hospital and pronounced dead.

The initial police report said McDonald was crazed and had lunged at the officers, but dash cam video, not released until a court order, showed that the teen had his back turned and was leaving the scene when Van Dyke began firing.

A day after the video was released, Van Dyke was indicted by a grand jury on six counts of first-degree murder and one count of official misconduct, making him the first Chicago cop in 35 years to be charged with murder for an on-duty shooting.

Laquan McDonald was walking away when Van Dyke opened fire. (Courtesy of the Family via AP)

In October 2018, almost exactly four years after he killed McDonald, Van Dyke was convicted. In January 2019, he was sentenced to six years and nine months in prison.

Chicago activist William Calloway held a protest Saturday to call for federal charges against Van Dyke.

You got a white man that murdered a boy, shooting him 16 times in cold blood on camera, Calloway said, according to the Chicago Tribune. And the federal government has not even touched him. Thats not justice. Thats racism. We got to call it what it is.

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The United States Attorneys Office for the Northern District of Illinois did not immediately return a request for comment from The News Sunday.
Law enforcement officials gather at Colleyville Elementary School near the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue on Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022, in Colleyville, Texas. Authorities said a man took hostages Saturday during services at the synagogue where the suspect could be heard ranting in a livestream and demanding the release of a Pakistani neuroscientist who was convicted of trying to kill U.S. Army officers in Afghanistan. (Tony Gutierrez/AP)
A further 14,555 positive cases of Covid-19, confirmed by PCR testing, have been recorded in Ireland.

In addition, on Friday, January 14th, 5,406 people registered a positive antigen test through the HSE portal. The portal opened yesterday.

As of 8am today, 940 Covid-19 patients are hospitalised, of whom 89 are in intensive care units.

This is the first time the number of coronavirus patients in hospital has fallen below 1,000 in a week.

Chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan said: "As people get familiar with the latest public health advice on isolation and restriction of movements for cases and close contacts, the importance of other protective measures should not be disregarded.

"In particular, this latest guidance places an increased emphasis on the use by cases and close contacts of higher-grade face masks, as opposed to cloth masks."

In a tweet this morning, Paul Reid said a consistent set of trends give great hope.

He said there are fewer patients on oxygen support and GP referrals and overall case numbers are also down. Booster vaccines and the public's response have so far eased the worst impacts, he added.

Positive signs

On Friday, the HSE chief said there are "positive indications" Ireland has reached the peak of the Omicron wave.

Mr Reid says the rise in Covid hospitalisations has steadied and there has been a reduction in GP referrals for testing.

Speaking on Newstalk Breakfast, he said that ICU numbers were also holding, but that it would be next week before it could be determined that figures were lowering.

In recent days the number of people being referred by GPs for PCR tests had gone down, he said.

However, he warned of the lag effect which had yet to be felt.

There was still a high positivity rate of 50 per cent, he added.
Tanaiste Leo Varadkar has said he expects a phased reopening of society from the end of January.

Strict Covid-19 measures, including the closure of nightclubs and a curfew for hospitality venues, were introduced late last year amid fears about the spread of the Omicron variant.

On Sunday, the Tanaiste said he hoped that some restrictions might be lifted soon.

Members of the National Public Health Emergency Team are expected to meet on Thursday to discuss the latest in the pandemic.

Ireland is still recording high case numbers, with 965 Covid-positive patients in hospital and 88 people in intensive care as of Sunday morning.

Mr Varadkar said he believed Ireland was coming to the point where we also need to move on, and weve had very strict restrictions in Ireland for two years now. Last summer, and the summer before that, we had the strictest rules.

He added: I dont think that should be the case this summer.

'More ambitious reopening'

Ill be pushing for a more ambitious, quicker reopening over the next couple of months.

Nothing risky, nothing reckless, certainly something thats in line with our European peers.

The Tanaiste said he did not expect all restrictions to end overnight at the end of the month.

I think it will be phased. I dont anticipate that well just remove all restrictions at the end of January or the start of February. I think it will be a phased process over the next couple of months, Mr Varadkar told RTE radio.

However, he said that Ireland was among only a handful of countries where it had not been possible to go into the office or stand at a bar for two years.

The Tanaiste said he hoped all restrictions could ease later this year.

He said: On many occasions weve acted out of an abundance of caution. But sometimes an abundance of caution can be an excess of caution. And we need to avoid that.

However, Mr Varadkar warned: We need to make sure that we are able to respond rapidly as well if there is a resurgence of the virus and that is a possibility.

He also said it was yet to be determined if some people may require a fourth dose of the vaccine.

Optimism that hospitality restrictions will be lifted

Speaking to the Echo earlier this week, Tara Lyng of Dwyers of Cork said they are optimistic that the 8pm restrictions will be lifted at the end of the month.

"Whilst we have a consistent brunch trade seven days a week, we look forward to the return of our live music schedule and the opportunity for our customers to stay on later into the evening. Operating within the current restrictions means that 6pm is our last sitting for dinner which isnt sustainable in the long term. Were fortunate that the design of Dwyers of Cork has worked favourably throughout the pandemic with plentiful booths and snugs meaning that customers feel safe and have constantly reiterated this to us. Weve invested heavily in our outdoor area and have exciting plans to improve even further this year giving customers the option of dining indoors or outdoors whatever the weather. Were increasingly optimistic that we will welcome some relaxation of restrictions on us as we enter February."

Shelbourne Bar publican Philip Gillivan said it was important that those in the hospitality sector are given time to prepare for any changes.

From an operational point of view, we need a lead-in time; we cant just turn it on and off. We have staff and we need to plan. There is no point telling us at the last minute, knee-jerk reaction stuff, he said.

Need to extend closing times

Vintners Federation of Ireland (VFI) Cork City chairperson Michael ODonovan said an extension of closing times was needed to restore vibrancy to towns, villages, and cities, and to make them safer.

Mr ODonovan said the urban hubs of Cork had been dark, dreary, and unwelcoming since the 8pm closing time was introduced, and local communities are suffering.

Mr ODonovan said the night-time economy brought the city to life.

Since the start of January, business has been decimated, he said. People are working until 5.30pm or 6pm and then, by the time they get home, shower, and get changed, the bars are closed.

There is nothing happening. Its like a ghost town and the few places that are open are trying their best to survive.

Mr ODonovan said it had been a long, tough road for staff, with reduced hours, reduced income, and a great deal of uncertainty.

Its been a tough road for them, he said.
By Dominic McGrath, PA

The Justice Minister has said that a zero-tolerance approach will be central to a new Government strategy tackling gender-based violence, as the investigation into the murder of Ashling Murphy continues.

Gardai are still hunting for the killer of Ms Murphy, a 23-year-old teacher who was found dead after going for a run on the banks of the Grand Canal in Tullamore.

The murder has caused widespread anger and shock in Ireland and beyond, with tens of thousands of people attending vigils in recent days to remember Ms Murphy.

Her funeral will take place on Tuesday at St Brigids Church, Mountbolus, in Co Offaly.

A photo of Ashling Murphy is displayed on the big screen during the Heineken Champions Cup match at The Sportsground in Galway (Brian Lawless/PA)

An Garda Siochana said it had made significant progress in its investigation, but was not releasing details for operational reasons.

It is understood that gardai have identified a new person of interest, who is believed to be in hospital in the Dublin region receiving medical care, and are waiting to speak to him.

Searches are being carried out in properties in Tullamore and Dublin as part of the investigation, it is understood.

A complaint from another woman, who has said she was followed on the same canal path in the hours before the murder, remains something gardai are investigating.

On Sunday, Helen McEntee said that a new Government strategy to tackle domestic, sexual and gender-based violence will be published by the beginning of March.

It would, the Justice Minister said, take a zero-tolerance approach to violence against women.

She told Newstalk: I think what weve seen this week really is an outpouring of grief right across the country from women, men, children, all of whom have come together in solidarity with Ashlings family and her community.

But in particular, have come together to demand that there is zero tolerance for this.

I myself have often decided, well, Ill go out for a walk at this time of the day, or Ill go to this area because it could be safer. That shouldnt be the case.

Justice Minister Helen McEntee (Niall Carson/PA)

And what weve seen now is everybody in society coming together to say this should not be the case. We should not tolerate this.

She said that the new strategy will build on the previous strategies produced by the Government.

Were building on the progress that has been made, and we have made progress, but were looking at it slightly differently. We have set a clear goal  zero tolerance.

She said that all Government departments, state agencies and the gardai, as well as the wider community, needed to play a role in ensuring the strategy is a success.

Ms McEntee was asked about the cancellation of hundreds of emergency calls to gardai in 2019 and 2020, which last year led to a public apology from Commissioner Drew Harris, and whether victims could have confidence in a police response.

We have all committed collectively to make sure that that does not happen again. And that when somebody takes that difficult step to come forward, that they will be treated with the respect and the dignity and the support that they deserve, she said.

On Sunday, opposition parties stressed the need for urgent Government action to prevent violence against women.

Sinn Fein TD Kathleen Funchion said that her party believes there needs to be a centralised approach to tackling the issue.

She said that too often responsibilities and roles are split between departments and agencies.

We need a joined up, integrated approach where things dont fall between two stools, she told RTEs The Week In Politics programme.

On the same programme, Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore said: We need the Government to have a very, very clear focus to work to resolve these issues.

A society where 50 per cent of the population are scared to go out walking by themselves at night is a dysfunctional society.

She said that a cultural shift was required in Ireland.

As vigils and memorials to Ms Murphy continue to be held, prayers were said at masses across the country on Sunday for the young teacher.

People hold a vigil outside the London Irish Centre in Camden for Ashling Murphy (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

At a vigil in north London on Saturday, people held candles and stood in silent tribute outside the London Irish Centre.

Traditional music was played in honour of Ms Murphy, a talented fiddle player, while some of the crowd quietly sang or hummed along.

Anna Johnston, cultural officer at the London Irish Centre, said people had come together in solidarity with those who knew and loved Ms Murphy and all the women of Ireland and further afield who are angry, distressed and heartbroken.
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The chaotic withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan has emboldened Russias President Vladimir Putin, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee said Sunday.

Putin again smells weakness here, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) told CNNs State of the Union. He knows that if hes ever going to invade Ukraine, now is the time.

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I hope he doesnt make that miscalculation. But the fact is, if he does invade Ukraine, what is the United States, what is our commander-in-chief prepared to do to stop it? he added.

The comments came after tense U.S.-Russia talks last week failed to yield a breakthrough on the Ukraine crisis. Biden officials threatened severe sanctions if Russia invades Ukraine, while Moscow demanded a commitment for Ukraine never to be allowed into NATO.

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(File) The chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan emboldened Russia on Ukraine, says Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.) (Ken Cedeno)

While balking at that demand, the U.S. threatened to block sales of key technology to Russia, along with arming insurgents in eastern Ukraine.

If Putin sees deterrence coming back from the United States and our NATO allies, he may second-guess his calculation to invade Ukraine, McCaul said. Im seeing some tough rhetoric, but not a lot of action.

The lawmaker lamented the ramifications of the August withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, which paved the way for a quick Taliban takeover of the country.

Our foreign adversaries, like Putin, President Xi [Jinping] in China, the ayatollah [Iran leader Ali Khamenei] and [North Koreas dictator] Kim Jong Un, all view that as a moment of weakness, he said.
Washington, MO (63090)

Today

Cloudy. Slight chance of a rain shower. High 59F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy. Low 48F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph.
WASHINGTON (AP)  Around three dozen Democrats were trapped in the House gallery on Jan. 6 after the rest of their colleagues had been evacuat
This undated file photo provided by the Santa Rose County Jail in Milton, Fla., shows Joseph Maldonado-Passage, also known as Joe Exotic. The man known as the "Tiger King" who gained fame in a Netflix documentary following his conviction for trying to hire someone to kill an animal rights activist says he has an "aggressive cancer." (Santa Rosa County Jail via AP, File)
A man who was allegedly high on methamphetamine carjacked a pickup truck with a sleeping passenger inside it and a goat in the bed, pistol-whipped the passenger and then led police on a low-speed chase before finally being caught on foot and arrested, police say.

It began early on New Years Day outside an adult video store in Carthage, Missouri, which is near Joplin in the states southwestern corner. Reports say Brandon Wayne Kirby, a 40-year-old from Mannford, Oklahoma, stole the truck after the driver had gone inside the store but while the passenger was sleeping. When the passenger woke up, he saw a masked man driving and pointing a gun at his head.

Police say Kirby drove the GMC Sierra Heavy Duty Duramax diesel through parts of Missouri, Kansas and into Oklahoma, holding the passenger against his will. At some point, the passenger told police, Kirby ingested meth, pistol-whipped him and continued to threaten him with the gun.

The passenger said Kirby eventually let him and his pet goat out on the side of the road in a rural area, which is when he was able to call 911. Police then called OnStar, which tracked down the stolen Sierra HD and slowed it down to around 15 mph.

Police eventually used stop sticks to flatten the trucks tires in the city of Sand Springs and later had to nudge the truck into a ditch to end the low-speed vehicle chase. But Kirby at that point got out of the truck and fled on foot through the woods, dropping his mask and gun, which were both later recovered by police.

Kirby was jailed and had charges listed as kidnapping, pointing a firearm and being a felon in possession of a firearm. Hes reportedly wanted in another county in Oklahoma for burglary and has multiple felony convictions for assault, burglary and possession of a stolen vehicle, according to KTUL-TV in Tulsa.

The passenger and goat were transported back to the Creek County Sheriffs Office.

The Sand Springs Police Department said on Facebook: OK 2020, it only took you 4.5 hours to get weird. Let's slow down on the carjacking-goatnapping calls for the remainder of the year.

Related Video:
A former Haitian senator was arrested Saturday in Jamaica after police said he was behind the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise in July.

John Joel Joseph, a member of an opposition party, was detained after a months-long search, according to Haitian police.

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Joseph and several other people were arrested before dawn Saturday, Jamaica Police Superintendent Stephanie Lindsay said, declining to provide more details.

Haitian police said Joseph had a fierce will to kill Moise, the Miami Herald reported. Joseph hosted meetings where the assassination was plotted, cops said.

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More than 40 people have been arrested in connection with the brazen killing of Moise at his home in Port-au-Prince on July 7. At least 18 are former Colombian soldiers who claim they were duped into joining the mission.

A person holds a photo of the late Haitian President Jovenel Moise during his memorial ceremony at the National Pantheon Museum in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, July 20, 2021. (Matias Delacroix/AP Photo)

Haitian police say Joseph was in contact with the killers during the mission, according to the Herald. He also paid for the rental vehicles that the hit squad drove to Moises house, cops said.

Joseph was reportedly hiding in Haiti before he fled to Jamaica. He is the second accused plotter arrested in two weeks outside Haiti. Rodolphe Jaar, a convicted drug smuggler, was arrested Jan. 7 in the Dominican Republic.

Joseph is also the second person connected to the killing to be arrested in Jamaica. Colombian ex-soldier Mario Antonio Palacios Palacios was arrested on the island in October.

With News Wire Services
Ukraine isn't hesitating to point fingers following a major cyberattack that hobbled dozens of government websites. As The Guardian reports, Ukraine's digital transformation ministry has blamed Russia for the hack, accusing the country of fighting a "hybrid war" meant to "destabilize" an already tense situation and erode trust in the Ukranian government. While officials didn't elaborate on the evidence linking the attack to Russia, Microsoft shared details late Saturday that suggested a hostile nation was responsible.

The company's Threat Intelligence Center noted that the code was purely destructive malware disguised as ransomware. It had a ransom note, a Bitcoin wallet and an encrypted messaging identifier, but no recovery mechanism  in fact, it wipes the Master Boot Record (the hard drive element that tells a PC how to load the OS) and downloads malware meant solely to corrupt files. All known targets are in Ukraine, and there aren't any tangible links between this campaign and other groups.

Russia denied any involvement in the cyberattack. A spokesperson for President Putin said Ukraine pinned everything on Russia, "even the weather." Russia has long been accused of using cyberattacks to target its political opponents, including Ukraine, the US and European countries.

Microsoft said it wasn't certain about the current stage of the hacking operation or the scope of the damage. It wasn't yet clear if there were other victims in Ukraine or beyond. However, it's safe to presume the timing of the attack is problematic regardless of the perpetrator. Ukraine and its allies have been worrying for months about signs of a looming Russian invasion, and the US on January 14th claimed Russia was planning a false flag operation that would help it justify that invasion. The cyberattack appears to be exacerbating those tensions, and may have weakened Ukraine's government infrastructure at a critical moment.
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"Its raised a lot of red flags for a lot of people that deal with government. And it's not just reporters, it's members of the public."

Joey Senat, Oklahoma State communications associate professor

Senat
Click for the latest, full-access Enid News & Eagle headlines | Text Alerts | app downloads

Mullin is an award-winning writer and columnist who retired in 2017 after 41 years with the News & Eagle. Email him at janjeff2002@yahoo.com or write him in care of the Enid News & Eagle at PO Box 1192, Enid, OK, 73702.

 The News & Eagle has traditionally published personal opinions of writers and readers through editorials, columns and letters to the editor on its Opinion Page. The opinions shared are those of the writers and not the newspaper.

 Submit your opinion for publication to editor@enidnews.com. Find out more about submitting letters to the editor at https://www.enidnews.com/opinion/.
Sunday, January 16, 2022

Global markets have yetto react to the rapidly increasing Russian military presence at the Ukrainianborder and risk of invasion. Energy and gold commodity prices appear to be morea function of general economic demand and supply chain bottlenecks rather thanpotential outright shortages with a threat of military conflict in Europe.

As negotiations betweenthe US/NATO/EU and Russia seem hopelessly deadlocked, specialized militaryequipment is already in transit from Russias Far East to the Ukrainian borderaccording to US officials. The scale of the Russian military build-up, anexpensive endeavor, goes beyond large scale war games or maneuvers. In myopinion, Russian incursion into Ukraine is now a matter of when rather than ifas well as how much territory Russia will occupy.

Global Markets IcarusMoment

For the aforementionedreasons, sadly, regional European war is the ideal investment environment forshort-sellers of equities in general and bullish for investors in energy commoditiesas the global markets will experience an Icarus moment  severe sell-off. Russiaon war footing is a gift for those market doomsayers whose advocates haveproliferated exponentially these past months.

Soaring Energy Prices

For the past decadeRussia has been the dominant supplier of (hard) coal, crude oil, and natural/liquifiedgas to the EU. Should Russia reduce or cut-off the export of these commodities,the collective of remaining suppliers would be hard-pressed to make up theshortfall particularly on short notice even without supply chain challenges.

A convenient excuse Russiamay provide for energy export reductions is the convenient present-day standby excuseof supply chain issues and increased domestic consumption. Diabolically they canresort to providing contractually the minimum energy exports required. For thisreason energy prices will spike particularly during mid-winter.

The following chart providedby Eurostat entitled Main Origin of Primary EnergyImports, EU 2009-2019,articulates the EUs enormous dependency on Russian exports in key commodities:





With respect to2020-2021 year-on-year commodity pricing specific to Russias exports to Europeexcept gold), the following information from the World Bank Commodity PriceData (The Pink Sheet) indicates a sharp one-year price rise. A militaryadventure into Ukraine will super-charge them:

Source Commodity 2020USD) 2021USD) Global Gold (troy oz) $1,770.25 $1,799.63 S Africa Coal (metric ton) $65.66 $119.84 Global Crude Oil (bbl) $41.26 $69.07 Europe Natural Gas (mmbtu) $3.24 $16.21

Gold

I believe that goldwill outshine bonds and cryptocurrencies as the historic and most liquidflight to safety investment. As the invasion commences, gold may experience abrief selloff as investors scramble to cover their brokerage margins during arapid market drop before ascending to profitable levels.

The Post-Invasion Landscape

In the aftermath theresa level of uncertainty with respect to the duration of Russias occupation and subsequentpost-invasion negotiations with the US/NATO/EU which will determine how muchfurther these commodity prices will rise.

The US and EU havethreatened draconian sanctions in addition to the present-day ones. HoweverRussia has comfortably weathered the present-day series of sanctions and has undoubtedlyprepared for such contingencies to weather more severe and longer lasting sanctionsin their war game scenarios.

According to the WorldGold Council article entitled Assetsof Russias National Wealth Fund to be Invested in Gold, published 16 June2021, the National Wealth Fund (NWF), the public pension fund, moved 20% of itsUS dollars into gold as part of their long running strategy of de-dollarisation.Their gold allocation is 23% of their total reserves. For this reason Russia iseconomically well-prepared.

Geopolitical &Military Overview

For the readership whodesires a deeper-dive into the politically contrarian perspectives for Russiasaggressive military adventure into the Near Abroad these are discussed in anarticle entitled Vladimir Putins DoubleBindpublished 9 December 2021.

Furthermore for thosewho desire to know more about Russias military capability, please refer to GlobalFirepower that ranks Russia as the worlds second most powerful military asindicated in the following chart entitled The Worlds MostPowerful Militariesas of January 2022. This index includes 50 factors including military might,financials, logistics and geography.

Conclusion

Russia hasthe options of military invasion and control of essential energy exports to theEU as political leverage to force a binding agreement to halt any furthereastward expansion by NATO. With a 2021 allocation shift to gold Russia isbetter insulated against US-imposed economic shocks. For this reason theaforementioned energy commodity prices will soar as the global marketsexperience a rapid sell-off in an increasing bellicose environment.





Copyright 2022 Cerulean Council LLC

TheCerulean Council is a NYC-based think-tank that provides prescient,beyond-the-horizon, contrarian perspectives and risk assessments ongeopolitical dynamics and global urban security.
The Biden administration announced on Friday it will buy 1 billion at-home rapid COVID tests to mail to residences for free, according to a White House press release.

People can now go to COVIDtests.gov to order tests online in English or Spanish. A free call line will be set up for those unable to order online.

TEST SITES: Need a COVID-19 test? Try one of these Houston-area sites

However, each residence will be limited to four tests, shipped by USPS beginning in late January. The turnaround time means Americans will have to request the tests in advance, before they notice COVID symptoms.

"Public health experts and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that Americans use at-home tests if they begin to have symptoms, at least five days after coming in close contact with someone who has COVID-19, or are gathering indoors with a group of people who are at risk of severe disease or unvaccinated," the release said.

The White House initiative comes as local authorities across the country race to set up testing sites amid an unprecedented level of cases caused by the omicron variant. Widepread shortages of at-home rapid tests, which can deliver results within 24 hours, have been reported at many local pharmacies.

Federal government agencies have so far secured contracts for 420 million at-home rapid tests as part of the program, the White House release said. By Jan. 19, a "half-billion tests" will be available for order, exceeding the 375 million at-home rapid tests for sale in the U.S. this month, according to the release.

In addition to the four free tests, starting on Saturday, private insurance companies will be required to completely cover the cost of up to eight at-home rapid COVID tests per person each month.

The administration's free test program will "ensure equity and access" in distributing tests by "prioritizing processing orders to households experiencing the highest social vulnerability and in communities that have experienced a disproportionate share of COVID-19 cases and deaths, particularly during this Omicron surge."

The release did not include further details on which households would be prioritized.

charlie.zong@chron.com
School districts across the region spent the second week of the new year fighting to keep campuses open against growing numbers of coronavirus-caused staff and student absences.

They rotated administrators into classrooms to keep students learning  or, at some schools, placed scores or hundreds of students in gyms or auditoriums when they fell short of substitutes. Many saw their numbers get worse, a hallmark of the remarkably contagious omicron variant of the virus.

Today was day two, and it was definitely not as exhausting as day one, Travis Leech said Tuesday, still cheerful and energetic after covering for absent teachers at Vale Middle School. I didnt just crash on the couch after school today.  So it was good.

Leech, a secondary-level instruction support teacher who had been working on curriculum issues for six years, was one of about 200 central office staff at Northside Independent School District who are certified to teach and found themselves pressed into classrooms.

Northside returned from the holiday break Jan. 3 with about 926 teachers absent. As of last Monday, teacher absences had increased to 1,252, out of 1,579 overall staff absences. And by Friday, the district needed to cover for 1,630 teachers among its 2,160 staff absences.

Absences also worsened at Harlandale ISD. Last Monday, the district reported 388 staff absences, 176 of them teachers. By Friday, the district had 433 staff members out, including 225 teachers.

Edgewood ISD and San Antonio ISD started their return to classes last Monday after an intersession week to help students who needed additional instruction. Both have masking requirements in place.

We were very purposeful on inserting an intersession week immediately after the break. Because, typically, when do we have surges? When kids go on vacation, Edgewood Superintendent Eduardo Hernandez said.

Edgewood began the week with a little over 100 staff absences, Hernandez said, estimating about 30 of them were teachers. By Tuesday, the number of absent teachers was in the teens, and overall staff absences neared 70, he said.

San Antonio ISDs teacher absences ranged between 300 and 400 in its first week of classes, with student attendance averaging about 80 percent.

Ernest Gonzales, an SAISD education technology and design coordinator, was one of about 250 certified educators identified to fill in for absent teachers. He had taught high school technology classes for 13 years but has worked the past six years in the districts central office. On Tuesday and Thursday, he was teaching at Woodlawn Academy, a K-8 campus in the Monticello Park neighborhood.

Its definitely a challenge, because from our perspective our work keeps going, Gonzales said. But I think that for most people, the majority of people working in the field of education, its all about ensuring that our students get an education and get the support that they need. So, that tends to be the primary motivator.

Leech, the Northside substitute, expected the usual questions about his height  he is 6 feet, 8 inches tall.

Its an interesting head space to be in, he said. We know the importance of students being on campus, in a classroom.  But also we are in what could be a very scary space, with everything thats happening right now.

I was a little bit anxious just because I know that being in teacher shape is a different level, Leech added. To be engaged with students for the entire day, to be on your feet moving around, doing the hundred things teachers so effortlessly do.

Another instruction support teacher, Sallie McVay, had arrived Wednesday at Cable Elementary School at 7:15 a.m. to give herself 45 minutes to get situated before first-graders arrived in her classroom for the day. Her first thought when tapped as a substitute was Oh no! she said, feeling a bit rusty.

So, Im over there making some words, and I was practicing a phonological awareness, McVay said. It comes back pretty quickly to you.

McVay taught fourth grade for 10 years at Northside before leaving the classroom three years ago.

Its nice to be able to go and walk a day in their life, McVay said of teachers. It really gives us a good perspective of what they go through on a daily basis.

Students also out

The latest pandemic surge also has battered student attendance. Northsides attendance averaged 84 percent the second week of classes, similar to the first week. It had been averaging 90 percent before omicron.

Somerset ISD managed a slight increase in attendance last week, hitting 87 percent, up from 86 percent the previous week. Most districts slipped.

On Wednesday evening, South San Antonio ISD interim Superintendent Henry Yzaguirre made a plea to parents: Bring your child to school every day. Attendance had dropped 5 percentage points in one week. Out of 7,824 total students, the district was missing 2,013 Tuesday  a 26 percent absentee rate. About 110 staff were out.

The recent (omicron outbreak) has deeply impacted our staff and students, Yzaguirre said at a special board meeting. It is important that we continue to follow our safety protocols, but most importantly we need our students in our classrooms. Our student attendance has dipped to record lows while our gap in learning continues to widen.

District spokesman Brad Domitrovich said it was unclear how many of the absences were directly related to COVID-19 cases. The district returned to school Jan. 5, but its total virus case count for the first week was not reported on the Texas Health and Human Services Departments online database as of Friday.

Southside ISD had similarly high absentee percentages for the second week in a row. The district averaged a 25 percent student absentee rate last week  about 1,400 students  slightly higher than the 24 percent rate the first week of school. Last week, 16 percent of employees were also out.

Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City ISD saw student attendance decrease from 90 percent the first week to about 89 percent last week  nearly 1,800 students absent.

Southwest ISDs student attendance also has remained mostly steady for the past two weeks, drifting down from an average of 80 percent to about 79 percent  about 1,050 students absent.

Edgewood ISD started last week with student attendance in the mid-70 percent range, Superintendent Hernandez said, and by the middle of the week it had bumped to the mid-80s.

I think that, like with everything else, parents get spooked, Hernandez said. They know we are doing all these different things. ... And I think that its just us sharing our message out on social media.

Not enough staff

Even after pressing every possible substitute into service, districts across the region have had to combine classes in large spaces when no teachers are available to preside over them.

At North East ISDs Johnson High School, seven classes, about 200 students, were combined in a 755-seat auditorium the first week of school because of a lack of staff, said Aubrey Chancellor, the districts communications director. Class work was passed out to the students whenever available, she said.

Im told they have not had students in the auditorium this week so far, Chancellor said Thursday. But, depending on the number of classes that dont have coverage  its an option.

About 100 more NEISD staff were out than the previous week, when staff absences averaged about 700 daily. Student attendance also worsened, from 88.7 percent as the semester started to 86.7 percent last week.

School libraries have hosted pairs of combined classes under the instruction of a long-term substitute, Chancellor said.

Combining classes is one of the many options Northside campuses may be using to address shortages, said Barry Perez, the districts communications director.

Our goal is always to have the teacher of record in class providing instruction as we recognize that creates the best learning environment, Perez said.

Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City also reported having to resort to housing several classes in auditoriums and other large spaces, mainly in larger campuses.

We have had to do that predominately at the high school level and predominately with noncore classes, said Deanna Jackson, the districts director of communications.

Staff from all departments were asked to volunteer as substitutes last week, she said, and more are jumping in this week.

Related: Multiple San Antonio-area schools close Friday due to COVID-19, staffing shortage

Judson ISD was short on bus drivers at the start of the year, so any driver out sick because of omicron now puts an even greater strain on the system, district spokeswoman Nicole Taguinod said.

Staff within the transportation department do fill in and drive buses to help out, she said.

The district has had an average of 89 percent staff attendance for the past two weeks, with 316 absences last week. Student attendance has also suffered, averaging 87 percent last week and about 86 percent the week prior.

Parents were left scrambling to pick up their students when a bus was unavailable.

Some of our kids didnt have a bus to get them home, Julie Padilla wrote in a Facebook group for Judson parents. If it werent for one of my neighbors, my granddaughter would have been sitting at school for a long time.

We were extremely short staffed yesterday, Bobby Cuvelier, a bus driver at the district, wrote in response. We are already stretched to the limit and when people call (in sick) for any reason it makes it difficult.

danya.perez@express-news.net | @DanyaPH
There is a critical need in the United States today to counter growing political despair. Thus, on this Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I am reflecting on Kings understanding and practice of political hope.

It is essential to distinguish hope from optimism. The latter can create complacency and lead to a failure to act against present-day injustices. Optimists imagine that everything will turn out positively even if they do not act.

King reminded us that hope is not empirically demonstrated; it is morally chosen. Hope is the belief that the future will be better than the present only if we believe we have the power to create it.

Two features distinguish political hope: hope for social justice, and a recognition that it is a collective journey by a community of citizens. King challenged us, as people of faith, to rely on our theological imagination to envision the art of organizing hope, which, in community, would enable us to create new narratives of the journey toward a just society. Without hope, King said, I could not go on. He focused on community-organizing skills and nonviolent change-making with a theology that emphasized shifts in identity from oppressed victim to constructive agent of change.

The methodology underlying Kings politics of hope was nonviolent action rooted in Christian love. A characteristic of nonviolent movements is sacrifice. Kings suffering and sacrifices are well-known, but he spoke eloquently in describing the laborers and domestic workers who had to trudge as many as 12 miles each day to sustain the Montgomery bus boycott. A politics of hope requires the determined courage of individuals willing to suffer and sacrifice for freedom, dignity and justice.

The act of nonviolent sacrifice is both performative and communicative. The larger citizenry must understand activists are sacrificing for a given cause. This is a powerful form of persuasion. King quoted Gandhi when he wrote that unearned suffering is redemptive. Suffering, the nonviolent resister realizes, has tremendous educational and transformative possibilities.

Having researched, taught and practiced nonviolent civil resistance, I continue to challenge myself and my students at St. Marys University to reflect on Kings image of a beloved community. Not a simplistic future, but one visualizing the interrelatedness of political, economic, cultural and environmental justice  with faith as the foundation. Coursework challenges students to describe a personal politics of hope; imagine themselves part of a nonviolent mass movement; discuss the ethics of suffering and sacrifice; and envision, in Kings words, the Kingdom of God.

Students in my class represent diverse races and ethnicities, lived experiences, economic status, religion and politics. However, when they are broken into groups to discuss Kings theological imagination, they begin to engage in a deep dialogue about their understanding of political hope based on their lived experiences. They gradually cease to see the other as the enemy.

We can honor King by researching his philosophy and theology of nonviolence and political hope. This pursuit could pave a path to overcoming our political despair.

Larry Hufford, Ph.D., is a professor of political science and international relations at St. Marys University.
Nino Cerruti, one of Italys most important names in mens fashion, has died. He was 91.

According to the Italian news agency LaPresse, Cerruti died in a hospital in Piedmont, a region in northwest Italy where his family has operated a textile company, founded by his grandfather, since 1881.

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He had been recently hospitalized for hip surgery, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported.

A giant among Italian entrepreneurs has left us, Gilberto Pichetto, Italys deputy minister for economic development, said in a statement. I will always remember him with affection and esteem, for his intuitions, competence and foresight with which he made Italian fashion great, exporting our made in Italy to the world, he added.

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Nino Cerruti attends the GQ Men of the Year Award at the Komische Oper on Oct. 26, 2012 in Berlin. (Sean Gallup)

Born in the city of Biella in 1930, Cerruti inherited the familys textile business at age 20, after the death of his father. His experience in textile production led him into the clothing and fashion business in the late 1950s.

I have always dressed the same person, myself, he once said, according to Agence France-Presse.

Breaking News As it happens Get updates on the coronavirus pandemic and other news as it happens with our free breaking news email alerts. >

When the pioneering and revolutionary menswear designer created the first deconstructed jacket in the 1970s he introduced casual chic into the world of mens fashion, the AFP noted.

Known for dressing Hollywood stars and world celebrities during his heyday  including Michael Douglas, Richard Gere, Jack Nicholson, Robert Redford and French film star Jean-Paul Belmondo  Cerruti is also known as the person who gave designer Giorgio Armani his first break in the business.

Armani, who was hired as a young talent in the mid-1960s, recalled his first boss as a creative entrepreneur who had an acute eye, a true curiosity, the ability to dare, adding that his gentle way of being authoritative, even authoritarian would be missed.

#UPDATE Pioneering Italian fashion designer Nino Cerruti has died aged 91 at Vercelli hospital in the northwest region of Piedmont, where he had been admitted for a hip operation, local media reported on Saturday

 https://t.co/O4IYEuu4a6 pic.twitter.com/9NpF9KF8B1  AFP News Agency (@AFP) January 15, 2022

Cerruti was a great innovator and also one of Italys chicest men, Carlo Capasa, president of Italys fashion chamber, said in a statement.

He was the first to understand the importance of creativity in menswear and to give space to a young designer of immense talent like Giorgio Armani, changing the very criteria of how to dress, he said. He was one of the first to have a strong international presence, representing to the world that unique combination of creativity and quality that came to characterize and still characterizes Italian fashion.

The death of the manager and stylist Nino Cerruti pains me a lot: with him a giant of Italian entrepreneurship and a significant piece of Biellese history go away. I will always remember him with affection and esteem, for his intuitions, competence and foresight with which he made Italian fashion great, exporting our made in Italy to the world . Thus the Deputy Minister of Economic Development, Gilberto Pichetto.

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The national holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr.s birthday was always intended to be more than a celebration of his life. Its greater purpose is for people to dedicate themselves to continuing Kings work of using nonviolence to create a more just and equitable nation.

But before this year, never has there been an MLK Day when the signature accomplishment attached to Kings legacy, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, has been in such peril.

The civil rights movement was the largest and most sustained mass mobilization to expand democracy in U.S. history. For all the overuse of Kings I Have a Dream speech and confinement of King to that one speech, he states clearly that his dream is rooted in the American dream.

His greatest biographer, Taylor Branch, calls him a modern founding father, saying that like the original Founding Fathers and Abraham Lincoln, King and the movement promoted equal citizenship, and the idea of equal votes and equal souls.

Taking the founders original framework for democracy, which didnt include everyone in its picture, King enlarged it to encompass all.

The crowning achievements of the civil rights movement were the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which came after the Birmingham campaign, and the Voting Rights Act, which came after the Selma campaign. On March 25, 1965, at the conclusion of the five-day, 54-mile Selma to Montgomery March, King delivered an oration of optimism.

I know you are asking today, How long will it take? Somebodys asking, How long will prejudice blind the visions of men, darken their understanding, and drive bright-eyed wisdom from her sacred throne? Somebodys asking, When will wounded justice, lying prostrate on the streets of Selma and Birmingham and communities all over the South, be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men? Somebodys asking, When will the radiant star of hope be plunged against the nocturnal bosom of this lonely night, plucked from weary souls with chains of fear and the manacles of death? How long will justice be crucified, and truth bear it?

He answered his own questions. How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever.

His repeated refrain of How long? Not long rang with a hope affirmed that summer when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act.

Sadly, How long? Not long now sounds like a prediction on the life span of the act.

Its heart was removed by the Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder in 2013. The court ruled unconstitutional the section requiring specific local and state governments be precleared by the federal government before changing voting laws. Those provisions were in place in nine Southern states, including Texas, because they had a history of racial discrimination in voting.

In 2021, the court upheld a pair of Arizona voting restrictions that severely weakened the section of the Voting Rights Act prohibiting laws and procedures that discriminate based on race. Last year also saw an escalation of election integrity legislation passed by Republican-controlled state legislatures. These new laws will make voting more difficult.

The Senate is set to vote on the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act, whose passage is the only defense against the assault on voting rights. Its passage is doubtful; there is no Republican support to get it the necessary 60 votes, and Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Krysten Sinema of Arizona object to changing filibuster rules to allow passage by a simple majority.

Protecting the right to vote and the election process should be a bipartisan endeavor. The 30 Republicans who voted for the Voting Rights Act in 1965 understood this.

The zenith of the civil rights movement and Kings career was the broadening of American democracy through protected access to the ballot box.

The task of MLK Day 2022 isnt simply continuing the work of King, its fighting to keep that work from being undone.
As a history teacher, I taught my students about the freedoms we enjoy in our great nation. I also taught about the importance of the community. A person has the right and freedom to swing their fists; however, that right comes to an abrupt end when said fist strikes another person.

When someone refuses to wear a mask, they are possibly coming into contact with others and spreading the virus. When that person insists on their constitutional freedoms, it should not take away from my freedoms, either. Their freedom should not infringe on the health of others around them.

When we learn to pull together, we can overcome this virus. I am reminded of an old saying, United we stand, divided we fall. Ultimately, this is our choice.

John B. Francis

Pass Bidens bill

Re: Build Back Better would benefit Texas, Editorial, Dec. 14:

Please call your senators to convince them to vote for passage of the Build Back Better bill, which has already passed the House of Representatives. This bill sets aside $800 billion for families. The Build Back Better bill invests in people and communities. It is designed to help people out of poverty.

It will help the middle class with child care by assuring that families be capped on spending no more than 7 percent of their income on child care. This bill provides $300 a month for each child younger than 6 for one year.

This bill will invest more than $500 billion in combating climate change.

Opponents claim the BBB will add $367 billion to the deficit, but IRS enforcement will raise $400 billion in taxes by ensuring Americas richest households pay their fair share.

Lucille Briseno

Way to (not) protect

Re: Governor notes key backing, get-tough policies in S.A. stop, Metro, Wednesday:

I watched in disbelief several videos of the governors campaign visit to San Antonio. All these law enforcement officials from around the state, there to show their support for Gov. Greg Abbott, shaking hands and not a mask in sight. With the omicron variant raging at 30 percent positivity, there they stood with the governor as he stated how he has their backs.

The local sheriffs deputy association president also stated they are here to serve and protect. I guess they are not willing to protect anyone from the coronavirus, not even their own families and loved ones. Abbott must be very proud.

Tom Richter

Grid not forgotten

Local news reports that Gov. Greg Abbott met with the sheriffs across Texas to gather endorsements.

To be fair, he should schedule a monthlong meeting to meet with those who suffered from lack of updating our power grid. Its a shame this state was close to a total blackout. Weve not forgotten that major blunder.

Fred Machado

Lone star cartel

The lone star symbol has been a hateful Texas Ranger symbol to those of us of Mexican descent for more than a century, and it continues to be so as we see the lone star pinned on the sheriff of Real County, who is enforcing Gov. Greg Abbotts Operation Lone Star.

We criticize Mexico for its failure to control the cartels, but Texas is growing its own cartel, with the full support of the governor. Sound familiar, historians?

Rebecca Flores

Sheriff missing 

Why didnt Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar attend the governors campaign at the Deputy Sheriffs Association of Bexar County office, along with other state sheriffs, deputies and law officers? This gathering had to do with very important issues, including controlling the dramatic influx of immigrants and supporting officers. I would think this would be of interest to Salazar. These serious issues transcend politics. I lost some respect for him.

Mike Mendiola

 along with gov

With the record surge in omicron, where is the governor? Hes been all over the news announcing his candidacy, but nothing on omicron prevention or treatment. If you mention vaccines or mask mandates, he is on the air within 24 hours.

Jorge de la Garza


Austrian Airlines will temporarily suspend flights between Vienna and Zagreb from Monday, marking the third time the carrier has halted operations between the two cities in the last two years. It comes as a result of reduced demand due to surging coronavirus rates. Austrians service suspension is currently scheduled to last until at least February 28, although further changes remain possible. The airline had previously stopped flights to the Croatian capital during the global lockdowns in 2020, as well as over the 2020/2021 winter season. Croatia Airlines will continue to link the two capital cities with three weekly rotations planned. Austrian Airlines will temporarily suspend flights between Vienna and Zagreb from Monday, marking the third time the carrier has halted operations between the two cities in the last two years. It comes as a result of reduced demand due to surging coronavirus rates. Austrians service suspension is currently scheduled to last until at least February 28, although further changes remain possible. The airline had previously stopped flights to the Croatian capital during the global lockdowns in 2020, as well as over the 2020/2021 winter season. Croatia Airlines will continue to link the two capital cities with three weekly rotations planned.





Austrian Airlines will continue to serve its remaining destinations in the former Yugoslavia, including Belgrade, Podgorica, Pristina and Skopje. Both Austrian and Croatia Airlines are part of Star Alliance. Among the premium Lufthansa Group carriers, Lufthansa itself will be the only to maintain services to Zagreb throughout the entire winter with flights from Frankfurt. However, the airline has recently pushed back the resumption of its Munich operations from March 27 to May 2. Lufthansa Groups low cost arm, Eurowings, will continue to serve Zagreb from Cologne with a reduced schedule, although its flights from Stuttgart and Dusseldorf have been temporarily suspended until February and March respectively.





Traffic between the Croatian capital and Vienna was growing in the lead up to the coronavirus pandemic, with Austrian relying on a notable number of transfer passengers continuing their journey via Vienna onto North America, as well as elsewhere in Europe. In the pre-pandemic 2019, 173.431 travellers flew between Zagreb and the Austrian capital among the two carriers. For its part, Zagreb Airport said, Due to the rapidly evolving pandemic situation, during the second half of January and part of February, certain flights have been cancelled, but the majority are on sale from February onwards. Zagreb Airport is in contact with airlines across the world. However, due to the confidential nature of such contacts, we cannot share any more information at this time.

Zagreb - Vienna v.v. passenger traffic






Low cost carrier Wizz Air will be discontinuing its operations to Ljubljana from early February until mid-March at the earliest. Following the suspension of its Charleroi - Ljubljana route last week, the carrier will halt flights on its recently launched London Luton service starting February 4. Wizz Airs service to the British capital will be restored at the start of the 2022 summer season on March 29, while operations to the Belgian city of Charleroi are due to resume earlier, on March 11, although this is subject to change. The budget airline commenced operations between London and Ljubljana in mid-December 2021 after previously terminating flights in 2019. easyJet will continue to link the two cities, with services to Gatwick Airport, however, frequencies have been reduced to just one per week. Low cost carrier Wizz Air will be discontinuing its operations to Ljubljana from early February until mid-March at the earliest. Following the suspension of its Charleroi - Ljubljana route last week, the carrier will halt flights on its recently launched London Luton service starting February 4. Wizz Airs service to the British capital will be restored at the start of the 2022 summer season on March 29, while operations to the Belgian city of Charleroi are due to resume earlier, on March 11, although this is subject to change. The budget airline commenced operations between London and Ljubljana in mid-December 2021 after previously terminating flights in 2019. easyJet will continue to link the two cities, with services to Gatwick Airport, however, frequencies have been reduced to just one per week.





Prior to Covid-19, London was Ljubljana Airports busiest route with Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stansted all being served from the Slovenian capital. In 2019, almost 227.000 passengers flew on nonstop flights between Ljubljana and London, while a further 9.672 travellers made their way indirectly via other points in Europe. Stansted was the busiest, with 45% of all of Ljubljanas London passengers flying to and from the airport. The route was served by easyJet and has since been terminated due to the closure of the airlines base at Stansted. Luton was Ljubljanas second busiest London airport until Wizz Air terminated the route in 2019.





Wizz Air performance on London Luton - Ljubljana route

* Service suspended in October 2019





Wizz Air is the second airline to withdraw from the Slovenian market on a temporary basis due to surging Covid-19 cases across the continent and plummeting demand. Brussels Airlines pulled out earlier this month as well, while a number of other carriers, including Lufthansa and Swiss reduced their frequencies. On the other hand, Aeroflots subsidiary Rossiya Airlines will commence a one weekly service from St Petersburg next week, while Nordwind Airlines is expected to introduce flights from Moscow in early February. Ljubljana Airport estimates it will handle some 900.000 passengers this year, while pre-covid traffic figures could be reached in 2025.




Above, Lt. Michael Byrd, the officer who shot Ashli Babbitt, told NBC News he gave fair warning, but under penalty of perjury he refused to say anything to investigators.

By Paul Sperry, RealClearInvestigations

January 11, 2022

When U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd went on NBC Nightly News to tell his side of shooting and killing unarmed Jan. 6 rioter Ashli Babbitt, he made a point to note hed been investigated by several agencies and exonerated for his actions that day.

Theres an investigative process [and] I was cleared by the DOJ [Department of Justice], and FBI and [the D.C.] Metropolitan Police, he told NBC News anchor Lester Holt in August, adding that the Capitol Police also cleared him of wrongdoing and decided not to discipline or demote him for the shooting.

Byrd then answered a series of questions by Holt about the shooting, but what he told the friendly journalist, he likely never told investigators. Thats because he refused to answer their questions, according to several sources and documents reviewed by RealClearInvestigations.

In fact, investigators cleared Byrd of wrongdoing in the shooting without actually interviewing him about the shooting or threatening him with punishment if he did not cooperate with their criminal investigation.

He didnt provide any statement to [criminal] investigators and they didnt push him to make a statement, Babbitt family attorney Terry Roberts said in an RCI interview. Its astonishing how skimpy his investigative file is."

Roberts, who has spoken with the D.C. MPD detective assigned to the case, said the kid-glove treatment of Byrd raises suspicions the investigation was a whitewash.

The lawyer's account appears to be backed up by a January 2021 internal affairs report, which notes Byrd "declined to provide a statement, D.C. MPD documents show.

Asked about it, a D.C. MPD spokeswoman confirmed that Byrd did not cooperate with internal affairs agents or FBI agents, who jointly investigated what was one of the most high-profile officer-involved shooting cases in U.S. history.

MPD did not formally interview Lt. Byrd, deputy D.C. MPD communications director Kristen Metzger said. And, He didnt give a statement while under the U.S. Attorneys Office investigation.

After Byrd declined to cooperate with D.C MPD Internal Affairs Divisions investigation, which was led by Det. John Hendrick, his case eventually was turned over to the USCP for a final administrative review of whether or not his actions conformed with department policies and training.

Still, USCP concluded in August that the officers conduct was lawful and within department policy. The agency launched its administrative investigation after the criminal investigation was closed.

In April, within four months of the shooting, Byrd was cleared of criminal wrongdoing by the Justice Department, which declined to impanel a grand jury to hear evidence in a departure from other lethal police-shooting cases involving unarmed citizens.

Justice ruled there was not enough evidence to conclude Byrd violated Babbitts civil rights or willfully acted recklessly in shooting her.

Byrd remains the commander in charge of security for the House of Representatives.

Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department would comment on whether they pressed Byrd after he insisted on remaining silent. The D.C. police force, which shares some jurisdiction with the Capitol Police, takes the lead in internal affairs probes like this one.

Roberts questioned how investigators could find that Byrd acted in self-defense and properly followed his training procedures, including issuing warnings before shooting Babbitt, since he refused to talk about it while the investigation was open -- and his statements, unlike those made to NBC, would have been taken under penalty of perjury. How would they know if they never interviewed him? he said, adding that its not enough to say an officer did nothing wrong without showing how it reached such a finding.

By avoiding an interrogation, he said Byrd avoided saying anything that could have been used to incriminate him, including making false statements to federal agents, which would be a felony. Remarkably, he did not formally invoke his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent, according to people familiar with his case, which makes the reluctance of authorities to lean on him or sanction him for not cooperating all the more puzzling. By law, federal agencies can use leverage short of termination, such as an unwelcome duty reassignment, to persuade employees to cooperate with investigators. Byrd was put on paid administrative leave during the investigative process.

Byrd waited to speak publicly until after his statements could no longer be used against him in a criminal probe. The heavily promoted NBC exclusive told only his account of what happened with no opposing viewpoints. I believe I showed the utmost courage on Jan. 6, Byrd said.

In defending his actions, Byrd told Holt things he evidently wouldnt tell investigators, including his claim that he shot as a last resort and only after warning Babbitt to stop.

However, documents uncovered by Judicial Watch reveal that eyewitnesses  including three police officers at the scene  told investigators they did not hear Byrd give Babbitt any verbal warnings prior to firing, contradicting what Byrd told NBC.

The Babbitt family has maintained that the rushed investigation amounted to a "coverup" of misconduct by the officer. It says the federal probe was conducted under political pressure, arguing that Byrd was not put through the normal rigors of a police shooting investigation to avoid making a martyr of Babbitt, an avid Donald Trump supporter. An Air Force veteran from California, Babbitt died while wearing a Trump flag as a cape. The former president has demanded the Justice Department reinvestigate her death.

Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas, a former sheriff, argued Babbitts shooting should have been presented to a federal grand jury. This case was mishandled from the very beginning, the Republican lawmaker told the U.S. attorney who led the probe for the Justice Department in a recent letter. In a separate letter to the Capitol Police chief, Nehls wrote: Many officers in the USCP I have spoken to believe the investigations of Lt. Boyd were dropped because of his position and other political considerations."

Use-of-Force Experts Skeptical

Some use-of-force experts are skeptical Byrd did the right thing, even after watching his largely sympathetic NBC interview.

The limited public information that exists raises serious questions about the propriety of Byrds decision to shoot, especially with regard to the assessment that Babbitt was an imminent threat, said police consultants and criminologists Geoffrey Alpert, Jeff Noble and Seth Stoughton in a recent Lawfare article.

We have serious reservations about the propriety of the shooting, they wrote.

They said they doubted Byrds claims that he reasonably believed Babbitt was posing a threat and had the ability and intention to kill or seriously injure Byrd or other officers or lawmakers and therefore had to be stopped with lethal force. They noted that he admitted to Holt that he never actually saw Babbitt, who stood 5-foot-2 and weighed 110 pounds, brandish a weapon.

Babbitt was shot by Byrd a year ago when she and other pro-Trump rioters breached the Capitol amid efforts to stop Congress from certifying the state results of the 2020 election of Joe Biden. They sought to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject electors from Arizona and other states, where narrow results were challenged by Trump and his lawyers over allegations of voter fraud and other election irregularities.

Roberts and the Babbitt family are preparing to sue Byrd and the Capitol Police in a wrongful-death claim seeking at least $10 million in damages. Asked why his client chose not to go on the record and cooperate with investigators, Byrds attorney, Mark Schamel, declined comment. In an earlier interview, Schamel maintained the shooting was justified and that there is no basis for a civil case against his client.

The federal investigation of the lethal shooting was marked by secrecy and other irregularities. Unlike other officers involved in fatal shootings of unarmed civilians, Byrd was long shielded from public scrutiny after shooting Babbitt as she tried to climb through a broken window of a barricaded door at the Capitol. For eight months D.C. police officials withheld Byrds identity, first revealed by RealClearInvestigations, and they have not released a formal review of the shooting, or the 28-year veteran's disciplinary records. Nor did the Capitol Police hold a briefing on Babbitt's death. Records uncovered by Judicial Watch reveal authorities ordered her body cremated two days after the shooting, without her husband's permission.

Meanwhile, the feds have thrown the book at suspected Jan. 6 rioters  publicly identifying them on a Justice Department website  and are still engaged in a national manhunt for suspects. More than 725 defendants have been charged mostly for relatively minor offenses ranging from trespassing to disorderly conduct.

So far, the select House committee set up to investigate the Jan. 6 siege at the Capitol has not explored the most lethal violence that occurred that day. Byrd was responsible for the only shot fired during the riot  all other armed officers showed restraint, including 140 who were injured confronting rioters -- and Babbitt was the only person directly killed on that day. Like the other rioters, she carried no firearm  no guns were recovered from the Capitol.

Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., has pledged to investigate fully the facts and circumstances of these events. Asked if the police shooting is on the agenda for public hearings planned for this winter, or whether it will be addressed in a final report scheduled for release before Novembers congressional elections, a committee spokesman declined comment. Trump and GOP leaders have accused the panel, which is composed of seven Democrats and two Republicans, of trying to damage pro-Trump Republicans ahead of the midterms by claiming they helped orchestrate an insurrection and continue to pose "a threat to democracy."

Point-Blank Range

Unlike in a criminal investigation, there is no right to remain silent in a civil case. Wrongful-death litigation claiming negligence may hinge on whether Byrd warned Babbitt before opening fire on her.

Roberts said Babbitt, a former military police officer who served tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan, would have complied with commands to stop and peacefully surrendered had Byrd or other Capitol officers attempted to arrest her. But he said additional eyewitnesses hes interviewed say Byrd never gave her such verbal commands. He said Babbitt wasnt even aware that the officer was nearby because he was positioned in a doorway of a room off to the side of the Speakers Lobby doors. Byrd, whose mouth was covered with a surgical mask, took aim outside her field of vision and fired as her head emerged through the window. Roberts compared her shooting to an execution.

Killing her by shooting her at point-blank range was completely unnecessary, he said. This alone renders the shooting legally unjustified.

Roberts pointed out that Byrd had mishandled his firearm in the past. He was the subject of a previous internal investigation for leaving his loaded service pistol in a Capitol restroom. Its not clear if he was disciplined. At the time, the lieutenant reportedly told officers he would not be punished due to his high rank, which he kept despite the incident. But in the NBC interview, he said he was penalized for the 2019 misstep, without elaborating. A USCP spokeswoman declined to respond to repeated requests for information about any discipline administered for his misconduct.

Byrd could not be reached for comment, but in the NBC interview he denied receiving special treatment. Of course not, he said. No way."

Before filing a lawsuit naming a federal agency, Roberts has to send a formal complaint for a claim for damage, injury or death  known as a federal form SF-95  to USCP and wait for a response. He sent the notice in May and is still waiting for the Capitol Police to reply.

We have received the SF-95 from Ms. Babbitts family attorney, USCP General Counsel Tad DiBiase confirmed to RCI in an email. He declined to say how the department plans to respond: I cannot comment on that."

In the meantime, Roberts said he is interviewing witnesses and also building a case from documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act.

I am still reviewing records obtained in FOIA action and there are more coming, he said. I am in no rush."
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For me, energy is personal.

As a City Council member from Astoria, I worked to reduce New York Citys heavy dependence on fossil fuels because of the serious dangers of climate change.

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But also because Im a father. The relentless burning of oil and gas over decades hit our familys doorstep the day my son was diagnosed with childhood asthma.

Its an excruciating health burden no child should ever endure. When he was younger, his treatment consisted of a pill, then a vitamin, followed by another allergy medication  and then something to settle his stomach. Every day before school, he wore a nebulizer mask to inhale yet more medicine.

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A power plant in Astoria Queens. (Shutterstock/Shutterstock)

All this was for a normal day. When he was sick, the regimen was even more intense.

Its awful for just one kid, yet thousands of our citys children suffer from asthma. Many live in the shadow of aging, dirty fossil fuel facilities. The largest concentration is in the South Bronx, followed by my native Western Queens, where much of the citys fossil fuel industrial infrastructure resides. Years ago, fossil generators decided our communities were the easiest spot to build their massive plants. To add insult to injury, PowerNow sited additional peakers in Environmental Justice communities without a proper impact statement.

This all has contributed to making our Western Queens neighborhood part of Asthma Alley, where air pollution trends are higher than the rest of Queens and the citywide average. The white clouds belching from smokestacks carry the pollutants that our kids breathe in.

We need to break the ugly cycle of respiratory illnesses as much as we must shatter our reliance on fossil fuels. We can do that by transforming Asthma Alley into Renewable Row.

The Daily News Flash Weekdays Catch up on the days top five stories every weekday afternoon. >

When I chaired the City Council Environmental Protection Committee, we passed the Climate Mobilization Act. Thanks to so many dedicated people, a green energy revolution is now unfolding in Western Queens. New Yorks clean power future will feature Equinors 1,200 megawatts of renewable wind, as Clean Path provides over 1,300 megawatts of renewable wind and solar. Renewable Rikers can emerge as a critical green hub, and the Champlain Hudson Power Express can link New York City to clean energy generated in Canada with a fully-buried, renewable power line.

These projects are urgently needed here, where approximately 85% of our energy comes from fossil fuels. Just one of these projects  Champlain-Hudson Power Express  will remove the equivalent of 540,000 cars from streets across New York State, and provide clean, reliable power for more than one million homes  and create well-paying union jobs across New York.

These renewable developers also partner with the communities they work in. This week, CHPE committed $1.25 million to the Variety Boys and Girls Clubs of Queens, where I am now CEO. The investment will help create new science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programming and facilities for kids. We will serve 16,000 young people in our community every year  up from 4,000 currently  and provide educational support for kids who really benefit from it. And we expect others will do the same, because investment in this clean energy revolution also means educating the next generation of scientists.

By turning Asthma Alley into Renewable Row, we will usher in a new era of clean, reliable energy that removes fossil fuels from New Yorks grid. These transformative projects will make obsolete the dangerous peaker and dirty power plants that diminish our health, our lives, and the lives of those we love.

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For my son and the thousands of New York City children who also suffer from asthma, we can finally stop dirty power plants from spewing the noxious emissions that invade our kids lungs.

And thats as personal as it gets.

Constantinides served in the New York City Council from 2014-2021, where he chaired the Environmental Protection Committee. He is currently CEO of the Variety Boys and Girls Club of Queens.
Image: Shutterstock, for representation only



The urban population of India falls under the safety net of the police, surveillance cameras, and improved public and private transportation services, the same being out of reach for the rural areas, who still have to keep themselves under restrictions and look after themselves for their own safety.



Girls in rural households face tighter impositions regarding their safety which keeps them away from their basic rights, let alone dreams and aspirations. However, a girl from Rajasthan is slowly changing the face of her village through her willpower and thirst for knowledge.



Hailing from the village of Bassi in Rajasthan, Kavita Saini witnessed the plight of the fellow girls in her village who were deprived of their right to education by their families who feared for the safety of their girl child getting molested and thus refused to send them far away for their studies.



The village did not have a library and the nearest one was situated 13-14km away, since girls werent allowed to travel to the library, Saini brought the library to their village by opening one of her own. It currently houses a total of 398 books which can be read by anyone for free from 9 am to 5 pm.



Additionallty, so supplement their incomes, the women of Bassi have now resorted to embroidery and toy-making to earn some money on their own. These toys are then being sold in the market at prices ranging from Rs.100 to Rs.1,000. Owing to the pandemic, like everywhere else, villagers here too have lost their regular jobs, so making and selling handicrafts helps run the house and better financial conditions. Women in the village are also learning the English language as part of different initiatives, which will improve their chances of employment, taking them a step further towards being independent.

Also read: This Pune Engineer Converts Plastic Waste To Its Best






remaining of

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DOHA, Qatar, Jan. 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Two media professionals, Muhammad Al-Yahyai and Dahem Al-Qahtani, have recently joined "Alaraby TV" to present two programs, namely "Khaleej Al Arab (Arab Gulf)" and "Qeraa Thania (Second Reading)."

Omani journalist Muhammad Al Yahyai will present the "Second Reading" program in its new format, in addition to contributing to its development. The program will feature specialized guests and prominent academics to present political and historical events and concepts in a manner free of surrounding exaggerations or subjective bias.

Al Yahyai has accrued over thirty years of experience in the media field as he moved between print and television in both the Sultanate of Oman and the United States of America, and specialized in presenting talk shows of a political, intellectual and cultural nature.

"Second Reading" has aired on Arab television since June 2019. The program is based on a conscious and objective dialogue between a group of specialists who provide a different perspective from the prevailing one, and refute the exaggerations and fallacies surrounding concepts and events.

The program's first season began by addressing intellectual issues of a religious nature, to provide a fresh take on controversial issues, such as the stoning penalty in Islam and the concept of the state in Islam. During its first episodes, the program presented historical Islamic figures, including Ibn Taymiyyah.

In its second season, it moved to reading political issues of interest to Arab citizens, including "Islamists and their relationship to democracy." It also sought to present an objective view of concepts like secularism, liberalism and populism.

In its new phase, the program will launch a format combining long-form field and archival reports, as well as discussions between specialists, with a focus on historical and general political issues.

Also, Kuwaiti journalist Dahem Al-Qahtani joins "Alaraby TV." He is the host of the "Khaleej Al Arab" program, which addresses Gulf affairs at various levels through discussions and analyses in an attempt to strengthen the commonalities between the people of the Gulf, as well as raise thorny questions about its reality and the relations of its countries.

"Khaleej Al Arab" was launched on Arab TV over four years ago. It is one of the main political channel programs, and discusses everything that concerns Gulf citizens politically, socially and culturally. Arab citizens also have a general knowledge of the Gulf countries due to their remarkable regional and international influence.

During its previous episodes, the program hosted officials and researchers from various Gulf countries and addressed several issues, including the years of the State of Qatar's siege, which coincided with the program's launch, then the Yemeni war, and the Iranian nuclear issue.

During its next phase, the program aims to address Gulf issues from a cultural and social perspective, as well as political issues, and will devote air time to field visits to Gulf countries, along with cultural, political and social activities.

Al-Qahtani worked as a journalist for the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai Al-Aam (Alrai Media), later known as Al-Rai. He also hosted a talk show with others on the Kuwaiti Alyoum channel. Subsequently, he helped start several media projects, including the electronic "Alaan News," the first electronic newspaper published in Kuwait and the Arabian Gulf, as well as the "Abdullah Al-Salem Center for Supporting Democracy," which he previously managed.

Follow "Alaraby TV" on: NileSat - 12646 HD? 10971 SD, Es-hailSat 2 11310HD V, HotBird 12520 HD, www.alaraby.com and our social media channels:

Facebook: @alarabytelevision

Instagram: alarabytv

YouTube: AlarabyTV

Twitter: @alarabyTV

"Alaraby TV" is an Arabic news channel broadcasting from the Qatari capital, Doha, London and Beirut. "Alaraby TV" tracks events and their background, then presents the news, analyses, evaluations and investigations. The channel is committed to providing highly credible journalism and objective,professional content, with a focus on the principles of freedom of expression, based on the highest professional standards applicable globally.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1722904/AlAraby_Akhbar.jpg
Tampa, FL (33646)

Today

Sunshine and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 87F. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

Becoming partly cloudy after some evening rain. Thunder possible. Low 68F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 80%.
This was one of the dogs seen on the San Bernardino Animal Shelter's Facebook page.
Only a couple of weeks into his tenure as mayor of New York City, Eric Adams seems to be everywhere. Hes biking out of Gracie Mansion, riding the subway and racing to the scene of a tragic fire. His energy  and evident enthusiasm for the job  is infectious.

Adams, a former borough president, state senator and police captain, has promised a get stuff done mayoralty. He wakes up early and goes to bed late.

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The pandemic wont intimidate him either. Weve allowed people to beat us down so much that all we did was wallow in COVID, Adams said recently. We no longer believed this is a city of swagger. This is a city of resiliency.

All of this is notable because we are coming off eight years of Bill de Blasio, who never seemed to relish the job. He rolled in late on many days, infrequently started events on time, sparred with reporters and constantly attempted  with little success  to build a national profile for himself, eventually mounting a failed bid for the presidency. De Blasio left office quietly, with sagging poll numbers and limited fanfare. He was the mayor many New Yorkers, for now, seem content to forget.

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Ready, set, go. (Shawn Inglima/for New York Daily News)

But Adams and de Blasio are different in at least one other way that does not reflect too highly on the new mayor: There are no big ideas coming out of this City Hall.

Not yet, anyway.

By now, political watchers roll their eyes when anyone starts talking about de Blasio and universal pre-kindergarten. Yes, he did it, they say with exasperation, but what else was there? One program does not make a whole mayoralty!

The success of de Blasios UPK initiative, however, cannot be handwaved away, especially as it grows clear that the program will exist indefinitely and Democratic executives nationally are looking to it as a clear model of success. President Biden has extolled the virtue of universal pre-K. Any federal program would have to build from New York Citys framework, where tens of thousands of public school kids attend UPK every year.

Unlike Adams, de Blasio entered office with a clear, easily-defined policy agenda. Voters understood what he wanted to do: hike taxes on the wealthy to fund a UPK program, which did not exist in 2014. De Blasio had other far-reaching goals as well, like passing a paid sick days law, building and preserving many thousands of affordable apartments, freezing rents on rent-stabilized apartments, ending stop-and-frisk and otherwise reforming policing while driving down crime, and giving municipal IDs to undocumented immigrants.

Very early into his tenure, many of these aims were fulfilled, and others were begun with ambition.

In part, de Blasio was a victim of his own success and grew aimless as time wore on. After his first couple of years, and his titanic struggles with Andrew Cuomo and state Senate Republicans to get UPK off the ground, he seemed increasingly disinterested in governing the city. Other significant achievements, like a right to counsel for low-income tenants or subsidized MetroCards for the poor, were foisted upon him by an ambitious City Council.

Still, by the standard de Blasio set, though, Adams has a long way to go. On his very first day in office, The News Michael Gartland asked Adams if he had any clear policy goals for his first 100 days.

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The otherwise brash Adams demurred.

We have a comprehensive 100-day plan, Adams said. We have to start right away, day one, so youll get them all.

Such a plan has not been released. Adams certainly has plenty of crises to manage, from the omicron wave impacting public schools to the fallout from the deadliest city fire in 30 years. A reactive and quasi-competent mayoralty may be all New Yorkers want for now.

The unfortunate irony is that it is often good politics, in the short-term at least, to promise less and exceed low expectations. De Blasio set lofty goals, speaking exhaustively about transformation, and tried to reach them. To get there, he had to battle vicious political foes, like Cuomo and Albany Republicans, who constantly wanted him to fail. Pundits were happy to opine on these failures, when they came, and portray de Blasio as hapless.

Adams is not taking these kinds of risks, at least now. In these first few months, this will help him because there will be fewer opportunities for embarrassment. If hes not investing in tough political or policy fights to achieve great change, voters and pundits will not judge him harshly for not meeting a particular objective.

At some point, however, Adams will need to do more than stage photo-ops or rail against people who dont close doors during fires, as he did after the blaze in the Bronx killed 17 people. He will need plans and ideas because the city has so many challenges that charisma alone wont fix.

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What will the Adams City Hall do about homelessness? So far, he and Gov. Hochul have teamed up on a plan to send more outreach workers to homeless on the subways to coax them into shelters. Its a nice idea thats been tried before. Adams is also supportive of flooding the subway system with more police, which will inevitably lead to hostile encounters and do little to solve one of the citys most intractable problems.

It does make an easy headline: Send cops in and hope for the best. De Blasios failure was treating homelessness as a social services problem rather than a housing problem, building additional shelters to cram families inside. Adams, who is close to the real estate industry, has yet to propose a workable plan to build more housing that the citys poorest can actually afford. During the mayoral campaign, he backed a plan to convert underused hotels and accessory-dwelling units into housing but has spoken little on its since. No projects have been proposed.

Oddly, Adams has declined to say if hell ever appoint a deputy mayor for housing. Perhaps no issue is of greater importance to New York City, where millions are renters, a pandemic-era eviction moratorium is expiring and new housing is badly needed for those who have nowhere to live but the streets or shelters.

Adams new transportation commissioner, a former city councilman named Ydanis Rodriguez, has been mum so far on how hed like to oversee the citys bus and bike lanes. De Blasios Vision Zero plan made some very significant gains before limping to the finish in a very bloody final year. Pedestrian fatalities are on the rise and cars are clogging city streets as too many New Yorkers avoid subways and buses during the pandemic. What does the Adams DOT plan to do about long-running conflicts between bicyclists, pedestrians and drivers?

Beyond transit, does Adams have a plan for the underfunded city parks and libraries? What about the public hospitals? Will the property tax system ever be reformed? There are many, many outstanding questions.

Of course, its still very early for Adams. His 100-day plan may be upcoming, or he may eschew the symbolism of arbitrary deadlines. But its important to remember that for all his faults, it was never too early for de Blasio when it came to trying to enact all that he campaigned on.

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The Daily News Flash Weekdays Catch up on the days top five stories every weekday afternoon. >

By mid-January of de Blasios first year, his entire City Hall team was aggressively focused on finding ways to create a universal pre-K program. The City Council, meanwhile, knew exactly what bills to send to de Blasios desk so hed sign them quickly into law.

For all his pent-up energy, Adams has not demonstrated the same degree of ambition or interest. Both the City Council and Legislature are awaiting the Adams City Hall agenda, the big asks that they will either accept or negotiate against.

Instead, Adams has invested himself in odd and ultimately self-destructive fights. He seems intent on appointing his brother to a $210,000-a-year post overseeing his security, potentially flouting city nepotism laws. He has already appointed the scandal-scarred Phil Banks to be his deputy mayor for public safety, a newly created post that might allow Banks to be the de facto police commissioner.

Here, Adams is showing ambition  for stacking his government with those closest to him, regardless of qualifications. His new chief of staff, Frank Carone, is the attorney who effectively ran the Brooklyn Democratic Party. Old-fashioned machine politics and patronage might be making a comeback.

There is still plenty of time for Adams to offer a greater, more comprehensive agenda for the city. He will soon deliver his first State of the City address and omicrons eventual decline could give him room to talk about issues beyond COVID. On transit, housing, health care, education, and infrastructure, there is so much still to do.

Swagger is great for a new mayor. Whats even better is a vision to match that energy and drive.

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Barkan is a journalist and author.
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Braden Manning, Gettysburg baseball: Braden went 9-for-13 with 2 doubles, 2 triples and 7 RBI over 4 games. He also struck out 11 batters in a win over South Western.

Amy Anderson, Delone Catholic softball: Amy went 5-for-12 with 6 RBI, 3 runs scored and a triple over 3 games. She also struck out 17 batters and went 2-1 in those games.

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Andrew Koons, Fairfield baseball: Andrew went 5-for-11 with 8 RBI, 4 runs scored and 2 home runs over 3 games, including a grand slam. He was also the winning pitcher against Biglerville.

Ben Angstadt, Biglerville baseball: Ben went 8-for-17 with 7 RBI, 4 runs scored, a double and a home run over 4 games for the Canners.

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Have we no shame?

Are we really going to go through with this Martin Luther King Jr. holiday celebration on Monday without a congressional resolution on voting rights?

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Is that what were going to do?

Are we going to hold hands, sing 60s protest songs, watch black-and-white speeches and reminisce about the March on Washington while some sore-losing Republicans and their filibuster fan clubs are turning back the clock?

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Is that whats happening here?

Is the president of the United States, a long-time filibuster fan club member, going to lay a wreath at the King Memorial knowing full well he was late to the voting rights party?

President Joe Biden (Patrick Semansky/AP)

Oh, he gave a nice speech, and all. Even pounded the lectern a couple of times, but President Biden took forever to come around to the reality that restrictive Senate voting rules are standing in the way of on-the-ground voting rights.

And, despite this epiphany, Biden only went halfway in his effort to fix the problem, offering a temporary halt to the filibuster to get some traction on voting rights.

Ive been having these quiet conversations with the members of Congress for the last two months, Biden said in firebrand speech in Atlanta urging new legislation on voting rights. Im tired of being quiet!

Well, dammit, make some noise.

Instead of putting the full weight of the presidency behind the initiative, something every other Democratic president in the last 55 years would have done, Biden was acting like he was the senior senator from Delaware.

I told the president he gave a monumental speech, said the Rev. Al Sharpton, president of the National Action Network, who met with Biden after his address. And, though I have been challenging him for months to be forthcoming, it was better late than never.

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From left: Rev. Al Sharpton, Rev. Jesse Jackson and Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, listen as President Joe Biden speaks in support of changing the Senate filibuster rules that have stalled voting rights legislation, at Atlanta University Center Consortium, on the grounds of Morehouse College and Clark Atlanta University, Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2022, in Atlanta, Ga. (Patrick Semansky/AP)

Maybe too late.

At stake are the Freedom to Vote Act, which would reverse some of the restrictive Republican-backed state laws, and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, an update to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Fueled by former President Donald Trumps lies about fraud in the 2020 election, 19 states passed restrictive voting laws last year, and some legislatures are expected to consider more in 2022.

A majority of the Senate, mostly Democrats and Independents, support the two voting bills, but current Senate rules require a 60-vote threshold  the so-called filibuster which means 10 Republicans would have to sign off on the measures.

Thats not happening.

The only other option is to follow the course that Biden belatedly endorsed, which is to eliminate or at least modify the filibuster. Unlike most Senate legislation, only a simple majority is needed to do that.

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The Daily News Flash Weekdays Catch up on the days top five stories every weekday afternoon. >

But thats not likely to happen either, not after Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va) and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) said they would not vote to kill the filibuster.

History will remember Senator Sinema unkindly, Martin Luther King III, the slain civil rights leaders son, said in a statement.

While Sen. Sinema remains stubborn in her optimism, Black and Brown Americans are losing their right to vote. Shes siding with the legacy of Bull Connor and George Wallace instead of the legacy of my father and all those who fought to make real our democracy, the statement continued.

The filibuster, once an obscure procedure, has been increasingly used to stall legislation of the party in power, most notably on issues relating to race and civil rights. Not even a vote scheduled after a holiday celebrating the life of the greatest voting rights champion ever is enough to move the needle.

So, unless youre ready to pick up the fallen standard and fight for the most important of civil rights, dont even bother with a holiday celebration.

Unless youre ready to do away with Jim Crow-era roadblocks to progressive legislation, dont say a word to me about Dr. Kings dream.

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And so we shall have to do more than register and more than vote, King once said. We shall have to create leaders who embody virtues we can respect, who have moral and ethical principles we can applaud with enthusiasm.
Melynn Wakeman represented the buyer, colorectal surgeon Dr. Neeraj Singh, in the $900,000 acquisition of Arrowhead Office Suites Condominium, 20325 N. 51st Avenue, Suites 124/126, in Glendale.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 15, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A block explorer is an essential blockchain search engine, similar to Google. It can view all transactions that have taken place on the blockchain, including network hash rate, transaction growth, and even activity on blockchain addresses. Traders, users, miners and crypto enthusiasts all find it useful to check status of their transactions, confirm block activity in which they may get block rewards from, and even find circulating supply or the amount of energy needed to mine a coin.

eCash's Global Network Council is a group of proven stakeholders who green-lighted their next funded project, which is to develop and finesse the RaiPay Block Explorer - a new block explorer that supports eToken transactions, in addition to only native token ones. For the development of this project, eCash will first fund the RaiPay team $15,000 for open sourcing the explorer's existing code. Over the next year, eCash will be pooling $40,000 to streamline, modernize and maintain the RaiPay Explorer, with the following goals in mind: 1) creating a mobile friendly and responsible interface as a large percentage of crypto users are mobile-first; 2) improving code quality and adding documentation, to make it easy for third-party developers and Team ABC to read and contribute to the explorer; 3) improving performance by replacing BCHD with the highly-performant Chronik Indexer; 4) enhancing user experience by creating fun visuals such as rich list, charts and graphs; 5) routine maintenance such as updating dependencies and fixing bugs.

eCash is proud to be working with RaiPay, who first started out as a cryptocurrency enabled PoS terminal connecting merchants to consumers in the form of an online wallet used via smartphone. The new block explorer will provide more transparent and faster information about transaction activities on the eCash network for users, which is the core feature of open-source blockchain technology.

eCash believes in redefining wealth and re-introducing the idea of electronic cash to users in the crypto space. Now on over 30+ exchanges with the ticker XEC, eCash is making waves through each approved project, step by step, to reinvest and grow its ecosystem which expands into tech, marketing campaigns, and media partnerships.

More inquiries about the RaiPay Block Explorer and eCash developments can be sent to pr@e.cash.

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eCash's Global Network Council Funds Development of RaiPay Block Explorer 2.0









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As election year politics heat up, crime and punishment is becoming an increasingly salient issue. As someone who has worked in criminal justice for four decades, I caution against the facile notion that more punishment  particularly locking more people up pretrial  equals less crime.

Last year, Eric Adams defeated more progressive candidates in large part by promising to beat back the increase in shootings and homicides and make the city safer. He has announced an intention to return to some stop-question-frisk policing tactics and bring back punitive segregation, which some people consider solitary confinement, in city jails, and urged rollbacks of the states bail reform law.

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When Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg scaled back prosecution of non-violent offenses, recognizing that Manhattan accounted for a disproportionate share of the citys incarcerated population, Adams new NYPD commissioner, Keechant Sewell wrote that she was very concerned about the reforms impact on public safety.

And in November, Republicans won several Long Island races for district attorney and county executive, touting a tough-on-crime message as shootings and homicides spiked during the pandemic. Although such crimes were rising nationally, including in many places that did not enact similar bail reforms, Republican Party Chair Nick Langworthy put the blame squarely on the bail law, saying: Bail and discovery reform...has affected every New Yorker and made them less safe.

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These simplistic analyses feel like deja vu. Throughout the destructive buildup of mass incarceration over the last five decades, crime spikes were routinely blamed on purportedly soft-on-crime policies and turned into electoral advantage, leaving considerable damage in their wake.

But long-term research and experience with crime and incarceration belies such cursory conclusions. Ironically, New York City serves as the nations leading example of a jurisdiction that has substantially reduced incarceration over the decades while simultaneously lowering crime. Before we dismantle the states bail reforms and start filling up Rikers again, we should learn from that history.

Exhaustive research by the National Academy of Sciences found that the nations eight-fold increase in prison populations from 1972 to 2009 had a highly uncertain impact on crime but correlated with a wide range of social costs. These included unemployment, poverty, family disruption, poor health and drug addiction concentrated largely in poor communities of color.

The Daily News Flash Weekdays Catch up on the days top five stories every weekday afternoon. >

What I witnessed over the past seven months as the citys correction commissioner was a sea of mostly people of color, incarcerated in violent, squalid conditions that one state legislator rightly called a human rights atrocity. In 2021, Black and Latino people were incarcerated in city jails at an appalling 25 and 10 times the rate of white people, respectively.

The good news is that there are a lot fewer people in the citys jails than there used to be. Over the past three decades, Adams four predecessors  Mayors Dinkins, Giuliani, Bloomberg, and de Blasio  quietly but successfully reduced both crime and incarceration, yielding much more information about how to achieve safety and decency than 18 months of crime data during an unprecedented pandemic.

From 1991 to 2020, the average number of people in New York Citys jails declined by 79%, from 21,764 to 4,541. This happened without jeopardizing public safety; from 1993 to 2020, homicides and violent crime declined by 76% and 77%, respectively.

Theres plenty of evidence that reducing incarceration is beneficial on the micro as well as macro level. For example, research has shown that, holding other relevant factors equal, being sentenced to city jails increases a persons recidivism rate by 7%.

There is no world in which we can guarantee that nobody kept out of jail pre-trial will reoffend. Some percentage of those who make bail, those who are released of their own recognizance and the higher-risk population thats released under supervised release will go on to commit misdemeanors and, more rarely, felonies. But a minority who reoffends cant become an excuse to willy-nilly lock up thousands upon thousands of innocent-until-proven guilty people.

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In 1993, then-Attorney General Bill Barr wrote The Case for More Incarceration, in which he claimed we are incarcerating too few criminals, and the public is suffering as a result. That has proven to be a glib conclusion that stoked a racist and destructive rise in prison populations. Fortunately, at the same time and under Republican and Democratic mayors, New York City dramatically reduced crime and incarceration more than any other large city in the country. The recent, pandemic-driven increases in crime should not prompt us to discard decades of bipartisan success in favor of bromides unlikely to improve safety.

Schiraldi is former commissioner of New York Citys Departments of Correction and Probation. He is a senior fellow at the Columbia Justice Lab and Senior Research Scientist at the Columbia School of Social Work.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 15, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Core One Labs Inc. (CSE: COOL), (OTC: CLABD), (Frankfurt: LD6, WKN: A3CSSU) (Core One or the Company) is pleased to announce, as a follow up to the press release dated January 10, that Dr. Robert E.W. Hancock, the Companys Chairman, and CEO of its wholly owned subsidiary Vocan Biotechnologies Inc. will host a special investor webcast (the Webcast) on Tuesday, January 18, 2022 at 1:30 p.m. PST/4:30 p.m. ET/10:30 p.m. CET.



Participants are invited to submit questions in advance of the webcast, and Dr. Hancock will respond to as many of the questions as possible in the time allowed. To submit your question(s) in advance of the webcast, please email info@core1labs.com.

REGISTER FOR AND WATCH THE LIVE EVENT HERE:

http://www.eventcastpro.com/webcasts/cc/events/27Iq50.cfm

Or

CALL INTO THE LIVE EVENT:

International callers: +1-203-518-9797

US Callers: +1-866-518-6930

Conference ID: COREONELABS

A recording of the webcast presentation will also be posted on the Companys website approximately 2 hours following the live event.

About Core One Labs Inc.

Core One is a biotechnology research and technology life sciences enterprise focused on bringing psychedelic medicines to market through novel delivery systems and psychedelic assisted psychotherapy. Core One has developed a patent pending thin film oral strip (the technology) which dissolves instantly when placed in the mouth and delivers organic molecules in precise quantities to the bloodstream, maintaining excellent bioavailability. The Company intends to further develop and apply the technology to psychedelic compounds, such as psilocybin. Core One also holds an interest in medical clinics which maintain a combined database of over 275,000 patients. Through these clinics, the integration of its intellectual property, R&D related to psychedelic treatments and novel drug therapies, the Company intends to obtain regulatory research approval for the advancement of psychedelic-derived treatments for mental health disorders.

Core One Labs Inc.

Joel Shacker

Chief Executive Officer

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

info@core1labs.com

1-866-347-5058

Cautionary Disclaimer Statement:

The Canadian Securities Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the content of this news release.

Information set forth in this news release contains forward-looking statements that are based on assumptions as of the date of this news release. These statements reflect managements current estimates, beliefs, intentions, and expectations. They are not guarantees of future performance. The Company cautions that all forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain, and that actual performance may be affected by a number of material factors, many of which are beyond the Companys control. Such factors include, among other things: risks and uncertainties relating to the Companys limited operating history and the need to comply with strict regulatory regulations. Accordingly, actual and future events, conditions and results may differ materially from the estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations expressed or implied in the forward-looking information. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking information.

In addition, psilocybin is currently a Schedule III drug under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (Canada) and it is a criminal offence to possess substances under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (Canada) without a prescription or authorization. Health Canada has not approved psilocybin as a drug for any indication. Core One does not have any direct or indirect involvement with illegal selling, production, or distribution of psychedelic substances in jurisdictions in which it operates. While Core One believes psychedelic substances can be used to treat certain medical conditions, it does not advocate for the legalization of psychedelics substances for recreational use. Core One does not deal with psychedelic substances, except within laboratory and clinical trial settings conducted within approved regulatory frameworks.
NEW YORK, Jan. 16, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NRF Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, NYC, Booth #948  Pathr.ai , the industry's first and only Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered Spatial Intelligence platform, announced today it has partnered with The Lionesque Group , an award-winning experiential retail strategy and design studio, and its parent company, MG2 Corporation , a global design and architecture firm, to bring real-time analytics to pop-up shops. Using Pathr.ais cutting-edge spatial intelligence technology, brands and retailers will now be empowered to utilize their pop-up store to gain actionable insights to drive business outcomes and deliver improved customer experiences.

Were excited to partner with The Lionesque Group and MG2 to debut our Pop-Up Shop Analytics at NRF. As brands and retailers are finding creative ways to introduce their products via physical retail experiences, pop-up shops represent a flexible environment to engage directly with their customers, said George Shaw, CEO and Founder of Pathr.ai. The ability to implement deep analytics for pop-up shops and drive business results is a game-changer in todays retail market. Our technology will enable brands and retailers to deliver personalized experiences that can increase customer loyalty and drive ROI.

Retailers are constantly navigating ever-changing shopping habits and customer demands, and pop-up shops have become an integral part of retail strategy. To date, brands and retailers embarking on short-term physical retail engagements have had limited insights from in-store analytics on their customer behavior  inhibiting them from truly capturing potential increased profitability and better business outcomes.

Powered by Pathr.ais spatial intelligence technology and The Lionesque Groups expertise in experiential retail, brands and retailers can now cost-effectively understand how their pop-up shop is performing through a variety of analytics such as:

Entrance and group sizes for measuring true sales conversion rates with POS Tie-In

Shopper behavior including dwell times and heat mapping

Merchandising insights

Staffing optimization via insights around customer and staff interactions

Checkout queue and wait times



Partnering with Pathr.ai to create Pop-up Shop Analytics is the next necessary evolution for the industry. The ability to tap into customer behavior and analyze that data will help drive how we use pop-up shops as a tool to better understand customer behaviors, in-store interactions, purchase intent, and utilize the store as a living lab to inform how we design the most successful physical retail experiences possible for our clients, said Melissa Gonzalez, CEO and Founder of The Lionesque Group and Principal at MG2.

With an out-of-the-box install that takes less than a day, Pathr.ais real-time analytics for pop-up shops are available starting in February.

To learn more, visit https://pathr.ai/ or visit Booth #948 at the show.

About Pathr.ai

Pathr.ai is the industrys first AI-powered spatial intelligence software company that uses anonymous location data from available and existing infrastructure to observe human behavior in any physical space. Its sophisticated technology turns raw behavioral and spatial data from existing sensors into actionable and applied business learnings - allowing companies to drive the business results that matter most to the growth of their companies in real-time. Founded in 2019, Pathr.ai is headquartered in Mountain View, California. To learn more about Pathr.ai, please visit https://pathr.ai/ .

About The Lionesque Group, an MG2 Company

TLG brings retail strategy, experiential design and project management to brands and retailers who are looking to imagine and build human connection in physical spaces. Since its inception, TLG has produced over 150 brick & mortar experiences in cities across the United States, always dedicated to creating immersive brand moments in a way that drives ROI and helps its clients convey compelling stories to their audience. Its expertise across the three pillars of strategy, design and project management creates a holistic, end-to-end, and agile approach that helps its partners shape and define the future of retail.

About MG2

MG2 is a global architecture, design, construction & branding studio. We use strategy & technical expertise to create innovative community environments, consumer experiences, and client programs. Driven by social responsibility in our work with brands large and small, MG2 is consistently ranked among the largest architecture firms in the nation, and among the top retail design studios in the world.

With offices in Seattle, WA; Irvine, CA; Washington, DC; Minneapolis, MN; New York, NY; and Shanghai, China, our culture is rooted in celebrating and supporting one another, with the long-standing belief that people make the place.

Contact:

Linden Kohtz, CommStrat for Pathr.ai

pathr@commstrat.com

Nicholas Caputo, Head of Strategy for The Lionesque Group and Principal at MG2

nc@lionesquegroup.com

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/6fe0168b-6277-4bb9-9f19-990e74ed77d5

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/33933642-85eb-4eeb-b815-83af071a6a47
NEW YORK, Jan. 16, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WHY: Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, reminds purchasers of the securities of Paysafe Limited f/k/a Foley Trasimene Acquisition Corp. II (NYSE: PSFE, BFT) between December 7, 2020 and November 10, 2021, inclusive (the Class Period), of the important February 8, 2022 lead plaintiff deadline.



SO WHAT: If you purchased Paysafe securities during the Class Period you may be entitled to compensation without payment of any out of pocket fees or costs through a contingency fee arrangement.

WHAT TO DO NEXT: To join the Paysafe class action, go to http://www.rosenlegal.com/cases-register-2208.html or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email pkim@rosenlegal.com or cases@rosenlegal.com for information on the class action. A class action lawsuit has already been filed. If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than February 8, 2022. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation.

WHY ROSEN LAW: We encourage investors to select qualified counsel with a track record of success in leadership roles. Often, firms issuing notices do not have comparable experience, resources or any meaningful peer recognition. Many of these firms do not actually litigate securities class actions. Be wise in selecting counsel. The Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm has achieved the largest ever securities class action settlement against a Chinese Company. Rosen Law Firm was Ranked No. 1 by ISS Securities Class Action Services for number of securities class action settlements in 2017. The firm has been ranked in the top 4 each year since 2013 and has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for investors. In 2019 alone the firm secured over $438 million for investors. In 2020, founding partner Laurence Rosen was named by law360 as a Titan of Plaintiffs Bar. Many of the firms attorneys have been recognized by Lawdragon and Super Lawyers.

DETAILS OF THE CASE: According to the lawsuit, defendants throughout the Class Period made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (1) Paysafe was being negatively impacted by gambling regulations in key European markets; (2) Paysafe was encountering performance challenges in its Digital Wallet segment; (3) new eCommerce customer agreements were being pushed back; and (4) as a result of the foregoing, defendants positive statements about Paysafes business, operations, and prospects were materially misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages.

To join the Paysafe class action, go to http://www.rosenlegal.com/cases-register-2208.html or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email pkim@rosenlegal.com or cases@rosenlegal.com for information on the class action.

No Class Has Been Certified. Until a class is certified, you are not represented by counsel unless you retain one. You may select counsel of your choice. You may also remain an absent class member and do nothing at this point. An investors ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff.

Follow us for updates on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rosen-law-firm, on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rosen_firm or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosenlawfirm/.

Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

-------------------------------

Contact Information:

Laurence Rosen, Esq.

Phillip Kim, Esq.

The Rosen Law Firm, P.A.

275 Madison Avenue, 40th Floor

New York, NY 10016

Tel: (212) 686-1060

Toll Free: (866) 767-3653

Fax: (212) 202-3827

lrosen@rosenlegal.com

pkim@rosenlegal.com

cases@rosenlegal.com

www.rosenlegal.com
MANSFIELD [mdash] Patricia Ann Thursby-Daniels, 77, of Mansfield, Texas, formerly of Elkhart, Indiana, died Sunday April 10, at Mansfield Hospital in Mansfield, Texas. She was born May 30, 1944, in Elkhart, Indiana, to Robert James and Opal Mae (Allison) Thursby. On Feb. 14, 1965, she marrie
Reality TV star Farrah Abraham claims she was attacked on the night she reportedly got arrested for slapping a security official in Hollywood.

The former 16 and Pregnant star is accused of slapping the guard on Saturday during a dispute at the Grandmaster Records, TMZ reported. Abraham was reportedly told to leave the club after being accused of behaving belligerently.

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The 30-year-old Abraham later claimed to TMZ that employees there attacked her in order to leak footage to the media.

Im tired of being maliciously battered, attacked, conspired against, Abraham reportedly told TMZ.

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Farrah Abraham in 2017. (Jordan Strauss/Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

It is terrifying and traumatizing that people attack me and I can not even enjoy dinner as Im the only person out of 3 attacked and harassed, the reality star continued.

I look forward to court as always, warning this place is a danger to public figures.

After rising to fame on 16 and Pregnant more than a decade ago, Abraham has appeared on numerous reality TV series, including Teen Mom, Celebrity Big Brother and Ex on the Beach.
Hyzon Motors reported that it delivered 87 fuel-cell-powered heavy-duty vehicles in 2021 under commercial sales agreements. Eight dump trucks that were deployed under trial leases in Foshan, a UN Hydrogen Demonstration City in China, are not included in the 87 vehicle deliveries.

The 2021 shipments exceeded the forecast of 85 fuel cell vehicle deliveries set by the company in February 2021, prior to the deteriorating global supply chain that seriously impacted the production plans of zero-emission and traditional vehicle suppliers alike.

Hyzon anticipates its 2021 financial results will reflect both lower average selling price per vehicle due to product mix and multi-year revenue recognition for the majority of sales, which will result in materially lower than forecast revenues and margins.

As highlighted during Hyzons third quarter earnings call, the company proactively shifted its deployment focus to Asia where average selling prices are approximately half of other regions.

The Hyzon vehicles delivered were heavy-duty fuel-cell truck models ranging in weight from 18 to 49 metric tonnes deployed for a variety of use cases. These applications include refuse collection with a leading European supplier of refuse collection vehicles; sewer cleaning with European municipalities; and heavy-duty use cases such as steel coil haulage with the largest steel company in the world.
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The Parsonage Cottage Senior Residence hopes residents will show a little love as it uses a Valentines Day theme to launch a new fundraising campaign to replace a van that is the primary mode of transportation for its residents.

The old van has been in use since 2003, taking residents to medical appointments, therapy, church services, shopping and scheduled outings  thats a lot of miles.

Last year, the community sent hundreds of cards, gifts and candy to Parsonage residents for Valentines Day. For this year, Penny Lore, Parsonages executive director, said she hopes that residents will make contributions to the Giving Our Seniors A Lift campaign.

We know this is a grassroots effort, but every dollar will help us reach our goal of $50,000 to purchase a new van, Lore said. We appreciate the sweetness shown to the residents last year, but what they truly need now is safe, accessible transportation.

Parsonage Cottages Junior Advisory Board is on board to help. Eighth-grader Hayden Santry said, We know a bunch of eighth-graders cant raise the whole $50,000, but every bit counts. The kids plan to hold fundraising events, including a ping pong exhibition, a car wash and more.

Accessible transportation is critical to keep our seniors connected to their Greenwich community. The seniors at Parsonage Cottage need our communitys support in raising funds for the new van, First Selectman Fred Camillo said.

To make a secure donation, visit www.parsonagecottage.org/give-a-lift/ or mail it to Friends of Parsonage Cottage, 88 Parsonage Road, Greenwich, CT 06830, Attention Penny Lore. Contributions are tax deductible.

Downtown

The new bump-outs at Elm Street and Greenwich Avenue have earned high praise from First Selectman Fred Camillo and other town officials for improving the appearance and safety of the intersection.

The project also received the Achievement in Civil Engineering Award from the Connecticut Society of Civil Engineers.

According to the Department of Public Works, the award recognizes exemplary projects that showcase engineering expertise and innovation.

The project, which was completed last June, was designed to improve the safety and accessibility at the intersection, which the town said is an iconic shopping and dining destination in the heart of central Greenwich.

Jason Kaufman, a senior civil engineer with the town, served as project manager. He was praised for implementing what is known as a complete streets design to improve safety and make the street more convenient and comfortable for pedestrians, people with disabilities, bicyclists, motorists, dog walkers, baby carriage users and more.

The complete streets elements in the project include curb extensions that decrease crossing distance and time across Greenwich Avenue for pedestrians by 40 percent, a raised intersection that improves visibility and slows vehicles, and two new ADA accessible parking spaces.

The lights were moved closer to the crosswalk to provide better illumination for pedestrians. More green space was added with planting beds and decorative crosswalks. The project also included new sidewalks, improved drainage and new bike racks and benches.

We are very proud that the Greenwich Avenue and Elm Street Intersection Improvement Project not only benefits our community but is also recognized as leading example in the industry, town Deputy Commissioner of Public Health James Michel said. Our department will continue to strive to design and build infrastructure that increases safety and is more accessible for all.

Further intersection improvements on Greenwich Avenue are expected. Funding could be included in the proposed municipal budget for 2022-23 that First Selectman Fred Camillo is expected to unveil on Jan. 25.

Greenwich

The Junior League of Greenwich is accepting applications for its Community Service Award, and high school age girls who are passionate about community service are eligible to apply.

According to the league, the $2,000 annual award is intended to recognize a high school student who exemplifies the mission of the Junior League of Greenwich by demonstrating sustained commitment to community service. The recipients volunteer activities should demonstrate initiative and show significant and sustained commitment to service and leadership.

To be eligible, female students must be in grades 9 to 12 and either live in Greenwich or attend school in town. Applicants should be someone whose volunteer activities demonstrate initiative, leadership, and a sustained commitment to community service.

The application form is online at www.jlgreenwich.org and must come with two written recommendations. The submission deadline is April 6.

Last years award went to Stephanie Busani, who was then a junior at Greenwich High and a volunteer at Neighbor to Neighbor. She spearheaded a new program called The Monthly Mission that provides feminine hygiene products to women in need.

Downtown

Anyone who stops in for happy hour at Bistro V on Tuesday, Jan. 18, might find theres something familiar about their bartender.

As part of a charity event, First Selectman Fred Camillo, Selectwoman Lauren Rabin and state Sen. Ryan Fazio will be guest bartenders at the eatery at 339 Greenwich Ave from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.

During January, 100 percent of the proceeds from a special drink will benefit three local nonprofit organizations. The beverage is available both as a cocktail and a mocktail.

The event will raise money for organizations selected by each of the hosts: Adopt-A-Dog, the Greenwich Alliance for Education and Meals on Wheels of Greenwich.

Bistro V began the guest bartender event in October to support the community and promote its happy hour. Past recipients include the Transportation Association of Greenwich, Neighbor to Neighbor and the Boys & Girls Club of Greenwich. More than $1,500 has been raised so far.

I am excited to guest bar-tend alongside Lauren and Ryan, Camillo said. We are all working really hard to improve the quality of life in the communities we serve. And its nice that we can come together to support local businesses and have some fun while raising awareness and funds for causes that mean a lot of us. All three of these organizations we are supporting on the 18th are town treasures and this is another way to show our gratitude.

This months special drink, called the 1640, is inspired by the year that Greenwich was founded. The cocktail version includes farm-crafted organic vodka along with fresh citrus juices, pineapple and cranberry. The mocktail version is alcohol free.

It is important for us to include a drink that is alcohol-free so that anyone in the community can participate if interested in supporting, Rabin said. A lot of people are abstaining from alcohol for the month of January and taking part in whats called Dry January.

Masks are worn by Bistro V staff and are required for anyone moving around the bar and restaurant areas. For more information, visit a Facebook group at https://bit.ly/3tIZeNB.

kborsuk@greenwichtime.com
Gender-specific fashion is so last season.

Milan is once again the apotheosis of mens fashion, where models, celebrities, journalists, critics and fashion editors converge to experience what designers have in mind for a not-so-distant future.

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According to Vogue, those in town to catch shows from the worlds top designers  among them Dolce & Gabanna, Prada, and Zegna  are filling the streets with bold looks, which include a mix of patent leather, camouflage and chunky knitwear.

Models wear creations for the Fendi fall winter 22/23 collection, in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni) (Antonio Calanni/AP Photo)

But on Saturday, on the second day of shows previewing the trends for the next winter and fall, an equally bold take on fashion by Fendi  one that mixed gender lines to perfection  lit up social media timelines around the world.

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Every look was amazing, YouTube user Clay Bird wrote commenting on the nearly 10-minute long show. So clean sharp and totally luxe Im practically drooling over how exciting this collection is.

The Daily News Flash Weekdays Catch up on the days top five stories every weekday afternoon. >

The @Fendi Fall/Winter 2022 menswear collection is da bomb dot com, Twitter user Alex Chan agreed.

Fendis menswear collection, by designer Silvia Venturini Fendi, leaned in heavily on the femininity, voluminous, trapezoidal outerwear with loose, slotted sleeves built to a crescendo with pretty, layered cape coats in black-and-white check, or ivory, as described by The Associated Press.

Working with new proportions and mixing different shapes, Venturini Fendi returned to the cropped double-breasted jacket she presented for the last collection, but with more volume added.

I hate the word comfort  weve been wearing pajamas and sweats for too long  but nobody wants to feel constrained in rigid or formal clothes, she told Womens Wear Daily.

And that also means a fresh look at mens fashion accessories  specifically jewelry.

While cufflinks used to be their must-have jewels, according to the designer, the Fendi man is now ready to accessorize with pearls, pendants, chockers, floral brooches, and even a delicate little chain purse thats smaller than a tuxedo bow tie.

Overall, Fendis fall collection was polished and blended dandy touches and feminine elements, which was at the same time very contemporary and never too formal, a stellar review by WWD read in part.
Oppo has mostly been sticking to its update timeline, though the schedule has gone through a few iterations now, making it harder to follow. You should probably just follow along on the official Oppo community forum for the most recent news.

As per the aforementioned resource, stable Color OS 12 updates based on Android 12 are now officially available for the following devices in the following regions:

If your device is featured on the list you can head over to Settings > Software Update to check whether their unit has received the update. Since this is a staged update, it might take a few hours before ir reaches your unit still.

Source 1 | Source 2 | Source 3 | Via
The OnePlus 10 Pro was announced earlier this week and it even went through its first sale  you probably didnt get one, though, as it was only in China and all available were gone in a second. It was a small batch, 18-21,000 units, so now its a race to produce more for future releases.

Including the global launch, which will happen in the spring, though the company kept things vague. That goes for the pricing too, we only know the one for China where the 8/128 GB model costs CNY 4,700 (a straight currency conversion yields $740/650).

The 9 Pro started at CNY 5,000 last year, so we expect the global pricing of the new model to be the same or perhaps even a bit lower  the 9 Pro was 900 in Germany at launch. And now its 800, what does the 10 Pro have to offer for the extra cost?

A comparison highlights the following upgrades: chipset (duh), camera, screen and battery. The last three of which are not minor, but not huge either. Lets dig in. The new chipset is a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, which (according to official numbers) has a 20% faster CPU and 30% faster GPU than the 888, while being more power efficient to boot.

Not bad, plus Qualcomm did a lot of work on the camera hardware, including upgrading the ISP and adding hardware support for more features. This ties into the updated color processing and Pro mode co-developed by OnePlus and Hasselblad.

This brings us to the camera, which has the same main and telephoto modules on the back along with a new 150 ultra-wide lens. This is coupled with a smaller sensor though, 1/2.76 vs. 1.56 (0.64 m pixels vs. 1.0 m). Well have to test it out before we can render judgment. The selfie camera resolution was doubled to 32MP.

Next up, the screen  it has the same 6.7 diagonal and the same 1440p+ resolution. However, it uses LTPO 2.0 tech, which allows it to use its variable refresh rate capability in more scenarios, which reduces power usage. Also, the protection was upped to Gorilla Glass Victus (from GG5).

This leaves the battery, which grew to 5,000 mAh (up from 4,500 mAh). It comes with a more powerful charger too, 80W (up from 65W). But is it actually faster? Well, no. A full charge takes 32 minutes, while the 9 Pro gets to 100% in 29 minutes. Of course, the new phone has 500 mAh extra to fill, but the charging speed upgrade seems to be a wash.

Lets compare the OnePlus 9 Pro to some competitors, starting with the new Xiaomi 12 Pro. The Xiaomi has an older LTPO panel, but its essentially the same size and resolution. It uses the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 too, of course. As for the camera, its ultrawide lens covers only 115 FoV, while the 2x telephoto has a 50MP sensor (vs. 3.3x 8MP). Finally, the battery is smaller (4,600 mAh), but faster to charge (18 minutes at 120W). In China both phones cost the same.



Xiaomi 12 Pro

How about a Realme GT2 Pro? An 8/256 GB unit costs CNY 4,000, so it is 15% cheaper than the OnePlus. The screens are near identical and the new GT even matches the ultrawide camera at 150 (in fact, it was the first to have one). But there is no telephoto lens. And the 5,000 mAh battery charges only at 65W, so it takes forever... wait, it only needs 33 minutes, one minute longer. Huh.



Realme GT2 Pro

Earlier this week we saw some evidence that the Motorola Edge X30 will launch globally as the Edge 30 Pro. While it doesnt have an LTPO panel, it does have a higher refresh rate, 144Hz. It too lacks a telephoto camera and the ultra wide camera isnt very wide (114). Plus the 5,000 mAh battery needs a whopping 35 minutes to fully charge at 68W. The Edge will not be the best Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 smartphone out there, but it could be the cheapest for a while  the 8/128 GB model is currently CNY 3,000 in China, around two-thirds of the OnePlus price.



Motorola Edge X30

Well, time to vote  who will buy a OnePlus 10 Pro once it becomes available in a store near them?

If youre having trouble with the embedded poll above, try casting your vote here.
November 9, by Colleen Hoover is a love story that entails a woman named Fallon who meets a man named Ben on Fallons last day in Los Angeles.

They are instantly attracted to each others wit and character, and spend the day together. Fallons dream, which is to become an actress, involves her moving across the country where more opportunities may present themselves.

They are so infatuated with each other that they agree to meet every year on Nov. 9 for the following years. Both characters have their own struggles in their personal lives with Fallons broken relationship with her father and Bens career as a writer, along with the struggle of getting his life together.

I absolutely loved this book. I fell in love with Ben after the first few chapters.

He is by far one of the most charming, funny, and emotional fictional men I have ever read about.

Fallon is a very emotionally realistic character. She goes through so much but she still managed to stay strong.

But, I did have my moments with her where I didnt like her as much as I liked Ben. Other than that, their love is the love that I believe everyone wants to experience.

One of my favorite parts of the book is the connection to Hoovers other work, Ugly Love which I read prior to this novel. The characters from that novel are mentioned numerous times in this novel and it was a nice little surprise for me.

It felt like November 9 was a very slight continuation of Ugly Love, but focused on another story. I loved how the stories connected  even if the connection wasnt that big, it was personal.

This entire book generated a roller coaster of emotions. My heart was broken and repaired at the same time because I was feeling the same happiness, sadness, and pain that the characters felt.

This is one of the hopeless romantic scenarios that everyone wants, especially me. There are so many poetic lines yet so many funny moments.

This book is such a perfect balance of everything Id want in a book. I wanted to take my time reading it, but once I picked it up, I just couldnt put it down. Read it!

Rating: 5 stars
The Micronesia Climate Change Alliance launched a new project to encourage children, grades K-12 to join the island-wide upcycled art competition.

Titled Telling Tales with Trash, the second project held by the organization will have children compete by transforming trash into artistic sculptures that tell a local story.

With community partners like the Guam Zero Waste Taskforce and Numalo Refillery, the organization hopes this new project will bring awareness to the islands waste crisis and help empower the next generation.

Origin

The MCCA is a grassroots non-profit organization that is dedicated to creating community-based solutions to the climate crisis within Micronesia.

After launching its web series From our nanas, For our Nenis last year, it was clear to the MCCA Co-Founder and Executive Director Michelle Voacolo that more had to be done to solve the current environmental issues.

When we were filming for From our Nanas, For our Nenis, we found out that Guam produces 600,000 pounds of trash per day which is very significant, more than New York City, That was probably the most shocking piece of information our team learned, Voacolo said. We are facing so many compounding problems from climate change and the waste crisis. We want to bring that to the forefront to this next- generations attention.

Voacolo said the organization aims to remove over 500 to 1000 lbs of trash from the landfill with the goal to teach kids to be more mindful about trash and encourage action to refuse and reuse single-use products in hopes to create a more sustainable future.

Student interests

Additionally, high school students that the MCCA have worked with also expressed great interest in wanting to remove waste and learn more about zero waste living, Voacolo said.

We have so many talented artists all over the island and our teachers are wonderful and so dedicated, Voacolo said. On our team, were working with two different teachers and I think what could be created out of our islands waste, Im super excited and they have full creative freedom to make whatever they want.

Register

Interested teachers will need to register and attend a virtual orientation on the first week of February in order to participate in the project.

To prevent utilizing school resources, Voacolo said that $50 to $100 in funding, from partnered organizations, will be available to help interested teachers with art supplies.

Funds are limited.

Twenty teachers should also anticipate engaging with collectively 400 students, according to Voacolo.

Coming up

The project will begin with a three-week exhibit of the upcycled art pieces this April, Earth Month, at the Guam Premier Outlets in Tamuning.

The island community will have the opportunity to vote for the most creative submissions and the winning classes within the four aged categories  kindergarten to second grade, third to fifth grade, middle and high school  will be eligible for prizes.

The project is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guam Council on the Arts and Humanities Agency, the Government of Guam and the Office of the Governor.
Some high school students will prepare to pay for their continued education at the University of Guam this fall.

Last week, the University of Guams new Triton Advising Center and the UOG Financial Aid Office hosted three of a four-part college affordability webinar series, A Tritons Guide to College Affordability last week to help and inform current and future students, as well as their parents about the various resources that can make attending the university more affordable.

Subjects tackled in the webinars included information on local and federal financial aid, scholarships, grants and how to use their Self-Service Portal.

It also introduced the Triton Advising Center and other offices within the university that can assist students with finding ways to make college more affordable.

Though the road to paying for college can be difficult and expensive, two seniors from the University of Guam were able to find ways and make it work.

I currently work two jobs while still attending university as a full-time student, said Destiny Ranan, whos majoring in Linguistics with an emphasis in English as a second language. The first is as a sales associate for the Bestseller book store and the second as part of the marketing team at 4D Wholesale Company.

Former DFS T Galleria sales associate Gilbert Eclevia, General Business major, agrees with Ranan on how having a job did benefit with much-needed school expenses.

Eclevia was able to afford college through the federal assistance program, Federal Student Aid due to meeting the requirements qualifications for a full-year coverage.

Due to my position and circumstance, I was able to get full coverage to pay for my college tuition, Eclevia said. There are certain requirements and conditions that are needed to be met and fortunately I was eligible to meet these requirements.

Student loans

While student loans are another way to pay for college, Ranan advises avoiding getting them as much as possible.

I do not wish to apply for loans, I have applied for loans in the beginning for UOG as a freshman until I took a 2-year break to seek out employment in order to pay for schooling and other necessities, Ranan said. My strategy with having two jobs is that one job would be used for spending, while the other would be used for savings. My savings accumulated through one job, which was used to pay for school.

Eclevia said he would seek out other opportunities and resources available before deciding to apply for a loan. He isnt opposed to getting one, just as long as hes able to finance for his college education.

I would much rather work or attain a student loan to help me afford my education, Eclevia said. I feel that it is fine if my family is willing to help me, however in my opinion, I want to be able to make sure I could make such payments myself as a young, independent adult.

Struggles

One difficulty Ranan said she has in paying for school is the continued increase in school fees.

She said she was not made aware of any payment plans available, which had her pay for her classes at the end of every semester. She would end up meeting with more fees.

So when I pay for school at the end of the semesters, as that is when I may have saved enough money to pay for school, I find increases due to late payments, Ranan said. (They) were not fully clear despite my question on why I have to pay so much in these difficult times. I definitely recommend to always get updates and bother the bursar (cashier) office to avoid paying more than you should.

Eclevia agrees with Ranan as some of the challenges he came across were also financial deadlines while researching course textbooks that are only available for online purchase.

Helpful?

Despite not being able to attend the recent financial webinars, Eclevia and Ranan agreed that its a great way to advise those interested in attending college.

I find it great that UOG provides such programs to help and support students afford their schooling, Eclevia said. I believe they should if they dont already, broadcast this opportunity for students who are in need of assistance in paying for college.

The next and final webinar, A Tritons Guide to Financial Literacy: Money Management for Adults will be at 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 18.

However, whether or not high school students decide to go to college, Ranan offers this advice.

There is no rush to go to college so soon in these troubling times, especially if they are financially unstable, Ranan said. I would try seeking employment if possible since there have been some jobs and programs available to help (students) gain experience and assist in saving money to pay for school.
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State Sen. Clint Dixon wants local Democrats' buy-in on nonpartisan school board elections  but may not need it

Special Photo Clint Dixon

State Sen. Clint Dixon, R-Buford, is working to get bipartisan support for his proposal to have Gwinnett Countys school board members chosen in nonpartisan elections, but he is preparing to go forward without the support of Democrats.

In fact, he may not actually need their support, at least not in the Georgia House of Representatives.

While bills dealing with a specific community would normally be considered local legislation, multiple legislators have said their understanding of the rules governing the General Assemblys handling of bills, at least in the House, creates an exception that could be used to bypass the majority of the Gwinnett legislative delegation.

It all comes down to the important distinction between general bills and local legislation. That will be key because, while local legislation would require support from the majority of the local legislative delegation, general bills do not carry that requirement.

I would need to look back at the rules of both the House and the Senate, as well as the delegation bylaws, but if memory serves me correct, House rules state that any bill to change the political nature of any elected position would be treated as a general bill, said state Rep. Sam Park, D-Lawrenceville, who is the chairman of the Gwinnett legislative delegation.

The rule Park referred to is House of Representatives Rule 50, which states, Any bill or resolution relating to or affecting the political partisanship of any elected office, state revenues, general taxation, pari-mutuel wagering, alcoholic beverages, water resources, or hazardous wastes shall not be deemed to be a local or special bill or resolution but shall be treated as a general bill or resolution.

But, Dixon  whose children attend Buford City Schools, according to his campaign website  said he wants to discuss his proposed bill, which is expected to be introduced this month, with Democrats who make up the majority in Gwinnetts legislative delegation.

I would like to work with the Democrats in the delegation in both bodies to get it done, but if I cant, I will move forward with a general bill, Dixon said. Its something that my constituents are very concerned about.

What little public comment was provided on nonpartisan school elections at a town hall hosted by Gwinnett legislators on Thursday was split on the issue.

I think thats important, Michael Rudnik told legislators. I dont think there needs to be politics within our school board races, much like judicial races. I think our representatives need to run without a party behind them.

Ryan Cox, however, told the lawmakers, Im just not for that. I would like to see it kept the way that it is and kept in November and not change any of that because weve got to have more time to just vet people and let people know who is running. If we start pushing things up earlier and we dont know who people are, its just going to hurt a lot of the kids.

There have been accusations that the proposal to switch to nonpartisan elections is a response to Democrats becoming the majority on the school board, by a 3-2 margin, after the 2020 elections after decades of a Republican majority.

By making this just about Gwinnett it solidifies the viewpoint that this is about the board being majority Democrat, longtime Democrat Art Sheldon said in response to a post in the Gwinnett Connect Facebook group this past week.

One of the new Democrats on the school board, Tarece Johnson, did not face a Republican challenger in 2020. One Republican group, the Conservative Republican Women of North Atlanta, sent an email to members explaining that the GOP did not have a candidate in that race because the Democratic incumbent, Louise Radloff, had often sided with Republicans on issues.

Republicans did rally around a write-in challenger to Johnson on the November ballot, but write-in candidates often face an uphill battle in Georgia  and that bid was unsuccessful.

Had the race been nonpartisan, however, Republicans would have had a say in the contest between Johnson and Radloff instead of it being decided solely by Democrats. Its uncertain if that would have made a difference in a part of Gwinnett that backed Democrats in several races, though.

Either way, Dixon vehemently denied that his proposal was a response to the Democratic Partys gains on the school board.

That is absurd, he said. Thats is not the reason for doing this. Its to get politics off our school board and to get them out of our schools.

One piece of the proposal that had been discussed in recent weeks, holding the nonpartisan school board elections in November instead of May, is off the table. Gwinnett school board Chairman Everton Blair, who has filed paperwork to run for state school superintendent this year, previously said he could support a change to nonpartisan elections, but only if the elections were put on the November ballot and the change did not go into effect until 2024. The idea being that a November election would have a larger number of voters casting ballots in school board races.

But, state law passed a decade ago moved nonpartisan elections, except for city elections, to the same time as the states primary elections. At the time, those elections were held in July, but they have since been moved earlier, to May.

The only way to have nonpartisan school board elections in November would be to change state law so that all school boards in Georgia that have nonpartisan elections are moved to November.

Thats off the table, Dixon said.
Giuseppe Varotta, 5, disappeared on May 24, 1921. Six days later, a woman with a pleasant face and two suitcases arrived at his familys tenement home on E. 13th St. in Little Italy.

Antoinette Varotta, the missing boys mother, told neighbors that the woman was a cousin who had come all the way from Detroit to help with cooking, cleaning and caring for the couples four other children.

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But the woman was neither from Detroit nor kin.

NYPD police officer Rae Nicoletti (New York Daily News Archive)

She was Rae Nicoletti, an NYPD police officer, sent undercover in the most dangerous assignment of her life.

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If the kidnappers had found me out, I never would have left the Varotta house alive, she recalled in a 1924 Daily News feature.

The story started around 2 p.m. on a beautiful spring afternoon. Giuseppe, wearing his sailor suit, wanted to wait outside for his dad, Salvatore, to return from his job. Antoinette gave her son a penny to buy candy and sent him to play.

About an hour and a half later, Salvatore entered the apartment. Giuseppe was not with him.

His parents ran out into the streets, calling his name and frantically searching.

Guiseppe Varotta

Morning brought no sign of Giuseppe. Instead, his parents received a letter. In Sicilian, the writer demanded $2,500 (around $38,000 today) in small bills packed in a shoebox.

If you dont pay, you will not see him anymore because we will drown him, and you will not be able to see him even dead.

The letter ended with a drawing of a black hand holding a dagger dripping blood.

It was the signature of the Black Hand  ruthless Italian criminals who had terrorized major U.S. cities since the 1890s. They were characterized by their extortion method  terrifying letters to merchants and other well-to-do citizens.

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The kidnappers warned that involving police would be a death sentence for their young captive.

But Varotta contacted Detective Michael Fiaschetti of NYPDs Italian Squad, a small group of police officers who monitored the cramped poverty-stricken neighborhood.

Varotta was an unlikely target for the Black Hand. He was scraping by as a truck driver and mechanic, barely bringing in enough to feed his wife and five children.

Still, gossips had decided that he was hiding a fortune, money that supposedly had come to him due to a tragic accident. About a year earlier, Salvatore and his older son, Adolfo, 9, were traveling to a job on Long Island when a truck collided with them. Varottas truck blew up with Adolfo inside. The boys leg was crushed, and his face severely burned.

The Varotta family in the New York Daily News on Sunday June 12, 1921. (New York Daily News Archive)

A society matron, Mary Biddle, came to their aid. At the same time, Salvatore filed a $50,000 lawsuit against the other driver.

Word of Biddles generosity and the lawsuit found its way to Little Italys rumor mill, spreading the notion that the Varottas were rich. It didnt matter that the suit had gone nowhere, and Biddles money went to Adolfos treatment.

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Varotta was as poor as ever, with no hope of scraping together $2,500. But no one believed him.

More letters arrived, with increasingly violent threats.

Thats when Nicoletti showed up, using her domestic skills as a disguise.

The detective sat at the window, crocheting, as she surveyed the neighborhood. She noticed a man intently watching the Varotta home from a building across the street. Salvatore told her that he was Antonio Marino, someone he thought was a friend. Nicoletti observed another man talking with him, often looking toward the Varotta home. The other man was Santo Cusamano, a baker.

Nicoletti was frying eggs when Marino and his wife came for a visit. They talked about the kidnapping, trying to find out how much money Varotta was willing to spend to save his child.

Later, Cusamano visited. Varotta said he only had $500. The Black Handers would laugh at $500, Cusamano told him. You must get the money.

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Roberto Raffaelo, a Black Hand messenger, came next. He brought the news that the gang decided to accept $500 and would come for the money at 10 p.m.

Nicoletti and the NYPD set their trap, with one detective inside, posing as a plumber, and plainclothes cops posted all around the house.

Another gang member, John Melchione, came to pick up the ransom and was immediately arrested. Before dawn, the squad had rounded up Raffaelo, Cusamano, Marino, and his stepson, James Ruggieri.

They were indicted for the kidnapping, but there was still no sign of the boy.

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Then on June 12, newspapers carried the sad but not surprising end to Giuseppes story.

The New York Daily News on Sunday June 12, 1921. (New York Daily News Archive)

BLACK HAND GANG KEEPS THREAT TO KILL STOLEN VAROTTA BOY; BODY FOUND IN RIVER AT NYACK, was The News headline on June 12, 1921.

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An autopsy revealed that he had been tossed in the river, alive, after the arrest of the five men snagged at Varottas home. Giuseppes killers were still out there and were never caught.

Three of the kidnappers were tried, convicted, and received death sentences, later commuted to life in prison. One went mad and was institutionalized, and the other had his case dismissed.

Men arrested in connection with the Guiseppe Varotta kidnapping on June 4, 1921. (New York Daily News Archive)

Misery continued for the Varotta family with ongoing death threats. Salvatore could not get work because employers feared that Black Hand violence would follow him into the workplace. Even selling vegetables on the street was too dangerous.

Two years after Giuseppes murder, members of the citys upper crust funded an ocean liner trip to take the family back to their native Corsica, with the hope that they could rebuild their lives there.

JUSTICE STORY has been the Daily News exclusive take on true crime tales of murder, mystery and mayhem for more than 100 years. Click here to read more.




Haiti - FLASH : Assassination of the President, former Senator John Joel Joseph arrested in Jamaica





Former West Senator John Joel Joseph (INITE) fierce opponent of PHTK, under wanted notice since July 2021 https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-34225-haiti-notice-the-pnh-is-looking-for-3-dangerous-and-armed-individuals-including-a-former-senator.html as part of the investigation into the assassination of President Moise on July 7, 2021 https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-34162-haiti-flash-president-jovenel-moise-assassinated-by-mercenaries-official-updated-7am-+-video.html was arrested in the parish of St Elizabeth (South-East of Jamaica), on the night of Friday to Saturday January 15, 2022 by agents of the Terrorism and Organized Crime Unit and local police.



Let's recall that a few days after the assassination of President Moise, Leon Charles, the Director General ai of the National Police of Haiti at the time, declared that Joseph was a key player in the plot, alleging that he had provided weapons and scheduled meetings, and issued a wanted notice.



According to the information available, John Joel Joseph would have arrived clandestinely by boat on the island, by the route taken by the drug traffickers, accompanied by his wife and his 2 children where they lived hidden in the parish of St Elizabeth...



Dennis Brooks, Spokesman for the Jamaica Constabulary asked whether Jamaica had acted on orders from the FBI, he limited himself to recalling that the Jamaican police were acting in coordination with their "international partners" and that there were "joint investigations".



Reacting to this new arrest of suspects on the run after the arrest in Jamaica of Palacios and his extradition to the USA https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35640-haiti-flash-palacio-extradited-to-the-usa-first-official-indictment-in-the-assassination-of-president-moise.html and Rudolph Jaar in the Dominican Republic https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35716-haiti-news-zapping.html , the former First Dame Martine Moise said "One more suspect has been apprehended. One more opportunity to shed light on my husband's murder. In Haiti or elsewhere, the hunt for the wanted must continue so that all the sponsors and perpetrators of this heinous crime are punished."



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35720-haiti-extradition-of-handal-turkey-asks-for-more-info-and-guarantees-from-haiti.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35717-haiti-flash-fbi-cia-and-the-dhs-will-open-an-investigation-into-the-assassination-of-president-moise.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35716-haiti-news-zapping.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35696-haiti-flash-palacios-confessed-that-the-final-plan-was-to-assassinate-the-president-of-haiti.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-34225-haiti-notice-the-pnh-is-looking-for-3-dangerous-and-armed-individuals-including-a-former-senator.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-34162-haiti-flash-president-jovenel-moise-assassinated-by-mercenaries-official-updated-7am-+-video.html



SL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Assassination of the President : OPC welcomes the vote of the American Congress





On Saturday January 15, 2022, in a note, Me Renan Hedouville, Protector of Citizens and Director General of the Office for the Protection of Citizens (OPC), an independent national state institution for the promotion and protection of human rights, welcomed the vote of the US Congress dated January 13, 2022 https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35717-haiti-flash-fbi-cia-and-the-dhs-will-open-an-investigation-into-the-assassination-of-president-moise.html ordering the State Department to open an investigation into the assassination of President Jovenel Moise on July 7, 2021 https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-34162-haiti-flash-president-jovenel-moise-assassinated-by-mercenaries-official-updated-7am-+-video.html



"It is a very good decision given the transnational nature of the assassination of President Moise and the major obstacles linked to this investigation led by a Haitian examining magistrate," underlines Hedouville who recalls that since August 2021, he had affirmed that the De facto Prime Minister, Dr. Ariel Henry was the main obstacle to the outcome of the investigation https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-34932-haiti-flash-the-supplementary-indictment-accusing-the-pm-has-mysteriously-disappeared.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-34724-haiti-assassination-of-the-president-the-office-of-citizen-protection-requests-the-resignation-of-pm.html adding "International mutual aid is therefore necessary or even indispensable."



Me Hedouville hopes that other international bodies can position themselves very clearly in favor of the outcome of the investigation into the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, "in order to fight impunity in Haiti in the face of a judicial system, headed by the Conseil Superieur du Pouvoir Judiciaire (CSPJ), which, in large part, far from rendering justice to the victims, protects and whitewashes criminals, bandits and kidnappers wanted by the police."



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35717-haiti-flash-fbi-cia-and-the-dhs-will-open-an-investigation-into-the-assassination-of-president-moise.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-34932-haiti-flash-the-supplementary-indictment-accusing-the-pm-has-mysteriously-disappeared.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-34724-haiti-assassination-of-the-president-the-office-of-citizen-protection-requests-the-resignation-of-pm.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-34162-haiti-flash-president-jovenel-moise-assassinated-by-mercenaries-official-updated-7am-+-video.html



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - News : Zapping...





Leogane : Release of 2 hostages but...

The General Directorate of the Ste-Croix hospital in Leogane, confirmed the release of the two drivers of the institution kidnapped last Wednesday https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35716-haiti-news-zapping.html . However, the brand new 125kW generator was not returned to the hospital by the kidnappers.



US Embassy Closing

The US Embassy in Haiti will close its doors for the celebration of "Martin Luther King Day" and there will be no visa or passport service on Monday, January 17, 2022.



Agriculture : New farming practices

Together with some financial partners, the Ministry of Agriculture is promoting new farming practices in several production areas of Haiti. In the department of Grand'Anse, 7 municipalities are directly concerned by this project. Set up as part of the Program for Technological Innovation in Agriculture and Agroforestry, these new practices are disseminated in the form of technical kits and are designed to generate additional income for producers and protect soil and water resources.



UNICEF builds latrines in Haiti

In order to prevent waterborne diseases after the August 14 earthquake in the South, UNICEF is building 75 latrine blocks in 9 sites hosting 15,000 displaced people. 22 damaged water supply systems were also repaired.



Humanitarian: Haiti, one crisis among others:

UN releases $150 million for underfunded humanitarian crises - According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 274 million people will need humanitarian assistance this year, the highest number in decades. This funding will support relief operations in multiple countries, of which $274 million Haiti will receive $8 million.



End of Government Retirement:

Friday ended the 2-day government retreat, during which five workshops were formed. The control of government action, the reform of the State as well as political and administrative governance were the themes at the center of the discussions for this 2nd and last day.



HL/ HaitiLibre


















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Daisy Nelson is an alumnus of the ASU Walter Cronkite School of Journalism. She was born and raised in Lake Havasu City. She is a multimedia journalist and layout designer. Follow her Twitter account @daisylaree_ to see her reporting process.
Editor: Thank God our weekly conspiracy theorist is finally able to laugh. She pro
Reenactors demonstrate musket firing on Jan. 8 at a monthly Militia Muster at Fort Mose Historic State Park near St. Augustine  site of the first legal free Black community in North America. (Joy Wallace Dickinson)

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, folks will gather at events in Florida cities including St. Augustine to honor the civil rights leaders legacy, perhaps recalling his 1964 campaign to confront discrimination in the old city. Kings efforts, including his arrest in St. Augustine, helped pave the way for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

At the time, few people realized that hundreds of years earlier, Black men, women and children had traveled south toward St. Augustine in the cause of freedom.

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In 1686, Spaniards in St. Augustine began to spread the word that refugees from enslavement in the British colonies would be given religious sanctuary there. In 1738, more than 100 freedom-seekers created a fortified town at St. Augustines northern border: Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, now called Fort Mose  the first legally sanctioned free Black community in whats now the United States. (Its pronounced Moh-say).

Its a part of U.S. history thats just not well known, says University of South Florida professor J. Michael Francis during a video history of Fort Mose. The first Underground Railroad runs south  it runs south to St. Augustine, not north.

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Landmark history

Fort Mose is not a new discovery. In the late 1980s, a team led by Dr. Kathleen Deagan of the Florida Museum of Natural History conducted an archaeological and historical investigation at the site, which was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1994. The National Park Service considers Fort Mose important for both Black and Hispanic heritage as well as Underground Railroad history. Its been designated a UNESCO Site of Memory.

Yet, Fort Mose deserves to be much better known than it is, especially in Florida.

Volunteers, from left, including militia captain Lawson Dukes, Lloyd Mitchell and Harold Dockins, bring history to life during militia reenactments at Fort Mose Historic State Park in St. Augustine. (Joy Wallace Dickinson)

Members of the 25-year-old Fort Mose Historical Society work hard to spread the word, through events ranging from jazz concerts to historic reenactments. They want people to never forget Fort Mose  the original Underground Railroad, as they call it. Its a story that once had completely disappeared, vanished into the Florida marsh that surrounded it.

We all share this passion for the story, says historical society member Alma Melvin. We make it truly authentic and visible, made richer because theyre able to tell it on the very place where it happened.

There, they plan next to build a replica of the original fort and hope to start in the next year. It will stand in a clearing under moss-strewn oaks, where they offer monthly Militia Musters and chat with visitors about the details of 18th-century warfare, including the complicated process of firing flintlock rifles.

In addition to offering a sanctuary, Fort Mose was the northernmost point of defense for St. Augustine under Spanish rule, says Lawson Dukes, head of the Fort Mose militia reenactors, who gives his troops commands in Spanish. Defending the city from the British was Fort Mose residents ticket to freedom, he notes.

The Fort Mose militia represents the first national guard in the country, adds reenactor Lloyd Mitchell, a former Marine cook and retired chef from Philadelphia. With his wife, Ramona, he supplies the meals for fellow volunteers during major reenactment events, from pulled pork and chicken to coffee and dessert. Its an act of love, both for his friends and for Fort Mose.

This is so rich  this history, he says. I really love it; I really do.

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Flight to Freedom

Later this month, the Fort Mose Historical Society presents one of its biggest annual events, Flight to Freedom, in which reenactors invite visitors to imagine what it would be like, in 1738 or so, to be on that Florida-bound path toward freedom, pursued by bounty hunters, making ones way though tangled underbrush until reaching Fort Mose.

The event is set for Jan. 27, 28 and 29, with tours starting from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day (weather permitting), at Fort Mose Historic State Park, 15 Fort Mose Trail, St. Augustine  just east of U.S. Highway 1 and about 3 miles north of the Bridge of Lions. There is no cost for the event, but donations are welcome. Admission to the Fort Mose Museum is $2 (no charge for children younger than 6). On Jan. 29, parking will be available in designated lots, with free shuttle service to the event site beginning at 8:30 a.m.

School groups are welcome to attend on Thursday and Friday. Reservations are required. For more information, write to connect@FortMose.org or visit fortmose.org/flight-to-freedom-2022.

Beyond events such as Flight to Freedom, the grounds of Fort Mose Historic State Park, a 40-acre waterfront site with plentiful opportunities for birding, are open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The visitor center is open Thursdays through Mondays. For more information, visit FortMose.org or call 904-823-2232.

Joy Wallace Dickinson can be reached at joydickinson@icloud.com, FindingJoyinFlorida.com, or by good old-fashioned letter to Florida Flashback, c/o Dickinson, P.O. Box 1942, Orlando, FL 32802.
Tim Wiederaenders: Learn to tune it out or turn it off
Damascus government forces targeted with more than 24 rockets Kafr Noran axis in western Aleppo countryside, without information about casualties, also bombed places in Al-Fatera, Flayfel and Benen in Jabal al-Zawiya in southern Idlib countryside, according to Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

While the frontlines in Al-Ghab Plain, northwest of Hama, witnessed mutual targeting between the Damascus government forces and Turkish occupation mercenaries.

This coincided with the mobilization of Turkish occupation forces within the axes of Saraqib city, in the areas controlled by mercenaries of Tahrer al-Sham and Turkish occupation mercenaries in Idlib city.

Since the early morning hours, the area witnessed intense movements of soldiers, tanks and military vehicles, without information on the reasons for this alertness until this moment.

Yesterday, Turkish occupation forces expanded a military point in Efes in Idlib countryside, which overlooks on "M5" road, and took over the eastern neighborhood of the town completely. It also brought in tanks and heavy weapons, and increased the number of its members to about 75, in addition to serving the area with Turkish communications, in addition to installing spy devices.

And the Turkish occupation forces located in so-called "de-escalation" area established a new military point a few days ago, in eastern neighborhood of Efes town, east of Idlib, and supported it with 4 armored personnel carriers and 35 soldiers.

The importance of it comes because of its proximity to international highway "m5" Damascus-Aleppo, so that the Turkish occupation forces and mercenaries can monitor the movements of Damascus government forces on the international road.

Sh-S

ANHA
MIAMI  An overnight Miami-Dade police chase and shooting near the Joseph Caleb Center ended with a 15-year-old boy in critical condition at Jackson Memorial Hospital Sunday morning, the agency said.

Miami-Dade police say the boy was armed when he was shot around 12:45 a.m. at Northwest 56th Street and 22nd Avenue, near the Caleb Center and Annie Coleman 15 Apartments.

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Florida Department of Law Enforcement will investigate the shooting, as is standard.

According to police, detectives tried to make a traffic stop of a black Dodge Challenger with the 15-year-old at the wheel. After the boy crashed the car into a fence, police say, everyone in the car ran in different directions. The sergeant, a 29-year veteran, wound up in a confrontation with the boy and, police say, the Glock handgun the boy held.

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Police say the boy, whom the Herald is not naming, had an open pick-up order for burglary and possession of a firearm. An assault rifle was allegedly found in the back seat.

2022 Miami Herald. Visit miamiherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
On Oct. 11, 1945, Jesse James Payne was taken from the Madison County Jail. The next morning, his body was found riddled with buckshot. Payne, a sharecropper, had been accused of molesting the young daughter of the man who owned the land he worked. But few believed he was guilty. The real source of contention appeared to be a dispute between Payne and his employer, who happened to be the brother-in-law of Madison County Sheriff Lonnie Davis. Please note: Some images in this gallery contain racial slurs and racial terms that are no longer in use - Original Credit: Florida Archives (Courtesy photo)

Gov. Ron DeSantis has a dream. Its a dream in which Florida lives in a post-racial world  not because hes dedicated to righting the myriad disadvantages and inequities that beset racial minorities in this state, but because the official policy is that they must be ignored.

He has a dream in which Florida leaders look out over a state where African-American households have lower incomes than any other racial group, and pretend that those families arent struggling against systemic economic bias.

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He has a dream in which its right for the state to scrub mentions of race-based health inequities from its websites (even from the page of the office set up to address minority health concerns) despite the fact that Black and Latino Floridians are far more likely to lack health coverage and to die of preventable diseases.

He has a dream that Floridians can be forced to overlook the injustice of a legal system that still incarcerates young men of color at a far greater rate than any other group.

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He has a dream where the children of this state are taught lessons sterilized of the brutal realities they see every day, and their teachers face the risk of litigation if they step over an imaginary line into a forbidden territory dubbed critical race theory  or simply offend the delicate sensibilities of a few parents.

He has a dream that makes it acceptable to push for vaguely worded legislation that weaponizes ruinous litigation in service of an official policy of ignorance, and drown out calls for a more just society with a rallying cry for his own political supporters.

We reject this feverish dream for Florida. It is a cruel and suppressive vision, one that pours acid on the still-festering wounds of the Jim Crow era and blocks paths to healing and reconciliation. We call upon members of the Legislature to reject it as well, quashing DeSantis proposed law that would enshrine policies of official fiction in statute books.

Have DeSantis and the lawmakers learned nothing from history? Can he not see how silence about injustice equals complicity? Does he not understand how foolish willful ignorance looks, and how his actions will be judged in the future?

A lesson from history

Political Pulse Weekly Get latest updates political news from Central Florida and across the state. >

To that end, we direct the attention of DeSantis and his backers to a shameful  and mostly forgotten  tale of another governor who tried to deny racisms ugliest realities.

His name was Millard F. Caldwell, and at the time he was one of the most wildly popular politicians in the states history. He swept into the governors office in 1944 with a thundering 83 percent of the vote, the midpoint of a career that would span all three branches of government as well as Congress.

In retrospect, however, Caldwells biggest accomplishment was to embarrass Florida with his slavish adherence to the principles of segregation that were being abandoned in other states. Nothing sums up his willful ignorance better than the story of one of Floridas last lynchings.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 12 On Oct. 11, 1945, Jesse James Payne was taken from the Madison County Jail. The next morning, his body was found riddled with buckshot. Payne, a sharecropper, had been accused of molesting the young daughter of the man who owned the land he worked. But few believed he was guilty. The real source of contention appeared to be a dispute between Payne and his employer, who happened to be the brother-in-law of Madison County Sheriff Lonnie Davis. Please note: Some images in this gallery contain racial slurs and racial terms that are no longer in use - Original Credit: Florida Archives (Courtesy photo)

The victim was a young sharecropper named Jesse James Payne, and he was hunted, incarcerated on trumped-up charges of rape and eventually slaughtered. A convincing weight of testimony suggests that Paynes real crime was that of arguing with his white employer  who just happened to be the brother-in-law of the then-sheriff of Madison County. In the aftermath, Caldwell ignored cries for justice  even when it meant arguing, again and again, that Paynes death was not a lynching despite all evidence to the contrary. Weve laid the story out, complete with photographs and letters Caldwell wrote to outraged Floridians and eminent civil-rights organizations, at orlandosentinel.com/opinion. Suffice it to say this: In the retrospective light of history, Caldwell appears mired in his own weakness and desire to pander to the worst side of human nature  and being forgotten, in his case, seems like a mercy.

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Is this the legacy DeSantis wants? A future in which his name is synonymous with blind ignorance, selfish exploitation of injustice and a stony indifference to the suffering of people who deserve to be seen?

If so, this is a dream from which Florida must awaken.

The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Krys Fluker, Jennifer A. Marcial Ocasio, Jay Reddick and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Contact us at insight@orlandosentinel.com.
Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, we've all known individuals who have done more than their share to help their neighbors and communities with food, comfort, care, companionship and dozens of other needs. If you know of such a person, you can nominate them to be featured in our upcoming H
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Ive worked as a nurse for nearly 40 years, including working nonstop during COVID-19. Ive described the first year or two of this pandemic as a hot mess in Florida, but now I believe we are deep into the dumpster fire stage.

For nurses, our failures as a country to control this virus are culminating in the worst infection and hospitalization surge weve ever experienced. Thats why nurses around the country took action recently  to demand basic safety measures and protections we shouldve had from day one. We want to provide our patients with the care they need and deserve, which is why we need to immediately resolve a nationwide staffing crisis and the lack of national, enforceable workplace protections.

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Marissa Lee works in the labor and delivery unit at Osceola Regional Medical Center. She is a vice president of National Nurses United, the largest nurses union in the country. - Original Credit: Courtesy photo (Courtesy photo)

Since the pandemics early days in 2020, nurses have been saying that if hospital employers and government officials dont do what we need to control this virus, that there may not be a nurse to take care of you when you are in that hospital bed. That day is here. Nurses are out sick all around the country and those still at work are dangerously overloaded with patients. We nurses will always fight to be by our patients side, but we cant be there if were sick ourselves or the hospital simply doesnt staff enough of us.

Despite what you may have heard, the United States is not experiencing a nursing shortage. What were really seeing is a shortage of nurses willing to risk their licenses, health, or the safety of their patients by working in unsafe conditions. Our employers were cutting corners on staffing to boost profits long before COVID-19. Now, they are seeking to make the crisis conditions the new normal, even though poor staffing puts patients at risk.

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Studies have shown that when nurses are assigned too many patients, the patients are at an increased risk for preventable medical errors, avoidable complications, increased length of stay, readmissions and even death. Studies have also shown that assigning nurses too many patients to safely care for at once also leads to ongoing moral distress and job dissatisfaction.

As a labor and delivery nurse, Ive seen this staffing crisis firsthand as Im called upon to treat COVID-19 patients. Of course, I work to make sure every patient gets the best care we can provide, but switching from labor and delivery to COVID-19 raises safety concerns for newborns and parents  concerns Ive struggled to get management to take seriously.

Even before the pandemic, weve been raising alarms about retention and attrition among nurses here in the Sunshine State. Ive even thought of retiring myself, but I just dont feel I can leave my co-workers at the mercy of hospital management in this prolonged crisis. We need more nurses, and the only way to get them is for our bosses to create better, safe working conditions in our facilities.

Thats why we took action on Jan. 13, in Florida and across the country. Hospitals must increase staffing levels with permanent staff nurses, and were ready to advise them on growing the pool of available nurses. We need proper cross-training for current staff nurses so that we feel ready to work across departments, especially critical care.

We also need our so-called elected leaders to actually show leadership and follow the science. As the omicron variant has exploded across the country, President Joe Bidens administration has announced moves ripping away protections for health-care workers and the public. Thats why were demanding the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issue a permanent COVID-19 health-care standard to solidify the hard-won emergency temporary standard (ETS) issued last June  which OSHA has announced it intends to rescind with no permanent standard in place.

Nurses are saying enough is enough. We need to come to work knowing well be safe so that we can keep our patients safe. We demand our employers and government officials protect and support us. Nurses may seem like superheroes, but were just human beings, and we need our communities to stand with us so we can all get through this together.

Marissa Lee works in the labor and delivery unit at Osceola Regional Medical Center. She is a vice president of National Nurses United, the largest nurses union in the country.
If youre among those fortunate enough to have gotten your hands on an at-home COVID-19 test during the omicron surge, pharmacists say its a good idea to check the expiration date.

The Texas Medical Center is experiencing its highest-ever demand for COVID tests during the pandemic, driven by the sudden rise of the omicron variant that has shocked the U.S. testing system.

But pharmacists say theres another wrinkle: The test kits have a shelf life, and using old tests could mean inaccurate results.

Heres what pharmacists and test manufacturers are saying about expiration dates, what they mean, and what you should do if you find your test kit has expired.

What do the expiration dates on at-home antigen tests mean?

Each test manufacturer marks expiration dates on the outside of the test boxes  and the shelf life differs from brand to brand.

The length of time between manufacturing and expiration has to do with how long the manufacturers studies ran  whether it was six, eight or 12 months, for example, said Dr. Richard Dang, an assistant professor at the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy and president of the California Pharmacists Association.

That ends up being the data submitted to the (Food and Drug Administration), and the FDA reviews the data and issues expiration lengths based on the data that was received, he said.

The dates reflect the stability data that each company has on how long the tests last, Dang said.

COVID HELP DESK: COVID Help Desk: When is the omicron surge expected to peak?

The tests contain chemicals and reagents that react with the solutions and the samples the user collects to see if virus is present, he explained.

Essentially, those chemicals can break down or degrade over time, he said. The (dates) reflect the amount of time the chemicals can still be valid.

The dates represent something in those test kits, whether the strip, reagent or maybe a chemical in there thats going bad, said Dr. Clint Hopkins, owner and pharmacist in charge at Puccis Pharmacy in Sacramento.

Can I use a test after the expiration date?

We dont have a definitive answer for how long after the expiration date a COVID tests results could still be valid, Dang said.

Without that information, it would generally not be recommended to use it past the expiration date, he said. The reliability of that test may not be as good.

He added that in the pandemic, testing is meant to detect infections to prevent spread, so if results are incorrect due to expired ingredients, that could potentially contribute to transmission.

But consumers should be aware that the suggested expiration date can change based on new data.

COVID HELP DESK: After testing positive, how do I treat mild symptoms at home?

Abbott, which makes the BinaxNow COVID-19 Ag Card, originally specified expiration dates between six and nine months.

The shelf life was extended to 12 months, Aly Morici, a spokesperson for Abbott, told The Chronicle in an email. Other sources indicate the shelf life is now even longer  letters from the Food and Drug Administration to Abbott show the agency first updated the shelf life to 12 months last spring, and most recently on Jan. 7, extended it further to 15 months. Dang also confirmed a 15-month shelf life.

The shelf life for the CareStart COVID-19 Antigen Test was also incrementally increased by the FDA throughout last year, from the original 6 months to 9 months in March, then to 12 months in July, and finally 16 months in December.

The label on my test indicates its expired. Should I throw it away?

Experts say not to use the test past the expiration date printed on the box unless you know for certain it has been given an extension. Dang said to check on the manufacturers website, call the customer service number, or search for letters granting revisions on the FDAs emergency use authorization database for antigen tests.

If you confirm the test has expired, Hopkins said usually he would advise not using it, but said it might be good to hold onto it for a month or two to see if the expiration date is extended.

I wouldnt hold on to it for a year, and I wouldnt use it or trust any results from it unless a study is done to show the results were going to be valid, he said.

Whats the best way to store at-home tests?

Generally, experts say to store at-home tests at room temperature. To be completely sure, check the storage instructions on the packaging. QuickVue, for example, advises users to store the tests at 59 to 86 degrees. CareStart tests are 33.8 to 86 degrees. Ellume and Flowflex tests should be stored between 36 and 86 degrees. BinaxNows storage temperatures are 35.6 to 86 degrees.

Morici said if a BinaxNow test is stored outside that temperature range for a short period of time, such as a couple of hours to two days, it should be OK to use as long as the test and its components are used at room temperature.

OMICRON VARIANT: When are you contagious if infected with omicron? Here's what health experts say.

Still, experts say its best to store tests properly. Dang said to definitely avoid extreme temperatures, whether high heat or freezing environments, which can break down substances and chemicals a lot faster.

That includes high humidity environments, like in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, which can lead to degradation of drugs and other things, Hopkins said. He advised keeping the tests in a kitchen cabinet or another room, safely stowed away from children.

Is it OK to stockpile tests?

The need for at-home tests varies from person to person. Those with less exposure and risk of coronavirus infection wont need as many. Generally, experts say you should keep enough to cover your anticipated needs  but dont hoard them.

Two good reasons: They can expire and theres a low supply right now, Dang said.

Keeping only what youre likely to use will ensure that tests arent wasted, and those who urgently need them have a better chance of finding them.

Kellie Hwang is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kellie.hwang@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @KellieHwang
A pair of tornadoes, which struck in Humble and Kingwood in the early morning hours of Sunday, January 9 resulted in extensive damage, destroying a commercial building in Humble and causing trees to fall on roofs in both areas and destroying at least one vehicle in the Forest Cove neighborhood.

According to the National Weather Service Houston/Galveston office, the twisters were part of a storm system that blew through the greater Houston area, creating at least four confirmed tornadoes that touched down, resulting in property damage. Other damage-causing tornadoes were reported in the Spring Branch neighborhood of Houston and in the city of Montgomery in Montgomery County.

On January 10, the NWS reported that an EF1 tornado, with estimated peak winds of 90 mph, had struck the city of Humble at 1:17 a.m. the day before. The twister, which tore a path of about two-thirds of a mile long and 40 yards wide at its peak, lasted about three minutes.

CITY OF HUMBLE: Humble Civic Center director reveals 2022 plans, events

The tornado, which first touched down in a wooded area, tracked across the city, causing damage to trees and several structures and flipping vans in a church parking lot, the weather service reported. The most severe damage occurred when the twister destroyed a strip center building on South Houston Avenue on the east side of the downtown area of the city, tearing off the roof and knocking down three walls. The Humble Post Office also sustained minor damage.

In Kingwood an EF1 tornado with an estimated peak wind of 90 mph, began at 1:35 a.m. and followed a path of about two-and-a-quarter miles, with a maximum path width of 75 yards.

Several large trees were uprooted or had their trunks snapped, causing damage to a few structures. The NWS reported that the most significant damage occurred in the Forest Cove area along Palmetto Lane and on Hamblen Road near its intersection with Red Bud Lane.

Dmitry Bazykin, disaster program manager with the American Red Cross, estimated that the destruction from the twister included six homes in the Kingwood area and four or five homes in Humble that had suffered major damage.

On Monday, Humble City Manager Jason Stuebe said that with the exception of the commercial building on South Houston Avenue, which is likely to be as assessed as a total loss, most of the property damage in the city was relatively minor.

YOUR HEALTH: Mega COVID testing site opens in Kingwood amid omicron surge

A lot of the damage that were seeing to the houses is mostly the result of trees falling on them, he said in an interview on January 10. As far as residential properties, were not seeing anything like what youd see with strong tornadoes, where you see a house off the foundation. Weve been pretty fortunate in that regard.

Stuebe said he did not yet have a dollar estimate for the extent of the damage to property in the city. Were still in the recovery phase, he said.

Were seeing damage in a small subdivision, JL Ranchland, where we had the tops of trees twisted off, with very minor damage there. The area that was most heavily hit was the North Hollow subdivision just off Will Clayton Parkway.

From the pattern of the damage left in its wake, it appears that the tornado didnt travel along the ground in a continuous straight line, but skipped up and down as it made its way across the city, Stuebe said. It appears that it dropped down likely at JL Ranchland. It went to North Hollow, picked back up at around Will Clayton and then dropped down again at the South Houston Avenue location, very briefly, then maybe traveled another couple hundred yards, then picked back up again, he said.

Between 7,500 and 10,000 electricity customers temporarily lost power as half of the city went dark in the immediate aftermath of the storm. CenterPoint Energy quickly restored power to most of its customers, with the exception of a few residences where power and other utilities had to be cut off because the homes were impacted by storm damage, or power lines had been knocked down, Stuebe said. Virtually all power had been restored by Sunday afternoon, he said.

On the North side of the San Jacinto river, a second tornado apparently repeated the same skipping pattern, touching down in the Forest Cove area and at least one Kingwood Village. In one Forest Cove neighborhood, a large tree crashed onto the roof of a house, crushing a truck parked in the driveway.

In South Woodland Hills in Kingwood, a homeowner, who asked not to be identified, said the storm tore down three big trees in her next-door neighbors yard. The trees crashed across the driveway and across her entire front yard, fortunately missing the house.

Another South Woodland Hills homeowner said a tree branch crashed through his roof at about 1:30 a.m. He said he could hear the crashing sound, followed by the feeling of wind whistling through the house through the hole in the roof.

The homeowner, who also asked that his name not be used, added that the storm knocked over fences and other structures in his and his neighbors backyards. He said he thinks the presence of so many large trees in the area actually might have blunted the storms progress and prevented even more extensive damage to his and other homes in the area.
Jan. 17

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Most city, county, state and federal offices will be closed Monday, Jan. 17, in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Emergency services will be maintained.

Jan. 18

Sugar Land City Council

The Sugar Land City Council is scheduled to meet for its regular session at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 18, at Sugar Land City Hall, 2700 Town Center Blvd. N. For more information go to www.sugarlandtx.gov.

Rosenberg City Council

The Rosenberg City Council is scheduled to meet for its regular session at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 18, at Rosenberg City Hall, 2110 4th St. Council meetings may be viewed live on YouTube, the city of Rosenberg website, or by Rosenberg Comcast customers on channel 16. For more information go to www.rosenbergtx.gov.

Richmond City Commission

The city of Richmond will hold its regular commission meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 18, at 4:30 p.m. at the City Hall Annex located at 600 Morton St. in Richmond. For questions, contact City Manager Terri Vela at tvela@richmondtx.gov or 281-342-5456.

Missouri City City Council

The regular meeting of the Missouri City City Council is scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 18, in the City Hall, Council Chamber at 1522 Texas Parkway. For more information go to www.missouricitytx.gov.

Jan. 22

Felicia Smith Jigsaw Puzzle Competition

Registration closes Jan. 20 for the Sixth Annual Hope For Three Autism Advocates Felicia Smith Jigsaw Puzzle Competition presented by LearningRx Sugar Land. This event takes place on Jan. 22 at the Landmark Community Center, 100 Louisiana St., Missouri City. Teams of four, young (ages 8 and up) and seasoned, have two hours to complete a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle. Awards ceremony immediately follows with first through fifth places recognized. Registration at 9 a.m., competition 10 a.m.-noon. The event is one-way the local nonprofit group raises awareness and funds for families and children living with autism. Hurry, limited seating, register today (team of four $140) at www.hopeforthree.org/events.

Jan. 23

Farmers market

The Farmers Market at La Centerra is presented the second and fourth Sunday of every month from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 23501 Cinco Ranch Blvd. in Katy. There will be local vendors and artisans at Heritage Square selling honey, cheese, fresh eggs, seasonal vegetables and more. To become a vendor email customer@yourneighborhoodfarmersmarket.com.

Jan. 27

Music Class in the Park

Childrens Music Class in the Park with Vivaldi is schedueld for 10-10:45 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 27, at Sugar Land Town Square, at Highway 6 and U.S. Highway 59. Vivaldi Music Academy welcomes families with children ages 1-5 years old to join them in the Plaza for a free, fun morning full of singing, dancing and learning. For more information go to https://tinyurl.com/3bvfubvr.

Jan. 28

Fort Bend Chamber Chairmans Gala

The 2022 Fort Bend Chamber Chairmans Gala is scheduled for 6 p.m.-midnight Friday, Jan. 28, at Safari Texas Ranch at 11627 FM 1464 in Richmond. Individual tickets are $100. Sponsorships are available. For more information contact Paige Talbott at 281-566-2152 or via email at Paige@fortbendcc.org; or go to https://tinyurl.com/mryucxhu.

Feb. 1

Sugar Land City Council

The Sugar Land City Council is scheduled to meet for its regular session at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 1, at Sugar Land City Hall, 2700 Town Center Blvd. N. For more information go to www.sugarlandtx.gov.

Rosenberg City Council

The Rosenberg City Council is scheduled to meet for its regular session at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 1, at Rosenberg City Hall, 2110 4th St. Council meetings may be viewed live on YouTube, the city of Rosenberg website, or by Rosenberg Comcast customers on channel 16. For more information go to www.rosenbergtx.gov.

Feb. 4

Richmond Farmers Market

The Development Corporation of Richmond and the city of Richmond present the Richmond Farmers Market the first Friday of the month from 3 to 7 p.m. Richmond Farmers Market will be located at Wessendorff Park, 500 Preston St. For more information email Jessica Huang at Jessica@FarmersMarket.Love.

Feb. 5

Sugar Land Rotary 5K

The Third Annual Running with a Heart-Sugar Land Rotary 5K is scheduled to start at 7:30 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 5, at Sugar Land Town Square, 15958 City Walk Drive in Sugar Land. Race entry includes a finishers medal, T-shirt and coupons to sponsors facilities. Adult registration is $35. Youth registration is $25. All net proceeds benefit the Fort Bend Rainbow Room. There will be no onsite race day registration at the event. Pre-registration is required at www.sugarlandrotary5k.com.

Feb. 7

Richmond City Commission

The city of Richmond will hold its regular commission meeting on Monday, Feb. 7, at 4:30 p.m. at the City Hall Annex located at 600 Morton St. in Richmond. For questions, contact City Manager Terri Vela at tvela@richmondtx.gov or 281-342-5456.

Missouri City City Council

The regular meeting of the Missouri City City Council is scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 7, in the City Hall, Council Chamber at 1522 Texas Parkway. For more information go to www.missouricitytx.gov.

Feb. 12

Boots & Badges Gala

Behind the Badge Charities is committed to holding its annual Boots & Badges Gala on Saturday, Feb. 12, at Safari Texas in Richmond. Sponsorships and tickets are available now at www.behindthebadgecharities.org/gala.

XKlusive 06 Race/Walk

The XKlusive 06 Race/Walk is scheduled for 7-10 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 12, at Sugar Land Town Square, 15958 City Walk Drive in Sugar Land. The fun-run benefits the Xi Kappa Lambda Educational Foundation. Their foundation awards scholarships annually and has supported educational initiatives for students in the greater Houston area for more than 25 years. Race registration is $35 and includes a 06K numbered bib, a commemorative medal, and other surprises from sponsors and supporters. Top finishers will also be awarded based on their registration class. There will be volunteers available to assist you along the way + race-day prizes and hype music played by on-site deejay. Registration ends Feb. 11. To register go to https://tinyurl.com/2jn736yj.

Feb. 15

Sugar Land City Council

The Sugar Land City Council is scheduled to meet for its regular session at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 15, at Sugar Land City Hall, 2700 Town Center Blvd. N. For more information go to www.sugarlandtx.gov.

Rosenberg City Council

The Rosenberg City Council is scheduled to meet for its regular session at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 15, at Rosenberg City Hall, 2110 4th St. Council meetings may be viewed live on YouTube, the city of Rosenberg website, or by Rosenberg Comcast customers on channel 16. For more information go to www.rosenbergtx.gov.

Feb. 21

Richmond City Commission

The city of Richmond will hold its regular commission meeting on Monday, Feb. 21, at 4:30 p.m. at the City Hall Annex located at 600 Morton St. in Richmond. For questions, contact City Manager Terri Vela at tvela@richmondtx.gov or 281-342-5456.

Missouri City City Council

The regular meeting of the Missouri City City Council is scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 21, in the City Hall, Council Chamber at 1522 Texas Parkway. For more information go to www.missouricitytx.gov.
A security guard fatally shot a 37-year-old man inside a vehicle in New Caney, according to the Montgomery County Sheriffs Office.

Neither of the men were identified by the agency, pending notification of next of kin.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Cracker Barrel manager dies after apparent attempted robbery

Deputies went around 12:40 a.m. Saturday to the 26000 block of FM 1485, where there was a vehicle close to a residential area with a dead man inside, the office said in a release. He had a gunshot wound.

Authorities said a security guard at the property  a 51-year-old man  told them he interrupted a theft as he was carrying out his duties. The two men had an argument that escalated and the security guard stated he had to resort to deadly force measures to defend himself, the release read.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Sunnyside shooting kills 1, leaves 2 injured

He contacted 911, and authorities went to the area and investigated, according to the sheriffs office.

After their preliminary investigation, it was determined no arrest would be made, and the case will be presented to the Grand Jury, the release read.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
The man who took hostages at a Fort Worth-area synagogue reportedly demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist who  after moving to the U.S.  briefly attended the University of Houston in the 1990s.

Siddiqui, 49, is imprisoned at Carswell Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth after being convicted in 2010 of trying to kill U.S. Army officers in Afghanistan. Her lawyer, Marwa Elbially, said Saturday night that Siddiqui was likely aware of the hostage situation as it unfolded at a Colleyville synagogue  26 miles from the prison  and added that she and her family have nothing to do with it.

Siddiquis brother still lives in the Houston area  while other relatives have since returned to Pakistan, she said.

Her family has never been involved in violent acts, Elbially said. I feel so bad for this family  theyve been through so much over the years.

The unidentified man who took at least four hostages  including the rabbi  at the Congregation Beth Israel was heard demanding to speak with Siddiqui and that she also be released. No injuries have been reported.

Elbially said that the man has likely lost his mind.

John Floyd, who represents Siddiquis brother and is the board chair for Houstons Council on American-Islamic Relations, condemned the hostage-taking as an antisemitic attack against a house of worship.

We stand in solidarity with the Jewish community, and we pray that law enforcement authorities are able to swiftly free the hostages and bring them to safety, Floyd said in a statement.

He noted that the hostage-taker is not Siddiquis brother.

We want the hostage-taker to know that Dr. Aafia Siddiqui and her family strongly condemn this act and do not stand by you. Dr. Aafias family has always stood firm in advocating for the release of their sister from incarceration by legal and non-violent means only, Floyd continued.

Siddiqui moved to Houston in the 1980s to be near her brother and attended the University of Houston for at least a semester starting in 1990 before transferring to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to complete her bachelors degree. She returned to Pakistan in 2002.

Federal agents in 2003 branded her a terrorist sympathizer with ties to al-Qaida after 9/11 attack mastermind Kahlid Shaikh Mohammed reportedly mentioned her name during an interrogation, according to news reports from then. The tip sparked a manhunt and after her capture, she tried killing U.S. soldiers while in custody in Afghanistan.

She was sentenced in 2010 to serve 86 years in prison.

Elbially said Siddiquis case has garnered a lot of attention in Pakistan over the years as a case of extreme injustice.

Siddiqui in September sued the federal Bureau of Prisons over medical and other records related to a July 2021 incident in which another prisoner allegedly hit her with a hot coffee-filled mug on her face and then beat her, court documents show.

With wire reports

nicole.hensley@chron.com
Like many of you, I remain incredibly troubled by the staggering loss of seagrass in the Indian River Lagoon in Brevard County. It has had real consequences. Since 2009, weve lost around 46,000 acres of natural seagrass. As a result, the estuary has been ground zero in the deaths of hundreds of manatees who starved because they could not find enough seagrass, their key food source.

Yet even in the face of these staggering losses, politicians in Tallahassee have introduced legislation this session that will make it even easier to destroy what little natural seagrass we have left. House Bill 349 would create a program to allow developers to pay money so that they can dig up and destroy the remaining natural seagrass in Brevard (or other coastal areas) with the hope that it can be regrown someplace else, possibly the Panhandle or the Gulf Coast.

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State Rep. Randy Fine in 2019 - Original Credit: Handout (Courtesy photo)

These politicians argue that to facilitate new coastal development, we need to provide easier opportunities for the private market to mitigate seagrass loss. As one environmental consultant explained during a recent bill presentation, its tough to get a permit to destroy seagrass today because there are limited ways to remediate it. So these anti-environmental advocates want to create new ways to remediate seagrass destruction, making it easier to destroy it, and as a result, increase development.

As if the idea of replacing natural Indian River Lagoon seagrass with human-planted replacements in far-off areas of the state wasnt bad enough, scientists have explained that there is a very low success rate for transplanting seagrass. Some estimate that these human-planted seagrass beds fail to take root two-thirds of the time.

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My colleague, Rep. Thad Altman, who similarly opposes this bill, has told the story of helping to replant seagrass as a volunteer  and watching it fail. What little seagrass we have left in our lagoon is arguably the hardiest. It has survived decades of damage and pollution. Why would we make it easier to destroy this when its replacement has a limited possibility of success? And might not even be grown in our community?

In other words, why trade a 100% chance of destruction for an unknown chance of success?

Invading Seas (Invading Seas / Courtesy)

I am not anti-development. None of us should be  our families all moved here from somewhere and needed places to live, work, and play. But as Florida and Brevard County continue to boom, as people flee terribly managed states to our north for the free state of Florida, we need to ensure that development happens in a smart and environmentally friendly way.

In this case, the math just doesnt add up. I will not take that risk and neither should the Florida Legislature. Our lagoon and our manatees need help now, and this bill will make our lagoon problems even worse.

Randy Fine, a Republican, is the state representative for the 53rd District of Florida, encompassing Southern Brevard, including Palm Bay, Malabar, and Grant-Valkaria, and parts of West Melbourne and Melbourne. This op-ed originally appeared in Florida Today.

The Invading Sea is the opinion arm of the Florida Climate Reporting Network, a collaborative of news organizations across the state focusing on the threats posed by the warming climate
NASA is still troubleshooting the solar array that didnt latch on its Lucy spacecraft.

Lucy launched Oct. 16 from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. It left the planet without any issues, but the spacecraft encountered a problem as it began to unfurl two solar arrays that will power the 12-year mission to Trojan asteroids that share Jupiters orbit around the sun.

MORE ON THE MISSION: NASAs Lucy mission will spend 12 years examining Jupiter asteroids with clues to solar system

One solar array opened and latched, but the other did not fully open and latch.

In an update Wednesday, NASA said Lucys team is still working to resolve this issue. But in the meantime, the arrays are producing ample energy and charging the spacecrafts battery as expected under normal operating conditions.

NASA said it could attempt to latch the problem solar array in late April. In a lab on Earth, the mission team is testing a dual motor solar array deployment that would use the primary and backup motors. Using both motors at the same time could potentially apply enough force to latch the array.

The team is also studying if they could leave the array unlatched.

Lucys other spacecraft systems are working as intended, and its team is moving forward with routine operations. As of Wednesday, the next activity was calibrating the spacecrafts guidance, navigation and control hardware, according to the NASA update.

This mission is targeting the Trojan asteroids because these space rocks are believed to be remnants of the material that formed the outer planets.

The spacecraft will visit one asteroid in the main asteroid belt in April 2025 and then seven asteroids that orbit ahead of and behind Jupiter between August 2027 and March 2033.

The spacecraft will travel nearly 4 billion miles to study these eight asteroids. No other space mission has been launched to as many different destinations in independent orbits around the sun.

andrea.leinfelder@chron.com

twitter.com/a_leinfelder
High Point, NC (27260)

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Veteran Spotlight: Lt. Col. Lance English



Lt. Col. Lance English and his son. NORTH ADAMS, Mass.  An absolute pleasure this month to interview Lance English, from the class of 1980 at Drury High School.

English spent a total of 28 years in active and Reserves in the Army and an additional seven years of service in the government sector. He retired as a lieutenant colonel from the Army Reserves.

After graduating from Drury he attended Norwich University in Vermont, where he majored in military studies and government and was a member of ROTC, Reserve Officers' Training Corps.

"Norwich University shaped my life. My son went there as well and is a graduate of the class of 2020 (he currently serves in the Air Force and is stationed in Guam)," English said. He personally commissioned his son and call it the "highlight of his military career."

He was sent to basic Armor School Training at Fort Knox, Ky., in 1985, which was a longer basic training course for those in Officer Candidate School. It was the cavalry track of the armored course and he was a member of an infantry mortar platoon. His first duty assignment would take him to Fort Carson, Colo., with the 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry.

"We were in the field all the time," he recalled. When the Army transitioned his squadron to the 2nd Squad, 7th Cavalry, where he served as platoon leader.

"It was intimidating as it was a tremendous responsibility ... I relied on my platoon sergeant. Most guys were Vietnam veterans," he remembered. After being selected for captain, he was transferred to military intelligence and then was sent to Fort Huachuca in Arizona, where he served in counter intelligence.

English was then assigned to the 66th Military Intelligence Brigade at McGraw Kaserne in Munich, Germany ("looking for spies during The Cold War").

He arrived in September. His first impression? "I wanted to go to Oktoberfest ... didn't speak a word of German but asked someone and they said, 'just follow the lines.' I finally made it and had a ball," he remembered.

English commented on his mission that "we were debriefers. We had a program that we ran  where was the unit you were assigned to? What were your wartime missions? etc. It was overwhelming with all of the people we debriefed."

When asked about being away for the holidays, he offered this: "It was hard. We made do ourselves, my wife and I. You tried to travel as much as you could and hang out with friends that were in the same boat as you. You got to make some health and wellness calls back home but nothing like today."

He also shared a somewhat humorous story. "My mom had put something in the local paper about me being deployed overseas. Some reporter from a local paper got wind of it and called me to do a story. Spoke with him for a while," he said laughing. He would return home and be assigned to Fort Meade in Maryland from 1993 to 1995.

"They say when you leave Germany, you leave with a wife, baby and grandfather's clock, which I did," he said with a chuckle.

At Fort Meade, he would be assigned to the 902nd Military Intelligence Brigade, a technical battalion that performed tech surveillance sweeps.' When asked about mentors, English said, "the Norwich guys that were ahead of me. I always turned to and admired them."

English turned down an assignment to go to Korea and took advantage of a "buyout" the Army was offering. "It seemed great at the time, but then a hiring freeze went into effect for two years. I had a wife and small children and had to do odd jobs just to keep food on the table." He would be rehired and work for the Defense Intelligence Agency and CIA until 2012 at the Pentagon and work in joint Reserve intelligence. "It was hard work but exciting work providing briefings to the highest levels of military."

He retired in 2021 from the civil Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He is married with four children. "It was an honor to serve. It was like an obligation. I feel I made contributions even though I never stepped on a battlefield. I look back fondly. The missions were always important to me.

Lt. Colonel Lance English, thank you for your service to our great country.
Residents of the Century 21 Mobile Home Park in the Iona area of Fort Myers, Fla., embrace after confirmed tornado touched down on Sunday, Jan. 16, 2022. It destroyed and damaged homes in the area. (Andrew West/The News-Press via AP) (Andrew West/AP)

The National Weather Service confirmed that a tornado with 118 mph winds struck southwest Florida on Sunday, part of a dangerous winter storm combining high winds and ice that swept through parts of the U.S. Southeast, knocking out power and coating roads with a treacherous, frigid glaze.

The weather service said the tornado near Naples and Fort Myers was on the ground for almost two miles with a maximum path width of 125 yards. Thirty mobile homes were destroyed and 51 had major damage. Three minor injuries were reported.

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The Florida Highway Patrol reported that a large tornado crossed Interstate 75 near Naples, causing a semi-truck to overturn. Florida Power and Light reported that about 16,000 customers in southwest Florida were without power.

Edward Murray, 81, told the Naples Daily News in southwest Florida that he was inside his mobile home Sunday morning when a tornado picked it up and tossed it on top of his neighbors home.

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John Finelli, a resident of the Tropicana Mobile Home Park in the Iona area of Fort Myers, Fla., moves damaged material after a tornado destroyed his home on Sunday, Jan. 16, 2022. His parents were in the home and were transported to the hospital. (Andrew West/The News-Press via AP) (Andrew West/AP)

Thats my house thats turned upside down, he told the newspaper. The tornado took me off my feet blew me toward the east wall and buried me under the sink, refrigerator, kitchen chairs and everything else.

Murray and his daughter, Cokie, escaped unharmed, crawling from the wreckage.

#Breaking: Damaging #Tornado On The Ground In Fort Myers, #Florida. There Are Reports Of Significant Damage To A Mobile Home Park. pic.twitter.com/NreMjCrZpE  Breaking News 24/7 (@Worldsource24) January 16, 2022

I was so happy when I saw the sky, Murray told the newspaper. I said to the devil, its not going to be today.

Lee County firefighters told WINK-TV that 20 homes were destroyed at the Tropicana Mobile Home Resort and one person was injured there.

Kenneth said heard a low pitch roaring sound and stepped out onto his Lanai. The tornado had just hit the mobile home park SW of his location. #flwx #fortmyers pic.twitter.com/v8edjWeu19  Jeff Piotrowski (@Jeff_Piotrowski) January 16, 2022

Across the South, tens of thousands of customers were without power in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida. Highway patrols were reporting hundreds of vehicle accidents. More than 1,200 Sunday flights at Charlotte Douglas International were cancelled  more than 90% of the airports Sunday schedule, according to the flight tracking service flightaware.com.

The winter storm dumped as much as 10 inches of snow in some areas of western North Carolina as the system moved across the southeastern U.S., said Brian Hurley, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.

First Sgt. Christopher Knox, a spokesman for the North Carolina Highway Patrol, said that by midafternoon, the agency had responded to 300 car crashes and nearly 800 calls for service. Two people died Sunday when their car drove off the road and into trees in a median east of Raleigh. The driver and passenger, both 41-year-old South Carolina residents, were pronounced dead at the scene of the single-vehicle crash. Knox said investigators believe the car was driving too fast for the conditions, described as mixed winter precipitation.

Paul Bossert walks his dog Winston through a snow-covered Southpointe Drive during a winter storm, Sunday, Jan. 16, 2022, in Morganton, N.C. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek) (Kathy Kmonicek/AP)

Meanwhile, Transportation Secretary J. Eric Boyette said many roads in the central and western part of the state were covered with ice. He said the eastern part of the state was being hit with high winds and rain.

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Kristen Baker Morrows 6-year-old son made snow angels after their home in Crouse, North Carolina, got four inches of snow Sunday morning, but she said they couldnt stay outside long because of the uncomfortable wind chill.

It took 30 to 45 minutes to get everything on for about 10 minutes in the snow, but it was definitely worth it for him, to get our pictures and make some memories, said Morrow, a 35-year-old registered nurse.

More than 260,000 customers were without power by midafternoon Sunday, according to poweroutage.us. Especially hard hit was North Carolina, with 90,000 outages. The remaining outages were in Georgia, South Carolina and Florida.

Bridget Step stops for a photo of the snow while watching the snow fall in Atlanta as a winter storm rolls into the area Sunday, Jan. 16, 2022. (AP Photo/Ben Gray) (Ben Gray/AP)

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Virginia State Police said traffic came to a standstill Sunday afternoon on Interstate 81 in Roanoke County after a tractor-trailer jackknifed and the cab of the truck disconnected from the trailer in the northbound lanes. Two additional accidents occurred in the traffic backup, one with minor injuries. The Virginia Department of Transportation said a detour was being set up. Please stay off the roads if possible. Begging again! Hazardous conditions, read a tweet from VDOTs Salem office.

From midnight to 12:45 p.m., Virginia state troopers responded to 142 traffic crashes and 162 disabled vehicles. No traffic fatalities were reported.

The West Virginia Department of Homeland Security tweeted photos of snow-covered roads in the southern part of the state and advised residents to keep calm and hunker down. The agency says the storm is moving north and most areas of the state are expected to have accumulations of at least 4 inches (10 centimeters), with up to 12 inches (30 centimeters) possible in the mountains.

In Tennessee, there were multiple reports of abandoned and wrecked cars on snow-covered roads.

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Drivers navigate hazardous road condions as a winter storm moves through the area near Hillsborough, N.C., Sunday, Jan. 16, 2022. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome) (Gerry Broome/AP)

The storm system could cause hazardous driving conditions over a large portion of the eastern U.S. through Monday as the wet roadways refreeze in southern states and the storm turns and moves northward through the Mid-Atlantic states and New England.

While not a record-breaking storm in terms of snowfall, the large system could impact a dozen or more states.

Its a very expansive storm, Hurley said. A lot of real estate is going to get four to eight inches of snow and a lot more are also going to get to get some of that ice accumulation.

New York City was expected to be spared from most, if not all, of the snowfall, but Long Island and Connecticut coastal areas were expecting gale conditions. Upstate New York was projected to get hit with up to a foot of snow to go along with high winds.

Six to 13 inches (15 to 33 centimeters) of snow was expected in parts of east-central Ohio and western Pennsylvania from Sunday afternoon.

Frigid temperatures lingered across New England on Sunday, with wind chills in northern Vermont reported at -27 Fahrenheit (-33 Celsius). In Boston, where a cold emergency was declared on Saturday, wind chills remained below zero (-17 C) even as the region started the thaw.
Woburn, MA (01801)

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Despite a court ban, several cockfights were held across coastal Andhra Pradesh on Saturday as part of Sankranti celebrations.

Cockfights with hundreds and even thousands of participants were held in Krishna, Guntur, East Godavari, West Godavari districts where COVID-19 protocols went for a toss.

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Hundreds of people were seen flocking to the cockfight venue at Edupugallu in Krishna district. Huge tents were pitched in the agriculture fields to organise the cockfights.

People, including women and children, thronged the arenas in large numbers to watch the cockfights which they consider a part of the harvest festival.

In such events, specially-bred roosters fight with small knives or blades tied to their legs and the fight often ends with the death of one of the two birds.

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Cockfights have been a part of the region's history and folklore for centuries. A cockfight between two kingdoms supposedly led to the 11th century War of Palnadu, a region in modern Andhra Pradesh, often described as the Mahabharata of the medieval ages. There are many instances of zamindars and aristocrats being proud owners of prized fighter roosters, in coastal Andhra Pradesh, in pre-independence era.

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Though it is rooted in the post-harvest celebrations of agrarian communities cockfights have now turned into a multicore business with people placing bets on which bird will win.

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Conservative guesstimates peg the financial transactions due to betting, at Rs 400 crore.

It also become a venue for other kinds of betting and gambling as well.

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Due to the local and political support such cockfight organisers enjoy, authorities have repeatedly failed to implement the ban on the bloody sport.



Animal rights activists point out that as per the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 and the Andhra Pradesh Gaming Act, 1974, cockfights are illegal.

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The High Court Of Andhra Pradesh had banned cockfights in 2016 and the decision was later upheld by the SC.

Last week, following a complaint by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) has written to the Andhra Pradesh director general of police to stop such illegal events.

In its letter addressed to Gautam Sawang, DGP, Andhra Pradesh, the AWBI also warned that if directions and declarations of the Supreme Court banning animal fights, including cockfights, are not effectively complied with, disciplinary action must be taken against the erring officials so that the objectives and purposes of The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PCA) Act, 1960, can be achieved.

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The AWBI further cautioned that granting permission or conducting such events would tantamount to contempt of court.

"Roosters used in cockfights are fitted with razor-sharp spurs and knives that tear through flesh and bone, causing agonising and fatal injuries to them as well as sometimes to handlers and spectators," says PETA Chief Advocacy Officer Khushboo Gupta.

For more on news and current affairs from around the world, please visit Indiatimes News.
Weve often heard that the rhythms of activity in biological organisms -- plants and animals -- are very closely linked to gravitational tides created by orbital mechanics of the sun-Earth-moon system.

Photos.com via Getty Images

Also Read: Unknown Bacteria Found In Space Could Help Astronauts Grow Food In Zero Gravity

This surprisingly has often been neglected by scientific research. However, a new study by Cristiano de Mello Gallep at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Daniel Robert at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, put this phenomenon into the spotlight.



The study looked at data from three previously published cases where gravitational causality wasnt fully explored. This included the swimming activity of isopods, reproduction in coral and growth modulation in sunflower seedlings inferred from autoluminescence.

Gallep explains, "The data shows that in the absence of other rhythmic influences such as lighting or temperature, local gravitational tides are sufficient to organize the cyclical behaviour of these organisms. This evidence questions the validity of so-called free-run experiments, in which several environmental factors are controlled but gravitational oscillations are not taken into consideration. These oscillations continue to exist, and may modulate the behaviour of living organisms."

Researchers have studied several rhythmic patterns in the past, like circadian rhythm with the day-night cycle. However, there are some rhythmic cycles that come into play even with light being isolated, under closed laboratory conditions, among other environmental factors.

This study specifically looked at tidal cycles in the behavioural patterns of coastal organisms such as crustaceans when they are removed from their natural habitat.



Isopods: Wikipedia

Also Read: RIP Dark Matter: Scientists Re-Imagine The Universe With 'Undiscovered Gravity'

Gallep explained that these animals changed their behaviour in tune with the ebb and flow of the tides in a cycle of 12.4 hours, influenced by lunisolar dynamics, even when shifted to a laboratory with stable, controlled aquatic conditions.



Even though the combined gravitational effect of the sun and moon corresponds to just a millionth of Earths gravity, it is enough to cause large-scale tidal fluctuations in oceans, rivers, seas and even tectonic plates. Even the Large Hadron Collider at CERN with a 27-kilometre long circumference is vertically displaced by one millimetre due to this gravitational fluctuation.

Gallep explained how he first noted these periodicities in experiments with autoluminescence associated with seed germination that were conducted in Limeira in Sao Paulo, I observed that changes in the signal collected appeared every 12 or 24 hours, but differed in each germination test. When I looked for support in the literature, I found studies pointing to a possible correlation with gravitational tides. We explored this phenomenon in subsequent tests on various types of seed, and also added results obtained in the laboratory by collaborators in Prague, Czech Republic, in Leiden, Netherlands, and in Hamamatsu, Japan."

Unsplash

Also Read: NASA 3D Animation Shows How Gravity Levels Differ Across Our Planet Earth

And this effect of gravity isnt just for simple organisms. It affects humans too! Studies have found that humans kept in the dark tend to establish a cyclical fluctuation that went on for 24.4 to 24.8 hours in sync with the lunar cycle. This tendency has also been seen in people who have spent considerable time in caves, altering sleep and wakefulness patterns, meal times and other bodily functions.

Keep reading Indiatimes.com for science and technology stories.
Much like North Korea, its leader Kim Jong-un is an enigma. So, it's hardly a surprise that his every public appearance makes headlines. Over the past few months, a slim and trim Kim has sent the internet wild after it was revealed that he shed 18 kgs.

Authorities insisted Kim was eating less for the sake of the country, which is grappling with severe food shortages. However, experts believe there may be another explanation for the Supreme Leaders new slimmer look.



KCNA

It's being said that Kim's weight loss is simply down to North Korea's tough border closures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which is preventing the notorious leader from having his favourite food.



We know that he has good sources, he enjoys cheese, hes a heavy drinker, he has access to all junk foods. But because of these border closures the way he brings all these foods into North Korea will have been cut. So he doesnt have the same variety anymore," North Korea expert Dr. Sojin Lim, told Metro.

KCNA

It is said that the North Korean leader has an "obsession" with Swiss cheese, but while COVID may have prevented him from having too much of it, these changes, experts believe, may have worked in his favour.



At the same time, he cant sustain his figure as a fat person because in the domestic environment people are starving. If he sustains that look, that will only add to the grievances of people. So tactically it could coincide with that," Dr. Lim, a senior lecturer of the International Institute of Korean studies at the University of Central Lancashire, explained.

KCNA

It has been suggested by some defectors that Kim may have gained weight on purpose in a bid to look like his bulky grandfather, North Korea's founder, Kim Il-sung.



But the leaders restricted access to fatty foods may play in his favour as he seeks to boost morale while his people starve. He cant access certain food anymore but at the same time losing weight doesnt mean hes losing his legacy from his grandfather, Dr. Lim added.

Last year, North Korean officials warned citizens to refrain from publicly discussing national leader Kim Jong-Un's health after he appeared to have lost weight, calling such gossip a reactionary act".

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A woman in China went on an absolute rampage - tearing through racks of wedding dresses, slicing them up with scissors - after a bridal salon refused to return her deposit following a cancelled order.

The customer, who hasn't been named, was filmed ripping through the wedding dresses at a bridal salon in the southwestern city of Chongqing in China on January 9, Insider reported.

Screengrab/Twitter

The incident in the city's Jiangjin district came after the salon declined to return the woman's deposit of $550 (Rs 41,000) she had agreed to as part of a wedding package worth $1,250 (Rs 92,000) last year.



A video clip, originally broadcast by CQTV News but circulated on Chinese social media network Weibo, showed the masked customer furiously hacking at a rack full of white dresses before taking her scissors to gowns. In the clip, the person filming the woman can be heard telling her that each gown costs thousands to tens of thousands of Chinese yuan.

This angry customer at a Chongqing bridal salon took out scissors and cut up wedding dress after wedding dress. The video has since gone viral on social media. pic.twitter.com/LSRXoI0OAa  What's on Weibo (@WhatsOnWeibo) January 13, 2022

"Think clearly. These dresses cost several thousands of yuan," the person filming is heard saying.

"Thousands? Even if it's several ten-thousands, that's fine,' the woman replies, as she relentlessly continued to cut the gowns with the scissors. "Call the police."

"This one? It's several tens of thousands," the person cautions the woman as she cuts a lavish red-and-gold traditional Chinese wedding gown. The sum of 10,000 Chinese yuan is equivalent to around Rs (1.1 lakh).



Screengrab/Twitter

As per Chinese media outlet Sohu, the woman had purchased the wedding package in April last year for her wedding scheduled for October 5. However, in August she asked to postpone it before cancelling it altogether in November.



She subsequently demanded a full refund including her deposit, a request that was denied.

As many as 32 wedding dresses and bridal gowns were reportedly destroyed by the furious customer worth in excess of Rs 8 lakh.



For more from trending, click here.


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Its more commonly associated with Iceland, the land of fire and ice, but advances in technology mean that geothermal energy can now be used in non-volcanic regions, such as Ireland.

A new Government report suggests geothermal could have significant potential for Irish farms, in processes such as heating and cooling buildings, and possibly even to produce electricity.

Geothermal energy is the term used to describe the heat beneath the surface of solid earth. It can be stored heat from the sun, or heat from the earths core.

This type of energy has been used for a long time in volcanic regions, such as Iceland, Italy, and New Zealand.

However, recent developments have opened up the possibility for the technology to also be used in non-volcanic parts of the world, for example, its application for horticultural growing in the Netherlands.

The technology could be revolutionary for sectors such as dairy, which uses large amounts of energy to heat and cool milk through the production process, and also horticulture.

The geothermal potential of Ireland is not yet fully understood, with the Governments draft policy statement on geothermal energy for a circular economy saying more research is needed.

However, it could have significant environmental gains for Irish farming and the agri-food sector should it be found to be viable here.

Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications Eamon Ryan said geothermal energy is not only renewable, it is also secure, reliable, and local and has the potential to play a significant role in Irelands transition to a carbon-neutral and circular economy.

Very low enthalpy (the measure of heat content) shallow geothermal resources exist all over the country within a few hundred metres of the surface and can be used alongside a ground-source heat pump to heat and cool buildings.

Enthalpy can be split into low, mid, or high categories.

Beneath Irelands surface, low (30C to 80C) to mid (80C to 120C) enthalpy resources exist, but require deep drilling  up to 5km of drilling may be required for the higher end of the mid category.

It might not be as hot as the geezers of Iceland, but even our somewhat cooler geothermal resources could have significant potential for farming.

Dairy processing

Overseas, shallow geothermal resources have been used for aquaculture, such as in Huka Prawn Park, Taupo, New Zealand, and for soil warming.

Low enthalpy geothermal heating can be used effectively in traditionally energy-intensive horticultural operations, such as heating greenhouses to grow fruit, vegetables, and flowers, like in Slovenia and the Netherlands.

Low and mid enthalpy geothermal resources can also be used to dry agricultural products, such as tomatoes, chillies, rice, cotton, and timber.

The draft policy statement on geothermal energy for a circular economy proposes that Irish geothermal resources could be used to increase the proportion of energy coming from renewable sources in agriculture, in particular, increasing the share of renewable heat in dairy farming.

Dairy processing requires large amounts of energy, and Teagasc notes that milk cooling, water heating, and vacuum pumps account for the biggest proportion of energy use on Irish dairy farms.

Milk cooling is the biggest driver of energy consumption on dairy farms, using 31% of the total amount, followed by water heating at 23% and the milking machine at 20%.

Geothermal energy has been successfully used for processes such as milk pasteurisation in Oregon and cheese maturation and storage in Italy.

With this potential in mind, Mr Ryan has launched a public consultation on the draft policy statement, open until March 1, to gather the views of the public and key stakeholders.

Mr Ryan has described this draft as an important step in addressing the barriers to the development of geothermal energy in Ireland.

The final policy statement will outline the regulatory framework and be a base for further work in data collection on Irelands geothermal resources.

According to the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, 38% of all energy consumption in Ireland is used for heat.

Oil, gas, and solid fuels are still the primary means for heat generation.

In 2020, the agriculture and fisheries sector accounted for 2% of the total share of energy consumption in Ireland.

This subsectors share of energy for heat made up 4% of the total in 2020, while making up 2% of the demand for energy for electricity.

The last two decades have seen Ireland shift from an oil dominance for heating to near parity between oil and gas for heat supply.

The largest and most consistent reduction in oil use for heat has come from the industry sector, with the agriculture and services sectors seeing smaller reductions.

According to Teagasc, farm businesses are under increasing pressure to become more energy efficient.

Barry Caslin, Teagasc energy and rural development specialist, said that, for these units, both air and ground-source heat pumps can be a good source of heat, and also for some horticultural operations.

However, some agricultural sectors will have more needs than others.

Lee Carroll, head of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Irelands energy statistics team, said that cattle and sheep farms have little to no heating demand.

Dairy farms require energy for heating water in milking parlours and to cool and refrigerate milk, said Mr Carroll.

However, the amounts per farm are relatively small. The main requirements for heating in agriculture are likely to be in the large poultry and pig producers.

Case Study: What lies beneath is part of the solution for New Zealand dairy

Established in 2011 by a group of Maori organisations in New Zealands North Island, Miraka dairy factory is located within the Taupo Volcanic Zone, an area of geothermal activity.

This extends from the active volcanoes of the central North Island to the Pacific Ocean, encompassing Lake Taupo and Rotorua.

The factory was built on a geothermal field, adjacent to a geothermal power station.

Geothermal energy was a key part of the founders vision  to build a business based on the Maori concept of Kaitiakitanga, which means guardianship of the environment, a spokesperson for Miraka explained to the Irish Examiner.

In the same area, there is a cluster of geothermal-related activities, including the dairy plant, power station, heated glasshouse, and a hydrogen generation plant, demonstrating the vast range of potential uses.

The dairy factory, which is supplied by around 100 local farms, processes 300m litres of milk a year, producing about 35,000Mt of dairy powders, and 60m litres of UHT milk.

The facility uses geothermal in two ways. Firstly, geothermal steam is used to produce clean steam through a heat exchanger. This steam is used in heating throughout the plant. Secondly, the dairy factory draws electricity from the geothermal power station. This is used to power the plant.

In 2019/2020, the dairy factory used 273 terajoules of energy, 95% of which was from renewable geothermal energy.

Miraka estimates that its manufacturing carbon emissions, per megatonne of powder product, would be about 15 times higher if it used a combination of a coal-fired boiler and national grid electricity to operate the plant.

In terms of the final consumer product, Miraka said that on-farm emissions still count for the vast majority of the carbon footprint of the dairy product.

However, its geothermal manufacturing, it feels, provides a strong sustainable foundation from which it intends to build a low-carbon food production system, extending from the farm to the consumer.

In Ireland, the geological features are very different.

However, more than 25% of the EU population lives in areas directly suitable for geothermal district heating.

Luca Guglielmetti, senior researcher at the University of Geneva and part-time associate to the International Geothermal Association explained that there has been a wave of geothermal developments focusing on heating and cooling in non-volcanic regions in the last 10 years or so.

There is a lot of potential for geothermal development because non-volcanic regions are the areas where there are the highest population densities and therefore, energy demand, he explained.

Where you have lots of people, you also have lots of people eating, and food production is responsible for about 30% of global emissions and this is huge.

One of the main demands in agri-business is heating and cooling; you can see that there is a match between the configuration of the global energy system and what the food sector needs.

Mr Guglielmetti emphasised geothermal is not the solution, it is part of the solution.

To decarbonise the sector, specifically in areas where its tricky or too expensive to produce electricity with geothermal, you should focus on the heating and cooling, and combine it with other renewables.

In the agriculture sector, biomass can play a big role in producing power. Its great to integrate geothermal in agriculture but at the same time you have to combine it with other renewables to make it fully sustainable.

Mr Guglielmetti said that there is a lack of education about geothermal, and that one of the blockers to integrating it is that capital expenditures are relatively high.

A farmer who already has an entire production framework implemented, and that works, and its cost fluctuates only because of the oil and gas, to integrate geothermal and other renewables they have to make also a technical transition, he said. This is not something that you do overnight, it costs a lot, its difficult.

To boost this in countries that dont have geothermal in the agri-business, we need pilots.

And pilots mean small-scale installations, different types of food products, and projects that cover the entire process from the resource assessment to the fork.

In its 2015 report on the use of geothermal energy in agriculture, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN noted that start-up costs remain the main barrier to developing geothermal energy uses on a larger scale, especially in developing countries.

This makes it more necessary for governments to take a leading role in attracting investment and creating policy environments that support the sector, according to the FAO.

The report notes that geothermal energy is already used in the food and agriculture industries in many countries around the world - but that progress in the area of geothermal development has been slow in most.
Ashling Murphy will be laid to rest on Tuesday morning in Co Offaly.

The funeral mass for the school teacher will take place at 11am at St Brigid's Church in Mountbolus, followed by her burial in Lowertown Cemetery.

Her family have requested family flowers only and for all other funeral events to remain private.

A live stream of Ashling's funeral service will be available at MemorialLane.ie.

Messages of condolences can be left for the family on Lawless Funerals website or on RIP.ie.

Garda probe 'moving at pace'

The unexpected release of a suspect in the murder of Ashling Murphy would not stop or hinder the garda investigation, a retired senior detective has said.

Crowds gathered at the vigil. Vigil in memory of Ashling Murphy, organised by ROSA, at St Patrick's Street, Cork City on Saturday afternoon. Picture: Larry Cummins

Within hours of the release of the man, it emerged that the investigation team had identified a second person they wished to speak to in relation to the fatal assault on the young teacher.

The garda investigation had attracted some criticism on social media after the release of the initial suspect and, of more significance, led to concern and fear among people, particularly women and girls, in Tullamore.

There had been speculation throughout Thursday, and some media reports, that the initial suspect was expected to be charged with a possibility he might be released pending a file to the DPP  and that this would happen sometime early on Friday morning.

Then, just before 11pm on Thursday, came a sudden statement from Garda HQ that not only had the man been released but that he had been eliminated from Garda enquiries and was no longer a suspect.

That arrest had stemmed from descriptions that two eyewitnesses had given to gardai of the man who attacked Ms Murphy on the banks of the Grand Canal in the town.

Members of the public light candles and place flowers on the pavement. Vigil in memory of Ashling Murphy, organised by ROSA, at St Patrick's Street, Cork City on Saturday afternoon. Picture: Larry Cummins

The fact he was the wrong man came as a blow to many in the community.

The impact of that news was definitely fear and unrest for a lot of women, Ann Clarke, manager of Offaly Domestic Violence Support Services told the Irish Examiner.

There was a sense, that yes, there was this vicious crime but the gardai had him. Now, that person had nothing to do with it and the perpetrator was still at large.

There had been indications from gardai during Thursday that the case was still very much open.

Local Superintendent Eamonn Curley said in the morning that while a 40-year-old man had been arrested gardai continue to retain an open mind in this investigation.

Later in the day, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris told media that they were not jumping to assumptions on suspects and were keeping an open mind as to who the suspects might be.

He said they have to follow where the evidence leads, not where their hunches might be.

The Irish Examiner understands that gardai released him after the results of forensic tests came back, comparing his DNA and fingerprints to those found at the scene, which ruled him out.

A retired detective, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Irish Examiner that the decision to arrest is based on a variety of factors  including eyewitness descriptions, whether the suspect has a history of violence, but also how he behaves or what he says when gardai confront him.

We dont know the circumstances they found him or what condition he was in, he said.

People dont know the full details, but gardai would not arrest him unless they had reasonable cause for the arrest. Remember they had good descriptions.

There were some reports that gardai were not satisfied with the mans answers when they asked him about his movements.

Okay they had a suspect in, said the retired detective. Their job is either to remove him out of the investigation or put him in  so they are doing their work. They are satisfied he didnt do it. What do people want?

Crowds on Cork's St Patrick's St this afternoon at a Vigil in memory of Ashling Murphy. Picture: Larry Cummins

If you start worrying about all the armchair detectives out there you are in trouble. You continue your investigation, you know the inside story, you ensure you gather every detail and keep working and working.

He stressed that the investigation team  particularly with senior detectives from the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation involved  would not have put all their eggs in one basket with this suspect.

They will insist that all the work be done, irrespective of a suspect in custody. Its not case that all the focus was on him  okay there were detectives involved in interviews and doing background, but others were doing other work.

All that work is ongoing, but people dont know, all the crap online and on radio about the gardai you have to leave it go over your head.

He pointed out that gardai still had leads to go on, saying they still had a description of the attacker.

It may not have been the man they arrested, but someone else with a similar description, a good description. They also have the bike, this distinctive bike they suspect might be linked to the assailant.

And so, as Friday wore on, it emerged that the investigation had not been impeded by the release of the first suspect.

A second man  described as a person of interest rather than formally a suspect  had been identified and gardai were looking to talk to him.

Things are moving at pace, said one source.
When Naoise Ryan heard the news that the World Food Programme (WFP) had been awarded the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize, she had mixed feelings.

Part of her was pleased. An honour for the UN organisation was also an honour for her husband, Micheal (Mick) Ryan, 39, who was killed with seven colleagues when a Boeing 737 Max crashed six minutes after take-off from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on 10 March 2019, killing all 157 people on board.

Friends and colleagues got in touch to make that point, saying that WFP won the Nobel Peace Prize because it had people like Mick. As WFP deputy executive director, Amir Abdullah, put it: Mick is a UN hero.

At least the Nobel peace prize will remind people how WFP staff lay their lives on the line every single day so that they can bring food and aid to 100 million people around the world.

Mick Ryan, for instance, didnt think twice about volunteering to go to Liberia in 2014 when others baulked at working in a country where ebola was killing thousands of people.

I know I can do something to help, the organisations deputy chief engineer told his wife Naoise who, when suddenly confronted with the prospect of the trip, really feared for his life.

For the first week I was on tenterhooks, but he assured me he wasnt taking any unnecessary risks and I believed him, she says now.

Naoise and Mick Ryan with their daughter Saorlaith, who was a flower-girl at Micks sister Siobhans wedding in Canada in 2016.

She recalls that he extended his planned four-week stint so that he could oversee the building of field hospitals to care for the sick and the dying.

He and his team built 24 hospitals in six weeks. He wasnt one to leave before the job was done.

News of the prize has allowed those memories to flood back, but it has also reignited in Naoise a deep anger about how her husband died, along with all 156 others travelling on board Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 en route from Addis Ababa to Nairobi in Kenya in March 2019.

It is abhorrent, unfathomable, she says. As humanitarian workers, you always fear hostage-taking, landmines, compound attacks but never do you imagine you would lose your life on a Boeing plane supposedly designed and engineered by the best in the world far removed from the traumas of war, conflict, neglect and desperation. Yet Mick and his colleagues were killed on a Boeing Max plane.

The Max planes were certified safe to fly when clearly they were not, she says, quoting a phrase from the damning final report on the Boeing 737 Max released last month after an 18-month investigation.

He had travelled and worked in many dangerous and risky places but it was a piece of software on an aeroplane that was known to be defective, that brought him down, she says.

This was definitely not an accident, she says. It was not an act of God, or the fault of a pilot. It was the direct result of a series of negligent acts within an airplane manufacturing company.

Specifically, these acts appear to be the result of putting profit before peoples lives.

Talk of it brings her back to that March morning when her life was about to change for ever.

Around 7am on March 10, 2019, she sent a picture of Saorlaith (then three) and MacDara (then six months) to Micks phone along with the caption: Good morning Daddy.

She saw that it had sent but had not been delivered. She didnt think any more of it.

Two hours earlier, her husband had boarded a flight on Ethiopian Airlines only Boeing 737 Max jet, along with seven of his colleagues.

He wasnt even supposed to be on it. His next scheduled overseas trip was to Cairo but when he heard several key colleagues from various country offices in the region were gathering in Kenya for a workshop, he thought it was an ideal opportunity to meet them all together.

He had a vision for Africa and how WFP engineering could change the way emergency operations could be handled right across the continent. He wanted to bring everyone on board with this idea, Naoise says.

"He always put people first"

It is poignant beyond words to watch him describe that work himself in a video posted on YouTube where he explains the need to move 700,000 Rohingya refugees camped south of the Bangladeshi city of Coxs Bazar to higher ground ahead of the 2018 monsoon season with its floods and landslides.

They had six months to prepare, Naoise says. It was a massive operation, they hired all available equipment in the region and, more importantly for Mick, they employed some 5,000 refugees to help so that they would feel involved and earn a living.

They felt useful, listened to. Mick told the story of how they were smiling while working and listening to Kylie Minogue on the radio.

Mick Ryan and two World Food Programme colleagues standing on one of the emergency bridges they installed in record time in Coxs Bazaar in Bangladesh to allow access across the camps.

They built a new camp on safe ground in time, saving thousands of lives when the rains came. There wasnt a single death in the new camp, although one little girl died outside the official zone.

I remember him being really upset about that, he always put people first, his wife says.

That brings her back to the thought that others (namely a company long-associated with American ingenuity and technological success, Boeing, and the Federal Aviation Administration) which patently did not put the safety of people first when it came to the Boeing 737 Max, a

finding confirmed in a scathing US congressional report.

That report opens with an almost poetic description of the events of Sunday morning, March 10, 2019: It was a crystal-clear day, but within minutes of takeoff the unthinkable happened: the Boeing 737 Max, a brand new aircraft with 157 passengers and crew members on board, began to dive back towards the ground as the pilots fought to force the planes nose back up toward the sky. The battle did not last long.

Six minutes after takeoff, Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 crashed. The jets impact left a massive crater in a field just a few miles from the airport. Not a single soul survived.

The crash followed a similar fatal crash five months before when, on October 28, a 737 Max, operated by Lion Air in Indonesia, crashed

moments after leaving Jakarta airport, killing all 189 people on board.

Two days after the Ethiopian crash, all 737 Max planes, which were flown by 59 air carriers worldwide, were grounded.

Soon it emerged that there were uncontrolled drops in the aircrafts nose in the moments before both crashes, which investigators later blamed on the aircrafts anti-stall flight system, called the manoeuvring characteristics augmentation system.

Despite following the procedures recommended by Boeing, neither crew was able to regain control.

The worst experience of my entire life

The first indication Naoise had that something was wrong came around 11am on Sunday when she realised that she had a number of missed calls.

A friend then rang her to ask if she had seen news reports that a plane, flying from Addis Ababa to Nairobi, had come down in Africa.

She thought back to the unanswered text earlier that day and got an awful feeling in the pit of her stomach, but kept telling herself that it couldnt be true.

She rang the only person who could give her a definite answer, Dina Jerkovic at WFP headquarters in Rome.

When she started crying, I knew in that moment that it was true, says Naoise.

I knew I had to ring Micks mum and let her know.

Being told that this had happened and then having to tell her and my daughter was the worst experience of my entire life.

Later, when the details of what had happened started to emerge, she began to wonder how passengers must have felt when the plane went into nosedive and they knew, for five or six minutes, that something awful was going to happen.

One man, Paul Njoroge, who lost his wife Carolyne, and their children  three-year-old Ryan, four-year-old Kelli, and nine-month-old Rubi  and his mother-in-law, Ann, cant get those six minutes out of his mind.

A year after the crash, he testified before the US House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and said he was still haunted by the image of his young childrens final moments.

I have nightmares about how they must have clung to their mother, crying, seeing the fright in her eyes as they sat there helplessly, he said. And there was nothing I could do to save them. I miss their laughter, their playfulness, their touch.

Naoise Ryan quotes his testimony because she truly empathises.

I have to live with wondering what Mick went through in those minutes. That is terror; what he went through. He experienced terror on something that should have been a safe, commercial flight.

Rescuers work at the scene of an Ethiopian Airlines flight crash south of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, March 11, 2019. The crash killed 157 people. Picture: AP

At the time of the crash, the Ryan family was getting ready to move to Rome. Naoise, also an engineer, was due to start a job at the World Food Programme too and, she says, in a way, life was only beginning.

Instead, she was plunged into what she describes as a twilight zone. All she had left of Mick, from the time they met at university in 2001 until the last time she saw him, a week before the crash, were photos, videos, and memories.

Then, about seven months after the crash, she heard that a piece of his passport had been located, followed by the deeply unsettling news that DNA analysis had identified remains. She was so angry to find out that her husbands remains had been lying in some building in Addis Ababa all that time and nobody knew.

Also, the thought of a casket coming home was too much to cope with. It made it real, she says.

A fitting gesture

Micks mother Christine and his brother Tiernan travelled to Ethiopia to bring his remains home to his native Lahinch, Co Clare, where he was buried after a memorial service at Lahinch church.

His friends remembered Mick, a keen surfer, by paddling out into

the waves on Lahinch beach. The aides de camps of President Michael D Higgins and then-taoiseach Leo Varadkar were both present. The family thought it a fitting gesture to show the countrys respect for a repatriated UN hero.

What happened in the church during that days memorial service is also worth recalling because it is still relevant today, more than a year later.

Fr Des Forde, Lahinch parish priest, got sustained applause when he said: The tragedy that happened to Mick and the 156 other passengers and the planes have been grounded since, someone must take responsibility for the lack of updating such simple machinery.

Complex and far-reaching

As it turns out, the issues involved in the 737 Max disasters were far more complex and far-reaching than the software that was blamed for sending both planes into nosedives.

However, it has since emerged that Boeings engineers raised concerns about the software as early as 2012 and warned that a delay in responding to its activation could be catastrophic.

Those concerns were never addressed.

However, the Max crashes were not the result of a singular failure, technical mistake, or mismanaged event, according to an 18-month US congressional investigation by the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

Its final report, released last month, was highly critical of both Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration.

The [Max crashes] were the horrific culmination of a series of faulty technical assumptions by Boeings engineers, a lack of transparency on the part of Boeings management, and grossly insufficient oversight by the Federal Aviation Administration, it said.

This is a tragedy that never should have happened. It could have been prevented, said the committees chairman, Peter A DeFazio.

The report also noted that Boeings founder, William Boeing, was known as a stickler for accuracy, facts and quality.

Cruel Irony

With a degree of cruel irony, it includes this passage: Soon after he established his airplane company in 1916, he noticed improperly- cut wooden planks called spruce ribs in his airplane factory and walked all over them until they broke, remarking that he would rather close down his shop than send out inferior work.

His biography states: He believed in details and told his managers that many a wrong decision stemmed from a detail overlooked or incorrectly interpreted.

He might be shocked to see the catalogue of failures outlined in detail in the 238-page report but words cant quite capture the level of shock, anger and disbelief that Naoise Ryan felt when she read page after page describing a culture of concealment at Boeing that ultimately led to the loss of life of hundreds of people.

In a statement on its website, Boeing said it has learnt lessons from the crashes and had started to act on the recommendations of experts and government authorities.

It also said it had made significant governance and operational changes to further sharpen its focus. The reports authors highlight the need to bring forward legislation to ensure that the flaws, mismanagement and lapses dont happen again.

However, as of last month, those laws have not even been drafted yet alone enforced.

Justice and accountability

Now, there is speculation that the Federal Aviation Administration will soon lift its March 2019 grounding order, not least by Irish airline Ryanair which last week said that test flights in the US paved the way for the low-cost carrier to start receiving Max jets, rebranded as 737-8, in early 2021.

There is more, however. The final pages of the US Congressional report reveal that multiple new problems, seemingly unrelated to the two fatal Max crashes, have also surfaced  from software glitches to manufacturing defects and production quality deficiencies  and the authors question Boeings willingness to admit mistakes.

Naoise Ryan, however, wants more than just an admission of mistakes. Over the last 18 months, she has been unable to get satisfactory answers, indeed any answers, from Boeing about the defects discovered in their 737 Max jets or details of how they are being addressed.

What happened in March 2019 happened to me and my family, and to the families of the other victims, but this could happen to anyone, she says.

I want Boeing, and the airlines using their planes, to outline the steps that were, and are, being taken so that people who board a plane in the future know that they are stepping onto an aircraft that has followed the most rigorous safety standards.

Those assurances havent come, yet now there is talk of putting those planes back in the air.

All she wants, she says, is the truth. And accountability.

Mick never gave up on his family or the people he worked for and I, personally, will never give up on this demand for justice and accountability.
This Week in Review

A weekly review of the best and most popular stories published in the Imperial Valley Press. Also, featured upcoming events, new movies at local theaters, the week in photos and much more.
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Its now been more than five months since I recovered from my bout with COVID-19.

I put recovered in quotation marks because, even though I am considered recovered and am well past my infectious period, I dont feel as though I am back to 100%. Honestly, at this point, Im not sure if or when that may happen.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, theres been no shortage of people whove dismissed the seriousness of the virus because it doesnt kill or hospitalize everyone who is infected. While true that the vast majority of people infected with the coronavirus will not die or end up in a hospital, it has killed more than 800,000 in the United States alone, and hospitalized more than 3.7 million people nationwide, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This column, however, is not about the number of people who have died from the virus, or the number of people whove been hospitalized with COVID-19 in the last two years. Its about millions of people who have dealt with, and continue to deal with, lingering symptoms of the virus long after they officially recovered, and its about my experience with lingering symptoms that I attribute to my COVID-19 infection.

By now, surely everyone has heard the term long COVID or COVID long-haulers  essentially people who have symptoms of the virus months after they were originally infected. While theres no shortage of research into the syndrome, it has a wide-range of symptoms and no set definition  it can be mild, as my symptoms are, or it can be debilitating and have life-changing consequences.

Regardless of the severity, its not fun to still be dealing with the fallout from an infection you had nearly half a year ago. I was pretty sick for a week, and did not need to be treated at a hospital or by a physician  but that doesnt mean everything is all sunshine and rainbows for me now five months later. I still have shortness of breath that wont go away and leaves me winded just from walking up stairs sometimes, and the fatigue can be so draining that sometimes I fall asleep in the middle of the day.

In the weeks following my bout with the virus, my symptoms included an elevated heart rate, dizziness and a cough that lasted for weeks. I, on the advice of local health officials, decided to seek treatment at my primary care doctors office a few weeks after I had recovered from the initial infection, where I was tested for blood clots and a few other things and given a steroid to help my lungs recover.

Though I was physically fine, no blood clots or otherwise abnormal test results, it didnt make my symptoms magically go away. I am only 24 years old, and despite being in relatively good health, have not fully recovered from what many would consider a mild infection. My girlfriend also hasnt fully regained her sense of taste and smell, which she says is distorted now.

While the focus largely (and rightfully) is on the number of people being admitted to hospitals and straining our health care system and the number of people dying, its important to recognize recovering from COVID-19 is not black and white where you either recover completely immediately or you dont survive it.

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I spoke with Dr. Paul Jett, who leads Ballad Healths Center for Post-COVID Care, who said theres a lot about the syndrome doctors do not yet understand, but stressed the importance of people dealing with long-term issues addressing it with their doctors.

This virus is attacking the body in a lot of different ways, and were still learning, said Jett. Even though everyones got COVID fatigue and weve been dealing with this for a long time, were still learning every day about this virus and what its impacts are long-term.

Since the Center for Post-COVID Care was established last April, it has treated 240 patients. Jett said many patients are experiencing symptoms like joint pain and shortness of breath, and said some even experience post-traumatic stress disorder, noting were still in the infantile stages of this.

There is a big gray area between a mortality and getting off scot-free, Jett said.

My hope through sharing my experiences with the virus, both from when I initially had it and now, is that people will come to realize that it is not always an illness that makes you feel ill for a few days and then youre back to normal. That may be the case for some, and that is fantastic, but not for everyone. Some people will have moderate sickness and have to deal with the long-term effects of the virus, some will end up hospitalized and some will not survive.

I cannot even begin to count how many times I have quoted or written about experts talking about the effectiveness and the safety of the vaccine. It is, without a doubt, the best tool we have to fight the spread of the virus and the best way to protect our community. But if you wont or cannot get vaccinated, there are still ways to keep your community safe by quarantining yourself if youre feeling sick at all, by getting tested and by wearing a mask.

Dont be the reason somebody has to plan a funeral for their loved one, or the reason why another person has to suffer with the long-term consequences of their illness.

If you would like to learn more about Ballad Healths Center for Post-COVID Care, visit https://bit.ly/3qnXlzG or email postcovid@balladhealth.org for more information. Researchers at East Tennessee State University are also looking to study individuals experiencing long-haul COVID-19 symptoms. Those interested in participating can call (423) 430-2443.

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Tonight

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Partly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High near 85F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph.
Manufacturing managers and analysts have warned that Chinas fight to contain Omicron variants could stifle an already stretched global supply chain, threatening the production of everything from smartphones to furniture.

Beijing is determined to stem any large-scale spread of Covid-19, especially as it prepares to host the Winter Olympics next month, and has imposed restrictions to maintain its zero-coronavirus strategy.

Lockdown of Central City Xian will enter its third week, forcing some 13 million people to stay in in their home.Restrictions such as mandatory testing are already in place Tianjin, a 14m port city about 100km from Beijing, located in several cities in Henan Province, with the worlds largest iPhone factory operated in Taiwan Foxconn, as well as parts of Zhongshan and Zhuhai close to Hong Kongs manufacturing hubs.

These measures are a test of multinationals and whether they are better equipped to respond interrupt Their manufacturing capacity compared to during the first wave of the pandemic.

Ambrose Conroy, chief executive of U.S.-based supply chain consultancy Seraph, said: With Covid-19, the Lunar New Year holidays and the Olympics, we could see a perfect storm. Companies are now better prepared for short-term shutdowns, but wider ones in a few weeks will wreak havoc.

A blockade at the southern Chinese manufacturing hub will be worse than in 2020, said an executive at a Taiwanese manufacturer in Shenzhen.

After the virus spread from Wuhan to various parts of China during the Lunar New Year holiday two years ago, the government blocked Shipping across large areas of the country.These restrictions prevent hundreds of millions of immigrants Worker Those returning to work after a holiday trip. Factories were ordered to close for weeks.

Im more worried this time around, because supply chains around the world are already very strained: there have been long delays in transport and parts shortages remain, said Didier Chennevo, an expert partner at consulting firm McKinsey & Company.

The latest restrictions have given multinationals a taste of the risk. Automakers Volkswagen and Toyota both closed their factories in Tianjin last week. In Xian, chip maker Samsung has struggled to get employees to work because of the lockdown.

Toyota suffered huge losses Supply Chain Disruption in Southeast Asia Last year, the company said the closure of its Tianjin joint venture plant was unlikely to have a global impact on our supply, as localisation has made great strides.

But the infection could spread further. Ningbo, which has the worlds third-largest container port, has reported infections and banned lorries from entering, exacerbating congestion on ships.

Some managers believe that Beijing is focusing on preventing any risk to the Winter Olympics, which would protect sites near the capital from the risk of a full-blown Omicron crisis.

Of course, if youre blocked, youre out of luck, the Taiwanese executive said. But the authorities focus on places like Tianjin also means theyll do everything they can to help you manage.

Samsung Electro-Mechanics, a component maker with a factory in Tianjin, has been told by the local government to keep workers from leaving the city during the New Year holiday to avoid the risk of infection.

These are meaningful precautions. Here, we are underprepared, said the Taiwanese executive, whose company is under pressure to send workers home for the holiday after they have twice missed their annual trip.

Students wearing personal protective equipment arrive in Ningbo to take exams, where lorries are restricted from entering the citys port after the Omicron case was detected  AFP via Getty Images



If the infection spreads, manufacturers will be hit as hard as they were two years ago, as few companies have moved much of their supply chains outside of China, analysts said.

Has anyone really de-risked their supply chain? Have they moved their production back to onshore or nearshore at scale in Asia? The answer is no, because these things take a long time, Chenneveau said.

A McKinsey study found that only 60% of respondents increased critical inventory and only half increased double purchasing.

Mitsubishi Electric is building a platform to share database information on parts shortages with suppliers, but that platform will be completed by 2025.

Virus-induced shutdowns in other economies have actually increased job losses in many industries rely China, at least in the short term.

A typical example is the production of multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs), which are components used to store energy, used in any product that has an electrical circuit. Nearly half of the worlds MLCC production capacity is in China, according to research firm Trendforce.

admired

Forrest Chen, an analyst at Trendforce MLCC, said: MLCCs are always in shortage anyway, and usually each factory specializes in a unique product, so when one factory shuts down, there is no other factory to back up.

Japanese MLCC maker Murata is building a new factory in Thailand to reduce excessive concentration in China. But the company has also started making some products at its factory in the eastern Chinese city of Wuxi, after it was forced to close its Japanese factory that specialized in making them.

Everyone is trying to establish a second supplier in China. This includes finding alternative sources to buy components and identifying locations in their own factories that can serve as backups, said a consultant who works with electronics companies.

But these arrangements are far from enough. It will take three to five years to achieve geographic diversification, Chen said.

Additional reporting by Wang Xueqiao in Shanghai
Part-time law students are often forced to battle the misguided assumption, both before and after graduation, that theyre merely dabbling in the legal profession, according to law school faculty and former students.

Youd be surprised by how many part-time students go to law school looking for the full experience, Vania Smith, a 2020 graduate of The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law, said during a panel discussion Friday presented as part of the American Association of Law Schools (AALS) 2022 annual meeting.
Law firms rarely acknowledge the tension underlining any lateral attorney move. But Eric Lenzens move from Husch Blackwell to Am Law 200 firm Dykema, as part of a wider expansion into Milwaukee announced Monday, is a rare exception.

In a statement to Law.com, Husch said it fired Lenzen, a corporate partner, in summer 2021 after learning about what it deemed highly irregular activity. Nonetheless, Husch said, Lenzen actively encouraged the firms Milwaukee lawyers to join another firm with him.
KU has seen a decrease in COVID-19 cases in the past two weeks, with a test positivity rate of 8.59%.
Lawrence Memorial Hospital sent out a community update on Jan. 14, highlighting the rise of COVID-19 in the Lawrence area. KU students are advised to take precautions, in order to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Joan and Robert McGinley of Kenosha will mark their 60th wedding anniversary on Jan. 27. A spring family trip to mark the occasion is planned.

Bob McGinley met Joan Slazes at the courthouse, where Bob was employed. Joan was a legal secretary who made frequent trips there. Bob says, We met on the courthouse steps and the rest is history.

They were married on Jan. 27, 1962, at St. Peter Church in Kenosha.

The couple have three children: Kathleen (Tim) Carney of Kenosha; Patricia (John) Dolnik, of Pleasant Prairie; and Mary (Mark )Albrecht, of Brookfield. They have nine grandchildren.

Bob worked for Kenosha County, Kenosha Abstract and Title Company, and retired from the Kenosha County Assessors Office in 1995. Joan worked for Hammond & Tennessen Law Firm, Equitable Life Assurance Society and retired from the Kenosha County Veterans Service Office in 1995.

Bob served in the U.S. Army from 1954-1957, assigned to the Army Security Agency stationed in Germany.

They are members of St. Peter Church, and are fans of the Packers, Badgers, Cubs and Brewers.

Their advice for a successful and lasting relationship? Our faith, a loving family and good friends have all contributed to our successful and lasting relationship.

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Kilgore, TX (75662)

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Generally cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 78F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph..

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All hostages out and safe at Texas synagogue, governor says
Democratic Party of Korea presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung greets citizens in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province, Jan. 15. Yonhap



Ruling party presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung said Sunday he would seek a "de facto state" of inter-Korean unification if he gains power, based on coexistence and mutual prosperity in a "short-term and realistic goal."



Lee of the liberal Democratic Party of Korea made the remark during a visit to the border county of Goseong, 466 kilometers northeast of Seoul, after a reporter pointed out he had made no mention of unification in his campaign pledges in Gangwon Province, where Goseong is located.



"For lasting peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, of course it is right to aim for unification as stipulated in the Constitution," he said at an observatory overlooking North Korea.



However, he added, "In the current state, the possibility of directly pursuing unification as a short-term task is realistically very weak."



Lee continued that the "correct" way to go about the issue would be to set a short-term goal of reaching a "state that is practically no different from unification" by aiming for coexistence and mutual prosperity through increased inter-Korean communication and exchanges.



"Rather than setting unification as a direct short-term goal, getting to a realizable, de facto state of unification, a state that is the same as having achieved unification, is essentially the path to reaching the unification stipulated by the Constitution," he said.



Lee noted that there have been calls to rename the Ministry of Unification as the Inter-Korean Cooperation Ministry or the Peace Cooperation Ministry to reflect that short-term goal, and added he is looking into the proposal.



Earlier during the visit, Lee vowed to resume tourism to North Korea's Mount Geumgang as soon as possible if elected in March, referring to a program that was suspended in 2008 following the shooting death of a South Korean tourist there by a North Korean guard.



Lee also pledged to establish a special international tourism zone straddling the border and push for an ecotourism program inside the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas.



"Starting with exchanges in nonpolitical areas, such as tourism and sports, I will pursue inter-Korean coexistence through practical North Korea policies that benefit both the South and the North," he said.



Lee presented a vision for turning Gangwon Province into a northern economic hub by reconnecting inter-Korean railroads and roads.



In a separate note posted on Facebook, he promised to take tough measures against Japan's planned release of radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant.



Specifically, he said he will introduce a safety control system to completely block imports of fisheries products contaminated by radioactive water and toughen inspections of local fisheries goods.



"Japan is forging ahead with its plan to release contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant despite widespread concern and opposition," Lee wrote.



He added, "Japan's plan, which omits the process of information disclosure and verification, will serve as a major obstacle to building future-oriented relations between South Korea and Japan, following the historical and territorial issues." (Yonhap)


President Moon Jae-in and first lady Kim Jung-sook arrive in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Jan. 15. Yonhap



President Moon Jae-in arrived in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Saturday for talks with UAE leaders, as South Korea seeks to explore business opportunities with the Middle East nation in the fields of hydrogen, space and other sectors.



On Sunday, Moon will attend a bilateral business roundtable on cooperation in the hydrogen industry, during which he plans to ask the UAE to help Korean firms make inroads into its hydrogen sector.



Also scheduled for Sunday are a visit to a "Day of Korea" ceremony at the Expo 2020 Dubai and a meeting with the country's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.



During the talks, Moon and the UAE prime minister plan to discuss ways to expand cooperation in infrastructure, efforts to tackle climate change and space. The two leaders will also discuss Korea's bid to host the 2030 Expo.



In Dubai, Moon will step up South Korea's campaign to host the Expo in the nation's southeastern port city of Busan.



The following day, Moon plans to deliver a keynote address on carbon neutrality at the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week and attend a summit with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan on ways to deepen bilateral cooperation over climate change, national security and defense, and public health.



In October last year, South Korea and the UAE announced that they will launch official talks toward a bilateral free trade agreement. The UAE is Korea's top export market in the Middle East and its biggest partner in human resource exchanges in the region.



South Korea has previously said it is pushing to sell its mid-range surface-to-air missiles known as M-SAM to the UAE.





President Moon Jae-in presides over a meeting on the presidential jet, Jan. 15. Yonhap
President Moon Jae-in speaks during the Korea-UAE Business Roundtable on Hydrogen Partnership at the Habtoor Palace Hotel in Dubai, Sunday. Yonhap



By Nam Hyun-woo



DUBAI  Korea and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will strengthen their bilateral partnership in transitioning to a hydrogen economy. Korea's strength in hydrogen vehicles and fuel-cell industries and the UAE's potential to produce clean hydrogen will create a synergy, President Moon Jae-in said Sunday.



Moon made the remarks during a business roundtable between Korean and UAE companies involved in the hydrogen value chain. It was the first official event of Moon's eight-day trip to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.



"The hydrogen industry is key to carbon neutrality," Moon said during the event. "Though it is not an easy way to go, if Korea and the UAE cooperate to scale up the hydrogen industry together, we will be able to see new opportunities amid challenges."






President Moon Jae-in and his wife Kim Jung-sook arrive at Dubai International Airport, Saturday (local time), on the first stop of his eight-day trip to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Yonhap



Korea seeks to bolster ties with Middle East



By Nam Hyun-woo



DUBAI  President Moon Jae-in has kicked off a tough campaign to promote Busan as the host city of World Expo 2030, spending a significant portion of his eight-day trip to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and Egypt to attend events related to Expo 2020 Dubai.



Moon arrived in Dubai on Saturday (local time) and will pay a visit to a "Korea National Day" ceremony at the Korea Pavilion during Expo 2020 Dubai, Sunday, where he plans to highlight Korea's exhibition and Busan's bid to host the 2030 event.



After the ceremony, Moon will hold a meeting with UAE Prime Minister and ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, and attend a K-pop concert on the sidelines of the expo. Moon will also attend Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week's Opening Ceremony and the Zayed Sustainability Prize awards ceremony at the expo venue, on Monday, to deliver a keynote speech on Korea's efforts on sustainability.



During his three-day stay in the UAE, Moon will spend two days on expo-related events, showing that the President is striving to promote Busan as the host city of World Expo 2030.











Korea Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai / Courtesy of Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency



Of the four types of expos authorized by the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), the biggest events are the World Expos, taking place every five years with no limits on the size of the exhibition. Busan anticipates the event will create more than 500,000 jobs and economic effects worth 61 trillion won ($51.26 billion).



Moon's visit to the Korea pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai came at a crucial time because Busan faces tough competition with other cities seeking to host the lucrative event. Along with Busan, Russia's Moscow, Italy's Rome, Ukraine's Odesa and Saudi Arabia's Riyadh have submitted their bids to the BIE.



Last year, Busan proposed to hold the event from May 1 to Oct. 31, 2030, under the theme of "Transforming Our World, Navigating Toward a Better Future." Following the first presentation session on Dec. 14, the city will submit a detailed candidature dossier as early as May and the organizers will assess the feasibility and viability of each candidature project throughout this year.



After four additional presentations, BIE member countries will elect the host in November 2023 during a General Assembly, on the principle of one country, one vote.



So far, Busan is assumed to be an underdog, with Moscow and Riyadh taking the lead. Russia is taking advantage of its diplomatic leverage to host the event, with President Vladimir Putin aggressively expressing his hope for countries to support Moscow's bid during his summit with Greece. Kyrgyzstan has also expressed its support for Moscow's bid.



Saudi Arabia, which launched its bid just before the BIE entry was closed in October last year, is also making an aggressive pitch, under the lead of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The UAE has already expressed its support for Saudi Arabia, with the Dubai ruler tweeting: "We will give our brothers access to the knowledge and experience we gained throughout seven years of preparation for the Expo."





President Moon Jae-in and first lady Kim Jung-sook attend the "Day of Korea" ceremony, an event promoting Korean culture, at Al Wasl Plaza at Expo 2020 Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, Sunday (local time). Yonhap
By Kim Won-soo





The new year has started with the COVID-19 pandemic still hanging over our heads. On top of that, clouds of hyper-uncertainty are gathering over the global security horizon.



I think three big trends are behind this hyper-uncertainty. The first is the great disruption. The pandemic has wreaked havoc on every aspect of human life, particularly economic and social. The pandemic's overall impact is estimated to be worse than that of the great recession caused by the 2007 global financial crisis. The longer the pandemic continues, the worse its repercussions will become, raising the specter of the Great Depression of the 1930s.



The second is the great division. Competition is intensifying between the two most powerful states in the world, the United States and China. It started with trade and then moved to technology. Soon it is likely to spill over to finance and security. Furthermore, confrontation persists over China's human rights issues. The growing competition and confrontation will cause a structural disconnect between the two great powers. This great division will increasingly force the rest of the world to choose between the two sides.



The third is the great transformation. Digital and other emerging technologies are driving fundamental changes in how we work as well as how we receive education and medical care, and the pandemic is accelerating these changes. The current paradigm of industrial civilization based on market capitalism and liberal democracy is showing signs of fatigue, no longer able to cope with serious side effects like inequality.



Some experts call this fundamental paradigmatic transformation the Fourth Industrial Revolution. But others including myself think it may herald the beginning of a new civilization whose nomenclature is perhaps too early to determine. I tentatively call it a digital civilization. Envisioning a new paradigm for a new civilization will not be easy, given the existing value divide between the West led by the U.S. and the former East led by China and Russia.



Understanding and responding effectively to this trinity of trends will take robust global leadership. But the reality indicates the opposite, as the U.S. and China are increasingly preoccupied with mutual competition rather than providing leadership for the world. The declining global leadership engenders the hyper-uncertainty and sets a somber tone for the global security landscape of 2022 and beyond. Here are some salient points that I would like to highlight.



Firstly, this hyper-uncertainty will lead to rising tensions in the East and South China seas, particularly across the Taiwan Strait, a major fault line between the U.S. and China. Tension is likely to prolong, as neither the U.S. nor China can afford to be seen as weak vis-a-vis the other in the run-up to some of the most important political events slated for this year. President Xi is expected to get an unprecedented third term at the October party congress.



President Biden's Democratic Party is facing mid-term elections in November, which will serve as a confidence vote on his presidency. Tense U.S.-China relations will keep the regional states nervous, as they try to maintain close political and economic relations with both the U.S. and China.



Secondly, an arc of instability may emerge in weak spots in South Asia, the Middle East, the Caucasus and Eastern Europe. The main cause for instability in these regions is the perceived retreat of the U.S., as seen recently in the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. A power vacuum created by the U.S. retreat will likely embolden both states and non-state actors that have irredentist, religious or other violent extremist agendas. The ongoing saga in and around eastern Ukraine needs to be seen in this context, and therefore, we can assume it will most likely linger on.



Thirdly, global risks of inadvertent escalation of conflicts are rising. A source of particular concern is the growing possibility of terrorists acquiring weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and using them for mass disruption. While emerging cyber and bio-engineering technologies bring positive benefits for human life, they lower the entry barrier to biochemical weapons for malicious actors.



A WMD terrorist attack against a major power could trigger a rush retaliation by the attacked major power, which in turn could spark a series of misunderstandings and possibly an unintended armed conflict among major powers. To prevent this risk, therefore, it is an urgent priority for the major powers to set up a credible crisis management mechanism.?They also need to resume and expand the earlier cooperative work done through the Nuclear Security Summit process under the Obama administration of the U.S.



Last but not least, what do these troubling trends of hyper-uncertainty and instability mean for South Korea? Given the complexity and volatility in and around the Korean Peninsula, South Korea has no other choice but to prepare for the worst and work for the best simultaneously. It is possible that North Korea may attempt ill-advised provocations around the South Korean presidential election in March.



South Korea must work in advance with its allies and partners to conduct scenario-based planning to prepare for different types of contingencies. Proactive measures for deterrence and diplomacy also need to be in place to further lower the risks. These preparations must be done with the fluid global and regional security landscape in view.





Kim Won-soo (wsk4321@gmail.com) is the former under secretary-general of the United Nations and the high representative for disarmament. As a Korean diplomat, he served as foreign affairs secretary for the South Korean president. He is now the chair of the international advisory board of the Future Consensus Institute (Yeosijae) and a member of the Group of Eminent Persons for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBTO).


Kendallville, IN (46755)

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Variable clouds with scattered thunderstorms. High 61F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%..

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Rain showers this evening with overcast skies overnight. Low around 45F. Winds N at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 60%.
Posted by Liam on at 08:05 AM CST



The name of the planet Coruscant originated in Timothy Zahns novel Heir to the Empire from 1991 and later used in the Dark Empire comic the same year.







from 1991 and later used in the comic the same year. The opening crawl teases that there are Heroes on Both Sides- this is also the name of an episode in Star Wars: The Clone Warss third season that introduces Ashokas love interest Lux Bonteri.







third season that introduces Ashokas love interest Lux Bonteri. When Anakin and Obi-Wan return with Palpatine to safety and greet the Senators, there is a brief cameo by the Millenium Falcon flying in the background. This is explored more heavily in the Expanded Universe novel that is aptly titled Millenium Falcon.







Despite having only a brief cameo at the end of that same meeting and later at Padmes funeral, there is more footage of Jar Jar Binks that was left on the cutting room floor. Ahmed Best revealed that there was a scene where Jar Jar is accepted and even thanked by Palpatine for his help in gaining emergency powers to begin the war.







Although the Battle of Coruscant features some of the most groundbreaking visual effects in the entire saga, Revenge of the Sith is surprisingly the only live-action Star Wars film to not receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects. Lucasfilm also launched an unsuccessful campaign to see Ian McDiarmid nominated for Best Supporting Actor.







is surprisingly the only live-action Star Wars film to not receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects. Lucasfilm also launched an unsuccessful campaign to see Ian McDiarmid nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Anakins line his fate will be the same as ours is particularly ominous, as both he, Palpatine, and Obi-Wan are all killed on a Death Star.







Coruscant makes its first appearance in live-action with the 1997 Special Edition of Return of the Jedi that includes celebrations being held throughout the galaxy.







that includes celebrations being held throughout the galaxy. Coruscant is invaded by the Yuuzhan Vong in The New Jedi Order novel series and overtaken in the novel Star by Star . The New Republic transitions into becoming the Galactic Alliance and forms a pact to rebuild the planet with the Yuuzhan Vong Empire.







. The New Republic transitions into becoming the Galactic Alliance and forms a pact to rebuild the planet with the Yuuzhan Vong Empire. Theres a canonical discrepancy detailing the fate of Coruscant in Legends post- Return of the Jedi material. While some of the biological elements of the Yuuzhan Vong union are still present within the Star Wars: Legacy comics, the Legacy of the Force and Fate of the Jedi series reveal they have already been cleared out.







material. While some of the biological elements of the Yuuzhan Vong union are still present within the comics, the and series reveal they have already been cleared out. Cade Skywalker and his allies return to overtake Coruscant from Darth Krayts Sith Empire in the Star Wars: Legacy - War comic miniseries.

Hey there,fans! This week on the site were diving into the Battle of Coruscant that beginsand teases the end of the Clone Wars. Make sure to check out our  Expand Your Mind  article first to read about why it's such a critical sequence within thesaga, but stay tuned throughout the week for more articles, insights, video content, and information about the best merchandising opportunities.The Battle of Coruscant is teased within the opening crawl of Revenge of the Sith and puts fans right in the middle of the action. Not only have the Separatists launched an invasion on the galactic capital itself, but the enigmatic new villain General Greivous has kidnapped Chancellor Palpatine. Both the animated series Star Wars: Clone Wars and the novel Labyrinth of Evil gave more insights on the battle on the surface.Check out our Force Facts on Episode IIIs action-packed opening!What do you think,fans? Do you know any Force Facts of your own? What are some of your favorite figures and merchandise inspired by this sequence? Let us know in the forums , and as always, may the Force be with you!Check out Rebelscum.com merch!Be sure to follow us on all of our social media platforms:
Auburn, IN (46706)

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A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.
UPDATE JAN. 19 AT 4:09 PM

The Billings Police Department (BPD) has shared more information on a shooting involving an off-duty officer over the weekend.

According to the update, the suspect with the firearm who was later involved in a crash on Grand Ave. has been identified as a 24-year-old man from Billings.

He is expected to survive the injuries he sustained in the crash.

The off-duty officer involved in the incident has been identified as Matt Frank, a 9-year veteran of the department.

At this time Frank has been placed on administrative leave pending internal review, per standard procedure following a critical incident.

The investigation is being turned over to the Montana Department of Criminal Investigation for follow-up and further investigation.

In regards to the firearm, BPD says investigators have yet to confirm if the gun was ever fired during the incident as well as all of the circumstances surrounding the disturbance from beginning to end.

No arrests or charges have been made as of 4:00 pm Wednesday.

BILLINGS, Mont. - An off-duty Yellowstone County Deputy was injured in a shooting at the Grandstand Casino in Billings early Saturday morning.

During a press conference Saturday, Billings Police Chief, Rich St. John, said a group of off-duty officers were socializing at the casino.

Around 12:45 am, an officer with the Billings Police Department and a Yellowstone County Deputy, along with a civilian, left the casino and were talking in the parking lot.

Shortly after, a maroon Chevy Malibu with two people inside entered the parking lot, stopped near the group and exchanged words before the driver brandished a handgun.

Chief St. John says the officer and deputy reached into the car to try and get the weapon, while the civilian went to the passenger side of the car and got the second person out before trying to control the gun from the other side.

During the struggle, it was reported the driver fired one shot, and that the deputy was hit in the face with what is currently believed to be a bullet fragment.

The deputy reeled back, and believing he was shot, the officer and civilian continued to struggle with the driver for the gun.

A few seconds later, the driver accelerated the car, dragging the officer on the drivers side and the civilian who was partially in the passenger side

Both were able to free themselves before the vehicle left the parking lot.

After seeing the incident, one officer called 9-1-1 to report a deputy had been shot, and the officers inside left the building to give aid to those involved.

While aid was being rendered, the suspect came back and drove through the parking lot.

Chief St. John reported officers thought they would be fired at, and retreated back inside the casino.

As the suspect left the parking lot and onto Grand Ave., responding on-duty officers arrived.

Officers tried to stop the suspect, however, he then fled west on Grand Ave. and drove at speeds over 60 miles per hour.

The suspect eventually lost control of the vehicle at the 1200 block of Grand Ave., slid sideways, rolled and struck a light pole in front of Albertsons.

The driver suffered serious injuries and was taken to the hospital for care.

The handgun was also recovered from the wreckage near the suspect.

At this time, the shooting is being investigated by the Billings Police Departments Detective Divison along with the Montana Department of Criminal Investigation, who will assume the lead on this case.

Chief St. John says the agencies will conduct very thorough investigations, and that when complete, all parties involved will consult with the Yellowstone County Attorneys Office for any possible charges.

The off-duty officer was uninjured, and the civilian involved suffered minor injures. No on-duty officers were injured.

Yellowstone County Sheriff Mike Linder says he spoke with the deputy involved, and that he is doing well and is expected to return to work right away.

This is a critical incident for both of our departments, and administrative review is pending, Chief St. John said. If anything changes, media will be notified.

More details on the incident are expected to be released in the coming days.

Previous coverage:

BILLINGS, Mont. - An investigation was launched after an early morning shooting at the Grandstand Casino that left a man injured.

Officers on scene tried to apprehend a suspect who fled in a vehicle and crashed in the 1200 block of Grand Ave.

The victim, a man in his 40s, sustained a gunshot wound and was taken to the hospital.

Billings Police will be holding a press conference Saturday afternoon to release more information on this incident.

This is a developing story, please check back for updates.
FILE - In this Feb. 4, 2007, file photo, Prince performs during the halftime show at the Super Bowl XLI football game in Miami.
Hundreds of migrants set off from Honduras toward US border
Are cloth masks good at preventing the spread of the novel coronavirus? Only kind of, according to the experts.

Are more high-quality, medical-grade N95 masks going to be made available? Maybe. President Joe Biden's administration is expected to announce a plan to get more of them in the hands of the public sometime this upcoming week. That's already too late in the eyes of some Democrats.

What's the Biden administration doing to combat COVID-19 surges? Facing mounting criticism for a perceived lack of action, the White House has announced new efforts to get more tests in the hands of Americans.

What about understaffed medical facilities? The military is being called in in some places.

Tests

Starting Wednesday, Jan. 19, Americans can go to a federal website to request delivery of free rapid-COVID-19 tests to their homes, according to the White House.

The launch of covidtests.gov is an attempt to remedy nationwide shortages, but tests will be limited to four per home, the White House said Friday.

Last month, amid growing criticism of his administrations pandemic response and as tests became harder to obtain, Biden announced a plan to purchase 500 million at-home tests. This week, he announced that the administration will double that number to 1 billion in a longer-term commitment to make testing more available.

Staffing

Biden acknowledged Thursday that were all frustrated with the ongoing pandemic as he announced additional federal support to help Americans navigate the omicron wave.

The military is deploying medical personnel to reinforce strained hospitals, following through on a plan that Biden outlined last month.

On Thursday, Gov. Tony Evers announced that Wisconsin National Guard members were being dispatched to work at nursing homes to care for residents and free up beds at overwhelmed hospitals.

Through a partnership with Madison Area Technical College, Guard members are receiving accelerated training as certified nursing assistants. About 50 Guard members started working at six nursing homes last week week, with another 80 expected to join in by the end of the month and 80 more in February, Evers said.

The influx should allow nursing homes to open 200 more beds for residents by the end of February, Evers said. That will help hospitals, where administrators have said they cant discharge some patients who are ready to leave because nursing homes havent enough staff to accept them.

Masks

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revised earlier guidelines that had discouraged the use of N95 masks, the gold standard in masks, in new guidance published Friday. The agency had earlier suggested reserving such masks for medical personnel.

U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., is among more than 50 Democrats in Congress to back a proposal that would send an N95 mask to every American.

Since the beginning of this pandemic Ive been calling on the U.S. government to increase the national production of the medical supplies we need to fight this public health crisis. I have long supported unlocking the full power of the Defense Production Act to scale up production of Made in America personal protective equipment and medical supplies, including N95 masks, Baldwin said in a statement. As Americans are urged to upgrade the quality of the masks they wear, I want to make sure everyone has access to an American-made N95 mask, and this legislation will help make that happen and save lives.

According to the FDA: "An N95 respirator is a respiratory protective device designed to achieve a very close facial fit and very efficient filtration of airborne particles  the edges of the respirator are designed to form a seal around the nose and mouth," and is form-fitting, unlike loose-fitting surgical masks that are more readily available and typically seen worn by hospital staff before and during the pandemic.

The proposal has been spearheaded by progressive U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

"Not all face masks are created equal," Sanders said in a statement. "Congress must demand the mass production and distribution of N95 masks, one of the most effective ways to stop the spread of the COVID virus. It is an absolute scandal that in the richest country in the history of the world, high-quality masks are not more readily available to frontline workers, health care workers, and all Americans. We are proposing that we do what our public health experts and scientists say we must do: provide all of our people with high-quality, N95 masks without cost, which could prevent death and suffering and save huge amounts of health care dollars."

The bill includes an allocation of $5 billion to pay for manufacturing the masks within the U.S. The masks would be delivered to households via the Postal Service as well as being distributed to "prisons, shelters, college dorms, and assisted living facilities, as well as all workers in health care settings, including doctors, nurses, clinical staff, and support staff from administrative and janitorial, to food service."

Cloth vs. N95 vs. nothing

Research continues to show that wearing just about any mask is preferable to wearing no mask in terms of preventing the spread of disease, but the N95 mask is considered to be far superior in preventing the spread of nasal or oral droplets that may carry the novel coronavirus that causes the illness we know as COVID-19.

A report based on federal research published by the Wall Street Journal found that the estimated time it takes to transmit COVID-19 from one person who is infected to one person who isn't is about 15 minutes if neither are masked, about 27 minutes if both are wearing cloth masks, 2.5 hours if only one is wearing an N95 mask and 25 hours if both are wearing N95 masks.

Among the reasons cloth masks caught at the start of the pandemic 22 months ago was that they were more easily made by the public, and the more effective N95 masks were largely reserved for health care workers and first responders as they remained in short supply in 2020.

A release from Baldwin's office said that "Studies indicate universal mask wearing could save the U.S. economy $1 trillion," although there's no indication that simply providing masks would lead to more people wearing masks. An Ipsos poll conducted in late October and early November 2021  prior to the ongoing spikes in new cases, hospitalizations and deaths  found that 35% of Americans said they were wearing a mask at all times when outside their home. That was up from 29% in summer 2021, but far below the peak of 75% in January 2021.

This is, in part, because a coronavirus particle is approximately 0.12 micrometers in diameter, while a Nepalese study, published in 2019, found that the size of the pores in cloth masks are rarely smaller than 80 micrometers and are often as big as 500 micrometers.

According to an international study published last year: "N95 masks are designed to remove more than 95% of all particles that are at least 0.3 micrometers in diameter. In fact, measurements of the particle filtration efficiency of N95 masks show that they are capable of filtering approximately 99.8% of particles with a diameter of approximately 0.1 micrometer. SARS-CoV-2 is an enveloped virus approximately 0.1 micrometer in diameter, so N95 masks are capable of filtering most free virions, but they do more than that. How so? Viruses are often transmitted through respiratory droplets produced by coughing and sneezing."

Reporting from Adam Rogan of The Journal Times, Bloomberg, the Associated Press, Anumita Kaur of The Los Angeles Times and David Wahlberg of Lee Newspapers is included in this article.
The winning woven product of the chocolate-themed sheep-to-shawl competition at the 2022 Pennsylvania Farm Show in Harrisburg looked good enough to eat.
Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) [India], January 16 (ANI): Ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, former IPS officer Asim Arun on Saturday joined Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Lucknow.

Speaking to ANI, Arun said that he is impressed with Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has given a new path of development to the nation.

Also Read | Punjab Assembly Elections 2022: Rapper Sidhu Moosewala Is Congress Candidate From Mansa.

"BJP gave me a suggestion to join politics to contribute more towards social work. There is a lot that I couldn't do during my job tenure, so I decided to enter politics. I am also impressed with PM Modi who has given a new path of development," said the former IPS officer.

Meanwhile, BJP had released its first list of 107 candidates for the upcoming Assembly polls in which it denied tickets to 20 sitting MLAs and fielded 21 new candidates.

Also Read | Bhupesh Baghel-Led Chhattisgarh Government To Generate 12-15 Lakh New Employment Opportunities in Next Five Years.

The party has released the list for the first and second phase of elections scheduled to be held on February 10 and 14.

Keeping the caste arithmetic balance and to gain voters, Bharatiya Janata Party has fielded women on 10 seats, OBC candidates on 44 seats and scheduled castes (SC) candidates from 19 seats, accounting for 60 per cent of the total.

Elections for the 403 assembly constituencies in Uttar Pradesh will be held in seven phases starting February 10.

The polling in Uttar Pradesh will be held on February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27 and March 3 and 7 in seven phases. The counting of votes will take place on March 10. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
New Delhi, Jan 16 (PTI) BJP leader and Home Minister Amit Shah is likely to hold a series of meetings in Uttar Pradesh from next week as the party looks to intensify its election campaign to retain power in the state.

With the Election Commission having been extended the ban on public meetings and roadshows till January 22 and the BJP leadership being busy in finalising its candidates for the assembly polls in five states, Shah will start his tour after Saturday and hold meetings, including with organisational leaders, to cover the entire stretch of Uttar Pradesh.

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With several party leaders in the five poll-bound states seeking tickets for their kin, a senior BJP leader said any relation of a party member who is already holding an elected position like an MP or MLA is unlikely to be fielded.

However, this rule will not apply to those who are already MLAs, he added.

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Even if the ban remains in place, the EC has allowed indoor meetings under certain conditions, sources noted.

In an informal interaction, the senior party leader also expressed confidence that the BJP will repeat its 2017 feat when it had won more than 300 seats in the 403-member assembly, saying that the Yogi Adityanath-led government's performance on the issue of law and order and corruption, besides the welfare programmes of the Modi government at the Centre, will win over people's support.

Asked about a string of defections from the BJP to its main rival Samajwadi Party, including of OBC leader Swami Prasad Maurya, and their allegation that it was anti-backward castes, the party leader said these leaders essentially claim to represent their castes and what may have prompted their resignation is that the BJP has been successful in winning over these communities, leading to their marginalisation.

The kind of representation backward castes like Maurya, Saini or Nunia have received in the BJP's organisation and also in its government is there for all to see, he said, claiming that the Samajwadi Party had never given these communities any position. Whatever these defectors may say, these communities have no reason to not support the BJP, he added.

Voters in Uttar Pradesh have been giving a clear mandate in last several polls and the BJP is sure that it won't be any different this time, he said.

Since the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, when the BJP won 71 of its 80 seats, the party swept the state in the 2017 assembly and then in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, pushing its rivals to the margins.

SP president Akhilesh Yadav has been targeting the BJP over the alleged non-performance of its state government and has been working to broaden his party's base by inducting leaders from rival parties.

The state is heading for seven-phase polls starting from February 10.

The BJP has announced its candidates for 107 seats in Uttar Pradesh and is likely to announce its nominees for the remaining seats in the coming days, besides for four other poll-bound states -- Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur. Stakes are high for the BJP as it is in power in four of the five states.

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Chandigarh [India], January 16 (ANI): Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday extended its support to the demand of postponing the assembly polls in Punjab to be held on February 14 in view of Guru Ravidas Jayanti, which will be celebrated on February 16.

"As per the election schedule announced by the Election Commission, the voting for Punjab Vidhan Sabha Elections is scheduled for February 14, 2022. The Gurupurb of Sri Guru Ravi Dass Ji falls on February 16, 2022. The state of Punjab has the substantial population of followers of Guru Ravi Das Ji including the Schedule Caste Community which is about 32 per cent of population of Punjab. On this pious occasion, millions of their devotees would visit Banaras in Uttar Pradesh to celebrate the Gurupurb. So it would not be possible for them to participate in the voting process," says a letter from Subhash Sharma, State General Secretary, BJP Punjab.

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"It is therefore requested to your goodself that date of voting may be postponed so that these voters of Punjab could participate in the election process. I am sure that you would consider our demand and do the needful."

Punjab Assembly polls are scheduled to be held in a single phase on February 14. The results will be announced on March 10. (ANI)

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Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], January 16 (ANI): People purchasing COVID-19 self-testing kits will have to provide their Aadhar cards to the chemists in order to maintain a record, said Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar on Saturday.

Addressing reporters here, Pednekar said that if anyone tests positive for COVID-19, the information must be conveyed to the authorities and also updated online.

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"We have decided that everyone purchasing self-test kits will have to provide their Aadhar cards to the chemists to maintain a record. If anyone tests positive they must inform the authorities and update this online," said Mumbai Mayor.

She further said that a total of 1,6,897 lakh people had done COVID test at home till Friday of which 3,549 people have tested positive in-home testing.

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The Mumbai Mayor said that a crematorium for animals is proposed in BMC's budget which will be constructed in 2500 square feet space in Dahisar

"A crematorium for animals is proposed in BMC's budget which will be constructed in 2500 square feet space in Dahisar. There was no crematorium for pets in Mumbai. This initiative is for the animals who can't speak for themselves. This will also be used for cremating street dogs and cats after their death," she added.

Meanwhile, Mumbai on Saturday reported 10,661 new cases and 11 deaths today.

There are 73,518 active cases in the city. (ANI)

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New Delhi [India], January 16 (ANI): The Department of School Education and Literacy under the Ministry of Education will organise the iconic week from January 17 to 21 as part of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav celebtrations.

As part of the iconic week, the Department of School Education and Literacy will organize a series of events. These will include a two-day International webinar on toys and games to play, make and learn. The webinar on inclusive education will be organised in partnership with Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) on January 17 through virtual and physical mode. The theme of the webinar will be Ed Tech start-ups focused on children with special needs.

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Senior Officers of the Ministry of Education, Principals, State education coordinators, parents and other stakeholders will participate in the event. The main objective of the webinar is to make parents and teachers aware of the technology and assistive devices available for children with special needs.

Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will organize the 27th edition of the National Conference of its Sahodaya School Complexes on the theme 'PUNARNAVA-REDISCOVERY OF INDIA @75' in collaboration with the Sahodaya School Complex, Gwalior on January 17-21 in a hybrid mode.

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The conference aims to engage participants in co-creating and contributing towards a sustainable future.

It also aims at enabling the Principals and Management of CBSE affiliated schools to understand the new policies and innovative practices that have been launched by the board in pursuance of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.

Two days International Webinar will be organised on January 20-21 with the aim of rediscovering the role of toys in the cognitive development of children and to promote the art of creating toys with help of low/no-cost materials which are not only environmentally sustainable but ignite creativity collaboration and problem-solving skills in children.

During two days of the Webinar, the focus will be on different aspects of toys at all stages of school education across all subjects and their mapping; pedagogical implications of toys; toys and games as learning through play and make; living/ local tradition of toy making; courses for designing toys and games as skill courses in school Education etc.

The outcome of the webinar will lay a roadmap for the infusion and integration of toys and games in education at all stages.

The Department of Higher Education is also organising 'National Innovation Week' from January 10-17. The innovation week highlighted the various initiatives undertaken to spread awareness to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in India.

An E-Symposium on 'Building Innovation Ecosystem in Educational Institutions', webinar on cyber security empowerment of Higher Education Institutions, the virtual launch of capacity building of faculty as master trainers for Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) as part of Unnat Bharat were organized during the iconic week. (ANI)

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New Delhi, January 16: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair a crucial meeting at the BJP headquarters on January 19 evening to finalise candidates for the upcoming Goa Assembly polls scheduled next month, said sources in the party.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah, party national president JP Nadda, Goa election in-charge Devendra Fadnavis, Co-in charge G Kishan Reddy, Co-in charge Darshana Jardosh and other top leaders would be present in the meeting.

According to the sources in the party, the first organizational meeting was held today at the party headquarters regarding the Goa elections. The next important meeting will be held on January 19 regarding ticket distribution, which will be chaired by the PM himself. Davos Agenda Summit 2022: PM Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping to Deliver Special Addresses Tomorrow.

The sources told ANI that BJP will contest on all 40 seats in Goa and the party may axe a couple of sitting MLAs as well. The brainstorming for the ticket distribution will be completed in a day.

"BJP has been in power in Goa for 10 years. In such a situation, it is our full responsibility to maintain the status quo of our government and we are fully prepared for that. As far as the Aam Aadmi Party, Trinamool Congress or Congress are concerned, everyone is trying their best but victory will be ours," said the sources.

Earlier, BJP's National General Secretary and Goa in-charge CT Ravi had said in an interview to ANI that the assembly elections are near and the party is ready to hit the hattrick of a win in the state.

"We will go to the people on the basis of three issues of social harmony, law and order, and development and am confident that we will come back to power,' Ravi said. National Startup Day 2022: PM Narendra Modi Interacts With Start-Ups, 46 Announced Winners of the National Startup Awards 2021.

Notably, the party that wins 21 seats in Goa forms the government, but last time no party was able to reach this figure. Congress had won the most seats 17 and 13 seats were bagged by the BJP.

Apart from BJP and Congress, many other parties including TMC, NCP, Shiv Sena and Aam Aadmi Party will field their candidates in the Goa Assembly elections to be held on February 14. The counting of the votes will take place on March 10.

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New Delhi, Jan 16 (PTI) The Centre has told the Supreme Court that COVID-19 inoculation guidelines issued by the Union health ministry do not envisage forcible vaccination without obtaining the consent of an individual.

On the issue of exempting persons with disabilities from producing vaccination certificates, the Centre told the apex court that it has not issued any SOP that makes it mandatory to carry the vaccination certificate for any purpose.

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The Centre said this in its affidavit filed in response to a plea by NGO Evara Foundation seeking door-to-door, priority COVID-19 vaccination for persons with disabilities.

"It is submitted that the direction and guidelines released by Government of India and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare do not envisage any forcible vaccination without obtaining consent of the concerned individual.

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"It is submitted that vaccination for COVID-19 is of larger public interest in view of the ongoing pandemic situation," the affidavit filed by the Union health ministry said.

The ministry said that "it is duly advised, advertised and communicated through various print and social media platforms that all citizens should get vaccinated and systems and processes have been designed to facilitate the same."

"However, no person can be forced to be vaccinated against their wishes," it said.

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Hyderabad (Telangana) [India], January 16 (ANI): Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao will hold a cabinet meeting on Monday in the wake of rising COVID-19 cases in the state.

The cabinet meeting will be held on Monday at 2 pm in Pragathi Bhavan under Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, to discuss COVID-related matters, the Chief Minister's office said.

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Telangana government on Sunday extended vacations for all educational institutions till January 30, 2022.

"It has been decided to extend the vacation of all educational institutions in Telangana till January 30, 2022," office of Telangana Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar tweeted.

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Earlier, the State government declared holidays for all educational institutions from January 8 to 16.

Telangana on Saturdy reported 1,963 new COVID-19 cases taking the cumulative tally to 7,07,162. There are 22017 active cases. The cumulative recoveries registered in Telangana is at 6,81,091 and the death toll is 4,054. The recovery rate in the state is at 96.31 per cent and case fatality rate is 0.57 per cent. (ANI)

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Noida (Uttar Pradesh) [India], January 16 (ANI): Ahead of Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, Congress leader and Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel on Sunday kick-started a door to door campaign in Noida.

Addressing the media persons here, the Chief Minister said, "Others are either politicizing in the name of caste or playing 'religion politics', but no one is talking about common people, except Congress. From youth, farmers, women to backward communities, we are taking everyone along."

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Baghel, who is also the Congress senior observer for the upcoming Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, distributed 'Ladki Hoon Lad Sakti Hoon' wrist bands during this campaign.

"Ladki Hoon Lad Sakti Hoon' campaign was commenced by Congress General secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra last year to woo women voters in the state.

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Meanwhile, elections for the 403 assembly constituencies in Uttar Pradesh will be held in seven phases starting February 10, the Election Commission said. The polling in Uttar Pradesh will be held on February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27 and March 3 and 7 in seven phases.The counting of votes will take place on March 10.

Notably, Congress has been out of power in the state for more than 30 years.

In the 2017 Assembly elections, the BJP won a landslide victory winning 312 Assembly seats. The party secured a 39.67 per cent vote share in the elections for 403-member Assembly. Samajwadi Party (SP) bagged 47 seats, BSP won 19 while Congress could manage to win only seven seats. (ANI)

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About 28 kgs of explosives seized by UP Police (Photo/ANI)

Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) [India], January 16 (ANI): About 28 kilograms of explosives have been seized by the Chilla Police Station in Uttar Pradesh and three persons have been arrested in the matter on Saturday evening.

Deputy Superintendent of Police Sadar, Satya Prakash Sharma on Saturday told ANI, "Three accused have been arrested after 28 kilograms of explosives were recovered from their possession by the Chilla Police Station under Banda district during in a checking last night."

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"The explosives have been seized and three persons have been arrested," he said.

The police has registered a case.

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Further probe in the matter is underway. (ANI)

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Howrah (West Bengal) [India], January 16 (ANI): West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging him to include the tableau of freedom fighters from the state in the Republic Day parade on the 75th year of India's independence.

The Chief Minister, through the letter, expressed her disappointment by the decision to abruptly exclude the proposed tableau of the West Bengal Government.

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"It is even more baffling for us that the tableau was rejected without assigning any reasons or justifications," she wrote.

The proposed tableau was commemorating the contributions of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and his NIA's 125th birth anniversary year and was carrying portraits of some of the most illustrious sons and daughters in this country - Vidyasagar, Rabindranath Tagore, Vivekananda, Chittaranjan Das, Sri Aurobindo, Matangini Hazra, Birsa Munda, Nazrul Isla, the letter read.

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"All the people of West Bengal are deeply pained by this attitude of the Central Government. Bengal was at the forefront of the Indian freedom struggle and has paid the heaviest price for the country's Independence through the partition," she added.

She further urged PM Modi to reconsider the decision and said, "the tableau which showcases the sacrifices and contribution of the lakhs of freedom fighters will be the most befitting way to pay our respect and homage to all those great souls who fought for our freedom."

Republic Day is celebrated in India every year on January 26 to commemorate the day the Constitution of the nation came into effect. (ANI)

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New Delhi, Jan 16 (PTI) State-owned Oil India Ltd (OIL) has exited from a US shale oil venture, selling its 20 per cent stake to its venture partner for USD 25 million -- the second exit of an Indian firm from the US shale business in two months.

"Oil India (USA) Inc (wholly owned subsidiary of OIL), divested its entire stake in Niobrara shale asset, USA," a regulatory filing by the company said, adding the consideration received was USD 25 million.

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OIL and Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) had together in October 2012 bought a 30 per cent stake in Houston-based Carrizo Oil & Gas's Niobrara shale asset in Colorado for USD 82.5 million.

While OIL had acquired 20 per cent, IOC bought 10 per cent in Carrizo's Niobrara basin acreage assets through their respective subsidiaries.

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The total investment of USD 82.5 million included an upfront cash payment of USD 41.25 million and a carry amount of USD 41.25 million, linked to Carrizo's future drilling and development cost.

The stake was sold to Verdad Resources LLC, which is the operator of the asset.

Originally, OIL acquired the 20 per cent interest in the liquid rich shale asset in the Denver-Julesburg Basin from Carrizo Oil & Gas, Inc. Carrizo sold its entire stake in the Niobrara asset to Verdad Resources LLC in January 2018. As a result, Verdad became the new operator of the asset.

Haimo Oil & Gas holds the remaining 10 per cent stake in the project.

The move by OIL follows Reliance Industries Ltd's exit from US shale, which has not been attractive in generating returns.

In November last year, Reliance said its wholly-owned subsidiary Reliance Eagleford Upstream Holding, LP has signed an agreement with Ensign Operating III, LLC to divest its interest in upstream assets in the Eagleford shale play of Texas.

With this, Reliance has divested all its shale gas assets and exited the shale gas business in North America. The firm had previously divested its entire stake in the Marcellus shale blocks.

State gas utility GAIL (India) Ltd continues to hold a 20 per cent stake in Carrizo's Eagle Ford shale acreage, which it had acquired in 2011.

OIL, in the filing, said its subsidiary Oil India (USA) Inc had reported a net profit of USD 279,000 on a revenue of USD 4.27 million in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2021.

When in 2012 it and IOC bought a stake in Niobrara, they were to receive a 30 per cent interest in Carrizo's production of about 1,850 barrels of oil-equivalent a day from 24 gross wells.

Carrizo held 61,500 gross acres in the Niobrara basin, of which the Oil India-IOC consortium had 18,450 acres, spread over three counties in Texas.

Apart from participating in Carrizo/Verdad operated wells, OIL USA has also participated in wells drilled by other operators in the region, such as Noble Energy, Whiting Oil and Gas, Mallards, Bison energy etc. Net production to OIL was about 415 barrels of oil equivalent.

OIL, whose assets in the northeast account for its entire crude oil production and the bulk of gas production, had aggressively scouted for overseas assets in the last decade.

As a result, it acquired interest in oil and gas exploration and producing assets from Venezuela to Russia. It continues to hold those assets.

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Texas [US], January 16 (ANI): A male hostage has been released on Saturday (local time) who was taken hostages at a synagogue in the town of Colleyville, Dallas.

"Shortly after 5:00 pm, a male hostage was released uninjured. This man will be reunited with his family as soon as possible and he does not require medical attention. FBI Crisis Negotiators continue contact with the subject," the Colleyville Police Department said in a statement.

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On Saturday, at approximately 10:41 am, the Colleyville Police Department received a Call for Service in the 6100 block of Pleasant Run Road.

Officers arrived on the scene and observed an emergency situation that warranted evacuation of the surrounding areas end an external perimeter was established.

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The Colleyville Police Department is on the scene, along with the FBI's Dallas Field Office the Texas Department of Public Safety, North Tarrant Regional SWAT Team, and other neighbouring agencies, read the statement.

In addition to the subject, law enforcement has confirmed there are others inside but no injuries have been reported.

FBI Crisis Negotiators are in communication with the subject. It remains an active operational and investigative scene.

A Police SWAT team in the southern US state of Texas is negotiating with a man who appears to have taken hostages at a synagogue in the town of Colleyville, Dallas.

A live stream of the Shabbat morning service at the synagogue on Facebook captured audio of a man talking loudly when the incident started.

According to the law enforcement officials, the hostage-taker demanded the release of the Pakistani scientist Aafia Siddiqui, who was convicted of trying to kill US military officers while in custody in Afghanistan. Siddiqui is currently being held at FMC Carswell, a federal prison in Fort Worth Texas. (ANI)

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Islamabad [Pakistan], January 16 (ANI): The internal turmoil in the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) lawmakers is apparent with each passing day causing discomfort to the Imran Khan government at a time when opposition is trying to build up pressure on the government.

Earlier this week, two leaders of the PTI became defiant against their own federal government's policies and performance with one of them holding his own party responsible for 'present chaos' in the country. Before this, a PTI ticket holder from Sargodha in Punjab joined Pakistan People's Party (PPP) following his meeting with the party leader Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, according to News International.

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At the same time, Islamabad is rife with rumours that over two dozen lawmakers of PTI are either in contact with opposition's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) or Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) before formally joining either of these two parties, according to News International.

On last Thursday, Defence Minister Pervez Khattak who is also the central leader of PTI and former chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) in the parliamentary party meeting of ruling party had entered into hard argument with Prime Minister Imran Khan over shortage of natural gas and ban on new connections of the utility in north western province.

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A day after, PTI Member of National Assembly from Peshawar Noor Alam Khan also became critical of his own government and while speaking on the floor of National Assembly, accused the cabinet members including PM himself for 'present chaos' in the country and proposed to place their names on the no-fly list to get the country out of this situation.

However, it is crystal clear that PTI lawmakers will keep on trying to put more pressure on their own government to get maximum development funds and new connections of gas and other utilities to woo their voters before next polls.

It is a fact that electables do not stay long in any party and they keep on looking for other options to grab any opportunity. They always join the new party that has more bright chances to come into power. Many of the politicians and lawmakers belonging to PTI are also weighing their options for 2023 election, according to News International. (ANI)

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Kabul [Afghanistan], January 16 (ANI): The Taliban members fired tear gas and used pepper spray against the Afghan women who were protesting for their rights in Kabul on Sunday, reported local media.

The Taliban used force against Afghan women who once again took to the streets of Kabul to protest violations of their rights and a set of regulations imposed on them, reported Sputnik citing a protester.

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"We came out for women's rights. We protested peacefully, said the protester, adding, "The Taliban harassed me."

It came after the Taliban's Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice last week issued posters in Kabul ordering Afghan women to cover up.

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The ministry had also prohibited women from travelling without having their faces covered in public transport. The new rulers in Kabul had also banned women from appearing in media and attending educational institutions without conforming attire, said Sputnik.

Following the Taliban's power grab in Kabul, Afghan women have repeatedly protested in a number of cities in the country, asking that their rights be respected and for representation in the government and local authorities. (ANI)

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Washington [US], January 16 (ANI): The US stands in solidarity with the Congregation Beth Israel community and the entire Jewish community on the hostage incident at Texas synagogue, said US Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday.

"This morning, we are grateful that four people held hostage in a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas are safe and going home to their families," Harris said in a statement on Sunday.

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Harris thanked the "brave men and women" in federal, state, and local law enforcement and said, "We stand in solidarity with the Congregation Beth Israel community and the entire Jewish community".

"While we will learn more about the hostage taker's motivation, we know this: what happened yesterday at Congregation Beth Israel is a reminder that we must speak up and combat antisemitism and hate wherever it exists," Harris said

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"Everyone has a right to pray, work, study, and spend time with loved ones not as the other - but as us," she added.

At least four people were taken hostages by a man at a synagogue in the town of Colleyville for more than ten hours on Saturday.

A live stream of the Shabbat morning service at the synagogue on Facebook captured audio of a man talking loudly when the incident started.

According to the law enforcement officials, the hostage-taker demanded the release of the Pakistani scientist Aafia Siddiqui, who was convicted of trying to kill US military officers while in custody in Afghanistan. Siddiqui is currently being held at FMC Carswell, a federal prison in Fort Worth Texas.

However, the suspect who took hostages, demanding the release of a Pakistan scientist convicted of trying to kill US military officers while in custody in Afghanistan, has been killed. (ANI)

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Washington [US], January 16 (ANI): At least six persons were injured on Friday night (local time) in a shooting incident outside a concert hall in Eugene, Oregon.

As per the police, they have been taken to a hospital. The shooting occurred during a Lil Bean and Zay Bang show, reported CNN.

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"Reports came in at 9:29 pm of multiple shots fired at WOW Hall, 219 W. 8th Avenue. EPD and multiple law enforcement agencies responded, along with Eugene Springfield Fire," police tweeted.

Police Chief Chris Skinner told reporters early Saturday morning that one victim is in critical condition after "certainly one of the highest-profile shootings we've had in the city of Eugene," reported CNN.

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That person was undergoing surgery, he said. He did not know the status of the others who were shot.

Skinner asked any witnesses with video or audio of the incident to help police, reported CNN.

"We just need people to feel comfortable and bring that forward so we can better understand what happened and better identify our suspect," he said. "All we know at this point is we have a male in a hoodie that was seen running westbound ... right after the shooting."

WOW Hall Interim Executive Director Deb Maher and Board Chair Jaci Guerena posted a statement on the venue's website and called the shooting "unprecedented," reported CNN.

"There is not much information currently available however we heard gunshots in the back parking lot. The motives are not yet known. We do know that some people were injured, but we do not know the extent of the injuries, and we do not want to speculate," the statement said. (ANI)

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A Delhi Court on Sunday dismissed the bail plea of Sulli Deals app creator, Aumkareshwar Thakur. 'Sulli Deals and the recently created 'Bulli Bai' applications allegedly uploaded photos of Muslim women without their consent and inappropriate remarks were passed against them. Both the apps used the hosting platform 'GitHub' to auction the stolen photos.

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Delhi Court dismisses bail plea of 'Sulli Deals' app creator, Aumkareshwar Thakur  ANI (@ANI) January 16, 2022

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On Sunday, heads of state, diplomats, shipping executives and port operators will gather for the inauguration of a deeper, wider Panama Canal that can handle twice as much cargo.

$5.4-billion expansion of Panama Canal will transform shipping in the Americas 

The $5.4-billion project, nine years in the making, is aimed at boosting the competitiveness of the 50-mile shortcut between the Atlantic and the Pacific  one that has been constantly changing for the last 102 years. Heres a look at the canals turbulent history, as depicted on the pages of the Los Angeles Times.

Jan. 22, 1903

The development of the Panama Canal began with the signing of the Hay-Herran Treaty by the United States and Colombia, which owned the Isthmus of Panama until November 1903. Although Colombia never ratified the treaty, which would have given up partial control of the isthmus in exchange for $10 million and an annual payment of $250,000, it caused the U.S. to support a Panamanian uprising that resulted in independence and the eventual construction of the canal.

Some time ago there was a hitch over the question of the extent to which control by the United States over this strip of land should go.  The Associated Press in the Jan. 23, 1903, edition of The Times

May 4, 1904

The dedication of the Panama Canal project was held after the U.S. purchased all remaining property from France, which had tried and failed to build the canal in the 1880s. That $40 million, coupled with the $10 million the U.S. paid Panama in February 1904 for control of the canal, laid the groundwork for construction later that year. In February 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Col. George Washington Goethals chief engineer, using his military background to help see the project through to completion.

The excavation of Culebra cut, which is considered one of the most difficult engineering problems of the entire canal, will be pushed as rapidly as possible.  Direct Wire in the May 5, 1904, edition of The Times

Oct. 10, 1913

After nearly a decade of construction, President Woodrow Wilson sent a signal from the White House to blow up the Gamboa Dike, causing water to flow into the Panama Canal and joining the Atlantic and Pacific oceans for the first time. Although the explosion did not mark the completion of the project, the event was celebrated around the world, with The Times describing it as too stupendous to be grasped by the most alert mind.

The event to be celebrated tomorrow will probably always be known as the 'Wedding of the Oceans.'  Direct Wire in the Oct. 10, 1913, edition of The Times

Jan. 7, 1914

The Alexandre La Valley, an old French crane boat, reached the Pacific Ocean and became the first self-propelled vessel to cross the Panama Canal. The crane moved through the waterway during the final stages of construction, which would end later that year.

Aug. 3, 1914

The S.S. Cristobal became the first passenger vessel to cross the entirety of the Panama Canal. The steamship, which was renamed Cristobal from Tremont after the canals Atlantic port, was the sister of the S.S. Ancon, which would become the first boat to officially transit the waterway. Both were among the largest U.S. commercial ships in service at the time.

Aug. 15, 1914

Construction was completed and the Panama Canal officially opened for traffic from around the world with the passage of the S.S. Ancon cargo ship. In total, the project cost the U.S. almost $375 million  the rough equivalent of $8.6 billion today. For the first several months of its operation, the canal was closed to warships as World War I began in Europe.

The vast accomplishment, which has been the wonder and admiration of the world, will be made manifest when the locks are opened.  Atlantic Cable and Direct Wire in the Aug. 15, 1914, edition of The Times

1935-1939

In the late 1930s, additional construction was planned or completed for the Panama Canal, including extra water storage and more locks. In 1935, the Madden Dam was created to prevent the flooding of the Chagres River, which flows into Gatun Lake  a major part of the canal. In 1939, a new set of locks were planned in order to carry large U.S. warships through the canal and defend it against enemies. However, the development was canceled after the start of World War II.

[Brig. Gen. Clarence] Ridley recommended that an additional set of locks, designed to resist air raids and sabotage, be built.  The Associated Press in the March 17, 1939, edition of The Times

1962

U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Panama President Roberto Chiari met in Washington for a series of secret talks regarding the occupation of the Panama Canal. The negotiations were a result of continued unrest in Panama  where people were growing more resistant to American control of the canal  and The Times reported that Chiari was expected to seek concessions. The talks, which ultimately worked in favor of the U.S., led to years of unrest in the canal zone, culminating in several riots and other violent demonstrations.

The Panamanian leader is expected to be frank indeed in his talks with the President, talks that could test the solidity of the Alliance for Progress.  Dan Kurzman in the June 13, 1962, edition of The Times

Jan. 9, 1964

Tension over the American occupation of the Panama Canal culminated in the deaths of six Panamanian students. Ninety-one other people were injured. The violent riots broke out over flying the Panamanian flag in the Canal Zone, and The Times reported that the Panama government charged U.S. officials with shooting down the unarmed students. As a result, the government recalled its ambassador in Washington, which President Roberto Chiari said was a suspension of relations with the U.S.

President Roberto Chiari ... charged American officials with 'aggression against the Panamanian people.'  UPI in the Jan. 10, 1964, edition of The Times

Sept. 7, 1977

After decades of unrest, President Jimmy Carter and Panamas head of government, Gen. Omar Torrijos, signed treaties that guaranteed Panama would regain control of the Panama Canal. The historic agreement effectively ended more than half a century of U.S. rule and set a timetable for Panama to regain the canal on Dec. 31, 1999. The treaties also established the canal as a neutral waterway through which any state may pass and committed both Panama and the U.S. to defending the canal should it be attacked. Panama ratified the treaties via referendum later in 1977 and the U.S. Senate voted in favor of ratification in 1978.

Carter said the new partnership would 'ensure that this vital waterway will continue to be well operated, safe and open to shipping by all nations.'  Don Irwin in the Sept. 8, 1977, edition of The Times

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter with Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso during a ceremony to transfer control of the Panama Canal on Dec. 14, 1999. (Tomas Van Houtryve / Associated Press)

Dec. 31, 1999

Control of the Panama Canal was officially transferred to Panama nearly a century after the U.S. purchased it in 1903. At times, as many as 30,000 U.S. soldiers and civilians had lived in the former Canal Zone, which literally and figuratively divided the country.

From the Archives: Panama Canal hand-over ends decades of U.S. presence that began with break from Colombia 

After 1999, the canal was put under the authority of the government-run Panama Canal Authority. Today, it takes ships six to eight hours to pass through the waterway, which has remained neutral and is a chief revenue resource for the country.

It has been a uniquely American form of colonialism ... it left influences that have determined the demographics, economy and social structure of Panama.  Juanita Darling in the Jan. 1, 2000, edition of The Times

A Panamanian citizen casts his vote during the referendum for the widening of the Panama Canal on October 22, 2006, in Panama City. (Orlando Sierra / AFP/Getty Images)

Oct. 22, 2006

Panamanians voted to pass a $5.2 billion project aimed at expanding the Panama Canal  the first major modification to the waterway since its opening in 1914. With 78% of people in favor, the vote was a big win for President Martin Torrijos, who called the expansion project a "chance of a lifetime" for Panama.

From the Archives: Panama Canal plan wins easy passage 

At the time, the Panama government expected the project would create 7,000 jobs and be completed in eight years, just in time for the canals 100th birthday. But others were skeptical, saying the government didnt have the resources to finish the expansion while also dealing with high poverty rates.

Panamanian and international investors expect the project to spark economic growth here.  Chris Kraul in the Oct. 23, 2006, edition of The Times

Workers along the Panama Canal in Paraiso, on the outskirts of Panama City, in 2007. (Arnulfo Franco / Associated Press)

Sept. 3, 2007

After almost a year of planning, construction began on the Panama Canal expansion project. The goal of the job, as reported by The Times, was to accommodate ships carrying up to 12,000 containers in order to capture a bigger share of the international shipping business. Previously, ships could carry a maximum of 5,000 containers through the waterway.

From the Archives: Panama launches expansion of canal 

The jobs original expected completion date of 2014 was later delayed two years due to cost overruns and work stoppages. Now the expansion, which essentially adds a third lane to the canal in order to cut down on congestion, is scheduled to open Sunday. Its expected that the project will have widespread ramifications for international trade, including the diversion of traffic from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to the East Coast.

President Torrijos promised that the expanded canal would usher in a new age of economic growth.  Lucy Conger and Chris Kraul in the Sept. 4, 2007, edition of The Times

daniel.funke@latimes.com

Twitter: @dpfunke

ALSO

Lawmakers' trip to Panama coincides with busy legislative week before summer recess

Panama: Tour highlights the country beyond the canal

Panama Canal expansion draws delegates from U.S. seaport states

UPDATES:

11:40 a.m.: This article was updated with additional information dating from 2006 to the present.

This article originally published at 4 a.m.
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A Portlaoise man facing a number of drugs charges is under threat, Portlaoise court heard last week.

Hayden Delaney, 25, of 203 St. Brigids Place, Portlaoise is charged with possession of cannabis and possession for sale or supply at that address on August 10, 2021 and possession of cannabis at Ballintubbert on October 29, 2021 and possession of cannabis on December 2, 2021. He is also facing a charge of money laundering at his address of 203 St. Brigids Place, Portlaoise on August 10, 2021.

Appearing for Mr Delaney, solicitor Barry Fitzgerald said he was not in court. He had indicated a guilty plea and was waiting on a GPs letter to get into the Aiseiri. He had to isolate.

He has very bad cocaine issues, Mr Fitzgerald told the court.

Sgt JJ Kirby outlined to the court that on August 10 the address at St. Brigids Place had been searched. A quantity of cannabis to the value of 2,700, was found and a quantity of cash of 3,185.

Mr Delaney was not there at the time but had attended at Portlaoise garda station later.

Sgt Kirby said that Mr Delaney had made admissions to having cannabis for sale and supply.

A quantity of cannabis to the value of 400 was found in another search on December 2.

Judge Catherine Staines said that Mr Delaney needed to attend court as these were serious charges.

Mr Fitzgerald said he had been told to isolate.

He also said that the people to whom Mr Delaney owed a debt had called to his house. His father had been assaulted with a hammer.

Sgt Kirby confirmed that Mr Delaney was under threat.

Judge Staines sought a probation report.

She directed that the 3,185 in cash be given to Merchants Quay Ireland.

She put the matter back to April 9 and said that Mr Delaney had to be in court that day.
Independent TD for Laois-Offaly Carol Nolan has described the anticipated connection date for high-speed fibre broadband for parts of Offaly and Laois as utterly unacceptable and an insult to the families and businesses that will be impacted by the delays.

Deputy Nolan was speaking after National Broadband Ireland (NBI) confirmed to her that while areas in Offaly such as those in and around Cloneygowan are within its Intervention Area, the anticipated connection date is January 2025 - December 2026:

My office is being contacted every single week by frustrated and annoyed parents, workers, students and business owners who are rightly baffled at the apparent inability of the State to deliver broadband infrastructure in a timelier fashion, the Independent TD stated.

This is to say nothing of all those people who, while technically connected to broadband, still have to endure the regular dropping of their signal or low speed connectivity.

"In many cases, this is the functional equivalent of having no broadband at all.

"National Broadband Ireland informs me that a significant number of areas within the constituency are currently stuck at the Pending Survey stage. This is simply incredible given the fact that the NBI are the recipients of the largest single contract in the history of the state-2.9 billon.

"I and my colleagues in the Rural Independent Group have requested an urgent briefing from NBI on the reasons for these delays and why it is that many thousands of rural homes are to be left waiting until Christmas 2026 before they can access high-speed broadband despite the billions being pumped into the project, concluded Deputy Nolan.
President Michael D. Higgins has expressed the grief of the nation as he spoke on the death of Ashling Murphy in Tullamore.

The 23-year-old teacher was brutally murdered on the canal near Cappincur on Wednesday.

People throughout Ireland, in every generation, have been expressing their shock, grief, anger and upset at the horrific murder of Ashling Murphy," the President said.

"This morning I spoke to Ashlings family to convey, as President on behalf of the people of Ireland, and on behalf of Sabina and myself as parents, my profound sympathy and sorrow and sense of loss that her tragic death has meant to so many, but what in particular it must mean to her mother Kathleen, father Raymond, sister Amy and brother Cathal.

"I sought to convey a sense of how so many parents, families, indeed all of the people of Ireland are thinking of the Murphy family at this very sad time. The loss of Ashling is a loss to all of us, but to her family it is beyond description.

"The outpouring of grief at the death of Ashling shows how we have all been very touched, and it is so exemplary for young and old, to read of all Ashlings accomplishments during her short but brilliant and generous life.

"Those who knew, studied with her, or as we have heard, loved her as a young gifted teacher, all have borne witness to a life of generous commitment to her local community and to her creativity. As a young, talented and enthusiastic teacher she had already made such a positive impact on her young students and colleagues at school.

"To hear them speak of her is such a testament to the joy of sharing, be it in teaching, music or sport, that she conveyed in a way which must have brought much joy to all. She represented the best of her generation, in a life they will recall as inspirational.

"It is of crucial importance that we take this opportunity, as so many people have already done in the short time since Ashlings death, to reflect on what needs to be done to eliminate violence against women in all its aspects from our society, and how that work can neither be postponed nor begin too early.

"May I suggest to all our people to reflect on all of our actions and attitudes  and indeed those we may have been leaving unchallenged amongst those whom we know  and do all we can to ensure that the society we live in is one where all of our citizens are free to live their lives, participate fully, in an atmosphere that is unencumbered by risks for their safety. Let us respond to this moment of Ashlings death by committing to the creation of a kinder, more compassionate and empathetic society for all, one that will seek to eliminate all threats of violence against any of our citizens, and commit in particular to bringing an end, at home and abroad, to violence against women in any of its forms.

"Suaimhneas siorai da hanam uasal dilis, Ashling," President Higgins concluded.
Kildare Green Party senator Vincent P Martin has a motion before the Seanad calling for Ireland to accede to the Antarctic Treaty, in the hope that this may be accomplished to mark the centenary of Kildare-born explorer Sir Ernest Shackletons death in 1922.

Participation in the international Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) to conserve the Antarctic region and southern seas, has grown from the original 12 signatories in 1959 to include 53 countries representing 80% of the worlds population. Ireland is one of few EU countries not to have signed up to the treaty to date.

The primary purpose of the treaty is to ensure in the interests of all mankind that Antarctica shall continue forever to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes and shall not become the scene or object of international discord. To this end it prohibits military activity, except in support of science; prohibits nuclear explosions and the disposal of nuclear waste; promotes scientific research and the exchange of data; and holds all territorial claims in abeyance.

Senator Martin said: Irish people have played significant roles in the exploration in Antarctica. The continent was first sighted by Irishman Edward Bransfield in 1820. Since then, it has been a frontier for exploration and science. Names such as Tom Crean, the McCarthy brothers, Patsy Keohane or Robert Forde are associated with pioneering expeditions. However, it is renowned explorer and native born Kildare man Ernest Shackleton who is synonymous with the Antarctic and is buried on the Antarctic Island of South Georgia. 2022 marks the centenary of this death and represents a key opportunity for Ireland to honour his work and legacy by finally signing up to the Antarctic Treaty System.

Sen Martin acknowledged the work done by all at the Shackleton museum in Athy, the cross-party support of all public representatives and especially Naas Green Party councillor Colm Kenny for playing a pivotal role in progressing this goal.

Cllr Kenny said that over the past 30 years, Antarctica has warmed by 1.8 degrees, three times more than the global average, which has an enormous impact on ocean acidification, sea levels and marine life.

In May 2019 Dail Eireann declared a climate and biodiversity emergency and the Irish Government recently applied for membership to the Arctic Council as an observer. The time is now for Ireland to step up and take its place on the world stage by signing the Treaty and aligning with our EU and other international partners, said Cllr Kenny.
A festival to remember traditional musician and Kill native Liam OFlynn is being planned for October.

The master uilleann piper and former member of Planxty died aged 71 in March 2018.

Senator Vincent P Martin is part of a local committee preparing the Feile Liam OFlynn Festival.

Senator Martin said: Like many others I have a deep appreciation of traditional Irish music.

The weekend will include recitals, masterclasses in piping and harp and live performances from renowned artists.

An integral part of the weekend will be the inauguration of an annual Liam OFlynn Award to an artist from the county as a sign of our gratitude and recognition of their contribution to music.

A scholarship will also be presented to a promising young piper.

Senator Martin said that volunteers are invited to get in touch to help with running the festival.

Liam OFlynn is acknowledged as Irelands foremost exponent of the uilleann pipes and brought the music of the instrument to a worldwide audience.

President Michael D. Higgins was among the mourners at his funeral in St Brigids Church in Kill which was also was attended by Christy Moore, Donal Lunny, Steve Cooney, Paul Brady, Iarla O Lionaird, actor Stephen Rea, broadcaster John Kelly, John Sheahan, Micheal O Muircheartaigh.

He was born into a musical family and attended local schools including Naas CBS.

From an early age, he showed talent and at the age of 11 began taking classes with Leo Rowsome, one of the greatest pipers of his time.

The greats

He was successful in the Oireachtas Festival and the Fleadh Cheoil before forming Planxty with Christy Moore, Andy Irvine and Donal Lunny, all of whom are now regarded among the greats in Irish music.

Following the break-up of Planxty in 1983, OFlynn worked as a session musician with numerous prominent musicians such as the Everley Brothers, Enya, Kate Bush, Nigel Kennedy and Mark Knopfler.

He also worked on film scores, such as the Brad Pitt film A River Runs Through It.

He also worked on projects with Seamus Heaney, mixing poetry with music.
INDEPENDENT Limerick TD Richard ODonoghue has questioned the value-for-money in the salary paid to the CEO of the Health Service Executive, Paul Reid.

Deputy O'Donoghue claims that Mr Reid, who is paid around 420,000, oversees a broken health system that has not improved in the last 12 months.

In a statement, he contrasted the 350,000 salary of Ursula von der Leyen (European Commission President) who answers to nearly 500 million people across the continent.

"Paul Reid earns near 420,000 per annum and answers to five million people. Surely, this does not make sense, he said.

Where is the value for money in the Director General?

The County Limerick TD went on to highlight local health issues which, he says, have not been addressed during Mr Reid's tenure as CEO.

University Hospital Limerick continues to top the poll for overcrowding. How many intensive care unit, ICU, beds have been created through his time? When are the waiting lists going to be dealt with? When is the trolley crisis going to be dealt with? Where is the value for money? As I have continually said there are loads of rules and regulations, but nothing is enforced or there is no accountability.
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AFTER a life-changing operation for her eight-year-old son was cancelled, Shauna McGinnis has more reasons to feel down this time of year than most.

Instead, the mum-of-two has shared this stunning photograph which is such a beautiful sign of hope at the beginning of 2022.

Shaunas youngest son, Joey, aged 8, was born with a number of medical conditions including a very rare condition which affects just a couple of children in Ireland. Shauna explains that there was a gap in Joeys oesophagus when he was born so he couldn't swallow.

He has had a number of surgeries over the years. Shauna has lost count how many times hes been in hospital.

Joey was due for a life-changing surgery in Crumlin in the middle of December.

I kept him out of school for a couple of weeks leading up to it just because of everything going on at the moment with Covid. I spent those weeks preparing him as he gets absolutely traumatised by hospitals, understandably, with all hes been through. I got this great advice to use see, touch, sound and smell to calm him. It really worked and for the first time in his life he was actually excited to go for surgery, said Shauna, who also has an older son, Callum, who has autism.

However, as Shauna and Joey were ready to leave their home in Newcastle West for Dublin the operation was cancelled a couple of hours before we were due up.

Surgery was cancelled last minute due to Covid related issues and their emergency department being overrun. They told me the winter vomiting bug came early and they had no beds available. They cancelled most surgeries.

We waited months for the surgery and were told they simply cannot give us a new date because they dont know and any surgeries that were cancelled were going to be prioritised into most important. I wrote an email asking define most important, said Shauna.

She and Joey were quite upset that day. Instead of wallowing in it they decided to take a trip to the beach and the most amazing thing happened.

We saw our very first sunset together and I mean it was the most stunning thing Ive ever seen. We should have been in Crumlin at that time. It was such a beautiful sign of hope for me, said Shauna, who kindly shared the photo of her two boys as the sun dips into the ocean with the Leader to help raise spirits as so many are going through tough times currently.
THE death of Tom Farrell has to be observed in a way proportionate to the unstinting efforts he made on behalf of farmers in Limerick and all over Ireland for five decades, says ICMSA president Pat McCormack.

Mr Farrell, of Clonkeen, Lisnagry, passed away peacefully at Milford Hospice on Monday, January 3. He was 84. Mr Farrell was laid to rest in Kilmurry Cemetery following funeral Mass at the Church of the Holy Rosary, Murroe on Friday.

Mr McCormack said, outside the elected contemporary presidents of the farm organisations, it must be doubtful whether any individual put in the kind of relentless, intelligent and almost literally grassroots work for farm families that Tom did over nearly 40 years.

He was the engine that drove ICMSA, the Limerick-based family farm organisation, and both elected officers and fellow employees deferred to his innate grasp of what worked, and why, in terms of developing policy.

His knowledge of family farming was not something he had to learn; it was in him always because it was his own background and that experience  allied with a sharp intelligence worn lightly  meant that he understood things that many of us contemplate without ever grasping the essence, said Mr McCormack.

Mr Farrell was originally from a family farm in Donaskeagh, near Tipperary town, and came to ICMSA primarily to develop membership. Despite living in Limerick, he never forgot his roots and had a particular and lifelong love of Tipperary hurling.

His judgement and abilities were quickly obvious and he became the associations de facto go-to employee, the one that others consulted where a problem was especially complicated.

He had that quality so indicative of the most clever where seemingly intractable problems are reduced to feasible and easy steps. He became director of organisation and was responsible for ICMSAs success in establishing itself as the States specialist dairy family farm organisation  a role which it still fills today."

His importance was such that following his retirement in 2002, he made himself available for any queries or occasions when his advice was needed. He was an excellent colleague, a gregarious and delightful companion and a great and genuine friend to the farmers of Limerick, his neighbours and the wider community in Murroe, and the people in every county of Ireland who knew and held him in the highest regard, said Mr McCormack.

The ICMSA president said like everyone, Mr Farrell had hard days which he accepted calmly and with his characteristic dignity.

When his own time came, he faced it in that same spirit. He was a champion and personified everything that was good and fine in Irish farming. To ICMSA members and work colleagues, Tom was always available as a colleague, a friend and to give sound advice if required or sought. We wont see his likes again.

On behalf of our members and staff, Id like to express our deepest sympathy to his wife Francis, sons Stephen and John and the wider Farrell family. You can be justly proud of Toms life and he will be missed by all privileged to know him, said Mr McCormack.
A YOUNG father has died in a single vehicle road traffic collision on the southside of Limerick city earlier this Sunday afternoon.

The incident occurred in the O'Malley Park area of Southill. It is understood the deceased, aged in his early twenties, lost control of the vehicle he was driving at the time.

Emergency services rushed to the scene. The scene has been cordoned off to allow for an examination by Garda Forensic Collision Investigators. The local coroner has been notified and a post-mortem examination will now be arranged.

Gardai at Roxboro Road are investigating the fatal collision. Anybody who witnessed what occurred or can help gardai with their enquiries is asked to contact 061 214340.

Local councillor, Catherine Slattery said she was shocked and saddened to hear of the tragic death of the man. It is understood he is the father of two young children.

"While I did not know him personally I know members of his family who live locally to me. On behalf of myself and the community of the Old Cork Road I want to extend our deepest condolences to his family and friends.

"It's a young life taken way too soon. May he rest in peace," said Cllr Slattery.
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The threat of the omicron variant is becoming real for many of Asias biggest countries just as it looks set to subside in some Western nations, and thats complicating investors search for winning share bets in the region.

The problem is that Asian governments are carrying out widely diverging coronavirus policies, with strategies ranging from Chinas pursuit of Covid Zero to Australias move to live with the virus, and almost everything in between. The speed of vaccinations and the strength of health-care systems also vary greatly in the region.

Its another example of how Covid is forcing investors to face new challenges, though many remain positive about Asias ability to weather the storm as its best-performing nations kept deaths from the pandemic at levels far lower than elsewhere. Asian stocks have done better than their European and U.S. counterparts so far this year, after underperforming both of them in 2021.

Asia will be better braced to cope with omicron waves, which may prove to be more short-lived," said Wai Ho Leong, a strategist at Modular Asset Management. Markets that are better vaccinated and have timely social distancing curbs are also likely to recover faster from this wave."

That, he says, points to Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, China and Malaysia as potential winners, with India, Thailand and the Philippines just starting to see surges. Consumer discretionary, autos and banks are among the sectors to bet on, he said.

Western countries from Switzerland to Spain and the U.K. have suggested that the coronavirus pandemic may be shifting to an endemic phase. In Asia, the omicron variant wave is starting to pounce, with cases surging in Australia, a jump in Tokyo infections prompting authorities to raise the Covid alert, and Hong Kong extending social restrictions.

Rich-Country Narrative

Exhausted by lockdowns, European countries have largely eschewed a return to onerous curbs. Many countries in Asia are refusing to buy into the rich-country Western narrative that it is milder and will have a lower net impact," wrote Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst for Asia Pacific at Oanda, in a Jan. 10 report.

The regions two largest markets are among them. For some, Chinas proven success in stamping out the virus when found means investors there have little to worry about from omicron.

While isolated lockdowns could disrupt a certain location temporarily, it is likely to have little impact on the economy as a whole," said Jian Shi Cortesi, investment director for China and Asia growth equities at GAM Investments in Zurich. Chinas economy has adapted to zero-Covid measures, with most sectors operating normally. For most people its life as usual."

But others are wondering how long that strategy can be maintained. Morgan Stanley cut estimates for Hong Kongs economy as the city again turns to strict curbs, likely delaying a re-opening with the mainland. Chinas lockdowns remain local but could become more widespread.

The odds of a China growth shock because of omicron and Covid Zero are steadily rising by the day," Oandas Halley wrote.

Hong Kong Faces Worst of Both Worlds as Omicron Ruins Covid Zero

Japan was among the first countries to attempt a living with the virus" strategy in 2020, but under the administration of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida Covid policy has grown more cautious despite 80% of the country having had two vaccine shots.

Japan is now the most strict country in the free world" in terms of border control, said Richard Kaye, a portfolio manager at Comgest Asset Management Japan Ltd., which oversees about $10 billion in Japanese equities. Conversely, he says the strictness makes it the ideal reopening play.

We can invest in the reopening story with a much bigger, greater visibility than we have in other major economies," he said. Kaye sees airlines, airport operators, railroads and retail likely to benefit when eventually the strict borders are opened.

So far this year, Japans blue-chip index Nikkei 225 has underperformed the Asia benchmark by about three percentage points.

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.
West Bengal minister Md Ghulam Rabbani on Sunday took to Twitter to invite Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk to "drop here" and set up his business in the state, days after the industrialist tweeted that he was trying to work through some challenges with the Centre.

The US-based company, which is looking to launch its products in India, had last year sought a reduction in import duties so that its high-performance electric cars can begin to sell in India.

The heavy industries ministry had asked the electric car major to first start manufacturing its iconic vehicles in India before any tax concessions are considered.

Responding to a tweet on the company's plans to launch its products in India, Musk had written on 13 January, "Still working through a lot of challenges with the government."

Retweeting this, Rabbani, who is the minister for minority development and madrasa education in the West Bengal government, said: Drop here, we in West Bengal have best infra & our leader @MamataOfficial has got the vision. Bengal means Business."

Drop here, we in West Bengal have best infra & our leader @MamataOfficial has got the vision.



Bengal means Business  https://t.co/CXtx4Oq7y5  Md Ghulam Rabbani () (@GhulamRabbani_) January 15, 2022

This comes hours after Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu asked Musk to set up manufacturing units in the state.

He said the 'Punjab model' will create Ludhiana as a hub for electric vehicles and the battery industry with time-bound single-window clearance for investment.

I invite @elonmusk, Punjab Model will create Ludhiana as hub for Electric Vehicles & Battery industry with time bound single window clearance for investment that brings new technology to Punjab, create green jobs, walking path of environment preservation & sustainable development," Sidhu said.

I invite @elonmusk, Punjab Model will create Ludhiana as hub for Electric Vehicles & Battery industry with time bound single window clearance for investment that brings new technology to Punjab, create green jobs, walking path of environment preservation & sustainable development https://t.co/kXDMhcdVi6  Navjot Singh Sidhu (@sherryontopp) January 16, 2022

The governments of Telangana and Maharashtra have already invited Musk to set up Tesla manufacturing units in their respective states.

Earlier in the day, Maharashtra minister Jayant Patil invited Musk to set up a production unit in the state, assuring him of all necessary help.

Maharashtra is one of the most progressive states in India. We will provide you all the necessary help from Maharashtra for you to get established in India. We invite you to establish your manufacturing plant in Maharashtra," wrote Patil.

.@elonmusk, Maharashtra is one of the most progressive states in India. We will provide you all the necessary help from Maharashtra for you to get established in India. We invite you to establish your manufacturing plant in Maharashtra. https://t.co/w8sSZTpUpb  Jayant Patil-   (@Jayant_R_Patil) January 16, 2022

His offer two days after Telangana minister KT Rama Rao asked Musk to set up shop in his state.

Hey Elon, I am the Industry & Commerce Minister of Telangana state in India Will be happy to partner Tesla in working through the challenges to set shop in India/Telangana Our state is a champion in sustainability initiatives & a top notch business destination in India," Rama Rao tweeted on Friday.

Hey Elon, I am the Industry & Commerce Minister of Telangana state in India



Will be happy to partner Tesla in working through the challenges to set shop in India/Telangana



Our state is a champion in sustainability initiatives & a top notch business destination in India https://t.co/hVpMZyjEIr  KTR (@KTRTRS) January 14, 2022
There's pivoting, and then there's whiplash.

A couple of weeks ago, the 44th annual Sundance Film Festival was ready to launch on Jan. 20 as a nine-day hybrid event, welcoming filmmakers and audiences back to Park City, Utah, for the first time in two years while also making films available online to movie lovers around the world. For those planning to attend in person, it promised to be a party and a reunion - a happy return to standing in snowy admission lines, swapping buzz on shuttle buses and finding the movie that might change your life.

On Jan. 5, however, amid increasing concerns about the rapidly spreading omicron variant, a last-minute decision was made to cancel the physical event and, as in 2021, go fully virtual. It can't be easy slamming the brakes on a festival that in the recent past has brought more than 120,000 filmgoers to a small ski-resort town in the Wasatch Mountains, and patrons who bought the $750 festival package - which provides a set number of tickets for features, plus other films - have been crying foul since learning that no refunds would be forthcoming. (The full festival pass offered in 2021 was $350.)

In an email to The Washington Post on Thursday, a Sundance spokesperson said of the current ticket policy, "We rely heavily on the festival to continue our mission-centered work. This is one of the reasons why our hybrid products are set up as non-refundable. We need to be able to continue to champion the essential storytellers of this generation."

Amid filmmakers, festivalgoers, publicists and volunteers canceling their travel plans, and Park City's hospitality industry kissing goodbye to some $80 million in revenue, the Sundance staff has had to turn this indie-movie battleship around within the space of 15 days. Only one film to date has backed out of its Sundance berth: "Final Cut," a zombie movie about zombies attacking a zombie movie that director Michel Hazanavicius ("The Artist") has said he wanted to premiere before a live audience.

"The week has been full of craziness," says festival director Tabitha Jackson. "Putting on the Sundance Film Festival in any year is trying to make the impossible possible, and this was just another iteration of that. (The move to an all-virtual festival) came with disappointment, but we also need to respect the infrastructure of Park City and where we are in this pandemic."

A British-born filmmaker and film programmer, Jackson, 51, was tapped as the festival's director in 2020, replacing the much-loved Park City veteran John Cooper; she is only the third person to lead the storied event, as well as the first woman, person of color and person born outside the United States. But while last year's Sundance, Jackson's first in the driver's seat, was the first that didn't happen in a physical space, she had ideas about taking the festival online even before covid-19 reared its viral head.

"It was a twinkle in my eye, and I thought, this is probably going to be a five- or 10-year plan to do this," says Jackson. "But the pandemic both accelerated things at some considerable speed and made things that weren't previously conceivable necessary."

It helps that Sundance 2021 worked a lot of bugs out of its virtual screening software. Sundance 2022 will make more than 80 feature films available through its streaming platform at festival.sundance.org, along with Zoom Q&As and other live events. While that number is lower than the average 120 titles in pre-pandemic years, it's about 10 more than the 2021 festival and, more important, it strikes a balance that Jackson feels offers choice without becoming overwhelming. Here's her pitch: "After the last two years, after you've read all your Proust and you've made all your sourdough starters and you've finished watching the entire internet, an infusion of new work by makers you haven't heard of, titles you don't know, casts yet to be discovered, is an incredibly exciting and necessary injection into the culture."

Even the New Frontiers section, traditionally devoted to virtual reality, performance art and experimental technologies, will be available online via a "spaceship" in which festivalgoers' avatars will interact with each other and the shows. Jackson has a philosophy about all of this, and it's not so much forward-thinking as of-the-moment.

"I try not to use the word 'virtual,' " she says. "One of the things I learned last year was that gathering together at a moment in time - even if it's not a moment in place - brings with it an energy, a response to the work, a response to each other, which are real and powerful." She cites a Zoom Q&A after last year's screening of the intense school-shooting drama "Mass," where the director and actor were in tears. "It was just an incredible electric moment. There was nothing virtual about that."

Then, too, there's something to be said for bringing Sundance down from the mountains to the people who can't afford to skip work for a week to fly to Utah. For the second year, the festival has arranged to simulcast some films at art house "satellite screens" in such cities as Seattle, San Diego, Baltimore and Winston-Salem, which, along with at-home streaming, will lead to what Jackson describes as "a more democratic and authentic representation of audiences." The challenge will be retaining and fine-tuning this mix in years to come, after Sundance returns to its physical footprint. "Festivals are all about balance," says Jackson. "So how do we balance the in-person with the online, the IRL with the URL?"

At its core, of course, Sundance is about the movies and the people who make them, as well as the thrill of discovery for critics and paying audiences alike. Launched in 1978 in Salt Lake City as the Utah/US Film Festival, Sundance was the brainchild of actor Robert Redford; the head of his production company, Sterling Van Wagenen; and the Utah Film Commission. The event moved to Park City in 1981 and was taken over by Redford's Sundance Institute in 1984. The following year's lineup arguably serves as the starting gun for the American independent film movement, with debut or breakthrough films from the Coen brothers ("Blood Simple"), Jim Jarmusch ("Stranger Than Paradise"), Wim Wenders ("Paris, Texas") and Sally Potter ("The Gold Diggers").

In the following two decades, as Redford continued to serve as the public face of Sundance while leaving the day-to-day management to festival director Geoffrey Gilmore (now running the Tribeca Film Festival), Sundance helped radically remake the landscape of the film industry by offering an alternative to Hollywood studio fare and giving voice to an increasingly diverse multiplicity of voices. It's the festival that brought us "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" in 1989, "Reservoir Dogs" in 1992, "Little Miss Sunshine" in 2006 and "Summer of Soul" in 2021, and that helped launch the careers of (just to name a few) Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino, Richard Linklater ("Slacker"), Darren Aronofsky ("Pi"), Lisa Cholodenko ("High Art"), Lee Daniels ("Precious"), Debra Granik ("Winter's Bone"), Ryan Coogler ("Fruitvale Station") and Lee Isaac Chung ("Minari"). Independent cinema had always existed in the United States, but with Sundance, it became a market force and a cultural zeitgeist that continues to this day. (Redford, who announced his retirement from acting with 2018's "The Old Man and the Gun," has ceased any active involvement with the festival, saying in a 2020 interview, "It's gotten so big; it's beyond my control.")

In recent years, as the major studios have retreated into the commercial safe harbor of franchise filmmaking, festivals like Sundance, Telluride and Toronto have become critical points on the indie-film rollout calendar, showcases for an entire alternate ecosystem of film distribution. Has Sundance become too much of a marketplace? "We do need to pay attention to the sales aspect of the festival," acknowledges Jackson. "We do not need to chase it or program to it. When a film makes a sale (here), it indicates that the industry thinks that this work can connect with audiences. Ultimately, that's where the power comes from in the work - when it connects, when it resonates, when it creates change."

And the work continues to come. Sundance programmers were concerned this year about a coronavirus-related drop-off in film submissions that never happened. Says Jackson: "We had no right to expect that anybody would have completed their work during a pandemic and so it was the old cliche: Would it be feast or famine? This year was an absolute feast, and we had to leave a huge amount of films, great films, on the table, which is good news for the culture and other festivals."

She points to three movies as examples of the diversity and adventurousness of this year's Sundance. "Nanny," a drama about a Senegalese caregiver in New York City, "is a psychological thriller, but (director Nikyatu Jusu is) also grappling with very real social issues of labor rights, the interactions between different classes, different ethnicities, privileged children." Mariama Diallo's "Master" is a drama about Black students on a White campus that tips into supernatural territory. And "there's a comedy called 'Emergency,' which is a fantastic rip-roaring ride wrestling with some of the most difficult things to talk about at the moment - young men of color being put in situations that could be perceived as absolutely egregious for them or by them and how these societal roles play out."

It's notable that more movies than usual this year fall into genres of suspense, comedy, thriller and horror. In "Dual," a young woman (Karen Gillan) does battle with her own clone; in "You Won't Be Alone," Noomi Rapace ("The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo") plays a 19th-century witch who takes over the body of a peasant. "Something in the Dirt," from cult filmmakers Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, finds the paranormal in a Los Angeles apartment building. "Honk for Jesus, Save Your Soul" is a broad farce set in a Southern Baptist megachurch. At the same time, some Sundance entries deal with the actual past in ways that comment presciently on the actual present: There are two films, a documentary and a star-studded drama, about the Janes, the anonymous women in 1960s Chicago who ran an underground railroad for then-illegal abortions.

Jackson feels this isn't by accident. "It does, on many days, feel that we're living in a horror film. I also think that with genre work, if you are a woman, if you are a filmmaker of color, genre can often be a good way of getting in and getting the funding. Even if you're not a known name or have a known track record, you have more chance of getting someone to take a bet on you because you might be the next 'Get Out.' "

Even so, the movies of Sundance 2022 seem to have an unusually high number of ghosts in them - a woman visited by the shade of her mother in Chile's "The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future," for instance, or an enslaved person escaping from a plantation and surfacing in 1973 America in "Alice." "There are a lot of ghosts and there's a lot of loss," agrees Jackson. "I think filmmakers have been grappling with loss and grief, and this (festival) is a spectrum of the ways in which they're doing it.

"This is absolutely a program of its moment."
A 2-month-old infant sustained a hematoma and a skull fracture after he fell to the pavement while his parents were arguing, according to Laredo police.

The case unfolded at about 1:05 a.m. Oct. 19, 2021, when police officers responded to an injured child report in the 3200 block of Pine Street. Authorities met with the parents of the child who were identified as Norberto Olivares Jr., 43, and Yolanda Sanchez, 20.

Officers noticed that Sanchez was holding their 2-month-old boy in her arms. Olivares stated he and Sanchez had been out together during the day, which included consuming alcoholic beverages. Olivares stated he and Sanchez began arguing when they picked up the child from the 3200 block of Pine.

"The argument escalated to a point where Sanchez and Olivares shoved each other. According to Olivares, when he pushed Sanchez, she fell out of his vehicle with their baby in her arms and the baby fell out of her arms onto the pavement," states the affidavit.

As per Sanchez, the pushing caused the car seat to fall onto the street. She then realized that the child had sustained an injury to his forehead. Police said the baby had a small laceration to his forehead. Laredo Fire Department crews treated the child before being transported to the Laredo Medical Center.

An initial evaluation at LMC revealed the child had sustained more serious internal head injuries. The child was airlifted to University Hospital in San Antonio for higher level treatment.

"Among the injuries discovered were a subdural hematoma and a skull fracture," states the affidavit.

On Nov. 14, investigators met with Sanchez at LPD headquarters. She started describing the incident as she had initially stated. Sanchez then appeared to indicate that dropping the car seat with the child was her fault saying she dropped the seat when she exited the vehicle, according to the affidavit.

Olivares refused to meet with police and stated he would seek legal counsel.

Investigators presented the case to an assistant district attorney who approved the arrest warrant for Sanchez and Olivares. They were charged with endangerment of a child by criminal negligence. Both have been released on bond, according to Webb County Jail records.
Barbados

Chris, WA7RAR, posted the following on QRZ.com: Hello from Beautiful Barbados -- Spending some time here to escape the cold, rain and snow of January in Oregon. I am staying in a small cottage overlooking the Atlantic on the South East coast of the island. Along with exploring the many sites this island country has to offer, I will also be including some radio time into the stay. This will include operation from the cottage, as well as some of the 12 Parks on the Air (POTA) designated sites that are scattered throughout the island.

My station here consists of an Icom IC-7200 feeding a quarter wave ground mounted vertical with eight radials. Operations will be on 30 through 10 Meters....possibly some 40 Meter tossed into the mix as well if I can convince the antenna to cooperate. SSB and CW only.

I always enjoy receiving Paper QSL Cards. Should you wish to confirm your contact with me here in Barbados please send your card to....

Christopher Billings

P.O. Box 1383

Shady Cove, Oregon 97539

Please be aware that I will be having my cards printed for this callsign AFTER I return home later in January 2022, so there will be a bit of a delay in getting a card back to you. For those in the U.S that choose to QSL, an SASE would be greatly appreciated. For stations outside the U.S an IRC included with your card would be great!

Thanks for checking out my page. Hope to put you in the log soon!

73 de Chris, 8P9CB/WA7RAR

OPDX
In a virtual meeting, city officials alongside Up Art Studio presented the draft for the Laredo Public Art Master Plan, or LAMP, responding to the need of the citizens of Laredo to have a more cultural city.

This project was presented during a virtual event hosted by District VIII Councilmember Alyssa Cigarroa, which included a presentation accompanied by the comprehensive 260-page long master plan.

The Laredo Public Art Master Plan is under the City Ordinance 2019-O-177, passed by the City of Laredo in late 2019. This ordinance also established a municipal Public Art program, which is responsible for administering the funds to create works of public art.

Laredo will become a more attractive place to live, work, do business and play, through its Public Art Program. The city will build a high-quality public art collection that improves and enlivens the places where people gather, in downtown and distinct neighborhoods, LAMPs vision statement reads. Public art will contribute to Laredos character and future as a vibrant city and destination. It will celebrate and reflect our communitys creativity, culture, inclusiveness, history, potential, people and natural environment.

A community survey showed people in Laredo are mostly interested in this program investing toward city parks and open space, downtown and the central historic district, gateways to Laredo, neighborhood centers, business districts and city streets, among other locations.

LAMPs goals include art enhancing neighborhoods and advancing community development, commissioning artworks, encouraging others to contribute to public art in Laredo, supporting and growing capacity within the local artist community, and promoting public art as part of the branding of Laredo as a cultural tourism destination.

In order to understand the needs, priorities and desires of residents, cultural stakeholders, and various groups within the city, the consultants and staff invited everyone to participate. In total, nearly 350 Laredoans participated in the planning process and shaped the content of this plan, a statement from LAMP reads.

The artwork theme will reflect and honor the diversity of people in Laredo and its bi-cultural identity as a border town. Artwork citizens are more interested in are in parks, large murals and art-enhanced spaces for performing arts. The artwork Laredoans are the least interested in, according to the survey, were traditional memorials like statues and historic figures. It states citizens feel the city government has ignored funding art for too long while they have focused on the competitiveness of the city.

As said during the virtual presentation, a lot of people may believe public art is just murals but it goes beyond that. The Visual Idea Book presented by LAMP includes painted, mixed-media and mosaic murals; creative crosswalks and sidewalks; installations and monuments; trail enhancements; art banners; gateway art; art at transit stops, gathering places and public places; street/trail furnishings; creative sport courts; and illumination art.

Another very important part of this project is supporting local artists.

Laredo has a diverse group of local visual artists, as well as a rich cultural tradition of visual arts and crafts from both sides of the border. However, the community is in agreement that local artists need more opportunities and support from the city to develop their careers and stay in Laredo. By investing in its creative economy, Laredo helps itself prosper, a statement from LAMP reads.

Recommendations by the program include to fully fund the Laredo Center for the Arts, host exhibitions of local artwork in city buildings and even create a vacant storefront artwork display program in which the city would help its artist by creating a city-sponsored program to place their artwork in the many empty storefronts in the downtown area.

Many community members expressed a shared feeling that the same handful of artists keep getting city commissions, to which the city should increase the diversity of its artists  being local, regional and national. Artists will receive a contract to sign in which they will articulate the scope of their work. Payments to artists will recognize and accommodate their needs as practitioners and micro businesses, shared LAMP. They will receive a flexible project payment schedule which will provide the artists cash flow needs to cover project expenses.

An example proposed as a role model is the border cities of San Diego and Tijuana, which have developed ongoing collaborations of public art installations as well as K-12 art education projects that cross the border. K-12 students also benefit from public art in their cities, serving as an educational tool for them.

Potential partner departments which could work with LAMP are the airport, Community Development, Convention & Visitors Bureau, El Metro, Environmental and Solid Waste Services, Human Resources, library, police, Public Works, and Utilities. All departments mentioned say they have interest in seeing the City of Laredo develop a citywide public art collection, states the LAMP draft.

The master plan is to be presented to City Council next Tuesday, Jan. 18.

cecilia.trevino@lmtonline.com
The year has barely started, but Congress is already back at work.

Rep. Henry Cuellar (TX-28) says there are already many agenda items and new policies that recently took effect he hopes to see roll out as he also prepares for a contentious election cycle.

Two of the big things that we are going to be working on is that we still have to see what is going to happen with that Build Back Better, as you known (Sen. Joseph) Manchin (D-WV) has asked for certain things to be changed, Cuellar said. But, the main thing that I will be focusing on is finishing the appropriations bill that should have been done last year, as it is usually done in December but it got pushed to February.

For the congressman who sits on the appropriations committee, this is one of his most important things to do as the bill he wants to put forward would allocate more money for immigration judges, more homeland security, more programs that would have a local impact and other things that would impact the country and the local region.

In total, Cuellar says about 500 items or so are added into the appropriations bill.

As the congressman hopes to get several pieces of legislation into motion as Congress works into getting more bills passed, the congressman also looks forward to seeing several key policies he helped write and pass to take effect  especially as they pertain to law enforcement and also to honor one of Laredos own military heroes.

The congressman also looks forward to this year seeing the enforcement of two bills that have recently been signed into law by the office of President Joe Biden. One of these bills centers on the United States being able to hold on trial murderers of American law enforcement officers and diplomats in a foreign country, which is the Jaime Zapata Bill, named in honor of the slain ICE agent that members of the Zetas Cartel killed in San Luis Potosi, Mexico.

He applauds the passing of such a law that was done in partnership with his Republican counterpart of the state, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), because he believes this will bring justice to cases involving law enforcement officers and other government officials hurt or killed in a foreign country.

When they tried to prosecute these people (the perpetrators) in the U.S., they said that the law could not cover them because it happened outside the law (of the U.S.), Cuellar said. So the law that Cornyn and I passed by the president basically says that if an officer or an employee, which could be a diplomat, of the United States is injured or killed outside the U.S., we can now prosecute them in the U.S., so we dont have another situation as the Jaime Zapata case. So that one is a big one for law enforcement.

With the new policy, Cuellar says now courts cannot appeal that they do not have the legal jurisdiction to try individuals who murdered American officials abroad.

The other bill he looks forward to see being implemented fully is the awarding of the Congressional Medal Award  the highest award bestowed by Congress  to all of the 13 service members slayed in the terrorist attack in Kabul, Afghanistan on Aug. 26, 2021 amid the ending of the war in the country. This includes Laredos very own Lance Cpl. David Lee Espinoza.

We will have a ceremony later in Congress at the Capitol, and I certainly want to bring the family to there in DC so they could be a part of this ceremony, Cuellar said.

Amid the new agenda items he is working on for the new year, the congressman also acknowledges this is an election year.

On the election, we got the primary on March 1, and we feel very confident about that. But we are going to work it hard, and on the Republican side, there are already several Republicans running. And they can run against each other, but at the end of the day, I will run against one in November, Cuellar said.

Last time in the November election, we won by 19 points, and the redistricting actually made it four more points Democratic, but the Republicans nationally think that South Texas is in play because Trump did better.

Cuellar says the main reason for this argument is due to the fact former President Trump won the county of Zapata, which turned red for the first time in its history. Nevertheless, Cuellar also won the county even though he was running as a Democrat.

If they really look at the numbers, Democrats won down there in South Texas including myself, and Trump was more of a variation as he did better because he focused on two things: oil and gas. And I support oil and gas jobs, and he focused on the issue of law enforcement, which I strongly support law enforcement, so it's one of those things that we are looking at doing very well, Cuellar said. The two issues that Trump focused on are items that a Republican cannot hit me on that, so we feel positive about the primary and the November election.

jorge.vela@lmtonline.com
Courtesy /CCRTA

CORPUS CHRISTI -Corpus Christi Regional Transportation Authoritys (CCRTA) Board of Directors elected Dan Leyendecker as Board Chair. The election took place at the CCRTA Board of Directors meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 5.

Leyendecker was born in Corpus Christi, but grew up in Laredo. He attended Nye Elementary, Clark Middle School, and graduated from Laredo United High School in 1986. He participated in football, baseball, and track. He then graduated from Texas A&M University with a degree in Civil Engineering. Leyendecker is a Licensed Professional Engineer.
The City of Laredo Health Department announces the transition to utilize and report COVID-19 data from the Texas Department of State Health Services (TX DSHS). On December 1, 2021, the TX DSHS transitioned initially from using daily COVID-19 case counts from jurisdictions to using the National Electronic Disease Surveillance System (NEDSS; large volume data). In order to streamline and ensure the most updated information, the Laredo Health Department will shift to reporting counts provided on TX DSHSs dashboard. The information already includes all COVID-19 data. This practice will be effective starting Monday, January 17, 2022, and the City of Laredo Health link will redirect to the TX DSHS dashboard.

Active surveillance is an ongoing effort and the City of Laredo Health Department (CLHD) will continue to monitor the severity of COVID-19 at the local level partnering with DSHS. This process will include ensuring the reporting of COVID-19 positive cases, monitoring daily testing & infection rates, investigating critically ill individuals, breakthrough, cluster, and collecting mortality data.

The various data information on the DSHS dashboard can be accessed through the following links:

DSHS COVID-19 Data Dashboard

DSHS COVID-19 Data Hospitalization Dashboard

DSHS COVID-19 Data Vaccine Dashboard

Furthermore, to continue providing accurate information to the State and the community, the Laredo Health Department is asking those who utilize a COVID-19 home test, to provide all positive results via e-mail to the department in order to facilitate public health surveillance to phep@ci.laredo.tx.us. The email should include the following information:

Photo of the test result Age Name Date of birth Phone number Address

The City of Laredo appreciates the communitys collaboration and attention to our public health and continues to implement procedures to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
The superintendents of Laredos school districts held a press conference Friday to explain their decisions to transition to remote learning from Jan. 17 to Jan. 21.

United ISD reported more than 1,000 employee absences Thursday, including 550 teachers and 270 without substitutes and at least 1,500 COVID-19 cases in students.

UISD Superintendent David Gonzalez said the Christmas holiday caused the spike.

The numbers, not only with our students but our employees and community, are a result of having two and a half weeks at home and whatever happened during that time, Gonzalez said. The issue is not within our campuses. Our schools are safe.

If in fact the campuses are safe and being at home is the issue, then the move to remote learning would be contrary to the districts goals of keeping students safe as the superintendents alluded.

Thursday, the CDC said multiple studies showed transmission rates within school settings are typically lower than community transmission levels when multiple prevention strategies are in place.

Gonzalez said keeping students at home and away from schools will be a solution this time if parents are responsible.

We are trusting our parents to do their part to avoid any spread of the virus, Gonzalez said. Place our children in a situation where theyre safe and not inviting them to be in a free-for-all where the virus is very active.

However, students will still be allowed to come to school.

If there is a parent that has no daycare for their kids next week, we are never going to turn them away, Gonzalez said. If they need to take to our campuses, they will be allowed to do that, but the instruction will be done virtually.

LISD Superintendent Sylvia Rios said the law requires schools stay open for students even during remote learning periods.

The priority for us is ensuring that, according to state statute, every single child has an opportunity to learn in our schools, Rios said. We do not have the authority to shut down our schools.

Shutting down was never an option for UISD regardless, Gonzalez said.

There are conflicting objectives the districts are attempting to achieve. They say schools are safer than staying at home, but at the same time the believe its better for students to be away, except for any who want to or must be at school.

Nevertheless, Rios said shes confident in the plan.

This thing is going to work because we have to make sure our teachers are going to be at home providing instruction, our parent-professionals are going to be at school and were going to have standard hours at Laredo ISD so we can maintain the rate of pay we need to provide for our employees, Rios said. We cant take the rug out from everybody.

Texas House Member Richard Raymond was also at the press conference.

He explained some issues that arise when schools switch to remote learning.

The State of Texas provides funding to the school districts based on the number of students who go to school every day, Raymond said. We are going to appeal to (Gov. Greg Abbott) to continue to fund us as long as we're doing virtual learning here in Laredo.

Raymond predicted a rise in the omicron variant and a quick fall in about a month from now.

In the meantime, weve got to keep teaching our kids, and we got to do it safely, Raymond said. At the state level, were going to make sure we get the funding through Laredo so we dont get penalized for a pandemic we had nothing to do with.

If Abbott doesnt grant funding for the week, he must call a special session in Austin.

Raymond said he has no doubt the necessary bill would be passed in that instance if its the last thing he does.

Rios said the funding isnt just necessary for teaching and learning.

Its about funding to provide services to our schools. Those services are over a wide range, Rios said. One of the things that Laredo ISD is going to be doing just like United is providing meals.

Laredo parents should get used to these confusing times, UISD Board of Trustees Member Ricardo Rodriguez said.

Its probably going to come back again in spring break, but were going to take all the precautions, Rodriguez said. Were going to take care of your kids, and our employees are in good hands.

marcus.trevino@lmtonline.com
A man has been sentenced to prison for striking a federal officer with the driver side door of his vehicle twice, according to court documents.

Juan Alfredo Crisencio Martinez had pleaded guilty to assault on a federal officer by use of deadly or dangerous weapon.

On Jan. 12, U.S. District Judge Diana Saldana sentenced Martinez to 336 days to serve in the Federal Bureau of Prisons followed by three years of supervised release.

His co-defendant, Jaythan Trevonne Phillips, was convicted of two counts of assault on a federal officer following a bench trial on Sept. 17, 2020. He was sentenced to 10 months in prison.

The case dates back to Feb. 8, when Martinez arrived at the Juarez-Lincoln International Bridge in a black Nissan sedan. During an immigration inspection, the backseat passenger, Phillips, returned a match with the National Crime Information Center.

CBP officers asked Martinez to turn off the vehicle and instructed Phillips to exit the sedan. Phillips ignored the commands, resisted CBP officers attempt to extricate him from the vehicle and assaulted two officers. During that scuffle, Martinez swung open the driver side door and struck a CBP officer, blocking him from assisting the other officers.

The CBP officer ordered Martinez to exit the vehicle. Instead, Martinez opened the driver side door and struck the CBP officer again. From inside the vehicle, Martinez tried to reach for the CBP officers Taser. Martinez continued resisting until the CBP officer deployed his Taser on Martinez and then removed him from the vehicle.
The former Martin High School student accused in 2018 of indicating on social media that he could be the next mass shooter is undergoing pretrial diversion, according to court documents.

Konrad William Maxwell, who is now 21, received pretrial diversion and is pending the completion of 20 hours of community service, records state.

His next hearing is set for Feb. 14 at 9 a.m.

The case dates back to Feb. 15, 2018, when Laredo police received a Laredo Crime Stoppers tip. Maxwell, who was 17 and a student at the time, had posted on Facebook a meme showing people who have committed mass shootings with the message, We have a problem in this country  and they didnt cross the border, according to an arrest affidavit.

Maxwell then wrote, Im next, the document further adds.

When questioned by investigators, Maxwell stated he wanted to see how many Facebook users would like his post, states the affidavit.

By saying Im next, he meant he would be the next mass shooter, according to the affidavit. He expected to get laughs and likes when he posted, Im next, states the affidavit.

Court records further mentioned that Maxwell was a victim of bullying at school. He also recently became more aggressive, his mother told police at the time, according to the affidavit.

Maxwell allegedly told police he was experiencing suicidal thoughts. When asked about the thoughts, he said, There is no hope and that he doesnt want to live anymore, the affidavit states.

Court documents further stated that he believed he experienced the episodes because his girlfriend was killed in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.

crodriguez@lmtonline.com
Lena Ann "Lee Ann" Enzinna, age 77 of the City of Tonawanda, April 28, 2022. Lee Ann was a 1962 graduate of Tonawanda High School and a graduate of Buffalo State Teachers College. She had been employed by Roswell Park Cancer Inst. for many years. Daughter of the late Samuel F. Sr. and Lena E
Tanaiste Leo Varadkar has said he expects a phased reopening of society from the end of January.

Strict Covid-19 measures, including the closure of nightclubs and a curfew for hospitality venues, were introduced late last year amid fears about the spread of the Omicron variant.

On Sunday, the Tanaiste said he hoped that some restrictions might be lifted soon.

Members of the National Public Health Emergency Team are expected to meet on Thursday to discuss the latest in the pandemic.

Ireland is still recording high case numbers, with 965 Covid-positive patients in hospital and 88 people in intensive care as of Sunday morning.

Mr Varadkar said he believed Ireland was coming to the point where we also need to move on, and weve had very strict restrictions in Ireland for two years now. Last summer, and the summer before that, we had the strictest rules.

He added: I dont think that should be the case this summer.

Ill be pushing for a more ambitious, quicker reopening over the next couple of months.

Nothing risky, nothing reckless, certainly something thats in line with our European peers.

The Tanaiste said he did not expect all restrictions to end overnight at the end of the month.

I think it will be phased. I dont anticipate that well just remove all restrictions at the end of January or the start of February. I think it will be a phased process over the next couple of months, Mr Varadkar told RTE radio.

However, he said that Ireland was among only a handful of countries where it had not been possible to go into the office or stand at a bar for two years.

Brave Longford woman Lynsey Bennett pinning hopes on Germany trip in bid to continue cancer fight Friends and followers of Longfords brave Lynsey Bennett have once again rallied around her in the hope of getting her to Germany for more holistic treatment for her cervical cancer.

The Tanaiste said he hoped all restrictions could ease later this year.

He said: On many occasions weve acted out of an abundance of caution. But sometimes an abundance of caution can be an excess of caution. And we need to avoid that.

However, Mr Varadkar warned: We need to make sure that we are able to respond rapidly as well if there is a resurgence of the virus and that is a possibility.

He also said it was yet to be determined if some people may require a fourth dose of the vaccine.
Friends and followers of Longfords brave Lynsey Bennett have once again rallied around her in the hope of getting her to Germany for more holistic treatment for her cervical cancer.

Before Christmas, Lynsey put out an appeal for ideas and methods of getting her back to Mexico - but without flying because of blood clots.

She was grateful to those who did make suggestions but found that the length of time it would take to get to Mexico, plus the time shed have to spend over there and the time it would take to get back, would be far too much time away from her two girls.

On Wednesday of last week, friends of Lynsey answered the call of her followers and set up a GoFundMe campaign in an effort to raise 250,000 so that she can travel the much shorter distance to Germany.

Mexico has been amazing for Lynsey and her visit in March 2021, led to a reduction in her tumors, explained Fiona Walsh, who set up the campaign.

However, due to her recent development of blood clots, she would now have to be flown by Air Ambulance. A single return trip to Mexico and treatments alone, would cost her in excess of 310,000 (130k each way for flight alone). She would need at least two if not three trips this year.

Lynsey simply cannot justify spending this amount of money on fuel to get to Mexico. She would prefer to put any monies raised towards her healing treatments.

Which is why she as turned her attention to an amazing facility in Germany, which can give her the holistic and healing care she needs, but obviously still at a price. She envisages there being numerous and continuous visits throughout 2022. She is currently in the application process.

I just want to say Lynsey is the most amazing, caring, kind and beautiful soul. She is everything you see and then some . We want to keep her with her girls and family for as long as possible. We love you Lynsey, she concluded.

The campaign raised more than 20,000 of its 250,000 goal in the first 24 hours, thanks to almost 900 generous donors.

I cannot stress enough that I do not want anyone to feel pressured into donating. As always, your love, prayers, tips and tricks and information is just as valuable to me, said Lynsey, but so far I'm blown away by the generosity.

I have no treatment left in Ireland that has any chance of giving me a good quality of life or that can boost the good parts of me.

2022 is not like 2021 when I had Pembro at home to try when I got back from Mexico (and even at that, unfortunately, Pembro didnt work).

Lynsey feels so blessed to have the knowledge of what she has learned in Mexico - even if I can't travel there right now - as it has taught her what to look for in other countries.

Germany is where truly seems to have my heart right now and I am trying not to get excited as I dont want to be disappointed if it falls through but my fingers are crossed and my heart has hope.

Anyone who wishes to donate to the 'A Year of Healing for Lynsey Bennett GoFundMe campaign can do so via the following link https://gofund.me/52590d7b.
Thirty years on, the residents of the individual republics are seen to be better off in some measures than they were at independence. All 15 Republics have seen life expectancy improve since 1991.

by Victor Cherubim

It has been 30 years ago since the Soviet Union dissolved in the wake of a bangled reform by Soviet leaders on 26 December 1991. The Soviet Union was created by the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. It did not happen overnight. It was no surprise. The collapse of the 15 republics which made up the Soviet Union faced both internal and external pressures. Back in the USSR, they endeavoured to establish political structures and reform economic systems, which failed. They faced unresolved territorial questions, socio-economic crisis and particularly ambiguity about which direction to take in the future.

I dont want to discuss the causes of the breakup in a short write-up, other than to state there was an unwieldly empire, a permanent food shortage, the official exchange rate was 78 Kopeks, whilst the Black Market rate was 48.70 Roubles to the US Greenback. Unlike a revolution, the outlying Soviet Empire was eager for reform brewing over a long time. Soviet General Secretary, Mikhail Gorbachev stepped down and Boris Yeltsin became President of a newly independent Russia. The breakup of this colossus was already a question of time.

President Putins Russia

Fast forward to President Putin who has stated: the breakup of historic Russia (Imperial Russia) has lost 40 % of its territory built over a millennium (1000 years) and lost its largest production capacity. He has had an ambition to build Russia to its pristine days. But his dream has been blocked, not necessarily by Alexei Navalny, Russian Opposition Party called, The Future of Russia. He has been cornered by punitive economic sanctions by the West.

Vladimir Putin according to western reports, is a ruthless dictator. He however, is known in Russia for the salvation of Russia from disintegration, for the end of the war in Chechnya and the destruction of ISIS and other terrorist groups in Syria. Russia lost blood and sweat to accomplish all this, including to get out of Afghanistan.

My personal experience, now only a memory

Looking back some 60 years ago (Feb. / March 1962) during Khrushchev regime, when I was foot loose and fancy free, I visited the Soviet Union from my educational stay in United States enroute to Ceylon (Sri Lanka). I was really fortunate in spending a full month travelling around the Soviet Union visiting some of the capital cities of its Republics: Moscow, including Leningrad in Russia; Kiev, capital of Ukraine and also Odessa and Sochi in Ukraine, Erevan capital of Armenia, Tbilisi in Georgia, Baku in Azerbaijan, and Tashkent in Uzbekistan. I learned a lot about the then Soviet way of life, the Kolkhoz Collective farm systems, the Soviet education. I had read much about Soviet Space Exploration while in President Kennedys USA. I wrote three feature articles published in 1962 in the Times of Ceylon, which readers can access, including the one I recall: Russian students are paid to study.

I came to realise that both the Russian and Ukrainians were from the same stock of people, speaking both Russian which then was the official language; and Ukrainian which was the language of Ukraine. The Ukrainians were naturally very proud of their Zaporozhe Cossack tradition of their history. I was most welcome and treated with much courtesy because I came from Mrs. Srimavo Bandranaikes friendly country. So much for my credentials, which I am sure my readers will forgive me for it.

Today, Ukraine is a separate and rightly free nation. But both Russian speaking brothers are at loggerheads thanks in large measure to NATO and the stirring up of emotions, because Russia invaded Crimea in 2014 and annexed it.

Russia now states it has stationed near 100,000 border patrols on the eastern flank of Ukraine. This could well be in fear of Ukraine becoming coerced as a NATO member.

Diplomacy or deterrence, is Russias choice says United States?

US Deputy Secretary of State, Wendy R. Sherman, a veteran diplomat, recently states: De-escalation and diplomacy as opposed to deterrence and the very significant costs to Russia, if they choose invasion, subversion or coercion. She goes on: I am not quite sure why Russia feels so threatened by Ukraine. President Putin will have to make a judgment about where he can get the kind of progress he wants.

Why are they threatened by a much smaller country thats just a developing democracy? It makes no sense. Are we witnessing a form of gun diplomacy?

Nearly 8 hours of US/ Russia bilateral talks in Geneva a few days ago has yielded no progress. Nerves are on end.

Of course, NATO and the West is nervously watching Russian build up, a formidable build-up of forces alongside the Ukrainian border, its eastern border with Russia with an estimated alleged 600,000 Russian troops, including tanks for invasion. But Moscow has denied plans for an all-out strike attack, which could engulf in a world war. Will it be in Moscows interest to escalate, is any bodys guess?

President Putin has not wanted to fall into the same mistake made after the collapse of the Soviet Union, or by Ukraine wanting to ever join NATO, a threat to the security of Russia. He has Estonia and other Baltic States, within earshot of Russian border. He has the Nordstrom Oil Pipeline to Germany issue un-resolved. But 8 years later, he still has held Crimea.

President Putin has put forward an eight point draft treaty laying out the requests, his conditions for withdrawal, including long term security guarantees, including NATO will halt its eastern expansion, rule out membership for Ukraine, and roll back US and NATO forces stationed in Central and Eastern Europe. Is it a tall order?

United States wants to protect the borders and sovereignty of Ukraine. The US already is using sanctions, to curtail Russian intervention. The Biden Administration and its allies are signalling to Russia that they would face financial, technological and military sanctions against Russia. They say they would go into effect within hours of an invasion of Ukraine, if Russia sends troops across the border.

What has been achieved by the Old Soviet Republics in these 30 years of freedom?

Thirty years on, the residents of the individual republics are seen to be better off in some measures than they were at independence. All 15 Republics have seen life expectancy improve since 1991. They have seen a decrease in poverty levels, through reliable comparison data, is difficult to ascertain. There is however, some nostalgic for Soviet days,

understandably, especially among the elderly citizens, who knew how to . in the Old Soviet Union.

Will Putin use diplomacy rather than deterrence is the trillion dollar question?
Longfords Republican Story 1900  2000, The impressive hardback tome by historian  and former librarian - Sean OSuilleabhain had its Dublin launch in Buswells Hotel, Molesworth Street, in early November.

It represents five years of intense work and research by Sean which will enrich all Longford readers, and many much wider afield, even those with only a passing interest in history.

Upwards of thirty attended the launch, most of whom were Dublin based Longfordians, while others had Longford connections.

Members of the Longford Association in Dublin were present and some well known faces included former Tanaiste and current Senator, Michael McDowell, Sinn Fein TDs Aengus OSnodaigh, Rose Conway-Walsh and Sean Crowe and Longford Fine Gael Senator Micheal Carrigy.

The book is laid out in clear order and covers all the major historic events within the period both nationally and in Longford: Easter Rising, War of Independence, followed by The Truce and The Treaty.

It takes us through The Civil War in Longford in the early years of the Free State, Fianna Fail in government from 32, the IRA and Blueshirts late 20s through the 30s, internment and executions in the 1940s, the evocative election of Ruairi O Bradaigh to the Dail in 1957, the Border Campaign of the 50s and the more recent Northern Ireland Troubles (1969  1998), focusing on incidents with Longford connections.

Speaking at the launch, interspersing his words with beautiful Irish, the author  originally from Colmcille, now living in Ballinamore - said the Longford book was modelled on the Leitrim book covering the same 100 years of conflict, authored by his son, Cormac O Suilleabhain. However, he said, the Leitrim story differed from the 100 year conflict in Longford in that the War of Independence took up half the Longford book.

Emphasising the huge significance of Longfords War of Independence to the national effort, Sean quoted Marie Coleman, Head of History in Queens University, Belfast: During the War of Independence it [Longford] was the only significant area of IRA activity outside of Munster.

Further reinforcing that appraisal, the author said that when the outstanding leader, Sean Mac Eoin, was arrested during the War of Independence, Michael Collins remarked Cork is fighting on its own now.



Many Longford readers will undoubtedly find the names of some of their ancestors who may have been active in the Easter Rising, the War of Independence and/or the Civil War.

This will add to already great interest in this impressive work which, once read, will also be a reference book which will settle many a current or future discussion! It is important that this book has been written, serving as it does as a superb record of Longfords history in the run up to Independence and afterwards.
The Justice Minister has said that a zero-tolerance approach will be central to a new Government strategy tackling gender-based violence, as the investigation into the murder of Ashling Murphy continues.

Irish police are still hunting for the killer of Ms Murphy, a 23-year-old teacher who was found dead after going for a run on the banks of the Grand Canal in Tullamore.

Brave Longford woman Lynsey Bennett pinning hopes on Germany trip in bid to continue cancer fight Friends and followers of Longfords brave Lynsey Bennett have once again rallied around her in the hope of getting her to Germany for more holistic treatment for her cervical cancer.

Dublin launch of Longfords Republican Story 1900  2000 given thumbs up Longfords Republican Story 1900  2000, The impressive hardback tome by historian  and former librarian - Sean OSuilleabhain had its Dublin launch in Buswells Hotel, Molesworth Street, in early November.

The murder has caused widespread anger and shock in Ireland and beyond, with tens of thousands of people attending vigils in recent days to remember Ms Murphy.

The Garda said it had made significant progress in its investigation, but was not releasing details for operational reasons.

A photo of Ashling Murphy is displayed on the big screen during the Heineken Champions Cup match at The Sportsground in Galway (Brian Lawless/PA)

It is understood that gardai have identified a new person of interest, who is believed to be in hospital in the Dublin region, and are waiting to speak to him.

It comes amid reports that searches have been carried out in Tullamore and Dublin as part of the investigation.

On Sunday, Helen McEntee said that a new Government strategy to tackle domestic, sexual and gender-based violence will be published by the beginning of March.

It would, the Justice Minister said, take a zero-tolerance approach to violence against women.

She told Newstalk: I think what weve seen this week really is an outpouring of grief right across the country from women, men, children, all of whom have come together in solidarity with Ashlings family and her community.

But in particular, have come together to demand that there is zero tolerance for this.

I myself have often decided, well, Ill go out for a walk at this time of the day or Ill go to this area because it could be safer. That shouldnt be the case.

And what weve seen now is everybody in society coming together to say this should not be the case. We should not tolerate this.

Justice Minister Helen McEntee (Niall Carson/PA)

She said that the new strategy will build on the previous strategies produced by the Government.

Were building on the progress that has been made and we have made progress, but were looking at it slightly differently. We have set a clear goal  zero tolerance.

She said that all Government departments, state agencies and the gardai, as well as the wider community, needed to play a role in ensuring the strategy is a success.

Ms McEntee was asked about the cancellation of hundreds of emergency calls to gardai in 2019 and 2020, which last year led to a public apology from Commissioner Drew Harris, and whether victims could have confidence in a police response.

We have all committed collectively to make sure that that does not happen again. And that when somebody takes that difficult step to come forward, that they will be treated with the respect and the dignity and the support that they deserve, she said.

As vigils and memorials to Ms Murphy continue to be held, prayers were said at masses across the country on Sunday for the young teacher.

People hold a vigil outside the London Irish Centre in Camden for Ashling Murphy (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

The funeral of Ms Murphy will take place on Tuesday at St Brigids Church, Mountbolus, in Co Offaly.

At a vigil in north London on Saturday, people held candles and stood in silent tribute outside the London Irish Centre.

Traditional music was played in honour of Ms Murphy, a talented fiddle player, while some of the crowd quietly sang or hummed along.

Anna Johnston, cultural officer at the London Irish Centre, said people had come together in solidarity with those who knew and loved Ms Murphy and all the women of Ireland and further afield who are angry, distressed and heartbroken.
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Today

Sun and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 87F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph.

Tonight

Some clouds. Low 68F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.

Tomorrow

Partly cloudy. High 89F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.
FORT LAUDERDALE  Thousands upon thousands of bright-eyed beachgoers have started their day at Las Olas and A1A, and the place looks pretty spiffy.

Thats because Bobby Williams was there first.

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You might not know him, but hes the guy who gets up well before dawn to keep Fort Lauderdales famous beachfront corner sparkling clean, making dirt and grime disappear.

Williams, 53, tackles his not-so-glamourous job with a broad smile and a cheery hello to just about everybody who walks by, earning himself the unofficial title Mayor of the Beach.

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Hes been at it for 15 years, amassing a bit of a fan club among locals.

One recent weekday, Williams flashed that big smile, getting hello after hello and the occasional hug and handshake as folks passed on by.

Hes awesome, one woman proclaimed to a reporter there to interview Williams. See you tomorrow, said another. Everybody knows Bobby, said a third.

Maintenance worker Bobby Williams, a familiar face to regulars at Fort Lauderdale beach, greets folks passing while he works to keep the famous corner of A1A and Las Olas clean on Tuesday. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Plenty of the people hes met on the job know him by name. Williams cant recall all their names, but says he remembers their faces.

Because hes not one to brag, most of his fans have no idea he helped Fort Lauderdale nab its first and only Emmy, playing a starring role in a 151-second clip that showed him on the job in June. The regional award, bestowed by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Suncoast Chapter in December, got more views than any other on the citys website and now has a home on YouTube.

Williams, a man of humility, greeted the good news with sincere disbelief.

Enrique Sanchez, deputy director of Fort Lauderdales Parks and Recreation Department, says word of the surprise win quickly spread among Williams coworkers.

They josh him about being a superstar, Sanchez said. When the video came out he was employee of the quarter. [The city] was trying to highlight people behind the scenes. And that story just resonated.

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Eric Thomas, Williams supervisor, calls him a stand-out employee who takes a rare level of pride in his work.

Hes the myth, the man, the legend, Thomas said. Hes a positive guy, great energy.

[ RELATED: Hey, spring breakers: The beach is not your trash can. ]

Keeping that beach beautiful

Williams gets up at 2 a.m. so he can start work at 4 a.m.

Hes responsible for cleaning 7 miles of beach, from Southeast 17th Street all the way to the citys northern border with Lauderdale-by-the-Sea.

I find trash everywhere, he said I try to clean all this before everyone gets here to walk. I want them to feel like the beach is never dirty.

But when he gets there, it is. He has seen all kinds of things you dont want to see while strolling the beach: Beer cans, condoms, bikini bottoms.

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He cleans streets and sidewalks, public showers and lifeguard towers, using his pressure cleaner to wash away all kinds of gunk and grit, including human waste and vomit.

Some might have quit after the first day. But Williams has been at the job for 33 years  the past 15 at the beach.

Bobby Williams pressure washes the sidewalk at A1A and Las Olas on Tuesday. Williams, a maintenance worker with Fort Lauderdale's Parks and Recreation Department, gets up at 2 a.m. to get to work by 4 a.m., well before most of us have rolled out of bed. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel)

A true blue employee, Williams will come home and tell his family all about his day on the job, said wife Maria Williams.

He takes pictures and sends them to me to show me what he did, she said. He has a lot of energy. Hes a real social butterfly. He loves to talk. He says he runs into people who are having a bad day. And he tries to lighten their day and turn their frown into a smile.

[ RELATED: Fort Lauderdales little secret: Weve got rats and theyre dining like kings and queens ]

Not everything Williams finds winds up in the trash. A couple years ago he came across a Woody doll from Toy Story that now rides on the antenna of his truck.

He was in the sand saying, Save me. I said, I got you Woody. Youre going on my antenna. Im Woody. Woody always waves at people and says hi.

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Perseverance and the pandemic

Williams kept on working on the front lines throughout the pandemic, scouring showers and cleaning sidewalks even when the beach was closed during those distant lockdown days.

Steve Huntley, a newcomer to Fort Lauderdale, quickly became a fan.

We moved here two months ago from Parkland, Huntley said. He was just so friendly. Now I look for him. People like him get underappreciated. He is awesome.

Williams became a familiar face for Sherry Harris soon after she moved to Fort Lauderdale from Los Angeles a decade ago.

Ive been seeing him since Ive been going down to the beach to walk or run, she said. And hes always there. Hes a very protective individual. He just watches out for everybody.

Fort Lauderdale maintenance worker Bobby Williams greets resident Mercedes Pagano and her dog, Deputy, Tuesday. "I've been coming here for seven years and he's always super friendly and super nice," Pagano said of Williams. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel)

During the darkest days of the pandemic, he was a sight for sore eyes, she said.

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It was a bizarre time, she said. Some people were going to the beach before sunrise to avoid people, so they disappeared. But it was nice seeing Bobby. It was pretty comforting to see him around. He would always smile and wave, always have something nice to say. When everything was not normal he was the normal. He always makes you feel welcome.

[ RELATED: Spring Break crowd storms Fort Lauderdale beach  COVID or not ]

One thing that has not been changed by the pandemic: Williams keeps on making people laugh with his easy charm and lifting spirits when he runs across anyone whos feeling down.

When the lockdown was over, they came back and were giving me hugs, Williams said. They said they missed me. They like coming out and seeing me. I think the Lord put me right here to help people. I always make em feel better.

Bobby Williams, a longtime maintenance worker with the city of Fort Lauderdale, keeps a Woody doll from "Toy Story" on the antenna of his truck. He found the toy while working at the beach a few years ago. Im Woody, he said with a smile. Woody always waves at people and says hi. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel)

No time to retire

Williams could have retired three years ago. But his bosses dont like to mention that.

He could have retired at 30 years and hes been here 33, Sanchez said. Thats a long time on any job. And hes still excited to do it. Its a rare quality. He could be retired and collecting a pension and he still stays here. Itd be a huge loss if he were to ever leave.

His wife says she sometimes teases him about never wanting to retire.

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Bobby loves his job, yes he do, she said. When I met him he was working in the inner city. Then he moved to the beach. He says he never wants to transfer off the beach. I always tease him that he likes the bathing suits. He says, No, I just like the beach.

Ed Cave met Williams a few years ago and keeps a smiling photo of Williams in his phone along with a shot of Woody hanging from the trucks antenna.

Williams took a moment to chat with Cave. The conversation quickly turned to unbridled laughter.

You got to laugh, Williams said. Laughing makes you feel so good. You got to laugh.

Cave smiled before saying: You see why people love him so much. He gets more work done than anyone else. Hes always in a good mood. Hes always getting it done, taking care of our beach. Hes Number One.

Susannah Bryan can be reached at sbryan@sunsentinel.com or on Twitter @Susannah_Bryan
COLLEYVILLE, Texas  Authorities on Sunday identified a 44-year-old British national as the man who took four people hostage at a Texas synagogue for 10 hours before an FBI SWAT team stormed the building, ending a tense standoff that President Joe Biden called an act of terror.

Malik Faisal Akram was shot and killed after the last of the hostages got out at around 9 p.m. Saturday at Congregation Beth Israel near Fort Worth. In a statement, the FBI said there was no indication that anyone else was involved, but it didnt provide a possible motive.

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Akram could be heard ranting on a Facebook livestream of the services and demanding the release of a Pakistani neuroscientist who was convicted of trying to kill U.S. Army officers in Afghanistan. Speaking to reporters in Philadelphia on Sunday, Biden said Akram allegedly purchased a weapon on the streets and might have been in the U.S. for only a few weeks.

Video from Dallas TV station WFAA showed people running out a door of the synagogue, and then a man holding a gun opening the same door just seconds later before he turned around and closed it. Moments later, several rounds of gunfire could be heard, followed by the sound of an explosion.

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Rest assured, we are focused, Biden said. The attorney general is focused and making sure that we deal with these kinds of acts.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to questions Sunday about Akrams immigration status and history. Londons Metropolitan Police said in a statement that its counter-terrorism police were liaising with U.S. authorities about the incident.

FBI Special Agent in Charge Matt DeSarno said the hostage-taker was specifically focused on an issue not directly connected to the Jewish community, and there was no immediate indication that the man was part of any broader plan. It wasnt clear why Akram chose the synagogue.

The FBI and police spokeswomen declined to answer questions Saturday night about who shot Akram when the standoff ended.

Law enforcement officials who were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation and who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity earlier said the hostage-taker demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist suspected of having ties to al-Qaida who is in a federal prison in Texas. He also said he wanted to be able to speak with her, according to the officials.

Authorities said police were first called to the synagogue around 11 a.m. and people were evacuated from the surrounding neighborhood soon afterward.

Saturdays services were being livestreamed on the synagogues Facebook page for a time. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that an angry man could be heard ranting and talking about religion at times during the livestream, which didnt show what was happening inside the synagogue.

Shortly before 2 p.m., the man said, You got to do something. I dont want to see this guy dead. Moments later, the feed cut out. A spokesperson for Meta Platforms Inc., the corporate successor to Facebook Inc., later confirmed that Facebook had removed the video.

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Multiple people heard the hostage-taker refer to Siddiqui as his sister on the livestream. But John Floyd, board chair for the Houston chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations  the nations largest Muslim advocacy group  said Siddiquis brother, Mohammad Siddiqui, was not involved.

We want the assailant to know that his actions are wicked and directly undermine those of us who are seeking justice for Dr. Aafia, said Floyd, who also is legal counsel for Mohammad Siddiqui.

Texas resident Victoria Francis, who said she watched about an hour of the livestream, said she heard the man rant against America and claim he had a bomb. Biden said Sunday that there were apparently no explosives, despite the threats.

He was just all over the map. He was pretty irritated and the more irritated he got, hed make more threats, like Im the guy with the bomb. If you make a mistake, this is all on you. And hed laugh at that, Francis said. He was clearly in extreme distress.

Colleyville, a community of about 26,000 people, is about 15 miles (23 kilometers) northeast of Fort Worth. By Sunday morning, the police perimeter around the synagogue had shrunk to half a block in either direction and FBI agents could be seen going in and out of the building. A sign saying Love  with the o replaced with a Star of David  was planted in a neighbors lawn.

Congregation Beth Israel is led by Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, who was among the four hostages. He declined to speak at length to a reporter outside his home on Sunday, telling an Associated Press reporter: Its a little overwhelming as your can imagine. It was not fun yesterday.

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Andrew Marc Paley, a Dallas rabbi who was called to the scene to help families and hostages upon their release, said Cytron-Walker acted as a calm and comforting presence. The first hostage was released shortly after 5 p.m. That was around the time food was delivered to those inside the synagogue, but Paley said he did not know if it was part of the negotiations.

He appeared a little unfazed, actually, but I dont know if that was sort of shock or just the moment, Paley said of the first hostage after his release. He was calm and grateful to law enforcement and Rabbi Charlie.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Twitter that this event is a stark reminder that antisemitism is still alive and we must continue to fight it worldwide.

The standoff led authorities to tighten security in other places, including New York City, where police said that they increased their presence at key Jewish institutions out of an abundance of caution.

___

Tucker reported from Washington, D.C. Also contributing to this reporter were Associated Press writers Paul J. Weber and Acacia Coronado in Austin; Michael Balsamo in Washington; Colleen Long in Philadelphia; Jennifer McDermott in Providence, Rhode Island; Michael R. Sisak in New York; Holly Meyer in Nashville, Tenn.; and Issac Scharf in Jerusalem.
Michael Moskowitz, the high-power attorney, lobbyist and one of Browards most prominent money-raisers for Democratic candidates, died late Saturday, just a year and a half after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, his family confirmed. He was 68.

It was days after he got to see his son Jared Moskowitz sworn in as a Broward County commissioner as an appointee by Gov. Ron DeSantis, an event he was so determined to witness that his family made arrangements to take him to Parkland City Hall by ambulance. Hospice had come to his house to help care for him two days earlier.

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The swearing-in was meant to add two new members to the county commission, but Moskowitz was the main attraction: Scores of political well-wishers, and some former clients, waited patiently to kneel down to him in his wheelchair, shake his hand, or rest it on his shoulder and whisper their congratulations about his sons latest accomplishment.

A graduate of New York University and Brooklyn Law School, Moskowitz had a reputation of being the go-to lawyer to get things done.

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Michael Moskowitz, seen in this 2014 photo, was a high-power attorney, lobbyist and one of Browards most prominent money-raisers for Democratic candidates. (Brittany Wallman / Sun Sentinel)

As an attorney, Moskowitz in 2020 represented Sheriff Gregory Tony against lawsuits filed by Tonys former political adversaries, who questioned his eligibility for sheriff. Moskowitz appeared in court by Zoom, apologizing to the judge for his hat while he was undergoing cancer treatment.

He has previously represented the Florida Panthers seeking an $80 million Broward bailout using tourist taxes. And in 2011 he represented the longtime president of the Broward Teachers Union when criminal accusations began to surface.

Broward County Mayor Michael Udine, who has been friends with Moskowitz for 25 years, said he was also a generous philanthropist. He was a pillar in the community, he was the first call people made [to host for] charitable organizations. ... He was a great lawyer and a great family man.

Moskowitzs political acumen drew attention as he wined and dined donors at his Parkland estate to help some of the top names in the country get elected.

Jared Moskowitz fist-bump his dad, Mike Moskowitz, 68, before being sworn in as County Commissioner during a ceremony at Parkland City Hall on Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2022. (Carline Jean / South Florida Sun Sentinel)

In 2008, former President Bill Clinton lured more than 120 people to Michael Moskowitzs 6,000-square-foot Parkland home to stump for his wife.

Hillary Rodham Clintons staffers greeted guests at the door and collected checks of $1,000 or more per person. Guests dined on hors doeuvres brought around on cocktail trays by wait staff, including pigs in a blanket, sushi and lamb chops as Bill Clinton talked about his wife.

Then in 2015, Moskowitz hosted Hillary Rodham Clinton herself when she ran for president.

Over the years Moskowitz hosted events for former Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, former Democrat Joe Lieberman, of Connecticut, and former State Education Commissioner Betty Castor. In 2014, he hosted Joe Biden, then the vice president, as Biden campaigned for Charlie Crists run for Florida governor.

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[ Related: Jared Moskowitzs hero is his ailing dad. And his father looked on proudly as hes sworn in to Broward Commission. ]

Moskowitz was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in July 2020.

His son Jared Moskowitz is also the former Florida Division of Emergency Management answering to DeSantis, a former state representative and former Parkland vice mayor and commissioner.

Jared Moskowitz said it was his dad who took him to his first presidential rally, that of Democrat Jesse Jackson, in elementary school and encouraged his political ambitions when he was just 25 and naysayers told him he was too young. He was the only person who thought it was a good idea, Jared Moskowitz said.

Mitch Ceasar, the former chairman of the Broward Democratic Party, had been friends with Moskowitz for more than 40 years, even attending his sons bar mitzvah. He said people were attracted to Moskowitz because of his intellect and sense of humor.

Although he was thrilled to support the two new county commissioners sworn into office last Wednesday, it was Michael Moskowitz he went to see and say his goodbyes.

Thank God I got to visit with him the other day, he said.

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He said Moskowitz believed in the Democratic party in part with how he grew up, in middle class in Brooklyn, he said. He believed in equal rights and facts matter. He really cared about those things decades ago.

In addition to his son, Jared, Moskowitz is survived by his wife, Marilyn, and son, Brett Moskowitz, of Atlanta, daughter Jessica Isrow, of Parkland, and four grandchildren.

His son-in-law is Parkland City Commissioner Jordan Isrow, and Moskowitz was eager to help with advice.

He used to joke theres the Kennedys and theres the Moskowitzes, said Marilyn Moskowitz. I was beyond lucky to be his wife.

The funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday at Temple Beth Torah Shaaray Tzedek in Tamarac. The burial will be later in the week in New York.

Lisa J. Huriash can be reached at lhuriash@sunsentinel.com or 954-572-2008 or Twitter @LisaHuriash.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is undoubtedly one of the most influential personalities in the world right now.



Like all Prime Ministers, Presidents of other countries, he's also escorted with the highest level of security measures.

 Reuters

Be it the security personnel, his plane, or the car that he travels in, everything is catered for by security personnel in order to ensure that his safety remains paramount and he can carry out his busy everyday schedule and events perfectly on time.



Now, while the Punjab incident that took place recently, was obviously a one-off, PM Modi, being India's supreme leader, gets VVIP treatment everywhere he goes.

Having said that, there is a sort of a unique incident where PM Modi actually ended up being driven in a car owned by a big Bollywood celebrity.

And this was not just any celebrity, but the Baadshah of Bollywood, Shah Rukh Khan!

 Instagram/Shah Rukh Khan

Yep! According to reports, Prime Minister Modi used a Shah Rukh-owned limousine while attending an event.



As per reports, in 2018, PM Modi was to attend the Commonwealth Summit where leaders from around 52 nations attended the event.

It was then that PM Modi made a special entry after stepping down from a limousine car that actually belonged to Shah Rukh.

 Twitter

It was reported that PM Modi was the only person to have received permission to sit in the 100-meter-long luxury sedan.



As you already know, Shah Rukh has an amazing collection of supercars that he's collected over the course of working in Bollywood for almost three decades.

This particular limousine had been used by him to make an appearance in Dubai in 2014.

According to reports, SRK had traveled with his wife Gauri Khan to attend the launch of a real estate business named Royal Estates by Shah Rukh Khan.

Other than this car, Shah Rukh owns a Bugatti Veyron priced at approximately Rs 12 crore, a Bentley Continental GT, a Rolls-Royce Phantom Coupe, a BMW i8, and even a customized Luxury Vanity Van.

Not only that, but he is also one of the few Bollywood celebrities to actually own a bulletproof/bomb-proof car.

Source: Koimoi
Shahid Kapoor, who is waiting for the release of Jersey, was seen promoting the film on Salman Khan hosted Bigg Boss 15 with co-star Mrunal Thakur during the Christmas weekend. Fans loved the camaraderie between Salman and Shahid in the episode. However, did you know that both of them once shared cold vibes and their feud went on for several years? Yes, you read that right!

The duo had a fall out during the Rockstars World Tour in 2007. Apparently, Salman and Shahid were practising in the USA for a show when the Jab We Met star, known for his dancing skills, corrected a few steps of Salman. The Bajrangi Bhaijaan star didn't like it and got upset. Kareena Kapoor, who was dating Shahid at that time, had tried to play the mediator between them.

Post this incident, Shahid even apologised to Salman, however, the superstar wasnt in the mood to forgive him initially. They finally hugged it out in 2009 when Shahid appeared on Salman's game show 10 Ka Dum with Rani Mukerji to promote their film Dil Bole Hadippa.

Since then, Shahid has appeared several times on Bigg Boss to promote his films and Salman has always been nice to him. Besides this, Salman also did a cameo in Shahid's Phata Poster Nikla Hero in 2013.

Recalling his cold war with Salman in an interview with Pinkvilla in 2014, Shahid had said, "I have always been a fan. There was some misunderstanding long back, but he has been very warm and we have had great fun whenever we met".

On the career front, Salman is currently busy with the third part of the Tiger franchise while he will also be doing cameos in Shah Rukh Khan's Pathan and Aamir Khan-starrer Laal Singh Chaddha. He is also expected to feature in No Entry 2 but the official announcement is still awaited.

Shahids next Jersey is ready for release. It was slated to hit the big screens on December 31; however, it got indefinitely postponed amid the Omicron scare. Besides Jersey, he has signed Ali Abbas Zafar's upcoming thriller and Aditya Nimbalkar's Bull, produced by Bhushan Kumar, Garima Mehta, and Amar Butala. Also, he is set to make his digital debut with Raj & DK's web series.

Source: TOI
Congresswoman-elect Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Miramar, is scheduled to take the oath of office on Tuesday, one week after she was elected.

The swearing in will take place Tuesday evening at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

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Cherfilus-McCormick will fill the year remaining on the term of the late U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings.

The incoming congresswoman won 79% of the vote in the Jan. 11 special election in the Broward-Palm Beach County 20th Congressional District.

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[ RELATED: Democrat Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick wins, becomes nations newest member of Congress, replacing Alcee Hastings ]

The 20th District, which stretches from Miramar in southwest Broward to Riviera Beach in northeastern Palm Beach County, includes most of the African American and Caribbean American communities in the two counties. Cherfilus-McCormick is the first Haitian American Democrat elected to Congress.

Its the first time Cherfilus-McCormick, 41, has been elected to office. The lawyer and CEO of home health care company Trinity Healthcare Services previously ran for Congress in 2018 and 2020.

[ RELATED: DeSantis sets election dates for voters to replace Alcee Hastings  keeping seat vacant far longer than normal ]

Long delay

Hastings died on April 6. When Cherfilus-McCormick takes office, the seat will have been vacant longer than nine months.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has the authority to set dates for special elections, kept the district unrepresented longer than any other similar vacancy in modern Florida history. Its one of the longest vacancies anywhere in the nation during the last two decades.

DeSantis waited 30 days to set a special election, five days after a lawsuit was filed seeking a court order requiring him to act. He then set the special primary for Nov. 2 and a general election for Jan. 11.

Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, center, celebrates winning the special general election for U.S. House Florida District 20, Tuesday, January 11, 2022, at Smitty's Wings, in Fort Lauderdale. She is scheduled to take the oath of office one week after the special election, in which she won 79% of the vote in her Broward-Palm Beach county district. Cherfilus-McCormick, a health care company CEO, defeated Republican Jason Mariner in the special election to fill Florida's 20th Congressional District seat, left vacant after Democratic U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings died last April of pancreatic cancer. (Michael Laughlin/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

The previous five special congressional elections took place an average of 154 days after the vacancy occurred, Harvard Election Law Clinic research shows. Thats more than four months shorter on average.

The late U.S. Rep. C.W. Bill Young, a Tampa Bay-area Republican, is the only Florida member of Congress to die in office since 2000. Then-Gov. Rick Scott set the special primary for three months later. The special general election was almost five months after Youngs 2013 death.

[ RELATED: Browards newest state representative won a convincing victory. Hell take office in about two weeks ]

In October 2009, then-U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler announced he would resign from his Broward-Palm Beach county seat in January 2010.

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Then-Gov Charlie Crist set the special primary for early February. The special general election was in mid-April, so the seat was vacant for about 3 months.

The winner of the special election, U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, has been re-elected ever since.

Maxwell Chambers, Miramar city commissioner, was at Congresswoman-elect @Sheila4Congresss Election Night Victory party Tuesday in Fort Lauderdale.

Near the end, he led supporters in toasting her.

2/4 pic.twitter.com/B0MuRhLnLG  Anthony Man (@browardpolitics) January 12, 2022

DeSantis date-setting decision was controversial. Critics say that the delay was designed to keep a Democratic representative from the district  which is so heavily Democratic that the partys nominee was virtually certain to win  out of the House of Representatives, thus making it harder for Speaker Nancy Pelosi to pass legislation.

On Election Night, Cherfilus-McCormick said she hoped to be sworn in as early as Thursday.

That was the timetable  two days after the special election  when David Jolly succeeded Young in 2014 and Deutch succeeded Wexler in 2010.

An analysis by the data-driven news site FiveThirtyEight.com found a trend in recent years: Republican governors have been doing the same thing as DeSantis did, keeping vacancies in districts likely to elect members of the opposite political party open for increasingly long periods suggesting that governors are increasingly delaying special elections to deprive their political opponents of a voice and vote in the House.

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FiveThirtyEight data showed that its especially pronounced in situations like the Hastings district, in which Republican governors are setting special elections in districts likely to elect Black Democrats. Those vacancies are being kept open especially long. This political gamesmanship has disadvantaged districts with large Black populations in red [Republican] states especially.

20th District results Districtwide Democrat Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick: 44,651 votes, 78.9%. Republican Jason Mariner: 10,959 votes; 19.4%. Broward County Democrat Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick: 32,814 votes; 82.3%. Republican Jason Mariner: 6,222 votes; 15.6%. Palm Beach County Democrat Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick: 11,837 votes; 69.9%. Republican Jason Mariner: 4,737 votes; 28.0%. Note: A Libertarian candidate and two no party affiliation candidates received a total of 922 votes, or 1.6% of the vote, districtwide.  Sources: Florida Division of Elections, Broward and Palm Beach county supervisors of elections offices.

Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com or on Twitter @browardpolitics
Jordan Wilson, development director of Friends of Sinners, will be featured on the 700 Club, a national Christian broadcasting program.

The 700 Club was first broadcast in 1966. Its hosted by televangelist Pat Robertson.

Friends of Sinners is a Christ-centered, long-term substance recovery program that houses its residents for 12-18 months.

Wilson became sober from drug addiction and became a Christian on March 27, 2016, after his father invited him to church.

Each year on March 27, he posts his story on Facebook, hoping to inspire others who may be battling a similar situation.

His 2021 post went viral, amassing nearly 100,000 shares. A producer of the 700 Club saw the post and reached out in May, interested in telling Wilsons story.

They said it was too good not to share, Wilson said.

Wilson spoke with the producer about his story and was told he would hear back in on if his story would be featured.

Within a week, he found out he had been chosen.

I couldnt believe it, Wilson said.

The producer and a filming crew went to Wilsons house in Henderson on Jan. 11 to film.

Im just so blown away that this is happening, he said.

Wilson hopes his story will inspire people who are battling addiction.

Drug addiction is no joke, he said. People are dying every single day. Its so important that people see someone making it out of drug addiction.

Wilson also recently published a book detailing his story, Jesus > Drugs, which will also be featured on the show.

His episode will air the week of Easter, Wilson said.

Im so happy that my story will bring people hope, he said.
In summer 2020, The New York Times coordinated a nationwide project to document the lives of Americans out of work because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study involved collaborating with 11 other local newsrooms around the U.S. The Messenger-Inquirer was the only newspaper from Kentucky in the collaboration. The resulting collection of stories was published Oct. 23, 2020, in the New York Times print edition and at nytimes.com/outofwork. The following list is the Messenger-Inquirer's local unemployment coverage from that time period; read more by clicking the "New York Times Project" header. Click on "Out Of Work In America" to go to the full
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

December 28, 2021

Contact: press@michigan.gov

Michigan Schools Use New State Grant to Invest in Students' Mental and Physical Health, Recruit 560+ Nurses, Social Workers, Counselors?

Hiring made possible by bipartisan, historic school budget signed by Governor Whitmer in July 2021, funding still available for districts to apply?

LANSING, Mich. - Governor Whitmer today announced that schools are recruiting and in the process of hiring 560 more school psychologists, school social workers, school counselors, and school nurses with the help of funding from the FY22 State School Aid Act.??

"The pandemic reminded us that school-based mental and physical health professionals are not luxuries. Healthy students-physically, mentally, and social-emotionally-are better learners," said Governor Gretchen Whitmer. "Having skilled professionals in school buildings helps our kids get the supports they need so they can thrive in the classroom and beyond."

"Our children require academic, social emotional, and physical supports, both in and out of schools," said State Superintendent Dr. Michael F. Rice. "School communities across the state are appreciative of this critical new FY 22 budget investment negotiated between the governor and the state legislature. This $240 million begins the requisite school support for our children's mental health and physical needs."

"The health and well-being of Michigan's students continues to be a top priority for both MASA and our members," said Dr. Tina Kerr, Executive Director of the Michigan Association of Superintendents & Administrators. "Now, more than ever, our students need access to these services, and there's no better place than in our schools to provide them. We are very pleased to see this important funding going to districts across the state so they can hire the key staff needed to support our students."

Delivering for Students

In the FY2022 budget, Governor Whitmer and the Michigan Legislature worked together to appropriate $240 million to increase the number of school-based professionals support students' mental and physical health.??

To date, 210 school districts have applied for grant funding to hire 562 staff members including 60 school psychologists, 226 school social workers, 146 school counselors, and 130 school nurses. Grant funds help districts hire staff and gradually transition from fully funding the position with state funds in year 1 to fully funding the position with local funds in year 4.??

The application is still open, and all districts are eligible to apply. Districts can review frequently asked questions and submit their application by visiting Michigan.gov/MDE. Districts must hire staff by March 1, 2022 to qualify.??

Budget??

In September, the governor signed the Fiscal Year 2022 budget bill that includes game-changing investments in childcare and delivers on the kitchen-table issues that matter most to families, communities, and small business. The budget puts 167,000 Michiganders on a tuition-free path to higher-education or skills training, repairs or replaces 100 bridges while creating 2,500 jobs, and makes a $500 million deposit into our?rainy day?fund, the largest one-time ever, bringing its balance to nearly $1.4 billion, the highest ever.??

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3 1 of 3 Photo provided/Judy Crockett Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Photo provided/Judy Crockett Show More Show Less 3 of 3





MANISTEE  Last year, a Manistee County group helped to raise nearly $10,000 for Wagoner Community Center's new doors. The 100 Women Who Care Manistee County group plans to host its quarterly meeting and give a peek at the doors on Tuesday.



The 100 Women Who Care Manistee County group plans to hold an in-person meeting from 5:30-6:30 p.m. at the Wagoner Community Center, 260 St. Mary S. Parkway, in Manistee.



The group also met at the center in October. Judy Crockett, co-founder of 100 Women Who Care Manistee County, said the group likes to meet at the center since it allows us to meet safely together in a large, open indoor area while still maintaining good social distance.



"Plus, we will get to take a look at the new doors we helped to purchase with our October 2021 donation, Crockett said in a news release on the event.



Sarah Howard, executive director of the Manistee County Council on Aging, stressed in a news release the need to upgrade the centers exterior doors on the building was a priority as winter weather and the strong winds off of Lake Michigan had led to the deterioration of the previous doors.



The new doors meet Americans with Disabilities Act requirements and are planned to be equipped with push button opening.

The nearly $10,000 donation from 100 Women Who Care Manistee County, along with proceeds raised from the Sleighbell weekend craft show held at the Wagoner Center, made a significant impact toward covering the overall expense of the door replacements, reads part of the news release.



"We welcome all the women in our community to join the (100 Women Who) Care group," Crockett said.



She said the group started in 2014 with about 35 members.



In October, we had 93 women participate, she said. I know that in 2022, we will reach that magic number of 100 women. When 100 women participate, we are able to provide a local nonprofit agency with $10,000, that we raise together in a one-hour meeting. A donation of that size allows the agencies to meet a significant need."



Crockett also noted the contributions of the 100 Men Who Care group.



"One year after Jennie Marie Naffie and I founded the Manistee Women Who Care chapter, Al Frye and Dick Albee formed 100 Men Who Care Manistee," Crockett said. "The men meet on the third Wednesday of the month, January, April, July and October. The women meet the third Tuesday. We have a number of couples participating with the women meeting on Tuesday and the men meeting on Wednesday."



Some of the projects funded by 100 Women Who Care include:

 A new furnace at Lighthouse Pregnancy Care Center;

 A new roof at CHOICES of Manistee;

 A new lighting and other endeavors at the Armory Youth Project;

 Two handicap accessible bathrooms at Little Mary's Hospitality House;

 Manistee Area Public Schools summer reading program;

 Blessings in a Backpack; and

 Renovations at the Ramsdell Regional Center for the Arts;



Crockett said both groups have raised $280,000 for local non-profits.



"We will exceed $350,00 by the end of 2022 as both the men's and the women's group continue to grow, she said, adding that both groups are open to all who wish to join.



The groups meet for one hour, four times per year. Members commit to donating $100 each quarter to the agency selected by the group at the quarterly meeting.



More information on 100 Women Who Care is available by contacting Judy Crockett by phone at 231-723-7914 or by email at womensnetworkmanistee@gmail.com; and more information on 100 Men Who care can be found by contacting Al Frye at alfrye55@gmail.com.
While most of South Florida was spared from Sundays worst weather, Floridas west coast was hit with a tornado that topped 100 mph and destroyed dozens of homes. It was part of a winter storm that impacted the countrys broader southeast region.

A tornado warning issued for central Broward and Palm Beach counties expired at 12:15 p.m. Sunday, according to the National Weather Service in Miami.

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But a tornado tore through Naples, Fort Myers and surrounding communities. Local news outlets reported a handful of minor injuries, but 31 mobile homes were destroyed and 51 more had sustained serious damage.

The tornado was on the ground for almost two miles with a maximum path width of 125 yards, according to the National Weather Service.

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John Finelli, a resident of the Tropicana Mobile Home Park in the Iona area of Fort Myers, Fla., searches for belongings after a tornado destroyed his home on Sunday, Jan. 16, 2022. His parents were in the home and were transported to the hospital. (Andrew West/The News-Press via AP) (Andrew West/AP)

The severe weather came as showers and thunderstorms moved across the region ahead of a strong cold front. Broward and Palm Beach County mostly saw heavy rains throughout the day, but none of the damage Floridas west coast experienced.

Pedestrians run past a splash zone on the sidewalk of A1A just south of Sunrise Blvd., in Fort Lauderdale Sunday, Jan 16, 2022. A line of thunderstorms caused a tornado warning and flooding in South Florida Sunday. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Heavy rains cause ponding on Las Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale on Sunday, Jan. 16, 2022. (Joe Cavaretta)

The Florida Highway Patrol reported that a large tornado crossed Interstate 75 near Naples Sunday, causing a semi-truck to overturn. Minor injuries were reported.

[ LIVE RADAR: Check weather conditions before you head out ]

The mobile home park impacted by the tornado, built in 1970, has nearly 500 homesites, with residents 55 and up, according to Naples Daily News.

The tornado took me off my feet blew me toward the east wall and buried me under the sink, refrigerator, kitchen chairs and everything else, Edward Murray, 81, told Naples Daily News. Murray is a resident of Windcrest and Point Breeze in Cottage Point Trailer Park in Fort Myers, which was also damaged.

A large tornado crossed Interstate 75 near Naples on Sunday, causing a semi-truck to overturn, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. (Florida Highway Patrol)

Floridas weather was part of the same storm system that has walloped other parts of the Southeastern U.S. with snow and ice and knocked out power in parts of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky and North Carolina, the latter being the most affected by lack of electricity, according to poweroutage.us.

Power outages in North Carolina, which initially totaled a quarter-million customers, had dropped to about 130,000 late Sunday.

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In North Carolina, the Highway Patrol had responded to 300 car crashes and nearly 800 calls for help as of Sunday afternoon, according to spokesperson First Sgt. Christopher Knox.

Knox said two people died Sunday when their car drove off the road east of Raleigh.

New York City was expected to be spared most, if not all, of the snow. Areas in upstate New York could see up to a foot of snow, forecasters said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
EAST HARTFORD  U.S. Rep. John B. Larson, D-1st District, staged a modest campaign kickoff Friday, formalizing what never was in doubt: He is seeking reelection, typically a desultory affair in this safe Democratic district.

Larson, 73, has held public office for most of the past 45 years, moving from the Board of Education and Town Council to the state Senate, then landing in Congress after winning a fierce Democratic primary for an open seat.

That was 24 years ago. He has not been challenged since for the nomination, a streak that a 27-year-old progressive Muslim and former Capitol Hill staffer named Muad Hrezi is trying to end, arguing Larson has stayed too long.

In short, Hrezi is hoping to catch a wave, testing whether there might be an undetected vein of dissatisfaction with Larson  and if anything in the playbook used by U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley might work here.

Larson was elected to Congress in 1998, the same year as Joseph J. Crowley of New York and Mike Capuano of Massachusetts. Both lost primaries in 2018: Crowley to Ocasio-Cortez, Capuano to Pressley. Both challengers benefitted by being women of color in districts where minorities had become the majority. That is not the case in the 1st District.

I think theyre very different races, Larson said. But the lesson you always take is: Dont take anything for granted, including the democracy that were in; dont take your seat for granted; dont take this great democratic republic that were a part of for granted.

Hrezi is the same age Ocasio-Cortez was when she opened her campaign against Crowley in April 2017. He is using at least three of her issues: support for Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, and opposition to the special interest money that readily flows to congressional incumbents.

The dominant industries in the 1st District are insurance, including major health insurers like Aetna and Cigna, and aerospace, with East Hartfords Pratt & Whitney Aircraft reliant on the military as a major purchaser of its jet engines.

Hrezi is trying to make the case that Larson is too deferential to both.

Lets make sure that we can build an industry outside of just health insurers and defense contractors, Hrezi said. And that to me is the vision of what a leader does. A leader doesnt just play as a mouthpiece for the biggest employers in their district.

He faults Larson for continuing to support funding for the troubled F-35 fighter, which uses Pratt engines, and accuses him of being too conservative on health care, even if Larson supported the Affordable Care Act and a public option for health insurance.

With U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, and others, Larson has proposed expanding Medicare but does not favor making it the basis for health coverage. Larson, who has made a point of working with Ocasio-Cortez on a bill aimed at stabilizing and enhancing Social Security for future generations, said incremental progress should not be dismissed.

Both Joe Courtney and I have a Medicare buy-in bill that ultimately will get us to where many people who believe in Medicare for All would like to be. But with 185 million people having private insurance, thats not going to happen tomorrow, Larson said. You know, this is a business where you have to deal in increments many times because you have to. And people arent going to necessarily give up the insurance they already have, if they dont know the alternative. And weve seen that in two presidential cycles.

Insurers may be a major employer, but Hrezi casts them as an enemy of change, one that Congress should disregard.

We shouldnt just be a mouthpiece for these insurers. And I think that theyre not interested in actually taking care of people anymore, Hrezi said. Health insurers are making a killing putting up barriers to care. And theyre not good players in our economy.

So far, Hrezi has not demonstrated that those issues can act as a catalyst for building a wave capable of unseating Larson. In 2006, opposition to the war in Iraq energized liberal Democrats and helped Ned Lamont defeat Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman in a primary. Lieberman was reelected as an independent, but the loss contributed to his not seeking another term in 2012.

The challenger said he finds encouragement from voters, and he believes his fundraising will help assure Democrats of his viability.

Hrezi had raised nearly $132,000 and had $42,000 in available cash at the end of September. Numbers for the final quarter of 2021 are not due until the end of January. Larson raised about $640,000 in the first nine months of 2021, $220,267 from individual donors and $419,400 from other committees, including industry PACs. He had $783,131 cash on hand.

Outside groups willing to finance liberal challengers in primaries, such as the Justice Democrats, have not yet shown an interest.

Listen, its a great country. Anybody has the right to run, Larson said. But he said dollars he needs to spend on a primary will mean less money available in competitive district. Its a very consequential time. Its a time when we have the barest of minorities, and this is something I think that is lost on people. For the most part, the 1st District is what we would call a donor district, meaning were helping other members.

Hrezi said he is committed to the race.

He was born in Libya and raised in Connecticut, where his parents relocated after fleeing the Gadhaffi regime. He described his father as a dissident, though declined to offer details, saying relatives remain in Libya.

The congressional bailout of Wall Street after the housing bubble burst in 2008, sparking a deep recession from which Connecticut has not fully recovered, and the protracted fight over health care reform contributed to his interest in politics. He said he supported Bernie Sanders in 2016, then joined the staff of U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy after studying health policy at the University of North Carolina.

Murphys office says Hrezi worked for the senator in Washington as a legislative correspondent from May 7, 2018 until Sept. 11, 2020. Hrezi filed papers creating his campaign committee four months later, on Jan. 25, 2021.

Murphy played a role in encouraging Jahana Hayes to run for Congress in the 5th District in 2018, when Hayes and Pressley became the first two Black women elected to Congress from New England. But he has distanced himself from Hrezis challenge.

Larson made his reelection announcement in a community room at Goodwin University to two reporters, one television photographer and a virtual audience on Zoom.

Then he hustled up I-91 to Windsor to enjoy a benefit of incumbency and make small talk with Hrezis former employer.

In the shadow of a rusting Bissell Bridge that carries I-291 across the Connecticut River, he joined Murphy, Gov. Ned Lamont and U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal to celebrate a Democratic legislative victory: Passage of a massive infrastructure funding bill that will accelerate rehabilitation of the bridge.

After the event, Murphy declined to comment on whether his former staffers challenge reflected anything deeper in contemporary politics about generational impatience with the pace of change  or the number of septuagenarians in Congress.

All I know is that John Larson has more energy than a 23-year-old, and more passion for this state and for the Hartford area than anybody Ive ever met, Murphy said. I just think its rare to have somebody thats so effective, so good at his job, and cares so much about the state. And I think that people of the 1st District have seen that for decades. And thats why they keep on sending him back with big, big margins.
Lieutenant Governor Susan Bysiewicz said Friday she plans to push for a series of changes to improve Connecticuts response to domestic violence, from bolstering training for judges and court officials to increasing funding for counselors who help children impacted by abusive situations.

In an exclusive interview, Bysiewicz said a recent investigation by Hearst Connecticut Media Group shed new light on shortcomings regarding the states response to intimate partner violence and echoed other problems shes heard from advocates and victims before.

She said the coverage inspired her to hold a press conference at the State Capitol earlier in the week to raise awareness about the topic and the challenges victims face. Its a cause shes championed for years, and Bysiewicz said she plans to advocate for more reforms during this years legislative session.

Reading the stories highlighted for me the need for people to know  not just the families of victims or victims  but also that we have judges and prosecutors and court employees that need to know about the new law, because the definition of abuse has gotten broader, Bysiewicz said Friday.

Two days earlier, Bysiewicz gathered state officials, State Police and representatives of the Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the Network Against Domestic Violence in Hartford for a press conference on the issue.

Every time theres an event around this issue, many more people will call the hotline, but its not just a matter of letting women know there are these resources. It goes beyond that, she added.

Hearst Connecticut Medias investigation, entitled Lost to Abuse and published in December, uncovered numerous ways that key public systems in Connecticut are failing to adequately address intimate partner violence.

The series detailed: how public funding aimed at curbing intimate partner violence has stagnated; many courts lack the staff and resources to run a model program that began 25 years ago; protective orders are violated frequently, yet often those violations are dismissed in court; and that victims who seek restraining orders dont get enough additional support.

Bysiewicz said the series highlighted that the state needs to commit to better training for judges and court personnel, particularly on family violence and abuse cases that involve coercive control, which experts say is a pattern of behaviors to have power over another person in an unhealthy and violent way.

Coercive control can be a precursor to physical violence, according to survivors and advocates. It can take an equally violent mental and emotional toll on victims.

In June 2021, Connecticut passed a law to define behaviors of coercive control as a form of domestic abuse.

Bysiewicz said she wants to see a concerted effort to train court officials and employees. Bysiewicz said coercive control can be difficult to identify since it can present itself in many ways, from financial manipulation to keeping someone away from their friends and family.

Court personnel, judges and prosecutors need a better understanding of the new legislation and these issues in order to protect the people that need their help, she said.

Its something I'll push for this year, and its incumbent on the courts to make sure that that training is provided, added Bysiewicz.

As Gov. Ned Lamont makes new judicial appointments over the next year, he plans to stress that they ensure theyre apprised of the states new definition of coercive control, according to Bysiewicz.

During Wednesdays press conference, State Sen. Mae Flexer echoed the need to improve training for court personnel.

I still believe very strongly that no matter what courtroom you walk into in Connecticut, when youre a domestic violence victim, that you should know youre going to get someone who really understands how hard it was for you to get ot that courtroom in the first place, so that they issue that restraining order so you can keep yourself and family safe, Flexer said.

Flexer said shes been advocating for years for judges to receive new training to give them a better understanding of the perspective of victims when they appear before a judge for the first time to plead for a restraining order or some relief from their abuser.

Bysiewicz has long been trying to address issues around domestic violence, including when she previously served as secretary of state, and more recently through the Governors Council on Women and Girls, which she has chaired since 2019.

Another reform she called for was increased funding for counselors across the state to help address the needs of children in family violence situations.

Domestic violence cases often leave children in limbo; some suffer direct abuse from the adults involved and many witness the violence and are traumatized. In 2021, children 6 years old and younger witnessed at least half of the 11 intimate partner homicides that occurred, according to CCADV.

Bysiewicz is backing CCADVs request for the state to spend $1.5 million annually to fund 18 full-time childrens counselors. She said the Office of Policy and Management is exploring using incoming rounds of federal funding to pay for those positions; OPMs head, Secretary Melissa McCaw, serves as the vice chairwoman for the Governors Council on Women and Girls.

These positions are critically important, said Bysiewicz. Its incumbent upon our state to use the federal funding in a way to protect women and families.

Currently, the amount of public funding children counselors receive is paltry. It covers only about 2.26 hours of service to each of the 4,300-plus children CCADVs member organizations serve each year, on average, according to Meghan Scanlon, executive director for CCADV.

If were ever going to get to some generational change, we need to get to the children who are impacted by this, Scanlon said during the press conference. They dont have a voice often in these conversations and in the family violence thats happening. So we want to see the state do better for our kids.

Wednesdays press conference drew additional calls for greater awareness and change from state lawmakers and advocates.

This is a hidden pandemic running in tandem with COVID, and its not being talked about the way it should be talked about, state Rep. Robyn Porter, D-New Haven, who is a survivor of intimate partner abuse, said.

I can tell you, as a survivor, nothing is clear, she added during the press conference. There is this issue that you have with yourself of: If, and when, you do realize youre in an abusive situation and you need to get out, its not so easy.

Porter said even though intimate abuse starts with ones partner, the harm trickles down to children. Its the most dangerous time when you decide to leave, but the second thing that adds to that danger is if you have children.

Porter stressed there are resources available for victims and families when they reach out for help.

If you need help or just someone to talk to, please visit CTSafeConnect.org or call or text (888) 774-2900. Advocates are available 24/7. If you are in immediate danger, call 911. For more resources, visit https://bit.ly/3FzuLn3
The Milford, CT, Chapter of The Links, Incorporated, in partnership with the City of Milford Mayor Benjamin G. Blakes office, will virtually host, the chapters 35th annual Reflections: A Tribute to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., event, on Monday, Jan. 17, beginning at noon.

The chapters members have always brought Greater Milford area residents together to honor the life, and the legacy of Dr. King.

The speaker for the 2022 event is the Rev. Philippe E.C. Andal, M. Div., who is also the senior pastor of the Community Baptist Church, in New Haven.

The members of the Milford, CT, Chapter of The Links Incorporated, invite the community to join them for an afternoon of programming, and points from special guests including U.S., Connecticut, and local, and Milford area elected officials.

The event, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, will be virtual.

The event will also be available via zoom online at bit.ly/MLKWebinar.

The Links, Incorporated, is an international, not-for-profit corporation that was established in 1946.

The membership consists of more than 16,000 professional women of African descent in 292 chapters.

The chapters are located in 41 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, and the U.K.

In the United States, The Links Incorporated, is one of the oldest, and largest volunteer service organizations of extraordinary women, who are committed to enriching, sustaining, and ensuring the culture, and economic survival of African Americans, and other persons of African ancestry.

The Links, Incorporated, also has a long tradition of promoting, and engaging in educational, civic, and inter-cultural activities that enrich the lives of members of the Black community at large.

The Links, Incorporated, annually impacts the lives of more than three million people at home, and abroad.

The members of the Milford, CT, Chapter of The Links, Incorporated, are committed to serving its local communities with grace, and a spirit of sisterhood.

Since the chartering of the organization in May of 1986, its members have been dedicated to volunteerism, and service while doing their part to improve the lives of families, and the community at large in the Greater Milford area.

The members of the organizations focus on U.S., international, and health issues, the arts, and the members commitment to serving the youth in the area, is something that the organization is proud of as the organization strives to do good, and make a difference in the community.
A consultative meeting aimed at reviving access to financial services in Damongo and its environs has been held with the Acting Managing Director of ARB Apex Rural Bank, Mr. Alex Kwasi Awuah on Thursday January 13th, 2022.

It was held at the Catholic Unity Centre in Damongo in the West Gonja Municipality of the Savannah Region.

The intention of the stakeholder engagement with Mr. Alex Kwasi Awuah was to support a new community led initiative to restructure, recapitalize and rebrand the ertswhile suspended Buuwulonso One stop Rural Bank (BORB) operations under new leadership and management.

The meeting was also to present an opportunity for a fresh start that will consider all options on the table and to take a totally new approach to give the rural bank a second chance with the full participation of the community in a non-partisan way.

Some of the approaches considered at the consultative meeting include a rebranding that could result in a new name, new board and management with the support of the Apex bank.

At their last meeting, the BORB board suspended operations to avoid further losses and give the opportunity for a broader community coalition to revive the Bank's operations after suitable measures were taken.

To this end, BORB board met with the Bank of Ghana Supervision Department and commissioned an investment proposal for restructuring the bank.

Participants who spoke to this reporter on the sidelines of the meeting, expressed joy at the prospect of having another Bank in Damongo and its environs to augment the over reliance on the Ghana Commercial Bank which is the only bank in the Municipality.

The consultative meeting was attended by Dr. Michael Abu Sakara Foster ( Co-Covenor), MP for Bole-Bamboi, Hon. Alhaji Yussif Sulemana, Mufti Borejinkpr, Chief Executive Officer for Sohat, Founder and Executive Director for Jaksally Development Organization, Mr. Jeremiah Abubakari Seidu, leaders of the various youth groups in the Savannah Region.
The Manager of the Bolgatanga Taxpayer Service Centre (TSC) of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Mr. Bismark Shaibu Mahama, has urged tax defaulters to apply for waivers.

He said the 2022 budget has offered a window of opportunity for taxpayers to redeem their indebtedness.

This came to light in an exclusive interview with ModernGhana News in Bolgatanga, Upper East Region.

Mr. Mahama disclosed that the Penalty and Interest Wavier Act, 2021 (Act 1065) which he referred to as the Principal enchantment, is amended in section one by the substitution for subsection 1 of 1 where a person on or before 30th June 2022, pays tax arrears to the Ghana Revenue Authority, or files outstanding returns in respect of the previous year(s) up to December 2020, the Commissioner-General shall not recover assessed penalty and interest on the tax arrears paid or returns filed in respect of the relevant period.

He added that the marginal relief threshold for all individuals, including employees has been increased from GHC 319 a month to GHC 365.

Mr. Mahama explained further that as an individual, whatever income you earn either from employment or from business, after SSNIT deduction of 5.5 percent, there is a relief of up to GHC 365 that will not be taxed on the remaining amount.

He added that this element of the relief used to be GHC 319 but has now been raised to GHC 365 a difference of about GHC 46 disposable income made available to the individual.

He admonished tax defaulters especially in the Upper East Region to take advantage of the window of opportunity in the budget and redeem themselves by filing their returns within the stated period, and pay the tax or make arrangements to pay the tax for GRA to waive the penalties and interest.
The US special envoy for the Horn of Africa will visit Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Ethiopia next week amid ongoing crises in the two African nations, the State Department announced Friday.

David Satterfield and Assistant Secretary of State Molly Phee will travel to Riyadh, Khartoum and Addis Ababa from January 17-20.

In Riyadh, the pair will meet with the Friends of Sudan, a group calling for the restoration of the country's transitional government following a military coup in October.

The meeting aims to "marshal international support" for the UN mission to "facilitate a renewed civilian-led transition to democracy" in Sudan, according to the statement.

Satterfield and Phee will then travel to Khartoum, where they will meet with pro-democracy activists, women's and youth groups, civil organizations and military and political figures.

"Their message will be clear: the United States is committed to freedom, peace, and justice for the Sudanese people," the statement read.

In Ethiopia, the pair will talk with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to seek a resolution to the deepening civil war.

"They will encourage government officials to seize the current opening for peace by ending the air strikes and other hostilities," the statement read.

They will also ask for the establishment of a ceasefire, the release of political prisoners and the restoration of humanitarian access.

Satterfield, the former US ambassador to Turkey, was appointed to replace Jeffrey Feltman as special envoy on January 6.

Feltman quit just as he visited Ethiopia in a bid to encourage peace talks to end more than a year of war following the withdrawal of Tigrayan rebels.

The Tigrayan People's Liberation Front, which last year threatened to march on Addis Ababa, by December had withdrawn to its stronghold, and the government has not pursued the rebels further on the ground.

Feltman had also sought to tackle the crisis in Sudan, but he was treated unceremoniously in October when Sudan's military ruler, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, carried out a coup just after the US envoy had left the country.

Feltman's resignation came days after Sudan's civilian prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok, quit, leaving Burhan as the undisputed leader of the country despite Western calls to preserve a democratic transition launched in 2019.
Some residents of Ashaiman as well as motorists who use the Ashaiman Tollbooth frequently called on the Motor Transport and Traffic Department and the Ghana Police Service to deal with Trailer drivers who have invaded the area.

According to residents, the trailer drivers have turned every available space into a parking place for their long vehicles creating unnecessary congestion and posing threats to the safety of other motorists and pedestrians.

According to Mr Abdul Nasir Mohammed, a resident of Tema who is a regular commuter of the stretch of the road told the Ghana News Agency in an interview that, the unlawful parking by long vehicle drivers always causes massive gridlock, which decreased productivity.

I am always late to work and it will be deducted from my monthly income. I am calling on the MTTD and the Police to enforce the law and maintain discipline on the motorway, he said.

Mr Shine Mensah a resident at Ashaiman Tulaku also expressed indignation about the uncoordinated nature of parking of the long vehicles along the road.

Unlawful parking can cause an accident because, one of the double lanes has been taken over by the long vehicles where they have parked forcing other motorists to abruptly merge into a single lane.

Mr Omare David a Long Vehicle Driver also told the Ghana News Agency that they were forced to park at the unauthorized spaces due to the lack of parking facilities in Tema for the long vehicles.

Drivers like me are compelled to park on a footpath lining the roads which we agree is dangerous for other road users but has no option as that has been the tradition for a long time, he said.

Alhaji Osman Maiga another Long Vehicle Driver from Mali revealed that, the reason behind the growing illegal parking at the Ashaiman Tollbooth is due to the high charges at the Axle weighing parking space, which deterred drivers from patronizing.

GNA
Press Release

January 16, 2022 De Lima seeks probe into Duterte gov't move to lift ban on open-pit mining Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima calls for a Senate inquiry into the recent decision of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to lift the ban on open-pit mining in the country. De Lima filed the Proposed Senate Resolution urging the appropriate Senate Committee to review the said decision and explore other avenues for generating wealth without compromising people's safety and damaging the environment. "There is a need to conduct a thorough review of this policy decision as this can potentially open up the country once more to irresponsible mining practices which could further compromise the environment and pose health and safety risks to people and their communities," she said. "It behooves our government to exert all efforts to explore other avenues before resorting to possibly catastrophic means of generating wealth for our country at the cost of sustainability and the welfare of present and future Filipinos," she added. Last Dec. 23, 2021, DENR Secretary Roy Cimatu signed Department Administrative Order No. 2021-40, lifting the four-year-old ban on open-pit mining instituted by his predecessor. While the government considered the move as their attempt to revitalize the country's economy, environmental groups have criticized the decision as a "shortsighted and misplaced development priority of the government." Open-pit mining, where material is excavated from an open pit, is said to be the type of mining that is "particularly damaging to the environment because strategic minerals are often only available in small concentrations, which increases the amount of ore needed to be mined." De Lima noted that the risks to human life and adverse environmental impacts of unregulated open-pit mining are well-documented, citing, among others, the 1996 Marcopper mining disaster in the province of Marinduque. More than two decades after the Marcopper incident, De Lima recalled that there had been at least five more mining disasters in the country. "It is evident from the numerous mining disasters that have occurred in the country that we have still yet to figure out how to consistently extract our mineral resources in a safe and efficient manner and reduce or altogether prevent such accidents from occurring," she said. When gains and risks are placed on a scale, De Lima pointed out that the State must always err on the side of caution. "In this case most especially, when open-pit mining has been time and again proven to virtually eliminate any biologic life at the surface of earth, the State must first ask whether it would be prudent to think of only short-term benefits even when confronted with proof that open-pit mining results in the stripping of vegetation which leaves the surface of every dig site completely barren," she said. "It must also first be determined whether policies on replanting and restoring the ecosystem have been put in place before lifting the moratorium given that open-pit mining sites take decades to recover," she added. The lady Senator from Bicol likewise underscored the need for an evaluation of DENR's present regulatory capacity "to ensure that the present safeguards can be implemented and that our regulators will not be overwhelmed by the operations of the mining companies." During her stint as Justice Secretary, De Lima created a task force led by the National Bureau of Investigation to lead a crackdown on several illegal black sand mining operators in Cagayan and Ilocos Sur. The move led to the filing of charges against several individuals. De Lima also filed proposed Senate Bill (SB) No. 1075 seeking to prohibit black sand mining operations in the country which continue to destroy the environment while placing people's health and livelihood at great peril.
In this Aug. 28, 1963 file photo, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, addresses marchers during his "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. (AP)

On Monday, we celebrate the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a national holiday honoring him. Have race relations improved since King gave his stirring I Have a Dream speech in 1963? The murder of George Floyd and others seems to indicate otherwise. But as the reverend suggested, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

What would King think about the current state of race relations in America?

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I believe Dr. King would have mixed feelings, says Abel Bartley, director of Pan African studies at Clemson University. Proud of progress thats been made, saddened about the ongoing violence and radical right turn the nation has recently taken, and pressing the government to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Bill.

Mike Vogel writes opinion columns for Newsday (Courtesy of Mike Vogel)

Lets not forget that when King delivered that famous plea for equality and understanding, bigotry and segregation were still part and parcel to our lives and laws. For example, intermarriage between the races was still against the law in 17 states, including Florida. Those laws were declared unconstitutional in 1967 by a unanimous Supreme Court. And according to the documentary I Am a Man: The Struggle For Civil Rights in Florida, our state was second only to Mississippi in the number of lynchings per capita from 1877 to 1950.

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Meanwhile, Florida produced some of the leaders of the civil rights movement, including A. Philip Randolph, the labor leader who spearheaded a group convincing President Harry Truman to accelerate the drive to equality by issuing executive orders promoting fair employment and ending racial segregation in the military.

How do things stand now, compared to when King gave his historic speech?

The African-American poverty rate now registers at about 18%. Still way too high  but about half what it was in Kings time. More than 25% of African Americans have completed four years of higher education, compared to just 4% in 1963. From 2000 to 2018, college enrollment rates among 18 to 24 year olds increased for African Americans from 31% to 37%.

Progress is also undeniably evident as far as African-American representation in politics, with our current Congress more diverse than ever. In 1963, only four members of the House of Representatives were African-American, with no Hispanic or Asian-American representation. Today there are 54 African Americans in Congress, 44 Hispanics, 19 Asian Americans and five Native Americans.

Similarly, there were no African-American senators in the 87th Congress (1961-62), with one Hispanic and one Asian American. Today there are three African Americans, seven Hispanics and two Asian Americans serving in the Senate.

Of course, weve also had our first African American president since Kings speech. Right before his initial campaign for president, Barack Obama said I would not be here if, time and time again, the torch had not been passed to a new generation. Similar to King, President Obama is often seen as a gifted orator. I know Dr. King would have been very proud of him, says Bartley.

So while the battle for justice continues, we should also recognize concrete advances that have been made since the 1960s, thanks to King and those who fought for equality alongside him. To truly honor him, lets recall and realize the heart of his vision: I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Mike Vogel lives in South Florida and has written columns for numerous publications, including Newsday and the Sun Sentinel.
The Ministry of National Security has said the news about the withdrawal of the four soldiers attached to the Office of the Speaker has been given misinterpretations by a section of the Ghanaian public.

The Ministry said in a statement that soldiers do not form part of the security arrangement of the Speaker and Members of Parliament.

They only come in a need-basis in accordance with stated state protocols, the Ministry explained.

The statement added that the security of the speaker is intact, no changes have been made to it.

The Ministry of National Security would like to place on record that contrary to the aforesaid misrepresentations, all requisite resources including logistics and personnel required for full protection of the Speaker have been provided.

It is worth noting that for the first time since 2017, the security arrangements for both the Speaker and Members of Parliament have been significantly enhanced.

PRESS-RELEASE-15-01-2022-ref Download

It also needs stating that personnel of the Ghana Armed Forces do not form part of the security detail for the Speaker and Parliament as Parliamentary security support is provided by the Ghana Police Service. Any need for specific agency support is typically executed on the need-basis in accordance with stated state protocols.

The clarification comes after Member of Parliament for Banda and Deputy Minority Whip, Ahmed Ibrahim, has claimed that the removal of the soldiers who were attached to the Office of the Speaker, was on the orders of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo- Addo.

Speaking on the News 360 on TV3 Saturday January 15, the Member on the Defence Committee said the news of the removal came at a shock to the Minority in Parliament.

This came to us a great shock, he said, adding that this is the time we all need to come together to work on security.

We are surprised as a minority to hear government withdrawing the military detachment of the speaker. The speaker is number three, even the EC chair is using about ten Military personnel. So if the Speaker duly requested for four and they have been on duty for over one year, the questions is what has changed? It raises security questions.

He added It is president Akufo-Addo who has withdrawn the military detachment, he is the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. The Minority will meet on Monday.

The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) has said that the four soldiers who have been withdrawn from the Office of the Speaker of Parliament were attached to that particular office without proper procedure.

This resulted in the decision to withdraw them while efforts are made to regularise their attachment, a statement said.

The under-named military personnel were attached to the Office of the Rt Honourable Speaker of Parliament without the proper procedure, the statement signed by the Chief of Staff of the Ghana Armed Forces, NP Andoh to the Speaker said.

It is humbly requested that the personnel are withdrawn with effect from 14 January 2022 while efforts are made to regularise their attachment,

3news.com
The timely intervention of the Police saved a Chinese national who was nearly lynched by an angry mob at Kwahu Apradan in the Kwahu West Municipality of the Eastern Region.

The action of the mob was in reaction to an accidental discharge of a pump-action gun by the Chinese which injured an 8-year-old boy, Justice Kwasi Mireku.

The Chinese was repairing his pump-action gun when one of the ammunitions locked in the chamber of the gun accidentally discharged hitting one of the children who were playing around.

The incident angered residents who invaded the house of the Chinese man but swift intervention by armed policemen who whisked him away to the police station.

The victim was taken to the Holy Family Hospital at Nkawkaw for treatment.

He is said to be responding to treatment.

The Eastern Regional Police Spokesman, DSP Ebenezer Tetteh who confirmed the incident said that Police received information that the Chinese national was repairing his pump-action gun in the house and in the process one of the ammunition that was locked in the chamber fired accidentally through his window.

According to him Some children were playing outside the house and the accidental firing led to an injury to an 8-year-old boy.

DSP Tetteh said, When police got to the scene a lot of people had besieged the residence of the Chinese man but the police were able to persuade them through diplomacy.

DSP Tetteh assured the angry residents to remain calm, adding that the Police will not shield the Chinese.

We want to appeal to residents of Apradan to remain calm because tensions are very high in the area, we want to assure them that thorough investigations will be done and nothing will be done to shelve anybody whatever the findings will be and at every step of the process we will keep the public informed and updated.

Meanwhile, the suspect is currently in police custody assisting in investigation.

Currently, there is tension in the community as the residents are threatening to attack the Chinese if he was set free by Police.

DGN online
A group calling itself Crossfire Ghana is calling on President Nana Akufo-Addo in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) to intervene in the security rumpus of Speaker Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin to avert the unexpected.

In a statement signed by Convener Nana Osei Tutu, the group expressed worry at the timing of the withdrawal of the military officers for the Office of the Speaker as a result of recent happenings in Parliament.

We all know the current state of affairs of our Parliament and the vociferous nature of the current speaker especially in fighting to make Parliament truly independent against the best expectations of the Executive, it said, expressing surprise at the reasons adduced.

If indeed the reason behind this action as stipulated is to regularize the attachment, should the men be withdrawn at the peril of the security of the Speaker before the said regularisation can be carried out? the statement quizzed.

It said as a result of the high regard for democracy in the country, no arm of government should be handled in any way that jeopardize these key national concerns.

It is in this respect we condemn the withdrawal of the Speaker's armed forces security in no uncertain terms especially because it is likely to put the security of the Speaker at risk.

As we all know the security personnel were sent there based on professional and security advice.

Now obviously their withdrawal has created a security vacuum and we wish to call on the president who is the commander in chief of the Ghana Armed Force to step in as early as possible to avert any security threat to the Speaker of parliament.

3news.com
Organized crime and corruption constitute a criminal environment that can actively influence political and economic relations in the state. Crime has taken over Ghana in all the institutions and one of the most affected places in the country is the Tema Harbour, where exports and imports of business activities bring billions of income to the Ghanaian government.

Crime at the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority is not an old story, it has been a lucrative business under every successive government in Ghana but its impact has been critical, hopeless, and disastrous under the current NPP government than any government in Ghana.

I thought I have no more articles to write about crimes that have taken over the Tema harbour under the administration of the NPP government, after writing four articles but the criminal nature and unwilling actions by the NPP government to stop those nefarious activities forced me to write this article today.

The president from time to time convinces Ghanaians that he cares about them, however, If Akufo Addo really cares about the problems Ghanaians, including those in the Diaspora are facing, why has he refused to investigate and deal with crimes taking place daily at the Tema harbour?

After Captain Smart presented a number of videos with evidence revealing massive frauds, theft, and corruption at the Tema Port, on December 26, 2021, I also proved that Akufo Addo is behind the crimes at the Tema Harbour with an article entitled, The Lamentation Of Ken Agyapong Reveals Akufo Addo Is Behind The Corruption At The Ports. That particular article has so far generated over 5,600 readings.

These undoubting compelling pieces of evidence revealing the crimes of the NPP government at the Tema Port should have been a warning to the Akufo Addo abysmal administration to begin finding solutions but they ignored to do that, instead, they chose to set up Captain Smart to implicate him in bribery allegation.

According to Captain Smarts latest video, The National Security tried to set him up with bribery and he has proved it beyond doubt to reveal how far Ghana has become a country that has delighted in crime as business and would do everything necessary to implicate those investigating the NPP governments nefarious activities.

Every intelligent person whether in Ghana or living outside the country knows that Ghana has rotten to its roots but many actually dont know how serious this has become to the extent that crime has been institutionalized throughout many places in Ghana and its harbours as a business.

The crime situation at the Tema Port has become so serious to the extent that, this time; I am not calling for an investigation, I will call on the common Ghanaians these criminals are stealing their wealth to demand the resignation of Ken Dapaah, the National Security Boss and The Director-General of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority, Michael Luguje.

What kind of government is the NPP for God's sake? In which direction is this political party taking the country? Is this the kind of government that wants to rule again in 2024?

I don't think so because it will be better for Ghana without a president or NPP government than to continue experiencing hardships and suffering from a true definition of an incompetent government.

Many believe that poverty, the lack of employment, prostitution, frustration, depression, and other social problems taking their toll on humanity, are some of the causes responsible for crimes in society.

That is not true; many NPP political gurus are behind crimes in Ghana. Captain Smart has proved that. If the NPP government wants to live in crime as a means of leadership, I wish them the best but God will punish any politician who tries to silence those they consider a threat against them.

No nation wrecker should expect that I will pick up a fight against Captain Smart, Kevin Taylor, Avram Moshe, or anyone seeking the best for our country. I will give them every necessary support to make Ghana a better country.

The NDC used to be the most unwanted political party in Ghana but now the table has turned.

The NPP is not only the most criminal and corrupt political party in Ghana, the party has also added new professionalism to its Curriculum Vitae, as the first political party to institutionalize crime as business at the Tema Port.
The era that NPP politicians, tribal folks, and the opposing media, created an unfriendly environment to promote hate and portray Mahama, as the evilest and corrupt president ever to lead Ghana has passed.

Now readers are no more interested to read such articles because the current psychological-torture state of Ghana is not what Ghanaians experienced during the era of John Mahama.

Mahama wasnt a saint, he was involved in corruption like all the African leaders but he did what in five years Akufo Addo couldnt do. His uncompleted projects abandoned in the bushes by the jealous Akufo Addo are Mahama's witnesses.

So, if you are a Ghanaian writer and still, you cant see the damage and havoc the NPP government has caused to Ghana, to write about to make the country better and you think can still go on to promote hate against Mahama, then, I am sorry to say that you are just wasting your time.

Akufo Addo and the Vice-President, Bawumia, lied to Ghanaians that John Mahama has stolen every money which belongs to Ghana, therefore, the NPP will come to protect the publics purse, save the economy and create more jobs.

Today, Ghanaians have lived to acknowledge the fact that the the devil you know is better than an unknown angel, as the NPP government appears to be the most deceitful and corrupt political party ever to be registered among political parties in Ghana.

The former Ghanaian leader, John Mahama, is the best and the most intelligent after Kwame Nkrumah

There was a time an article on "ModernGhana Opinions" could generate over 15,000 readers in a day. I have had this experience many times before but now readers rate has fallen due to Youtube live news and broadcasts.

So to get about 1,000 readers for your article today, you need to come out with something special, not an article trying to let Ghanaians believe that John Mahama is more corrupt than Akufo Addo. Such stories don't sell anymore.

As said earlier, you are just wasting your time, Mr. Writer because Akufo Addo hasnt only ruined Ghana, he has killed it. Ghana is dead, people don't need wisdom from God to know this. It's only the burial time we don't know.

To summarize this, if you cant write about the crimes and havoc Akufo Addo and his government have done to Ghana, to make this country a better place, then dont waste your time writing against Mahama, intelligent Ghanaians are no longer interested.

Finally, if the NPP communicator, Buaben Asamoah, can't take the responsibility to accept that the incompetence of the NPP government is what has affected Ghana beyond recovery, he should bow down his head in shame and stop blaming Mahama for the party's disaster.
The Center for Excellence Leadership and Accountable Governance (CFELAG) has reiterated the call on churches and Church leaders to desist from making prophecies that can cause fear and panic in society.

It also asked them to stick to the two-hour church service directive and observe all COVID-19 safety protocols to curb the spread of the virus.

Dr Z.O Hunter, Chairman of Global Apostolic Conference and College of Apostles, who said this at a media engagement, said the Police was not against the Church, neither did they have the "capacity to stop God's work," and encouraged the Church to cooperate with the Police.

He said they (Police) were only carrying out their duty of enforcing the law to ensure safety and orderliness and needed the support of all.

Dr Hunter noted that some prophetic utterances had torn families apart, caused divorces, murder and many other vices and described the caution from the Police as appropriate.

Over the years, many pastors or prophets have caused many homes and families to break apart through their fake prophecies. The constitution and the laws of this great nation has given everyone rights, freedom and responsibilities, but most often these rights are exercised without accounting for the outcomes.

It is good to note that where your freedom ends is where someone's right begins. False prophecies have caused most to take the laws into their own hands to take the lives of others. It has resulted in abusing aged people by sending them to places not good or ideal for human habitant, he said.

Dr. Hunter said such unfortunate outcomes had caused Ministers of the Gospel, especially prophets to gradually lose respect in Ghana.

Dr Hunter urged Men of God to continue to speak the mind of God without fear or favour but be circumspect.

...Some prophets are doing a good work but we want them to be circumspect."

The Chairman urged the Christian Council to enforce the directive and ensure calm prevailed in the space.

He also charged the Council and the heads of other Christian groupings to ensure that their services and meetings did not go beyond two hours as directed by the Government.

He said it was important that churches adhered to all COVID-19 safety protocols, including directives on public gatherings to contain the spread of COVID-19.

"The Church, which preaches obedience must lead by example. The Church is a very important institution in governance. We must provide good leadership spiritually, in governance and nation building," he said.

GNA
India's Supreme Court is hearing a petition seeking an independent inquiry into alleged hate speeches made by Hindu rightwing participants at the Dharam Sansad, or religious parliament, in the temple town of Haridwar.

The petition also cites inflammatory speeches made by a Hindu seer, Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati, alleged anti-Muslim slogans made at a rally in the capital in August last year, and the ongoing protests against weekly Friday prayers on public grounds in Gurugram, near Delhi.

It also cites protests in the north-eastern state of Tripura against attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh, and other speeches and remarks as examples of hate speech against Muslims in the country.

Video snippets from the event in Haridwar were widely shared across social media, which showed some speakers making alleged hate speeches, with some of them calling for violence against Muslims.

Open calls to kill Muslims so that a Hindu nation can be established were allegedly made at the event. Speakers also reportedly targeted former prime minister Manmohan Singh and invoked Mahatma Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse.

One delegate, Prabodhanand Giri, the head of a hard-line Hindu group who is often photographed with senior members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party called for a cleansing and for those present to be ready to die or kill.

Like Myanmar, the police, politicians, the army and every Hindu in India must pick up weapons and do this cleansing. There is no other option left, he is heard to say.

This, along with a few other incidents of hate speech across the spectrum, have once again brought to the fore the discussion around hate speech and the laws relating to inciting hate against communities.

'Religious attack'

This is nothing but an attack on religious identity and a normalisation of othering and the dehumanisation of Muslims, said rights activist Saira Shah Haleem.

I feel that it is being done deliberately. What is happening in the country is not happening by chance but is a deliberate strategy and effort and that is what makes it extremely reprehensible, said actor and director Ratna Pathak Shah.

Though the ruling BJP did not come out and openly denounce the pronouncements, it denies accusations that its agenda is to turn officially secular and pluralistic India into an ethnic Hindu nation.

However, the president of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, India's largest socio-religious Muslim organisation, accused the government of turning a blind eye to hate speech against the Muslim community.

Surge in hate speech

Data from the National Crime Records Bureau reports indicate that the number of cases registered for promoting enmity between groups increased by more than four-fold between 2015 and 2020, when the BJP has been in power.

Incidentally, the surge of hate speech comes at a time when five states go to the polls next month including the crucial northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has already cautioned political parties over hate speech and said that it is keeping tabs on social media posts.

An analysis by NDTV hate speech tracker data showed that since Prime Minister Narender Modi's government came to power in 2014, "VIP" hate speech has surged.

The hate speech tracker has been chronicling statements made by high-ranking political functionaries including ministers, chief ministers, lawmakers, governors and that are clearly communal, casteist, or make calls to violence since 2009.

With the political class generally reluctant to condemn bigotry and intolerance, the courts and the ECI will have to go the extra mile to ensure exemplary action against those spreading hatred and inciting violence in the name of religion.
Reverend Albright Asiwome Banibensu, a licensed Psychologist, says reward is a more effective way of encouraging responsible behaviour amongst children instead of punishment, especially caning.

The Psychologist noted that reward was scientifically proven to be a better alternative to inflicting pain.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency on Friday, he explained that reward had to do with endorsing the right behaviour instead of focusing on eliminating the undesirable behaviour.

Rev Banibensu, who is the National Vice President, Ghana Psychological Association (GPA), said parents and guardians must bring up children by showing them the character traits or behaviours they wanted them to learn.

He added that children learnt better by modeling and only did the things they saw adults do.

Rev Banibensu expressed worry at how most children in the country were going through harsh experiences all in the name of parenting.

He therefore advised parents to be careful not to transfer their dissatisfactions or stress to children.

The GPA National Vice President said children had the right to experience love even if they were not living with their biological parents.

He said the issue of readiness for childbearing also influenced how parents brought up their children.

Rev Banibensu explained that parents who were ready for the task of childbearing and had decided to have children would welcome a child more happily into their home.

However, he said those who were unprepared would see the child as an intruder.

In bringing up children, parents should always remember that a child has never been an adult before.

An adult however had the opportunity of once being a child. Thus, it behoves on the adult to be more understanding towards the child, he advised.

On the issue of parents and guardians abusing children, he said awareness creation was necessary to prevent such unfortunate acts.

However, he said in cases where culprits were found guilty, the law must take its full course.

Rev Banibensu said the media must also dedicate airtime and space to sensitising the public on these issues.

He said they could reach out to professional bodies like the GPA, Ghana Medical Association (GMA) which had members with relevant expertise on children's well-being.

The relevant information from these sources can be communicated in ways that the public can understand better, he added.

GNA
Market women at the Shukura Market in the Ablekuma Central Municipality have appealed to the Government to expedite the construction of the local market and relocate them from the Shukura-Zamrama Road.

The traders said their current location on the Shukura to Zamrama Road was unsafe because motor riders still used the stretch despite the closure of the road with a barricade.

Madam Alimatu Shaibu, Shukura Market Queen, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency during a visit to the Market, noted that many promises on the completion of the Market project had failed and asked Central Government to intervene.

The new market project is being funded by the Coastal Development Authority (CODA) under the Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme (IPEP) of the Ministry of Special Development Initiatives (MSDI) at an initial cost of GH560,000.00.

The proposed market, expected be a two-storey block of 40 lockable shops, 40 open stalls and a creche, will also have a retail platform with the grounds paved.

As a temporary measure to enable traders carry on with their businesses while construction works began, makeshift sheds were erected on a road - Shukura to Zamrama-to accommodate them.

The Market Queen said, for nearly 50 years, the community had yearned for a well-structured market for trading activities but to no avail.

She said though sod had been cut and construction on a portion of the project had commenced, it had stalled as the contractor had not been to the site barely three weeks after commencement, saying trading in the streets was inconveniencing them apart from low sales.

We deserve a market too, complete it and relocate us from the streets, she said.

Madam Victoria Nunoo, another trader, said motorcyclists over-speed through the Market impeding trading activities and endangering lives.

Alhaji Hamidu Ibrahim Dantani, Chief of Shukura, reiterating the concerns of the market women, called on the Assembly to liaise with the Coastal Development Authority to accelerate work on the stalled project.

Mr Justice Abdomi, Head of Works, Ablekuma Central Municipality, told the GNA that the old market was deplorable and that when it rained, the women encountered difficulties, including the destruction of their wares.

He said the Coastal Development Authority (CODA) came to the aid of the Assembly and awarded a contract for the construction of the market to resolve the limited space and conditions the traders faced.

According to him, before the project started, there was a decision to move the market women to the streets after an assessment of the area to enable them to continue their business activities until the new one was fully completed.

He pleaded with the market women to exercise restraint as work on the project resumed, attributing the delay to design works.

GNA
The Ghana Police Service has announced that it has set aside a GHS10,000 reward for anyone who will provide information that would lead to the arrest of persons who attacked and vandalised Radio Ada.

Some masked, heavily-built men on the morning of Thursday, January 13, 2022, attacked Radio Ada, a community radio station at Ada Foah in the Greater Accra Region, and ransacked its on-air studio without provocation.

The raid followed persistent warnings to the station by some chiefs in the area, to stop their broadcasts on a project being spearheaded by businessman Daniel McKorley (McDan) which involves the Songhor salt lagoon.

With the Police currently conducting an investigation into the incident, it is seeking information from the general public.

In a statement from the Ghana Police Service today, it has said anyone that would provide useful information that will lead to the arrest of the suspects will receive a GHS10,000 reward.

We will do everything possible to find those thugs and deal with them according to the laws of this country. To this end, the Police Administration has placed an amount of Ten Thousand Ghana Cedis (GH 10,000.00) bounty as an informant reward for anyone who offers a piece of credible information leading to the arrest of the thugs who invaded and vandalised the Ada Radio station and assaulted the staff, part of the Police statement reads.

It concludes, We want to give the assurance that adequate measures have been fashioned out to protect the Radio station and its staff as efforts to arrest the culprits to face justice continue.

Below is the full Police statement:
FILE - Stephen Parlato of Boulder, Colo., holds a sign that reads "Hands Off Roe!!!" as abortion rights advocates and anti-abortion protesters demonstrate in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, on Dec. 1, 2021, in Washington. With Roe v. Wade facing its strongest threat in decades, a new poll finds Democrats increasingly view protecting abortion rights as a high priority for the government.(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File) (Andrew Harnik/AP)

I have a message to the governor and Republicans in the Florida Legislature: Dont mess with a womans right to choose.

If you do, you will galvanize the majority of women in this great state. Say goodbye to your reelection and any hope of higher office. More women than men are registered to vote in Florida, and we turn out more. By the way, those numbers are consistent nationally, and across party lines. The Democratic Party will thank you for firing up our base without having to spend a penny.

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What comes to mind is that old Clint Eastwood line: Go ahead. Make my day.

Diane Johnson, Boca Raton

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An insurrection, period

I read with shock the letter from Mary Eiland of Boca Raton, who said the Jan. 6 riot was not an insurrection because no one has been charged with that and no one brought weapons.

Multiple firearms were seized from the marauders. A truck owned by one of the insurrectionists had a handgun, rifle and shotgun, all loaded with extra ammunition, a cross bow, zip ties, stun gun and Molotov cocktails  in one persons truck. Many are seen on video defacing the Capitol, urinating on statues, carrying a noose and calling for the hanging of Vice President Mike Pence. These people were looking to hurt Nancy Pelosi. They sat at her desk. They went through her papers. Its all on tape. This was an insurrection  period.

Ms. Eiland states that no one was killed except Ashli Babbitt, and she makes it sound as if Babbitt were an innocent bystander. She was not. She was there to cause trouble and was shot for breaking into the Capitol. Officer Brian Sicknick died the next day and Eiland cruelly stated that he merely died of a stroke, insinuating his death had nothing to do with trauma he endured. He was struck with a fire extinguisher.

The letter writer is cavalier about the deaths of the other officers who tried to do their jobs and protect our Capitol. People were called to Washington Jan. 6 to oppose the certification of the new fairly-elected President. Thankfully, many of these troublemakers (I use the term loosely) are in jail or facing imprisonment.

Ellen Brown, West Palm Beach

Dismayed by DeSantis

I was dismayed, but not surprised by Gov. DeSantis saying that one doesnt go for medical tests unless one has symptoms, and that the same goes for COVID testing. I am so sorry his wife has breast cancer, but is he really saying women should not go for a mammography prior to feeling a lump? Is he saying men shouldnt go for PSA screening until one cant urinate any longer, or a colonoscopy before one cannot defecate?

DeSantis has most likely done more to cause the spread of COVID in Florida than almost anyone, other than ex-President Trump. Consider this when hes up for reelection.

Lawrence Lazar, Delray Beach

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Believe this

It appears that nothing can penetrate the wall of intransigence built up around the Big Lie. Certainly not the facts. It seems the election deniers have been inoculated against those. Its apparently the only jab they took voluntarily.

If you confront them with reality, all youll hear is, and you believe that? as if you just said the moon is made of green cheese.

Im going to start asking these people how they feel about Holocaust deniers, too. I may even point out the similarities to them: perpetual denial in the face of absolute evidence. That type of thing.

Natalie Altman, Hollywood
Mali's former president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who led the West African country from 2013 until he was ousted in a coup in 2020, died at the age of 76 in the capital Bamako on Sunday, his family said.

Looming over most of Keita's presidency was the jihadist insurgency that has rocked Mali since 2012, while his toppling marked the rise of the military junta which is now under regional sanctions for failing to restore civilian rule.

"President IBK died this morning at 0900 GMT in his home" in Bamako, a family member told AFP using his initials, with several other family members confirming his death.

The cause of Keita's death was not given.

Keita was forced out of office on August 18, 2020 by young military officers who staged an uprising at a base near Bamako before heading into the city, where they seized Keita and other leaders.

Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop said he was "saddened to learn of the death of former president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita", adding that "it is with great emotion that I bow before his memory".

Niger's ex-president Mahamadou Issoufou, a former comrade of Keita's in the Socialist International, hailed him as "a cultured man, a great patriot and a pan-Africanist".

At Keita's home southwest of Bamako on Sunday afternoon, numerous cars brought politicians and other public figures to offer their condolences. Police were guarding the entrances, according to AFP journalists at the scene.

Mali's public television broadcast that funeral plans would be announced at a later date.

Protests and coups

In the weeks before the 2020 coup, Keita had been struggling with protests fuelled by his handling of the jihadist insurgency and failure to turn around Mali's floundering economy.

Snail-paced political reforms, decrepit public services and schools, and a widely shared perception of government corruption also fed anti-Keita sentiment, driving tens of thousands of protesters into the streets.

Seized by the putschists, the junta that emerged from the rebellion -- under pressure from the West African bloc ECOWAS -- released Keita weeks later and returned him to his residence in Bamako, under surveillance.

Keita's great-grandfather was a French colonial soldier who died in the Battle of Verdun in World War I. By CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT AFPFile

He suffered a mini-stroke the following month, and was sent to United Arab Emirates for treatment. He has been based at his Bamako home since, staying out of public life.

The ruling junta would stage another coup in May 2021, toppling a civilian transitional government.

The junta had vowed to hold elections next month to transition the country back to civilian rule. But at the end of the last year, the junta revised its timetable, saying it it could stay in power for up to five years.

In response, ECOWAS agreed to sanction Mali earlier this month, imposing a trade embargo and shutting borders, in a decision backed by the United States, the European Union and former colonial power France.

Landlocked Mali, one of the world's poorest countries, is already feeling the effects of the sanctions.

Thousands protested against the sanctions in Bamako on Friday after the junta called for demonstrations.

Political veteran

The son of a civil servant, Keita was born in the southern industrial city of Koutiala, the declining heartland of cotton production.

After studying literature in Mali, Senegal and France -- his great-grandfather was a French colonial soldier who died in the Battle of Verdun in World War I -- Keita became an adviser for the EU's overseas development fund before heading a development project in northern Mali.

Keita became the symbol of Mali's political turmoil after his unpopularity spurred his ousting in a coup in August 2020. By Ludovic MARIN POOLAFPFile

He campaigned against general Moussa Traore, Mali's former president ousted in 1991 by a military coup.

He then rose through the ranks under Alpha Oumar Konare, the country's first democratically elected president.

As a socialist prime minister between 1994 and 2000, he quelled a series of crippling strikes, earning a reputation as a firm leader and helping to set up his landslide election in 2013 -- when he finally ascended to the presidency after losing runs in 2002 and 2007.

Keita was then re-elected in 2018 elections, beating opposition leader Soumaila Cisse.

Cisse's kidnapping by jihadists in March 2020 further illustrated Keita's inability to stop the violence, with rising public outrage culminating in the coup months later.
MOGADISHU: SOMALIA...The Federal electoral implementation commission. (FEIT) Which was assigned to orchestrate and hold free, fair, credible, inclusive, transparent and consensus-based polls were marred by internal fighting , bickering and lobbying among members of the commission. To iron out these longstanding squabbling and dissension, today is set to elect a new chairman in Mogadishu that will supersede the former commission's chairman Mohamed Hassan Irro following his ouster from office by the federal electoral implementation team team ( Feit) members.

Irro, was considered to be a close ally to the incumbent lameduck president Farmajo and was usurped from authority and assigned duties by (Feit) after only serving for a period of six months following pervasive allegations of breaching or violating the independence, neutrality and impartiality of the election and sided with the lameduck president and attempting to rig the election in favor of the outgoing president.

The contest for the chairman of the electoral commission has turned into a fierce battle in Mogadishu as both Farmajo and Roble's side each willing their candidate to take and assume the crucial position which they thought will decide the incoming election winners.

The election of the new chairman is expected or anticipated to expedite and accelerate the amorphous elections postponed several times in Somalia which utterly demoralized Somali citizens and come to setbacks and meltdowns taking a series of delays and wrangling running into a year.

After protracted procedural irregularities which rages for hours, eventually the members of (Feit) unanimously concurred to elect a new chairman that will lead the commission until the controversial indirect polls came to an end....

The Federal electoral implementation Team (Feit) has elected Muse Gelle Yusuf as the new chairman of the body following the removal of Mohamed Hassan Irro over widespread and rampant allegations of bias, incompetence and cronyism.

The post or the position of the chair was fiercely contested by two candidates or nominees, Muse Gelle Yusuf, a close associate and ally of the caretaker prime minister and Abdirahman Abdiaziz Adan who was considered to be a close ally and candidate to the outgoing president.

Muse Gelle Yusuf was elected as the new chairman of the federal electoral commission after garnering 14 votes in the second round of the election, while Abdirahman Abdiaziz received 11 votes.

Muse Gelle was declared officially to be the winner of the election as well as the new chairman of (FEIT) which is the electoral body organizing the entire elections of the country.

The defeated candidate Abdirahman Abdiaziz who was Gelle's main rival during the tough election has conceded the ignominious electoral defeat then congratulated and pledge to collaborate the new chairman seriously and affectively.and wish him massive success while performing election related colossal tasks which lie ahead the electoral authority and soon organize legislative polls which is expected to take place in eleven electoral constituency in both the federal government and federal member states.

Muse Gelle, who was previously served as the interim chairman of the electoral commission, steps into the shoes of Mohamed Hassan Irro, who was sacked and deposed in December.

On the other hand Galmudug electoral commission releases 21 seats.. Galmudug state implementation election team has announced. The election of 21 seats up for grabs in the coming days.

The list released by Galmudug is the highest number ever declared in one seating since the start of Somalia's low chamber election.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: MOHAMED HUSSEIN MENTALIST. Author, blogger, prominent researcher, Horn of Africa Affairs analyst and senior lecturer at Mogadishu University.

Author; holds BA in English Language and literature at Mogadishu University and BA in Business administration at Simad University. Master of arts in applied Linguistics at Kisii University in Nairobi, as well as Master of peace and conflict studies at Uppsala University in Sweden.
Is it not shocking that after more than two years into the pandemic (when we know how to protect ourselves from getting infected, and have had vaccines for more than a year now), by far the highest-ever number of corona virus infections in a single week were reported in the second week of January 2022? This is an unacceptable failure to save lives and unnecessary human suffering.

More than 15 million new cases of COVID-19 were reported globally in the second week of January 2022. And even this high number is an underestimate. But a silver lining - in the dark clouds dominated by the Omicron variant of the current wave of COVID-19 - is that the number of weekly reported deaths has not increased. Rather, they have remained stable since October 2021 (at an average of 48,000 deaths a week). But the number of patients being hospitalized is increasing in most countries, even though it is much lower than the hospitalizations we saw during the COVID-19 wave dominated by Delta variant last year.

But let us be clear that while Omicron causes less severe disease than Delta, it remains a dangerous virus, particularly for those who are unvaccinated. Almost 50,000 deaths a week is 50,000 deaths too many. Learning to live with this virus does not mean we can, or should, accept this huge number of deaths.

WHO-approved vaccines against COVID-19 may not stop all infections and transmission but they remain highly effective in reducing hospitalisations and deaths due to this virus. So, alongside getting vaccinated, public health and social measures- like wearing of well-fitting masks, distancing, avoiding crowded places, and improving and investing in ventilation are important for limiting transmission of the virus.

Undeniably, most people admitted to hospitals around the world due to COVID-19 are unvaccinated. Dr Bruce Aylward, who leads the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator of the World Health Organization (WHO) said Vaccines reduce the risk of severe disease and hospitalisation. Up to 90% of the patients with severe disease of COVID-19 are those who are unvaccinated. So, clearly these vaccines are having a huge impact.

Vaccines are also protecting the young from serious outcomes of COVID-19. 99% of the youngsters aged 12-18 years who are getting admitted in ICUs for COVID-19, are unvaccinated. About 1% of ICU admissions for COVID-19 among patients ages 12-18 were fully vaccinated, according to a new study. Vaccines are extremely safe, and they are remarkably effective against severe illness, including in adolescents tweeted Dr Tom Frieden, former head of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

COVID-19 can become a vaccine preventable disease, only if we act equitably, with a sense of purpose and urgency.

Ending acute stage of COVID-19 is an imperative

It is possible to end the acute stage of COVID-19 because we have the tools to do that. It is how we distribute them, said Dr Bruce Aylward.

To end the acute stage of the pandemic, the highly effective tools science has given us need to be shared fairly and quickly with all countries of the world. Vaccine inequity and health inequity overall were the biggest failures of last year stressed Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General, WHO.

While some countries have had enough personal protective equipment, reliable tests, and vaccines to stockpile throughout this pandemic, many countries do not even have enough to meet basic baseline needs of its people.

Vaccine inequity is a killer of people and jobs, and it undermines a global economic recovery. Alpha, Beta, Delta, Gamma and Omicron variants of COVID-19 reflect that in part, because of low vaccination rates, we have created the perfect conditions for the emergence of virus variants said Dr Tedros.

Dr Ishwar Gilada, a noted infectious disease expert agrees: In a deeply inequitable world with a global population of 7.8 billion people, we have administered over 9 billion vaccines doses against COVID-19. Had we used these vaccines judiciously with the aim to protect the most vulnerable globally, we would be closer to ending the acute stage of the pandemic. Failure to do so is resulting in more unvaccinated people falling seriously sick with COVID-19. Besides, the threat of new variants looms large too. Dr Gilada further told CNS (Citizen News Service) that Two billion doses are stockpiled by rich and mighty countries, which they could have offloaded to benefit lower and middle-income countries.

For example, on one hand we have countries that have had over 80% of their populations fully vaccinated since months, and now getting booster doses, on the other hand, we have countries in Africa where more than 85% of people are yet to receive a single dose of a vaccine. There are more booster doses administered daily in rich nations than those who get a single shot on the African continent.

Some countries are moving toward vaccinating citizens a fourth time over (fourth booster dose) such as Israel and Germany, while others have not even had enough regular supply to vaccinate their frontline health workers and those most at risk.

Booster after booster in a small number of countries will not end the pandemic, while billions remain completely unprotected. But we can and must turn it around. In the short term we can end the acute stage of this pandemic while preparing now for future ones said Dr Tedros of WHO.

Agrees Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO Technical Lead for COVID-19: We cannot end the pandemic and have the virus become endemic in one country while the rest of the world deals with the pandemic.

A vaccination strategy based on repeated boosted doses of the original vaccine composition is unlikely to be sustainable, say WHO experts. They emphasize that while some countries recommend boosters the immediate priority for the world is to accelerate access to primary vaccination, particularly for groups at greater risk of developing severe disease.

We cannot end the acute phase of the pandemic unless we close the gap

Everybody now is acutely aware of the costs of failing to vaccinate equitably. It is the arrival of new variants and new challenges. So, the sooner we get the equitable distribution the sooner we get out of this pandemic said Dr Bruce Aylward.

WHO is calling upon all governments worldwide to fully vaccinate at least 70% of their population by the end of June 2022. At the current pace of vaccine roll-out, 109 countries would miss out on meeting this deadline. More alarmingly, 36 countries have not been able to vaccinate even 10% of their population as yet (a goal that was set for September 2021).

Dr Kate OBrien, WHO Director for immunization, vaccines and biologicals, shares several reasons why countries are failing to fully vaccinate their populations fast enough. Many countries face bottlenecks in different areas, such as leadership and coordination, supply chain management, short shelf life of donated vaccines, cold chain capacity, vaccine hesitancy, health workers' shortage, competing priorities, shortage of essential health supplies such as syringes, among others. Financing COVID-19 vaccination has also been a challenge. Moreover, many of these countries have weak health systems or are in conflict or fragile settings facing humanitarian emergencies/ crises.

Pointing fingers on the countries with low vaccination rate against COVID-19 is not correct because many of these nations have demonstrated success in rolling out other vaccine programmes- such as for polio or measles and even achieving disease elimination. These nations must get reliable and predictable vaccine supplies, and full support so that they can ensure these vaccines reach the people most at risk and all those who are eligible in a timely manner.

Failure to prevent infection transmission, also means dealing with more avoidable hospitalizations due to COVID-19 and deaths that could have been averted. It also means more people off-work, including teachers and health workers, and also increases the risk for another variant emerging that is even more transmissible and more deadly than the currently circulating strains of the virus. The sheer number of cases also means more pressure on the already overburdened and exhausted health workers.

Let us not forget that even before the pandemic struck us, health systems in most parts of the world were very overwhelmed with a mountainous disease burden. Preventing infection transmission of corona virus, as well as making COVID-19 a vaccine preventable disease, is an absolute must if we are to strengthen health security worldwide. It is indeed high time we walk the talk on ensuring health for all.

Shobha Shukla, Bobby Ramakant  CNS (Citizen News Service)

(Shobha Shukla and Bobby Ramakant lead the editorial team at CNS (Citizen News Service). Follow them on Twitter @Shobha1Shukla and @BobbyRamakant)
God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? (Numbers 23:19 NIV).

God is not a man. That seems obvious, and it is not about gender. Yet, God put the words quoted above in the mouth of Balaam, a non-Israelite prophet in Midian, for him to convey to Balak, king of Moab. God also distinguishes Himself from humans through the prophets Samuel and Hosea (see 1 Samuel 15:29 and Hosea 11:9).

The Israelites had been freed from slavery and bondage in Egypt and were on their way to the Promised Land. When they reached and encamped near Moab, King Balak of Moab was afraid that the Israelites might attack and defeat them just as they had done to the Amorites (see Numbers 22:1-3).

Balak wanted someone to curse the Israelites to enable him defeat them, and so he sent for Balaam, saying, I know that those you bless are blessed, and those you curse are cursed. (Number 22:5-6 NIV). The messengers went with the kings reward for the divination. Balaam consulted God, But God said to Balaam, Do not go with them. You must not put a curse on those people, because they are blessed. (Numbers 22:12 NIV). Therefore, Balaam refused to go with them to see the king.

However, the king did not give up easily. He sent people more honorable than the first group and increased the reward, but Balaam answered that, Even if Balak gave me his palace filled with silver and gold, I could not do anything great or small to go beyond the command of the Lord my God. (Numbers 22:16-18 NIV). After giving that perfect response consistent with the unambiguous command God had previously given to him, Balaam still told the messengers to wait for him to consult God. Interestingly, God told him, Since these men have come to summon you, go with them, but do only what I tell you. (Numbers 22:20 NIV).

Then, the unthinkable happened. On his way to see the king, Balaams donkey spoke to him! It turned out that God was very angry when he went, and the angel of the Lord stood in the road to oppose him. (Numbers 22:22 NIV). The donkey saw the angel in the road with his sword drawn and she turned off and also tried to avoid the angel two more times, each time he was beaten by Balaam. That was when God opened the donkeys mouth and she said to Balaam, What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times? (Numbers 22:28-30). (It is usually not a good sign when an animal carries out a conversation with a human being. Remember the serpent and Eve in Genesis Chapter 3? It led to the fall of man).

God opened Balaams eyes and he saw the angel standing in the road with his sword drawn. The angel explained to Balaam that he had come to oppose him because the path he had chosen was a reckless one before the Lord (Number 22:32). God told him to go to Balak, but reiterated His earlier command to Balaam to speak only what He tells him.

When Balaam appeared before Balak, God put his message in Balaams mouth, and Balaam spoke his oracle including, How can I curse those whom God has not cursed? How can I denounce those whom the Lord has not denounced? (Numbers 23:8). God put his message in Balaams mouth a second time and he spoke his oracle, Arise, Balak, and listen; hear me, son of Zippor. God is not a man that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? (Numbers 23:17-19 NIV).

Recall when God called Abraham. Among the promises God gave Abraham were that: I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. (Genesis 12:3 NIV). In addition, God promised Abraham, I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generation to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. (Genesis 17:7 NIV). The Apostle Paul says, If you belong to Christ, then you are Abrahams seed, and heirs according to the promise (Galatians 3:29 NIV). Paul also recognizes Christians as beneficiaries of these promises by stating that, no matter how many promises God has made, they are Yes in Christ. And so through him the Amen is spoken by us to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 1:20 NIV).

And so although Balaam had a reputation for cursing and blessing people, and that was why the king sent for him, he met his match when the targets were the Israelites, the descendants of Abraham whom God had blessed. God must have taken control of the situation from Balaam, forcing him to consult with Him for proper divine guidance. Balaam was fortunate to have escaped divine retribution for not cursing the Israelites. In other words, Balaam could not have effectively cursed the Israelites even if he had attempted to do so because God is not a man that He would lie or change His mind concerning the promises He made to Abraham and his descendants. In fact, God turned what was to be a curse to a blessing on the Israelites.

Dear Christians, by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, the blessings of Abraham are ours. God will turn curses against us to blessings in Jesus name. No weapon aimed against us shall succeed in Jesus name (see Isaiah 54:17). As He did with Balaam, God will open our eyes to see things that are hidden from our natural eyes so that we do not fall blindly into danger.

Because God is not a man, He is not limited by anyone or anything. God works in mysterious ways. To save the Israelites from a war for which they may not have been prepared at that time, God used a non-Israelite prophet and a talking donkey to accomplish His purposes. No matter who or what we are, we should not think that God cannot use us for anything important. We are certainly more capable, intelligent, and articulate than donkeys. Moreover, God is not constrained by ranks, titles or personalities. He used a donkey to send a message to Balaam, a prophet; and then much later, he used the boy Samuel, to deliver a message to Eli, the chief priest. Dont count yourself out as a potential instrument in the service of God.

In addition, whatever powers and authorities God has given us should be used to glorify Him, and not for vainglory. King Balak tried to buy Prophet Balaam to curse Israel, but it did not work. In those instances, whether by divine intervention or out of his own free will, Balaam consulted God regarding Balaks requests and obeyed Gods directions. We can learn a lesson or two from that. Those who speak for God must speak from God (see 1 Peter 4:11; and John 3:34).

God created man in His own image, but God is not a man. Man is generally untruthful, unreliable, and untrustworthy. Many of us have not kept our promises to others, and have, in turn, been victims of unfulfilled promises. God, on the other hand, is always truthful, reliable, and trustworthy. God is faithful. God does what He promises to do while still exercising divine prerogative of showing mercy and compassion on whom He wants to show mercy and compassion. And that is good news.

Prayer is the key. May God grant us the grace to seek Him daily through our prayers.

Dr. Daniel Gyebi, Attorney-at-Law, Texas, U.S.A., and Founder, PrayerHouse Ministry, Kumasi, Ghana.

PrayerHouse Ministry is dedicated to providing a quiet facility for Christians to pray individually by themselves without any intermediary priest, pastor or any other person. This is a free service. No money is demanded or accepted. One facility is located at Kyerekrom / Fumesua, near Building and Road Research Institute Offices, one mile off the Kumasi-Accra Road and next to a house called Grace Castle. If you are interested, please contact Agnes at 054-7498653. Another is located at Kantinkyiren, at the junction of Kantinkyiren and Konkori, off the Kumasi-Obuasi Road, branching left at Trede junction. Contact Kwadwo at 020-8768461 / 0246-989413.
The Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Prof. Nana Aba Appiah Amfo has urged both continuing and newly admitted students to ensure they vaccinate against COVID-19 before returning to campus to start the academic year.

Speaking at the graduation ceremony of the School of Graduate Studies over the weekend, Prof. Appiah Amfo said the aim is to help reduce the rate of spread and infection of the virus on campus.

She said the school has put in place various measures to prevent an outbreak of the disease on campus, and has made arrangements for vaccines to be accessible to the university community.

Measures to ensure compliance to protocols to prevent the spread of COVID-19 will continue particularly with the onset of the Omicron variant. There is ongoing COVID-19 vaccination at the University Hospital and a number of mobile sites on campus. For students and employees of the university as well as the public, as we start the new academic year, we entreat all students to get vaccinated before returning to their respective campuses as we can minimize the chances of massive outbreaks that could disrupt the academic calendar even further. Faculty and staff who are yet to be vaccinated are also urged to do so, she said.

So far, Ghana has administered over 9 million doses of the five different COVID-19 vaccines it has received.

6.6 million people have received at least one jab of the vaccine, while only 2.9million of the total population has been vaccinated.

The government is hoping to ramp up COVID-19 vaccination by making the vaccines more accessible to be able to meet its target of getting 20 million people fully vaccinated in the coming months.

citinewsroom
A Somali government spokesman was wounded Sunday in an attack by the Al-Shabaab jihadist group, though his wounds are "not serious," the prime minister's office said.

Sunday's attack, for which Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility, came a week after Somali leaders agreed to wrap up parliamentary elections by February 25, following repeated delays that have threatened the stability of the troubled country.

More than a year of delays had deepened bitter tensions between Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble and President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, better known by his nickname Farmajo, amid fears their squabbling could erupt into violence.

"The spokesman of the Somali Federal government was wounded in a terrorist attack," the office said in a statement. Mohamed Ibrahim Moalimuu's "injuries are not serious and we wish him quick recovery."

Multiple sources said the attacker, who was killed in the incident, attempted to get onto the spokesman's car before detonating explosives, partially destroying the vehicle.

"A suicide bomber jumped onto a vehicle transporting the spokesman of the government of Mohamed Ibrahim," said a policeman at the scene of the attack, Mohamed Farah.

"He was lucky to have survived with light injuries," Farah said, adding that two other people were injured.

Witnesses confirmed that the attacker had pressed himself against the car before a loud explosion was heard.

'Human body parts'

One witness, Abdirahman Moalin Ali, said he had seen "human body parts strewn across the area".

Al-Shabaab swiftly claimed the attack in a statement.

Moalimuu has been a spokesman and adviser to the prime minister for more than a year, having previously been a journalist with the BBC, and is a former secretary general of the National Union of Somali Journalists.

He has survived several attacks on residences where he has been staying, escaping unharmed from a 2019 attack on one property which was besieged for almost 22 hours.

Emergency medical workers remove the body of the suspected suicide bomber. By - AFP

Farmajo, president since 2017, saw his mandate expire on February 8 last year and failed to organise elections prior to announcing in April he was extending his rule for two years -- a decision which prompted armed unrest in the capital.

He eventually tasked Roble with organising fresh polls but a disagreement over the election process set off a bitter power struggle between the two leaders.

Somalia saw fresh violence last week when Al-Shabaab claimed a suicide car bomb blast which left at least four dead in Mogadishu.

In December, Farmajo suspended Roble having appointed him in September 2002 -- leading the latter to speak of an "attempted coup" and the opposition to demand the president's resignation.

The ongoing unrest has set alarm bells ringing in the international community, which fears an election impasse will further undermine stability, emboldening Al-Shabaab, whose fighters control vast swathes of the country.

Following the decision to wrap up polls by February 25, a new president of the electoral commission was voted in Saturday, his predecessor having been fired by Roble.

On Saturday, Roble said: 'The only solution we have for this country is holding the election so myself and the rest of the member state leaders must take bold steps to hold and complete the elections timely.'

He said the electoral process should resume the same day.

Under the Horn of Africa nation's complex indirect electoral system, the five federal state assemblies and delegates chosen by clan delegates nominate lawmakers for the national parliament, and they in turn choose the president.

Elections to the upper chamber have finished in all of the states save for the central state of Galmudug, and voting began in November to the lower house.
Fellow Ghanaians it is our bounden duty as citizens of our beautiful Ghana to acknowledge, cherish, and applaud our Unique Eleven (11) Critical-Thinking Medical Practitioners who have been ignorantly abused by the Minister of Health.

There was an article published by the Daily Guide Network.com which appeared on January 13, 2022, entitled, "Health Minister Rubbishes Doctors' Petition on Covid 19" In the said article, Mr. Kwaku Agyeman Manu was in full-gear insulting and degrading the intelligence of our Unique Critical- Thinking Skills of our Medical Practitioners. Our scientists have obeyed their consciousness and stepped out of their Match-Box existence to question the dogma secrecy woven around the proliferation of the Covid-19 Vaccination hidden agenda. They are scientifically challenging us to have a second look at the Covid-19 Vaccination agenda of forcing everyone to vaccinate which has not stopped the spread of Covid-19 in the most vaccinated countries in the world, such as Israel and United States of America. My people we do not have to be blind followers to our impending doom. We must start to talk about the adverse effects of the mayhem these vaccinations have come on our people. It is about time to put an end to this mass vaccination madness and take a minute to listen to our Eleven (11) Unique Critical-Thinking Medical Practitioners.

For your information, the Leadership at the Ghana Health Services in somewhere between April and May 2020 went all the way to Nairobi, Kenya to purchase an untested Rheumatoid Arthritis chemical drug, Actemra, produced by Genentech to treat our late, Renowned, Medical Specialist, Professor Jacob Plange-Rhule who had coronavirus infection. The question that still hunts my conscience is why would any Medical Specialist Expert would prescribe such Immune System destroying drug to treat a patient whose immune system is already very weak?

The manufacturer has given a stern warning to would be users on June 2019 on its Website. Here are some of the Adverse Reactions, "Risk of Hepatotoxicity (Liver Failure), Jaundice, Gastrointestinal Perforation, Upper Respiratory Tract Infection, Nasopharyngitis, Headache, Hypertension and not to be initiated with Patients with ANC (Absolute Neutrophils Count) below 2000 per mm^3)". In fact, all what the manufacturer is saying is that the drug shall destroy the patient Immune System. The question that comes to mind is why would GHS prescribe the usage of such deadly drug? The approval of such deadly drug is not based on empirical science but rather on money.

It would now be appropriate for the Minister of Health to disrespect the cabal around him and not the Unique Eleven Critical-Thinking Medical Practitioners who are challenging us to have a critical second thought about the mass Covid-19 vaccination agenda.

Rev. Yaw Obeng-Aduasare, M.Div.

Theologian/Mathematician

Staten Island,

New York

January 16, 2022
Built right next to Colton Hall, the Old Monterey Jail was completed in 1855 and was in use until 1956. While no one ever escaped from its thick granite walls, one famous local, Matt Tarpy, was lynched while incarcerated there.
January 16, 2022

The MoA Week In Review - OT 2022-005

Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:

Best zinger quote:

> Speaking about the possibility of holding a separate dialogue with the EU independently from the United States and NATO, one should ask the United States and NATO whether they will allow the EU to take any independent action. <

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Other issues:

Ukraine:

Russia has declared that it has no interest to go to war in Ukraine.

Meanwhile the U.S. is spewing out obvious bullshit about a Russian war on Ukraine.

Caitlin Johnstone  @caitoz - 12:19 AM  Jan 16, 2022

Remember kids: false flags are crazy conspiracy theories that only ridiculous crackpots believe in, except when they're reported as fact in anonymously-sourced stories by news outlets who've lied to you about every war.

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Repeating myself here but I expect an Ukrainian military operation against the Donbas rebels starting of February 3/4 when Putin is on his way to Beijing. Russia will watch a day or two to let everyone recognize the Ukrainian attack for what it is. It will then unleash its air force and artillery to destroy the Ukrainian military. It will be over in less than a week.

Mixed stuff:

Use as open thread ...

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This week Moon of Alabama is asking you, dear reader, to support this site. Please do so as well as you can.

Posted by b on January 16, 2022 at 14:25 UTC | Permalink

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Siemens has honoured 15 particularly resourceful researchers from Germany, the US, Israel, India, the UK and Poland as 2021 Inventors of the Year.



The awardees inventions span Siemens entire spectrum, and they all pursue advances based on the companys understanding of innovation: technology that serves people and improves their everyday lives. The inventions range from hydrogen-powered trains to a smart solution for stabilizing power grids that employ a high percentage of renewable energies, and they extend all the way to a cancer treatment that is available for many more patients.



Innovations have been the foundation for our success for nearly 175 years. Im proud that we consistently hold top-level positions in the international patent rankings. Yet Im even more impressed by the quality of our companys inventions, said Peter Korte, Chief Technology Officer of Siemens AG.



We use our solutions to tackle the major challenges of our time. Our inventors lay the foundation for progress and create sustainable value for our customers and for society  and thats Siemens purpose as a company.



Since 1995, Siemens has been presenting its Inventors of the Year awards annually to outstanding research and development employees whose inventions contribute substantially to the companys success. Since 2016, these awards have also been presented to researchers from outside the company.



Siemens filed around 2,500 patent applications worldwide in fiscal 2021. In total, the company holds more than 43,400 granted patents. During fiscal 2021, Siemens employees reported 4,483 inventions, or about 20 inventions per workday.  TradeArabia News Service
Reverend Terry Garrett, in his 64th year, Surrendered his Soul Tuesday from Tulsa. His Sacred Farewell, 10:00 AM, April 30, 2022, Worship Community Center, and until then, he will rest in Oak Hill Cemetery, Talladega, Alabama. biglowfunerals.com
Sohar International, a leading bank in Oman, has signed recently an agreement with Al Hadeetha Resources to extend RO19 million ($49 million) worth of financing to the Wash-hi Majazah mining project.



Signing the agreement on part of the bank was Ahmed Al Musalmi, Chief Executive Officer of Sohar International, whereas Sayyed Khalid bin Hamed bin Saif Al-Busaidy, Chairman of Al Naba Holding, Devaki Gulabsi Khimji, Managing Director of Al Tasnim Group and Atmavireshvar Sthapak, Managing Director of Alara Resources represented the company.



Ahmed Al Musalmi said: Mining is one of the governments key focus sectors as per the economic diversification plan, and Omans mining industry has attracted both, foreign and local operators. Regarded as one of the major mining projects in the Sultanate, the scale of its operations will contribute significantly to the overall economy, creating in-country value, job opportunities and much more. At Sohar International, we remain invested in supporting ventures that provide sustainable socio-economic benefits to the community enabling people to prosper and grow.



Al Hadeetha Resources a joint venture between Alara Resources, Al Hadeetha and Al Tasnim, is the first international joint venture company that has been awarded a copper mining license in Oman for the Wash-hi Majazah project. Located in the Governorate of North Al-Sharqiyah, the Wash-hi Majazah copper deposit has been evaluated under JORC standards for over 16 million tons of copper resources and 10 million tons of mineable reserves.



With an increase in global demand for copper, the Wash-hi Majazah project provides various channels of growth and prosperity in the economy as well as socioeconomical benefits to the Sultanate and local communities such as providing employment for approximately 200 Omanis, local skill developments, opportunities for local suppliers and vendors, infrastructure development and much more.



The factory will be inaugurated in November of this year, coinciding with the country's celebrations of the Glorious National Day.



A project of this scale requires the right kind of support, and we are grateful to Sohar International for extending their project financing services to ensure that our operations are carried out without any hindrance, said Sayyed Khalid bin Hamed bin Saif Al-Busaidy, Chairman of Al Naba Holding.



Supported by the government represented by the Ministry of Energy and Minerals implementing favourable reforms to support the mining industry in Oman, we are certain that developments in this sector will be promising. While the economic benefits from the mining sector will be far-reaching, such mega projects compliment the governments agenda to establish a decentralized local administration resulting in the various regions of Oman to prosper and grow.



It is also important to note that Wash-hi Majazah project will contribute immensely to the generation of job opportunities and increasing employment for the local workforce. Apart from individual job seekers, the project will provide ongoing business prospects to local SMEs and vendors, he added.



With equity contribution of RO8 million bringing up the total valuation of the project at approximately RO27 million, Wash-hi Majazah project will generate cash flows of RO 200 million for a period of 10 years.



We are always looking at the opportunities that will boost in-country value and we are proud to invest in local cooper miming projects in Oman with our esteemed partners. We appreciate Sohar International for their trust in this project, said Devaki Khimji, Managing Director-Al Tasnim Group.



AV Sthapak, Managing Director of Alara Resources said Alara wishes to thank Sohar International, our fellow JV partners for their valuable support and for their disciplined approach towards realizing our mission of becoming a mid-tier mineral producer with a focus on mineral deposits and projects in Oman. These are exciting times for global copper mining industry and Al wash-hi Majazah Project is destined to write a new chapter for Oman copper.  TradeArabia News Service
powerofforever/Getty Images

A state senator was escorted out of the Capitol building in Olympia after intentionally defying coronavirus protocols Monday as the Legislature met to convene the 2022 legislative session.



Sen. Phil Fortunato, in a statement on his legislative website, said he purposefully entered the building without first submitting a negative test, which is required of all senators who wish to work on-site.



Fortunato, a Republican from Auburn, said in his statement that the Senates coronavirus protocols dont pass constitutional muster. He also argued that such protocols arent needed because, in his view, the virus will eventually become endemic.



We have now been in an emergency for nearly 700 days and its becoming clearer that this virus is something we are going to have to live with, he said. It is time to return to normal proceedings and Zoom is not a substitute to being able to represent my constituents on the Senate Floor.



Fortunatos flouting of the rules comes at a time when the extraordinarily contagious omicron variant of the virus is ripping through Washington.



The state is averaging nearly 15,000 new cases a day, a whopping 242% increase over the last two weeks. Hospitalizations have shot up 104% in that same time. Dr. John Lynch, a medical director at Harborview Medical Center, said at a recent briefing that Washington is now closer to a crisis situation than its ever been.



Fortunatos test of the Senates virus protocols also comes just under a month after his colleague, Sen. Doug Ericksen, died after being hospitalized with the virus, which he contracted while on a trip to El Salvador.



At some point in time we have to push back, and I intend to at every step of the way, Fortunato said in his statement. I believe the Governor and the Democratic majority, under the guise of public health, have instituted policies that violate our rights and endanger our democracy.



Fortunato, who represents the 31st legislative district, said he would attempt to enter the building again on Wednesday, when the Senate is scheduled to vote. His statement does not say whether he will submit a negative test beforehand.
Texel Air, an established airline and MRO based in Bahrain, today (January 16) celebrated the launch of the latest addition to its fleet and the very first for the region, a 737-800 Boeing Converted Freighter (BCF).

The 737-800BCF is a full freighter aircraft that is highly in demand in the global air cargo market and is the first of its kind in the Middle East with a second of the same aircraft type due to arrive this September.

These new aircraft will enable Texel Air to carry larger cargo volumes, fly greater distances and to new destinations on behalf of its current and future customer base across the Middle East, India, Turkey, East Africa, and other global markets.

With this launch, Texel Airs fleet grows to four 737 freighters (one 737-300F, two 737-700FC and now the 737-800BCF) with another 737-800BCF on order due to be delivered in September 2022, soon a total fleet of five freighters.

This aircraft, registration A9C-GWC (MSN 29985), underwent conversion from passenger to freighter aircraft at a Boeing MRO supplier facility, with further client specific modifications at Texel Airs hangar facility prior to transferring onto their Bahrain Aircraft Operators Certificate.

Some of the key features of the new aircraft include:

The Boeing Converted Freighter is capable of carrying up to 23.9 tonnes (52,800 pounds) and flying up to 2,025 nautical miles (3,750 kilometers).

The 737-800BCF has 6,546 cubic feet (185.4 cubic meters) of total cargo volume, with 12 positions  11 standard (88X125) positions and one (60.4 X 61.5) position on the main deck providing 4,993 cubic feet (141.4 cubic meters) and 1,553 cubic feet (44 cubic meters) in the lower hold.

On the significant achievement, Engineer Kamal bin Ahmed Mohammed, Minister of Transportation and Telecommunications said: "We are pleased to see Bahrain as a launchpad for yet another new aircraft, the first of its kind in the Middle East, which is being operated by a Bahrain registered company, Texel Air."

Texel Air is a leader in the Middle East cargo charter airline business servicing the express and e-commerce markets.

"Having welcomed the Boeing 737-700 FlexCombi in August 2020, we are proud to see the strides that Texel Air has been taking, reflecting their commitment to investing in the regional aviation industrys latest offerings and technologies. We are pleased to see that Bahrains regulations and infrastructure have enabled this growth and look forward to further supporting private sector aviation companies expansion and innovation," he added.

Anbessie Yitbarek, Boeing Vice President of Commercial Services Sales said: "We are thrilled to welcome Texel Air to the Boeing Converted Freighter family with the arrival of their first of two market-leading 737-800 Boeing Converted Freighters."

"The 737-800BCF is the right-sized freighter to support Texel Airs fleet expansion plans, providing the reliability, efficiency and world-class in-service technical support that will help Texel Air capitalize on rapid growth in e-commerce and express cargo demand," he added.

John Chisholm, Chairman and Founder of Chisholm Enterprises/Texel Air, said: "We are very proud to welcome the arrival of the regions very first Boeing 737-800BCF to Bahrain. Along with our two versatile B737-700Flex Combis that recently joined our fleet, this addition will further boost our capabilities."

"We look forward to offering greater innovation and more varied cargo solutions to our global customer base," he stated.

Chisholm said: "A9C-GWC is expected to enter into service in mid-January. Our home, the Kingdom of Bahrain, is a strategic location and a regional hub for aviation and logistics," noted Chisholm.

Texel Airs second 737-800BCF aircraft will be inducted for conversion with Boeing in May and is expected to enter service in September 2022, he added.

Present at the launch ceremony were senior government and aviation industry leaders including Bahrain Airport Company CEO Mohamed Yousif Al Binfalah and George Chisholm, CEO of Chisholm Enterprises along with other Texel Air management and Board members.-TradeArabia News Service
Robert Daemmrich Photography Inc/Corbis via Getty Images

January is prime bald eagle nesting time in Texas, with typically one to three baby eaglets in each nest. A new project with Texas Nature Trackers is helping scientists examine and collect information on the status of Bald Eagle and Golden Eagle nesting sites across Texas.

Texas Nature Trackers, a contingent of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, is a citizen monitoring effort that connects nature lovers all of ages. The organization calls on those who are able to observe a given nest through breeding season to submit weekly photo updates to the project on the app iNaturalist.
The man who took hostages at a Dallas-area synagogue Saturday night was apparently motivated by his anger over the U.S. imprisonment of Aafia Siddiqui, 49, a Pakistani woman being held in federal prison in Fort Worth for trying to kill American soldiers.

That's according to a law enforcement official speaking under condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation, who also told The Washington Post that early in the standoff, the hostage-taker said he wanted a rabbi in New York to know that he was taking the hostages because he wanted Siddiqui freed.

The standoff ended Saturday night with law enforcement freeing the hostages and the suspect dead.

While very little is publicly known about the suspect - including his identity or what moved him to capture four people, including the rabbi, at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, with a gun and explosives during Saturday services - Siddiqui has long been a cause celebre in Islamist militant circles, with frequent demands for her release.

Saturday's events at the Texas synagogue have reignited interest in the story of the woman widely known as "Lady al-Qaida." At its center is an enigmatic and extremely educated mother who apparently cast off a comfortable, successful professional life in pursuit of terrorism - and would be called, at one time, the "most wanted woman in the world."

Siddiqui was convicted on terrorism charges in 2010 and sentenced to 86 years in prison after opening fire on Americans. She is slated for release in 2082.

"We are talking about a very unique figure," says Boaz Ganor, executive Director of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, a nonprofit think tank based in Israel. "What we know is that this is a very intelligent terrorist."

Her case, in part, is so compelling because she is "not the prototype of a ... regular terrorist." While elements from Islamist groups want her release, others "might think that what happened [to her] is injustice and they want to free her for humanitarian reasons."

Siddiqui, who earned a bachelor's degree in biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a PhD in neuroscience from Brandeis University, was married with three children and living in the Boston area during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. After 9/11, she left her husband and returned to Pakistan, fearing that if she stayed in the United States, her children would be forcibly taken from her and converted to Christianity, according to a psychological report prepared for her trial.

The report said that her thoughts were "replete with numerous conspiratorial ideas" and that "she also related a number of beliefs that appeared delusional."

Siddiqui disappeared after her return to Pakistan. She was captured in Afghanistan in July 2008, when she was found with a flash drive containing documents on chemical and biological weapons, according to U.S. prosecutors. Afghan authorities captured her carrying handwritten notes detailing a "mass casualty attack" on several New York City spots. When FBI agents and U.S. military personnel were interviewing her in Afghanistan, she grabbed a rifle and opened fire on the Americans before she was herself shot.

She was flown to the United States and convicted in federal court in New York of attempted murder for the attack.

U.S. law enforcement agencies have alleged that Siddiqui has ties to al-Qaida. In 2003, the FBI issued a global alert for her and her ex-husband, Amjad Khan. In 2003, according to U.S. law enforcement, Siddiqui married Ammar al-Baluchi, the nephew of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the Guantanamo detainee who has professed to being a mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.

In 2004, the FBI added her to its list of the seven most wanted al-Qaida fugitives, and officials from the bureau and the Justice Department described her as an al-Qaida "operative and facilitator" during a news conference, according to the Associated Press.

Various extremist groups have tried to negotiate for her release over the years, including al-Qaida, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and the Islamic State.

Meanwhile, protests in Pakistan over her detention have fueled a broader online movement dedicated to proving she was tortured by U.S. soldiers and then wrongfully convicted.

Pakistani officials have expressed support for her release. In November 2018, the Pakistani Senate passed a resolution demanding that Siddiqui be repatriated to Pakistan, naming her "the daughter of the Nation." Prime Minister Imran Khan pledged in a 2018 election manifesto that his political party would "make best efforts to bring prisoners like Dr. Afia Siddiqui and others back to Pakistan."

In an article published in 2020 by the Atlantic Council think tank, Dawood Ghazanavi, an attorney in Pakistan and author of the book "Aafia Unheard: Uncovering the Personal and Legal Mysteries Surrounding FBI's Most Wanted Woman," wrote that "many Pakistanis equate the injustices done to her as an injustice against Pakistan."

Counterterrorism experts warn that Saturday's events at the synagogue in Texas could inspire copycats.

Steven Stalinsky, executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute, said Saturday's incident is "energizing jihadis and terrorist groups both online and on the ground who haven't had much to be excited about since the Taliban's return to power."

Other potential attackers motivated by antisemitism "might be intrigued by that and might follow with a lone-wolf attack" on places of worship, and particularly on synagogues, Ganor said. "Definitely, I would ... tighten the security around synagogues and holy places in the coming week or two," he said.

In response to news of the hostage situation, Jewish communities in several cities heightened their security. Police in Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Calif., and Dallas said they increased patrols around their local synagogues.

President Joe Biden said in a statement late Saturday that "there is more we will learn in the days ahead about the motivations of the hostage taker. But let me be clear to anyone who intends to spread hate - we will stand against anti-Semitism and against the rise of extremism in this country."

In the Facebook live stream of the Shabbat service, which has since been taken down, a man seemed to be speaking on the phone off-camera, sometimes shouting, sounding increasingly stressed. He said he wanted to speak with his "sister," seemingly referring to Siddiqui with an expression of solidarity. The hostage-taker was not the brother of Siddiqui, according to two people familiar with the family.

Siddiqui's attorney, Marwa Elbially, before the standoff ended said the suspect was not a member of her family, adding that they do not know of the individual's identity or approve of his actions. "They condemn any type of violence done in (Siddiqui's) name," Elbially said.

As recently as September, British extremist preacher Anjem Choudary announced a campaign calling for Siddiqui's release. "The obligation upon us is to either free her physically or to ransom her or to exchange her," said Choudary on his Telegram channel. "However, until such time as we can fulfil one these obligations the minimum that we can do is to use all that we have to raise awareness about her case, to keep her name in the hearts and in the minds of Muslims."

On Jan. 13, a pro-Islamic State outlet released a video in which a narrator denounced what he described as the attacks and torture by "the enemies of Allah" against female Muslim prisoners. A poster mentioning Siddiqui is visible in the background of the video. In 2014, the Islamic State offered to release American hostage Kayla Mueller in exchange for Siddiqui and $6.6 million.
San Antonio's real estate market going to be hot this year. (Hotter than Austin!) And San Antonio rents aren't dropping. From finding your perfect new home to negotiating rent prices, searching for an apartment in San Antonio can be quite the experience. Taking inspiration from our sister publication SFGate in San Francisco, MySA is looking at local properties showcasing the best, worst, and everything in between here in the Alamo City. Let's guess the rent.

Welcome back. This year's Guess the Rent features are already getting interesting as we drive about an hour northwest from last week's luxury apartment to a secluded listing in Pipe Creek.

Whether you're hunting, looking to get away from all the noise, or just a fugitive, this one-bedroom cabin out near Bandera is tucked away in 16 acres of heavily wooded Hill Country.

The interior, as you'll see, is not much to gawk at, but it's the view that makes up for the bare essentials aesthetic.

Let's take a look.

Craigslist

This place is doing the least. It's not asking too much nor is it giving too much  a couch for sitting and a table for eating. Can you spot the WiFi?

Craigslist

The kitchen has a stove, countertops, cabinets, and a microwave for all your cooking needs. Like I said  just the essentials. It's tough to go all out with a 700-square-foot home.

Craigslist

A bathroom with a walk-in shower will keep you clean for when you need to head into town, whether that's a 15-minute drive into Bandera or an hour-long trip to San Antonio.

Craigslist

Maybe you got dirty hiking the many trails available in the area, as the listing says. Well, lucky for you, the washer and dryer are included with this place.

Craigslist

How's that for a backyard? This is what you will be waking up and falling asleep to should you decide to live among Hill Country. The listing says "beautiful sunsets" are in store. I'd like to see it.

How much exactly will you pay for this secluded rental? The rent is $1,350 a month and the landlord is willing to discuss short-term leases.

Zumper says the average rent for a one-bedroom property in the area is $750, but it's hard to tell how many of those properties sit on a secluded hillside.
(Natural News) The worlds most powerful governments are spreading the same lies regarding the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19), its effects and how to mitigate it. According to journalist Ben Armstrong of the New American, this is a coordinated effort to sow fear so that they can gain more power and control over people.

Thinking on the same line as Armstrong is Dr. Mike Yeadon, a former vice president, chief scientist and researcher for Big Pharma company Pfizer, who expressed the belief that there is a supranational plan to take over all of the worlds democracies.

All of the countries had somewhat similar pandemic preparedness plans that were very simple, said Yeadon during an interview with German media company OVALmedia. They all discarded them in the weeks of March 2020, all of them, and they replaced them with the same narrative script I call them the eight COVID lies. Every single one of them is untruth, and I think the objective was to frighten people to death.

Here are eight of the biggest lies they are spreading about COVID-19. (h/t to TheNewAmerican.com)

The coronavirus is very deadly

One of the first lies governments trotted out about the coronavirus is that it is an extremely lethal virus that could easily kill anyone that gets infected by it.

The truth is COVID-19 has a survival rate of around 99 percent for people who do not have any comorbidities that would make them more likely to succumb to any disease.

PCR tests are effective at detecting COVID-19

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests are considered to be the gold standard for detecting the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in a person.

According to Armstrong, the PCR tests used by governments around the world are specifically calibrated to detect even the tiniest fragment of any coronavirus, not just SARS-CoV-2. This is used to artificially boost the number of infected people.

Masks work

Early on in the pandemic, public health officials all over the world claimed that people should wear face masks when they meet people outside their household as it protects them from COVID-19.

But the face masks these officials recommended were never designed to filter breath and breath particles. They were designed for use in hospitals so that doctors and nurses do not get blood and other bodily fluids in and around their mouths and noses.

Lockdowns can slow down the spread of coronavirus

Many people around the world did initially believe that the lockdowns would stop or slow down the spread of the coronavirus since the disease is spread from person to person.

But the infections never stopped, and nearly two years since the pandemic began, cases are still growing and they are still spreading even in countries that still have strict lockdowns.

Asymptomatic individuals can spread the virus

Government and public health officials keep warning that even seemingly healthy but asymptomatic individuals can still spread the coronavirus.

Folks, if youre not symptomatic, how can you be spreading it? asked Armstrong rhetorically. You dont have to be afraid of people who are not sick.

Armstrong pointed out that the term asymptomatic should be differentiated from people who have slight symptoms that they have not properly addressed.

There is a very small window where  you actually have slight symptoms, but you dont know it yet, he said. You have that sore throat and a little bit of a runny nose, but you dont think that youre sick But thats not asymptomatic, there are symptoms. And during that very first little period, you could be spreading it.

There are no proper treatments

Governments around the world claim that the only way to properly treat COVID-19 is through vaccination.

But virologists have extensively examined the stages of a coronavirus infection  replication, inflammation, coagulation  and have concluded that this multi-phase infection can be very treatable if doctors took care of it like they would any other respiratory viral illness.

Natural immunity is ineffective

Given the proliferation of COVID-19 vaccines, governments all over are discrediting natural immunity  the immunity a person gets after recovered from a bout against COVID-19.

This is not how immune systems work. Once the infection has cleared from a persons body, that immune system will already know what to do if it tries to enter the body again.

COVID-19 vaccines are safe to use

Perhaps the biggest lie that governments and public health officials have parroted is that the COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective. In reality, these experimental and dangerous medications are deadly. (Related: Americans no longer buying government propaganda, deception, and lies about COVID-19 vaccines.)

If anyone says its safe and effective, theyre flat out lying yet again, said Armstrong. Its the most deadly, most horrible vaccine ever created, that has been given to mass population without being removed. Nothing has come close.

Watch Ben Armstrong in the Ben Armstrong Show as he discusses in detail the eight of Big Governments lies about COVID-19.

This video is from The New American channel on Brighteon.com.

Know the lies being spread about the COVID-19 pandemic and the vaccines by reading the latest articles at Pandemic.news.

Sources include:

Brighteon.com

Reuters.com

TheNewAmerican.com
(Natural News) The governments of New South Wales (NSW), Victoria, and South Australia are contemplating forcing a third covid injection on workers.

Western Australia has already mandated for workers, making it the first, a third booster shot for the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19). That directive was issued on Dec. 22 on top of an existing vaccine mandate.

The emergence of Omicron throughout the world and on the east coast is extremely concerning  case numbers are skyrocketing, as is the number of people in hospital, announced Premier Mark McGowan, a prominent Branch Covidian politician who has been forcing covid fascism on his constituents for many months.

In South Australia, health care workers under a new potential mandate would be required to get boosted within four weeks of becoming eligible, or else lose their jobs. Australian drug regulators have currently only approved the Pfizer and Moderna booster shots, both of which contain mRNA (messenger RNA) technology.

On Jan. 10, New South Wales, Australias most populous state, ordered all education staff to receive a booster. That announcement came not long after authorities ordered all children 5-11 to get injected with the first two rounds.

As we prepare for the start of Term 1, our focus remains on keeping our staff and students safe, announced Georgina Harrisson, secretary of the NSW Department of Education. Adding a booster shot to the vaccination mandate will help maintain confidence that schools are a safe place to learn and work.

As with the initial vaccine mandate, we will ensure school-based staff have sufficient time to obtain their booster, and I encourage everyone to secure an appointment when their booster is due.

Are the powers that be trying to kill off essential workers?

That very same day in almost perfect lockstep, authorities in Victoria rolled out a booster mandate to top an existing mandate covering health care, elderly care, disability, emergency services, correctional services, hotel quarantine, food distribution networks, and abattoirs, meat, poultry, and seafood processing to get jabbed.

All of these groups are already covered by existing mandates for those first two vaccinations, and this is a sensible addition for the relatively high-risk nature that these sectors operate when it comes to vaccine protection and, of course, their critical contribution to keeping Victoria operating, Health Minister Martin Foley told reporters.

Basically, Australia is trying to kill off  just like the United States is trying to do, by the way  all of its essential workers. People who work in sensitive industries, or who provide medical services, are being told that they must take the clot shots or else get fired.

What will happen once many of these people (if not all of them?) end up developing vaccine-induced AIDS? In a best-case scenario, assuming they survive, many of them will be chronically ill or disabled because of what the injections end up doing to their bodies. Many others will simply die.

There are literally thousands of medical studies available for all to read that show these gene therapy injections are NOT safe, not effective AND the vast majority of Australians also now have natural immunity, wrote someone at The Epoch Times. This is becoming the single greatest horrific error in modern mankinds history. Beyond horrible and unforgivable while being totally preventable. God will judge us all.

Others suggested that pharmaceutical behemoths like Pfizer and Moderna are raking in a whole lot of cash from all these mandates, which ensure a steady stream of forced customers.

This is disturbing and evil, wrote another Times reader getting right to the point.

The latest news about Fauci Flu shots can be found at ChemicalViolence.com.

Sources for this article include:

TheEpochTimes.com

NaturalNews.com
(Natural News) Canadas federal government announced on Thursday, January 13, that unvaccinated Canadian truckers will not be exempted from the new vaccine mandate for truck drivers.

In a joint statement, the countrys transportation, health, and public safety ministers said the initial policy requiring truckers coming into Canada to be fully vaccinated, or face PCR testing and quarantine requirements, stands.

On Wednesday, January 12, a spokesperson from the Canada Border Services Agency told reporters that the country will allow unvaccinated Canadian truckers to cross in from the United States  reversing a decision requiring all truckers to be inoculated against the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19). The government is now saying that the information provided was incorrect.

Before the confusion, it had been announced that unvaccinated Canadian truckers will have to meet requirements for pre-entry, arrival and day eight testing. They will also have to go through quarantine requirements although they cannot be denied entry into the country. The mandate takes effect on Saturday, January 15.

Unvaccinated or partially-vaccinated non-Canadian truckers, meanwhile, will be turned away if they are unable to show proof of immunization or a valid medical contraindication to the vaccines.

In a statement, the ministers noted that certain categories of travelers will only be allowed to enter the country if they are fully vaccinated with one of the vaccines approved for entry into the country. These groups include essential service providers, including truck drivers. (Related: Get ready for more shortages: Truck driver shortage is getting worse and there arent enough drivers to fix the problem.)

To qualify as a fully vaccinated foreign national, non-Canadian truckers will need to complete their vaccine series at least 14 days before entering the country. They will also need to submit the required information through the ArriveCAN app.

The information shared [Wednesday] was provided in error. Our teams have been in touch with industry representatives to ensure they have the correct information, the statement read.

The federal government also denied that it was reversing its decision, saying that because the U.S. is set to enact its own vaccine mandate for essential workers at the border beginning January 22, unvaccinated Canadian truckers are expected to face restrictions once the American policy comes into effect anyway.

Vaccination mandates for drivers could worsen trucker shortages

Cross-border trucking organizations have been sounding the alarm for weeks, saying that requiring drivers to be vaccinated will sideline thousands, exacerbating trucker shortage and putting serious strains on the supply chain. (Related: Trucking industry is short 80,000 truck drivers amid supply chain crisis.)

Head of the Canadian Trucking Alliance Stephen Laskowski said: What we really have here in the next seven to nine days is the need for Ottawa and Washington to both agree to remove their foreign national requirements.

He also stated that its not a question of whether or not the mandate should be put in place, but when it should be. He also recommended that both sides of the border work together. Lets understand that the supply chain is in a fragile state, and lets pick a date to impose such measures when the supply chain is in a stronger condition than it is today.

Conservative transport critic Melissa Lantsman expressed discontent on the handling of the decision, saying that the reversal of a reversal has resulted in greater uncertainty for many in the industry.

New Democratic Partys Don Davies also noted that the handling of the situation has led to considerable confusion in the industry and questioned why it has taken months to roll out the policy. If truckers going into the United States and getting back to Canada must be vaccinated, then American truckers should do it as well. We should apply the exact same rules to Canadians or else were putting economics above public health, he noted.

Watch the video below for more information on cross-border policies.

This video is from the What is Happening channel on Brighteon.com.

Get more updates about the COVID-19 situation at Pandemic.news.

Sources include:

CTVNews.ca

ProduceGrower.com

Brighteon.com
In a significant milestone, the OIC-CERT 5G Security Working Group (WG) has announced the completion of the core OIC-CERT 5G Security Framework in less than eight months after the initiative was launched.

The Framework, now in the hands of the OIC-CERT, consists of a 5G security risk repository, a 5G security baseline technical specification, and a cross-recognition assurance methodology.

The Organisation of the Islamic Cooperation- Computer Emergency Response Team (OIC-CERT) is a platform for information sharing and developing cybersecurity capabilities for the members mainly among the Organisation of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) community. It is an Affiliate Institution of the OIC.

The OIC-CERT 5G Security WG is jointly led by Cybersecurity Malaysia, the OIC-CERT permanent secretariat, and Huawei UAE, an OIC-CERT commercial member.

Eng Badar Ali Al-Salehi, the Chairman of the OIC-CERT said "It has been eluded on many platforms and occasions that the only way to solve the ever-increasing cybersecurity challenge is through collaboration. The OIC-CERT 5G Security working group affirms this viewpoint and we are seeing remarkable progress in addressing some of the security concerns around 5G in general."

Meanwhile, Ts Dato Dr Amiruddin Abdul Wahab, CEO of CyberSecurity Malaysia, is in the opinion that, 5G is another disruptive technology that all parties have no choice but to embrace it. The OIC-CERT has overcome a major hurdle by defining the requirements in this framework for the OIC community and could not have come at a more opportune time as 5G matures worldwide.

Ts Mohd Shamir bin Hashim, SVP for International & Government Engagement Division of Cybersecurity Malaysia and Co-chair of OIC-CERT 5G Security Working Group said: "Our objective was to develop a set of guiding principles for the OIC-CERT members on how to address the emerging 5G security threat. Thanks to the support of the WG members and my co-chair, Huawei Dubai. we have delivered.

A meeting between the co-chairs and the OIC-CERT secretariat team is planned for February 2022 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where the WG work plan for the year 2022 will be announced immediately after it is finalised in the meeting.

The work plan shall address promotion and adoption of the 5G Security Framework within OIC community and outline additional technical work needed to enhance the Framework. The document remains a work in progress due to 5G evolving technological improvements and new application scenarios and there are plans to give a technical presentation of the OIC 5G Security Framework during the GISEC in Dubai in March 2022, bringing the initiative to a full circle as the formation of the WG was also announced at the same event in 2021.

The 5G heralds a new era of digital transformation. But with this progress comes new threats and vulnerabilities because of the vastly expanded attack surface. Adopting IoT, for example, will add a new set of challenges such as the security, safety, and robustness of cyber and physical systems. Therefore, there's an urgent need to enhance cybersecurity measures proportionate to the threats emerging from digital technology advances.

More than ever, cross-border collaboration is key to mitigating cyber threats and that is so true for OIC whose 57 member states are spread over 4 continents, a challenge that is exacerbated by the contrasting maturity of ICT adoption within the countries.-- TradeArabia News Service
(Natural News) Residents of Xian in China are still locked inside their homes as the government continues to enforce strict lockdown due to the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19).

Millions of people in China are working diligently toward the countrys zero COVID policies, and measures are extreme. In Xian, hospital employees refused to admit a man suffering from chest pains because he lived in a medium-risk district. A pregnant woman in her last trimester was left bleeding because her COVID test was no longer valid.

China continues to rely on authoritarian methods to contain the pandemic, leading to food and medical shortages. In early January, around two weeks into the citys lockdown, officials said that Xian has achieved its zero COVID target on a societal level, although its residents were still unable to leave home.

The government was quick in imposing its strict lockdowns in late December as cases rose, but it did not prepare to provide food, medical care or other necessities for its 13 million residents. Xian and several cities in Henan provinces have very strict measures that led to complaints from people who were stuck in their homes and now running out of food.

The district security guards are like prison guards and we are like prisoners, Xian resident, Tom Zhao, said.

Even multinational companies are struggling in the city. Samsung and Micron, two of the worlds largest memory chip makers, had to adjust their operations in Xian due to the restrictions, further affecting the already fragile global supply chain.

China reported 124 cases on Thursday, January 13, including 74 in Henan province and 41 in Tianjin. Chinese authorities have reported a total of 104,379 cases in China, with 3,460 of them active. The countrys death toll remained at 4,636. (Related: New coronavirus outbreaks in China lead to strict lockdown measures.)

Intense measures for Winter Olympics

With the Beijing Winter Olympics just weeks ahead, the country is continuing its policies. There are currently over 20 million people stuck in some form of lockdown. Tianjin, which is near Beijing, is on high alert.

The Olympic bubble is stricter than that of Tokyo, which mostly focused on stopping transmission. Beijing faces a bigger risk because of the more contagious omicron variant, which has shown itself to effectively evade vaccines. Moreover, because of how effectively China contained the outbreak, most of its population is protected only by vaccines  not by antibodies developed from previous infections.

Further, unlike the Tokyo Olympics, there will be no contact between China and the outside world. Officials, athletes, staff and journalists are set to travel between hotels and venues on specially designated vehicles in a closed-loop system. Chinese residents, meanwhile, will have to quarantine for three weeks upon leaving the bubble.

Trash will also be handled separately and the traffic police noted that anyone involved in a collision with a designated Winter Olympic vehicle should not come in contact with those on board as they have a special team to handle matters. (Related: Chinese citizens decry draconian lockdown measures in Chinas newest coronavirus hotspots.)

If enforced, the measures should be able to prevent the spread of the virus within the bubble, said Kei Saito, a virologist from the University of Tokyo.

The world is turning its eyes to China, and China is ready, Chinese President Xi Jinping said during an inspection tour the previous week.

Watch the video below to learn more about Chinas intense lockdowns and zero COVID policies.

This video is from the OnlyTruth4Me channel on Brighteon.com.

Learn more about how COVID-19 is being handled globally at Pandemic.news.

Sources include:

InfoWars.com

NYTimes.com 1

NYTimes.com 2

NPR.org

Brighteon.com
(Natural News) Internist and cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough criticized the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) treatment protocol  or lack of it  in hospitals around the world. In a recent episode of The Big Logic with host Joe Rogan, McCullough talked about how health agencies were denying the public early treatment protocol for COVID-19, and how this could be considered reckless.

The later we start something, the less effective it is, McCullough said. So if you want to show failure of ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine and monoclonal antibodies, apply it very late.

McCullough pointed out that COVID-19 can lead to a fatal condition, yet doctors are not allowed to give their patients with life-saving meds in the emergency room  and by the time they are admitted, it is usually too late for monoclonal antibodies.

He also shared that in the U.S., there are only about 500 doctors who are giving monoclonal treatments, as the government has a grip over most of them. I think they were personally fearful of taking care of patients. And they wanted someone to tell them what to do, McCullough said of his colleagues.

Its just hard to imagine being a person denying treatment to someone that you know would be effective because youre looking at some arbitrary rules that are written down that once theyre admitted to the hospital, you cant give monoclonal antibodies, and then to cast this judgment on them, he went on. (Related: Hydroxychloroquine should be available over the counter.)

McCullough explained that doctors spend too much time waiting for evidence instead of doing what they can to treat patients early. Sharing a story about a doctor he spoke with, McCullough explained that many believe they should follow the governments guidelines in treating patients.

The guidelines instruct patients to stay at home and wait. Most of them wait until they could not breathe anymore, and thats when they visit the hospital and get started with treatment.

That is a reckless recommendation for America. It is reckless to recommend nothing, McCullough noted. In the setting of a fatal illness. Every serious fatal infection must be treated early. Its only going to get worse. Why would we let this virus rip the body for 14 days or longer?

McCullough pushes for early treatment

This is not the first time that McCullough expressed his disappointment about how the pandemic is being handled. In an interview with Tucker Carlson in 2021, he shared his views during his testimony in the U.S. Senate.

He explained then that there are four pillars to the pandemic response: first is to try to control the spread; second is to treat the problem and treat it early to avoid hospitalization and death; third is to get treated in the hospitals; and fourth is vaccination. (Related: Covid vaccines most dangerous biological medicinal product rollout in human history, says Dr. Peter McCullough.)

Theres always a four-pronged approach. And what frustrated me is in the media cycle, all we heard about was reducing spread from our public health officials and then later on vaccination. We never actually heard about treating sick patients, he said.

One of the drugs that McCullough uses is hydroxychloroquine, which he says does not only disrupt viral replication and packaging but treats the ravaging effects of the cytokine storm and microthrombosis, which are parts of the more dangerous, high-morbidity stages of COVID-19.

He explained that because of the fear of people not knowing how to handle the pandemic thus far, doctors err on the side of doing nothing, almost as if were dealing with some type of contagion that youd read in a Michael Crichton book.

He explained that hes going to try steroids or ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine. Im going to add Lovenox and some other drugs. Of course, I am. And sure enough, myself and others found out over time we can get people through the illness.

Watch the full January 12 clip of The Joe Rogan Show below:

You can watch more clips on The Big Logic channel at Brighteon.com.

Get more news about COVID-19 responses at Pandemic.news.

Sources include:

Brighteon.com

ConservativeWoman.co.uk

TheDesertReview.com
(Natural News) Even as the U.S. Supreme Court appears set to put a huge dent in its landmark Roe v. Wade decision, circa 1973, that overturned every state law banning abortions, Democrat-run cities are increasingly passing legislation that provides paid leave to workers for the procedure.

Portland, Oregon, and Boston, among others, have all passed ordinances that give city workers paid time off following the procedure, according to National Review.

And, of course, the leftists who run these cities are inventing new terms to hide what theyre really doing:

In Boston, the city council amended its paid parental leave policy to include employees suffering from pregnancy loss. This might sound as though the policy applies to parents who lost a child after a stillbirth or miscarriage. But in fact the policy also includes parents who experience . . . a termination  in other words, those who have had an abortion.

As the outlet points out, whether you support abortion or not, providing employees paid time off to have the procedure under parental leave policy is outrageous, since the individuals involved chose specifically to not become parents.

Its important to recognize that employees need time to address their reproductive health needs . . . and they may need time to process what theyre experiencing, Andrea Miller, president of the National Institute for Reproductive Health, said in an interview with Oregon Public News. She went on to label the policy a really important step forward, noting that it could help destigmatize abortion.

Fat chance. Abortion is going to be stigmatized one way or the other simply because it is an act of ending the life of a growing human being, and if the procedure wasnt so horrific and so stigmatizing, these left-wing Democrats would not be inventing words and phrases to hide what they are doing to help promote the procedure at the expense of local taxpayers.

The National Review saw it in exactly that same way.

While it is certainly true that many women experience negative physical and mental consequences following an abortion procedure, this policy is discordant coming from those who support abortion. If we are to acknowledge that a mother and father are bereaved after an abortion, presumably something  indeed, someone  has been lost, the magazines Alexandra DeSanctis wrote.

And if we acknowledge that in every abortion someone is lost  intentionally done away with  then it makes little sense to destigmatize the procedure and extend bereavement leave to those who have intentionally chosen to do away with their child, she added.

Shes exactly right; we cant destigmatize the purposeful taking of a human life, regardless of what stage of development it is in.

In Portland, meanwhile, the left-wing lunatics who run that Antifa den are taking a different approach: They are justifying the paying out of taxpayer funds for abortion as bereavement leave, a policy that began in October. The policy allows the employee to three days of paid leave for pregnancy loss including abortion irrespective of whether [the procedure was] deemed medically necessary.

This comes as the culture war over abortion is heating up again, ahead of the Supreme Courts decision.

For instance, in September Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) got into a shouting match with Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) and other Democrats on the steps of the U.S. Capitol for holding a Build Back Better for Women event even as the party backed a new abortion measure.

The Democrats had also just passed a symbolic pro-choice bill that would sweep away state restrictions on abortion, in reaction to a wave of pro-life measures in Texas and other red states making their way to the Supreme Court. The Senate though is not expected to take up the measure to pass the bill into law, the Washington Times reported.

You should all be ashamed, Greene shouted at the Democrats.

Sources include:

ThePostMillennial.com

USAFeatures.news
January 6 attorney Jon Moseley described the charges against Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes as fantasy driven by public relations.

(Natural News) (Article by Jack Hadfield republished from NationalFile.com)

Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, was arrested on Thursday afternoon at his home in Texas, while on the phone with January 6 attorney Jon Moseley, who is representing Rhodes regarding his appearance before the January 6 House committee and in civil lawsuits related to January 6.

Rhodes was charged, along with Moseleys client Kelly Meggs, with seditious conspiracy, and obstructing official proceedings, among other counts.

After the Presidential Election, ELMER STEWART RHODES III conspired with his co-defendants to oppose by force the lawful transfer of presidential power, the indictment reads:

Rhodes and certain co-conspirators planned to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power by January 20, 2021, which included multiple ways to deploy force. They coordinated travel across the country to enter Washington, D.C., equipped themselves with a variety of weapons, donned combat and tactical gear, and were prepared to answer RHODESS call to take up arms at RHODESS direction. Some co-conspirators also amassed firearms on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., distributed them among quick reaction force (QRF) teams, and planned to use the firearms in support of their plot to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power.

However, Moseley told National File the charges against Rhodes and his client are a public relations stunt designed to distract people from the official failing narrative of the alleged insurrection on January 6.

There is no new information in the indictment, Moseley explained. They discovered a new theory, but not new facts.

If they had some bombshell factual information, this would be different.

Moseley also pointed out that this came only 10 days after Rhodes agreed to testify on behalf of his client, Kelly Meggs. Moseley had originally subpoenaed Rhodes to appear, and learned later that the Oath Keepers leader would be a willing participant.

The goal is to cover themselves for the fact that the Oath Keepers have not been indicted, and now theyve got him facing charges for sedition, he added.

Before the indictment was unsealed, both the New York Times and Washington Post were privy to the charges that Rhodes, Meggs and others were facing, citing law enforcement sources, giving credence to Moseleys arguments.

All of the charges are basically fantasies. Im saying that because I have the documents, said Moseley.

Journalist Glenn Greenwald further noted that treason and sedition charges do not often lead to convictions, with only 12 Americans being convicted in this countrys history.

The U.S. government has successfully convicted fewer than 12 Americans for treason in the nations history. The last charge was 2010  against members of the Hutaree Militia. The judge dismissed the case, saying it was based on protected speech.https://t.co/PEnF7WlRkL  Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 13, 2022

Moseley told National File that he didnt think it was a coincidence that Rhodes had agreed to testify that there was no plan and no conspiracy in Meggss trial, and was arrested shortly afterwards.

Some things happen for multiple reasons, but I think the fact that Stewart Rhodes was going to testify is one of the reasons why he was indicted.

Read more at: NationalFile.com
(Natural News) The son of one of the most powerful Democratic politicians in the U.S. has found himself ensconced in controversy this week.

(Article by Michael Austin republished from WesternJournal.com)

This time, the son in question is not Hunter Biden, the presidents son, who has been at the center of scandal after scandal since before his father even entered the White House.

Instead, it is House Speaker Nancy Pelosis son  Paul Pelosi Jr.  who is making headlines.

According to the U.K.s Daily Mail, a shocking paper trail ties the younger Pelosi to five companies that have all been probed by federal agencies for crimes such as fraud.

Of note, Paul Pelosi Jr. himself has never been charged, the Mail reported.

The report found the following connections, some thinner than others, between Paul Pelosi Jr. and instances of corruption:

The speakers son allegedly joined the board of a biofuel company after it had defrauded investors.

He was the president of an environmental investment firm that turned out to be a front for two convicted fraudsters, according to the Mail.

He allegedly received millions of shares in a lithium mining company he had joined, shares which were reportedly part of a massive fraud scheme amounting to $164 million.

Pelosi Jr. served as vice president for another company that had been closely investigated following accusations it was targeting senior citizens with scam calls, according to the Mail.

He reportedly has close business ties to an individual that the Justice Department has accused of running a fake charity, pretending to represent the U.N., that stole money from investors.

Finally, Pelosi Jr. worked for a medical company that, according to an FDA investigation, tested drugs on individuals without authorization, the Mail reported.

It should be noted that by no means does this investigation prove that either Nancy Pelosi or her son is corrupt or complicit in these crimes.

That being said, it does lay out the case that Pelosi Jr. has a long history of getting involved with shady individuals and organizations.

Corruption seems to lurk everywhere he goes.

These allegations are shockingly similar to the ones levied against the aforementioned Hunter Biden.

Past reports have indicated Bidens involvement with purported corrupt business dealings with Ukrainian and Chinese companies.

Could Biden and Pelosi Jr. both be largely innocent of any wrongdoing or corruption?

Its quite possible, especially in Pelosis case.

That being said, these allegations and new developments, when it comes to both men, should be investigated thoroughly.

With Joe Biden in the White House and Nancy Pelosi serving as Speaker of the House, however, dont hold your breath.

Accountability for the most powerful among us often isnt doled out quite as justly as many Americans would like to think it is.

Read more at: WesternJournal.com
(Natural News) Its going to be a long year. Most Americans today are working hard to recover from the China Virus and bring our resilient country back to its full potential. Unfortunately, some folks have other plans.

(Article by Christopher Manion republished from TheWandererPress.com)

A long time ago, a fellow named Rahm Emanuel, a senior adviser to Bill Clinton, laid down the law for the next generation of Democrat politicians: Never let a crisis go to waste. And for the past two years, the American Left has done everything it can to create an Emanuel-style Crisis Syndrome, and to perpetuate it as long as possible.

Yes, it started with the virus, but they dont want it to end there. The year 2020 was full of mandates to keep us safe while Democrats fomented a summer of chaos, riots, and destruction that endangered the safety of millions.

Radical district attorneys in Democrat-governed cities fanned the flames of chaos, looting, carjacking, crime  and even murders like those in Waukesha last November. Democrats observed our reactions carefully. They discovered that millions of normally freedom-loving Americans were willing to obey almost any mandate if it was issued to keep us safe.

It worked! They watched us act like a defeated people.

Who but a nation of powerless losers would allow politicians to close our churches (but leave abortion mills open) for months in the name of safety?

Well, we allowed them, and we allowed everything else, and Democrats noticed. So for the past twelve months, Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats have done everything they could to make our lives more miserable.

A year ago, America was energy independent for the first time. Once in the White House, Joe Biden immediately shut down the Keystone pipeline and instituted a couple of dozen other policies that have raised energy prices by over thirty percent, exacerbating supply chain problems that affect every American family.

Millions of Americans lost their jobs during the 2020 lockdowns, but Bidens vaccination mandates and those imposed by governors and private employers have required the firing of millions more. Even those in the Federal Civil Service, who are notoriously impossible to fire, are sent home if their vaccination cards are not up to date.

Putin and the Chicoms make their moves while our military throws in the towel in Afghanistan and searches for White Supremacists in the ranks. And Kamalas border policy is continual chaos.

Theres only one problem. Theres an election next November. How are they going to win it?

Happy talk and hard truths

The 2022 campaign is well under way, and Republicans are feeling good about their chances. My old sidekick David Bossie writes on Fox that Bidens first year has been the worst since Carter  midterms will be the cure for buyers remorse. Dems Face a Brutal Reckoning With Hispanic Voters, writes A.B. Stoddard. A popular Tweet reports that Biden White House Collapses, GOP 2022 Gains Likely.

Democrats, however, arent overflowing with happy-talk. Theyre full of hard-nosed advice, though  and all of it is telling Biden how to change. Democrats can win in 2022  heres how, writes The Hill, an influential DC website. The leftish Salon says, Regroup! 6 Reasons Dems Should Be Hopeful About 2022 Midterms. Microsofts msn.com tells us How Democrats can win in 2022 and beyond. MSNBC confidently reports How Democrats can win the Senate in 2020.

CNN is dire but maybe not: How Democrats can avert disaster in 2022, says one story, while another tries to cheer us up: Democrats may defy history and win the 2022 midterms! The Nation tells us, Heres How the Democrats Can Win Back Rural Voters, while Medium says, Democrats Need to Go More Left!

None of that is enough for the Guardian. Its time to take the gloves off, the socialist standard-bearer insists. Joe Biden needs to stand up and fight (West Virginia Democrat Sen. Joe) Manchin like our lives depend on it, it writes. Manchin is a mulish egotist: a man who sticks to his guns, even when his guns are firing blanks. The response? Biden has to fire away with real ammo.

And those Democrats have a point. In our divided nation, why would any intelligent politician intentionally alienate millions of voters who had supported him in 2020? Its pretty clear that Bidens administration is intentionally impoverishing millions of Americans and needlessly harassing millions more. This is not the way that elections are won.

So whats going on? Why are Democrats pursuing such counterintuitive policies?

First of all, they think they can rely on false narratives, and they are depending on their media and cultural allies to resonate them.

A minor but revealing example occurred earlier this week, when a Virginia snowstorm that would be considered modest anywhere else completely shut down traffic on a twenty-mile stretch of Interstate 95 between Richmond to Washington, D.C. Thousands of motorists were trapped in their vehicles for up to nineteen hours.

Immediately, the echo chamber went into action, blaming Glenn Youngkin, the Republican who shocked the Left by winning last Novembers election for governor. After the first barrage of complaints and finger-pointing, sensible people finally realized that Youngkin isnt governor yet (he will be sworn in on January 15). But the repetition  Impression Impression Impression  set the tone for how his administration will be treated by the usual suspects.

That narrative of deflection also works in reverse. For the past year, many celebrated media and political critics have routinely blamed former President Trump for the mishaps that Joe Biden has visited on the country. Its fake news, but the Left is counting on the expectation that the drumbeat will sound so familiar, a key portion of the electorate that Rush Limbaugh used to call the low information voters would believe it anyway.

Condescending? Absolutely. But the hubris of the elites seems to inspire this perpetual prevarication among the professionals. It calls to mind the motto of Monica Lewinsky, the former intern in Bill Clintons White House: Ive lied all my life. And they share such a contemptuous view of the Deplorables that they expect us to believe them.

Democrats must make things happen  or at least make us believe that they happened. Moreover, and equally important, there are things that have happened that they must make us believe didnt really happen. Even with their mammoth advantage in messaging, they do not face an easy task.

False narratives are indeed effective, especially when they are delivered with the favorite slogan of the marketers  Impression, impression, impression! And that mantra works in both the positive and the negative directions.

So will 2022 be business as usual?

Democrats know theyre in trouble, and they know that crisis and chaos have always worked to their advantage. And, while there is no such thing as the foreseeable future, as historian Charles Burton Marshall said in 1980, history does tend to rhyme.

In April, Joe Biden can merely issue an executive order declaring Nancy Pelosis federal takeover of state and local elections to be law.

In July, Biden can issue massive restrictions  all to keep us safe, of course  that will create a public response of outrage similar to that which we have already seen in Canada, Europe, and Australia.

Then Attorney General Garland can send the FBI into the streets to arrest all those White Supremacists by the thousands.

In late September, Joe Biden can announce that he is permanently forgiving all student loans.

And of course, Big Biz Billionaires can pour another few hundred million in dark money to grease the skids in Novembers vote counting. Happy New Year!

Read more at: TheWandererPress.com
(Natural News) Reuters rushed to spin Pfizer CEO Albert Bourlas recent comments on his companys vaccine in a so-called Fact Check and failed to disclose that a senior executive in the Reuters apparatus happens to sit on Pfizers board of directors.

(Article by Joseph Vazquez republished from NewsBusters.org)

Reuters attempted to fact-check a video circulating of Bourla on Yahoo! Finance on the efficacy of his vaccine against the Omicron COVID-19 variant. Bourla made a revealing statement that two doses of the vaccine offer very limited protection, if any. The three doses with the booster  they offer reasonable protection against hospitalizations and deaths, but less protection against infection. Reuters tried to slap down people on social media who were pointing out alleged discrepancies between Bourlas Jan. 10 statements and previous comments he made in 2021 touting the Pfizer vaccines alleged overwhelming protection against infection.

Reuters was quick to say that Bourlas comments on Yahoo! Finance were specific to the Omicron variant, and didnt downplay the vaccines efficacy against other variants. Such a distinction appears irrelevant, however, because Omicron now makes up nearly all sequenced [COVID-19] cases in the U.S., according to CNBC. Bourlas comments also appeared to move the goalposts for recommended protection measures that Americans should take against COVID-19 as his company is now reportedly recommending a redesigned COVID-19 vaccine that specifically targets the Omicron coronavirus variant in addition to previous shots.

But it appears Reuters may have a vested interest in protecting Pfizers credibility. The chairman for the Thomson Reuters Foundation Board of Trustees, James Smith, just happens to sit on Pfizers board. Reuters did not disclose the glaring conflict of interest in its pro-Pfizer write-up at all. The Thomson Reuters Foundation is the corporate foundation for Reuters. The Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics clearly states that journalists should [a]void conflicts of interest, real or perceived. Disclose unavoidable conflicts.

But Reuters wasnt the only one to omit context about a conflict of interest while accusing Twitter users of missing context. Twitter plastered a big notice on its platform that Bourlas comments were taken out of context, and cited Reuters as one of its sources. Twitter did not reveal that Smith was on Pfizers board and also left out important context. Bourla specifically said that two doses of the vaccine offer very limited protection, if any, which suggests that there could be no protection at all against Omicron from two doses of the Pfizer vaccination. [Emphasis added.]

Twitter left the if any part out of its summarization of Bourlas comments in what appears to be an attempt to cushion the impact of what he said:

Bourla said that three doses of the Pfizer vaccine offer reasonable protection against hospitalization and death due to the Omicron variant of COVID-19, and that two doses offer only limited protection from specifically the Omicron variant. His comments were misrepresented and circulated online, according to Reuters and Snopes.

Read more at: NewsBusters.org
(Natural News) USA Today might have one or more pedophiles working in its newsroom.

The national newspaper published, then deleted, several pro-pedo tweets yesterday about a story that justifies sexual attraction to children. Its the latest pedo scandal to engulf a major news organization.

(Article by republished from TheNewAmerican.com)

CNN recently learned that two top producers were pedos; one was arrested and police are investigating the other.

Yet the CNN scandal and now USA Todays pro-pedo propaganda might have exposed a larger truth. Just as theyve infiltrated Hollywood, pedos have apparently infiltrated the news industry.

The Story

The material in the story sounds like it was written by the transgender professor recently forced to quit Old Dominion University. He said pedos are moral as long as they dont act on their desire to have sex with kids.

Now, apparently, USA Today is waving the pedo pennant.

Scientists who study the sexual disorder say it is also among the most misunderstood, the story began. Researchers who study pedophilia say the term describes an attraction, not an action, and using it interchangeably with abuse fuels misperceptions.

You know whats coming next: A long apologia for the disturbed weirdos who want to have sex with children. Among the gems the newspaper disclosed were these:

Scientists have in recent decades improved their understanding of pedophilias causes, prenatal and early childhood risk factors as well as how pedophiles can better control impulses. One of the most significant findings is that scientists who study the disorder say pedophilia is determined in the womb, though environmental factors may influence whether someone acts on an urge to abuse.

And, of course, theyre born that way.

The evidence suggests it is inborn. Its neurological, headshrinker James Cantor told the newspaper. Cantor is a sex researcher and former editor-in-chief of, Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment.

And it doesnt matter whether the pedo is attracted to kids, USA Today assured readers:

Not all people who sexually abuse children are pedophiles. Some pedophiles never abuse children, experts say, and some people who sexually abuse children do not sexually prefer them, but use them as a surrogate for an adult partner. They may be disinhibited and anti-social, with impulse control problems.

Another skull doctor said some people molest kids because of anger, or theyre scared of adult women, or to get revenge. But they dont actually have an age preference for prepubescent children.

But if they do prefer kids, thats OK.

Researcher Michael Seto, of the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group in Canada, contradicted the born that way explanation inadvertently:

Seto said pedophilia is something people are born with or at least have a predisposition to. Evidence shows men are more likely to have pedophilia than women. This aligns with research showing men are more likely to have other paraphilias, including exhibitionism, voyeurism and sadism. Men are also more likely than women to commit criminal acts. Research also offers insights into risk factors. Seto said men with pedophilia have a much higher incidence of early childhood head injury. One study on diagnosed pedophiles showed they are more likely to report their mothers had received psychiatric treatment, which suggests the disorder may be influenced by genetic factors.

Yet if pedos have a much higher incidence of early childhood head injury, then they werent born that way. The crack on the noggin did it. If Mom was a nutcase, the kid might be too, but not because of genes. Researchers have learned that mental illness is not only genetic but also contagious. Nurture, not just nature, affects a childs future mental health.

The Tweets

USA Today tweeted a thread about pedos that included the womb theory and other quotes from the story, which was hidden behind a paywall.

Twitter exploded, and so the newspaper removed the paywall and killed the thread. The initial thread lacked the context that was within the story and we made the decision to pull down the entire thread, the newspaper tweeted.

.@usatodaylife has their pedophilia-backing piece behind the paywall and is labeled for subscribers. So USA Today subscribers are pedophiles? pic.twitter.com/VMB3GCQ2M8  Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) January 11, 2022

The initial thread lacked the context that was within the story and we made the decision the pull down the entire thread.  USA TODAY Life (@usatodaylife) January 11, 2022

Hi @USAToday! Why did you change the headline on your pedophile article? pic.twitter.com/wHhCxslaG6  Jack Posobiec ?? (@JackPosobiec) January 11, 2022

Of course, it changed the headline, too, as Jack Posobiec observed. Original: What the public keeps getting wrong about pedophilia. New and improved: The complicated research behind pedophilia.

Given what has occurred at CNN, top execs at Gannett might consider an internal investigation to find out who conceived the story and why, and who approved it for publication.

In late December, Jake Tappers producer, Rick Saleeby, quit the leftist network after Project Veritas outed him as a possible child rapist. That scandal was taking off as FBI agents arrested John Griffin, Chris Cuomos former producer, for running a child-rape scheme out of his ski lodge in Vermont. He paid mothers for sex romps with their daughters.

Concerned students and a Twitter storm over pro-pedo propaganda forced ODU to cashier Professor Allyn Walker. The trouble for Walker began after an interview with Prostasias Noah Berlatsky, who thinks pedos are a stigmatized group. Prostasia publishes pro-pedo propaganda.

Walker, who bills himself as a queer criminologist, tried to normalize pedos and said they must be called Minor-Attracted Persons, or MAPS.

Berlatksy has written for NBC and The Atlantic.

The number of pedos working at USA Today is unknown.

Read more at: TheNewAmerican.com
Giant waves have rocked Tonga. Other places, including New Zealand, have issued formal warnings of dangerous waters due to another powerful, underwater volcanic eruption.

Tonga has a population of around 105,000 people.

Underwater Volcanic Eruption

On Saturday, an underwater volcano in the Pacific island of Tonga erupted spectacularly, sending massive waves crashing across the coast and people rushing to higher ground.

Spot Report

There were no immediate reports of injuries or the extent of the damage. According to a video shared on social media, large waves were seen coming ashore in coastal regions, whirling around homes and structures.

According to video footage, waves have washed into homes, buildings, and a church in Tonga, but no injuries or fatalities have been reported. As residents fled to higher ground amid frightened screams, one Tongan resident said on social media, "Pray for us."

The tsunami occurs when an undersea volcano, Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haapai, erupts, spewing ash, steam, and gas up to 17 kilometers into the air.

Related Article: Scientists Believe There's an Enormous Supervolcano Hiding Underneath Alaska



Taking Actions

It was reported that New Zealand's military was monitoring the situation and was on standby, ready to assist if needed.

Tsunami Warning

A tsunami warning was issued for the whole archipelago by the Tonga Meteorological Services, and data from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center revealed waves of 80 centimeters (2.6 feet) had been observed.

Authorities in Fiji and Samoa, two neighboring island nations, warned people to stay away from the beach due to strong currents and high waves. According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, slight oceanic activity around the Japanese coasts is unlikely to cause any harm.

Evacuation

According to the Islands Business news site, Tonga's King Tupou VI was evacuated from his palace near the shore by a convoy of police and military forces. He was one among the numerous inhabitants who took to the hills.

A Series of Eruptions

The latest sequence of dramatic eruptions was the explosion of the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai volcano.

Dr. Faka'iloatonga Taumoefolau, a Twitter user, shared a video of waves slamming onshore.

Stay safe everyone  pic.twitter.com/OhrrxJmXAW  Dr Fakailoatonga Taumoefolau (@sakakimoana) January 15, 2022

As he wrote in a subsequent post, "Can practically hear the volcanic explosion. Sounds very severe." "Raining ash and small stones, blackness blanketing the sky," he added. According to the Matangi Tonga news site, scientists recorded tremendous explosions, thunder, and lightning around the volcano when it began erupting early Friday. A 5-kilometer (3-mile) broad plume rose into the air, reaching a height of nearly 20 kilometers, according to satellite photographs (12 miles). Officials in New Zealand, more than 2,300 kilometers (1,400 miles) distant, warned of storm surges due to the eruption.

We have issued a NATIONAL ADVISORY: TSUNAMI ACTIVITY following the Tongan eruption. We expect New Zealand coastal areas on the north and east coast of the North Island and the Chatham Islands to experience strong and unusual currents and unpredictable surges at the shore.  National Emergency Management Agency (@NZcivildefence) January 15, 2022

Following a significant volcanic eruption, some sections of New Zealand should anticipate "strong and irregular currents and unexpected surges near the coast," according to the National Emergency Management Agency.

According to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, the threat to American Samoa looked to have gone late Saturday, though small sea oscillations might linger.

The volcano lies roughly 64 kilometers (40 miles) north of Nuku'alofa, the island's capital. A series of eruptions in the area in late 2014 and early 2015 formed a small new island and interrupted international aviation access to the Pacific archipelago for several days.

Also Read: Long Valley Supervolcano: World's Most Dangerous Volcano Shows Signs of 'Imminent Eruption'

For similar news, don't forget to follow Nature World News!
According to new research, at least 500 years before horses were created for the purpose, Mesopotamians used hybrids of domesticated donkeys and wild asses to drive their war wagons.

Studying Ancient Bones

In northern Syria, ancient DNA from animal bones has been used to answer a long-standing mystery of what kind of animals the "kungas" mentioned as pulling war wagons were.

"We recognized they were equids [horse-like creatures] from the bones, but they didn't fit the dimensions of donkeys or Syrian wild asses," research co-author Eva-Maria Geigl, a genomicist at the Institut Jacques Monod in Paris, stated. "As a result, they were different in some way, but it was unclear what that difference was."

However, according to the latest study, kungas were robust, swift, and sterile hybrids of a female domestic donkey and a male Syrian wild ass, or hemione - a local equid species.

Related Article: Cassowaries, The World's Deadliest Birds, May Have Been the First Man-Bred Birds



Treasured Donkeys

According to Geigl, ancient documents identify kungas as highly treasured and expensive creatures, which the complex breeding procedure might explain.

As with many hybrid animals such as mules, she said that each kunga had to be created by mating a female domesticated donkey with an adult wild ass, which had to be kidnapped.

Keeping wild asses tame was extremely difficult since they ran quicker than donkeys and even kungas and were tough to train.

Geigl told Live Science, "They truly bio-engineered these hybrids." "As far as we know, these were the first hybrids, and they had to do it every time for each kunga produced - which is why they were so precious."

Useful Kungas

Kungas are seen dragging four-wheeled battle carts on the renowned "Standard of Ur," a Sumerian mosaic from around 4,500 years ago that is currently on exhibit at the British Museum in London. They are referenced in ancient cuneiform documents on clay tablets from Mesopotamia.

Archaeologists assumed they were a hybrid donkey, but Geigl stated they didn't know whose equid was crossed.

According to her, several experts believed Syrian wild asses were far too little - smaller than donkeys - to be bred to produce kungas.

Sadly, the last Syrian wild ass - which stood less than a meter (3 feet) tall - died in 1927 at the world's oldest zoo, the Tiergarten Schonbrunn in Vienna, Austria, and its bones are now housed in the city's natural history museum. The species is now extinct.

Matching DNAs

In the new study, the researchers matched the DNA of the last Syrian wild ass from Vienna with the genome of a wild ass found at the archaeological site of Gobekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey.

Sadly, the last Syrian wild ass - which stood less than a meter (3 feet) tall - died in 1927 at the world's oldest zoo, the Tiergarten Schonbrunn in Vienna, Austria, and its bones are now housed in the city's natural history museum. The species is now extinct.

In a new study, the researchers matched the DNA of the last Syrian wild ass from Vienna with the genome of a wild ass found at the archaeological site of Gobekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey.

According to Geigl, the comparison revealed that both creatures were of the same species, but the old wild ass was significantly bigger.

This suggests that due to environmental factors such as hunting in the recent past. The Syrian wild ass species has grown considerably smaller than in the past.

According to a 2020 study published in the journal Science Advances by several experts, the Sumerians were the first to produce kungas around 2500 BCE - at least 500 years before the first domesticated horses were transported from the steppe north of the Caucasus Mountains.

Why are these Donkeys Special?

According to ancient documents, Assyrians and Sumerians' descendant governments bred and sold kungas for generations. A carved stone panel from Assyrian capital Nineveh, currently in the British Museum, depicts two men escorting a wild ass they had kidnapped.

A royal burial complex at Tell Umm el-Marra in Northern Syria, which has been dated to approximately the early Bronze Age between 3000 BCE and 2000 BCE, provided the kunga bones for the newest study; the location is considered to represent the ruins of the ancient city of Tuba described in Egyptian texts.

Jill Weber, a University of Pennsylvania archaeologist, unearthed the bones roughly ten years ago as a study co-author. They were kungas, according to Weber, since their teeth bore scars from bit harnesses and patterns of wear that indicated they had been carefully fed rather than permitted to graze like other donkeys.

Kungas could run faster than horses, so they were presumably used to pull war wagons even after domesticated horses were introduced to Mesopotamia, she added.

Although domesticated horses were easier to produce than wild horses, the last kungas died out, and no more were born from donkeys or wild asses, Geigl explained.

Also Read: Terrifying Fossils of 'Larger-Than-Humans' Giant Sandworms Found in the Ocean!

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Borouge, a leading petrochemical company providing innovative, value-creating polyolefin solutions, has partnered with Krah Misr, a leading manufacturer of large diameter pipes and fittings, to supply infrastructure solutions for the worlds largest wastewater treatment plant, Bahr Al Baqar Wastewater Plant.

Borouge is a joint venture between Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) and Austrian chemical giant Borealis.

Situated in the northwest of Egypt, the $1.27 billion world-scale plant will boost Egypts water resources used to irrigate agricultural land, while decreasing the risk of contaminated water entering agricultural, industrial, and municipal water. It was recently inaugurated by Egyptian President Abdel Fatah Al Sisi.

Borouge and Krah Misr have harnessed their strengths to supply Bahr Al Baqar Wastewater Plant with spiral wound polyethylene pipes, meeting its 5 million cu m daily processing capacity needs.

The pipes include 2.7 km of 1,600-mm and 2,500 mm diameter spiral wound polyethylene pipes for low-pressure applications. The pipes were made using raw materials supplied by Borouge, which employed BorSafe HE3490-LS technology  capable of withstanding large diameter pressure, intake/outfall and multi-gravity applications, said the statement from Borouge.

BorSafe HE3490-LS is easily processed by its customers worldwide and is highly agile  used either for solid-wall pressure pipe extrusion in large diameter or in spiral wound pipe configurations.

Borouges water piping application significantly lowers installation costs, operational costs, and maintenance costs for its customers and end-users, as compared to other materials, it stated.

Most importantly, BorSafe HE3490-LS requires significantly lower energy consumption to be manufactured. These factors cut carbon emissions generated during the manufacturing process of the pipe and its operational lifespan. Pipes made of BorSafe HE3490-LS can also be recycled at the end of their lifecycle.

Khalfan AlMuhairi, Senior VP (Middle East and Africa Exports) Borouge said: "It gives us great pleasure to be part of the success of the Bahr Al Baqar Wastewater Plant, which won the Guinness World Record for worlds largest water treatment plant."

"Borouge continues to expand its footprint in Egypt and beyond, by unlocking opportunities for customers to be more competitive, operate more efficiently, and minimise environmental impact  without ever compromising on quality," he stated.

Peter Youssef, General Manager of Krah Misr said: "As the pioneer producer of large spiral wound HDPE pipes in Egypt, we are proud to have successfully delivered one of the largest spiral wound pipes in the country. We are glad to have partnered with Borouge in this aspect."

The treated water from Bahr Al Baqar will be used to irrigate 140,000 hectares of farmland alongside the Suez Canal and help address water scarcity in Egypt, he added.-TradeArabia News Service
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HAMDEN  The towns unique kindness campaign has begun.

Rabbi Moshe Hecht, co-director of Chabad of Hamden, partnering with local businesses, has launched a kindness initiative using small, plastic arks that hold money.

Ark in this case stands for Acts of Random Kindness, and those participating make up the Kindness Coalition.

People pick up the yellow, branded arks at participating businesses, for free, and put some coins of bills in them each day. When the ark is full, they simply pass it on to someone in need, or to a charitable organization.

There are 12,000 arks out there that will be distributed at Alltown Fresh, Liberty Bank, ShopRite, Ion Bank, Chabad of Hamden and Webster Bank.

Although people can fill them with money all at once, Hecht said there would something beautiful in it for everyone if those filling the arks put a little change in each day.

I think this is a very important and unique medium in that its not about whats being given, but also that its creating givers, Hecht said.

Although the arks can be filled in any manner people wish to, putting money in the ark daily transforms a persons psyche and influences their actions daily. Hecht said the daily act will help develop a habit of giving.

The Kindness Coalition is a group of local organizations, where the arks will be distributed in Hamden, that have united to make a positive change.

Being a Rabbi, my focus is primarily to encourage our congregants in performing Jewish mitzvot, as well as encouraging all of humankind to make the world a better place, Hecht said. ARK is a novel concept which allows us all to come together as one, putting any differences aside, to positively impact the world.

For more information and to find out where to get an ark, visit DailyActOfKindness.org.

Although good deeds, or mitzvahs, are central to Judaism, Hecht said there is no religious connection to the ark initiative or to the use of an ark as the container.

Anyone can write a check, but thats a one-time thing, he said. Youre doing this daily and thats what I think is fantastic.

Hecht said the initiative is modeled after one rolled out by the Jewish community in South Africa that proved successful.
WESTPORT  Members of the Representative Town Meeting said they could not support the new proposed civilian review board ordinance as written, with the police chief raising several concerns of his own this week.

The Civilian Review Board would provide police oversight and serve as an independent body to hear complaints made against members of the department. Residents raising the proposal said the town needs a permanent board to oversee the police and hold them accountable, while some opponents said the current proposal is confusing and contradictory.

The RTM Public Protection Committee voted 7-1 on Thursday to not recommend the new ordinance be adopted when it comes before the entire RTM later. The proposal will also go before the bodys ordinance committee before its presented to the full RTM for a vote.

Several speakers at the meeting asked that the existing civilian review panel be given more time to get going and figure out what works and doesnt before presenting an ordinance for a new board.

It seems like were reinventing the wheel we just invented, said Claudia Shaum, an RTM member on the committee.

The panel was created in 2020 following protests for further police accountability after the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer who was later convicted for the murder. It was recently approved to add two members, bringing it up to five.

The current members are TEAM Westport Chair Harold Bailey and the second and third selectwomen. The new positions are currently open.

Kristan Hamlin, one of 25 co-petitioners for the civilian review board ordinance, said the current panel doesnt meet the Connecticut Bar Associations recommendation that every municipality with a police department have either a civilian review board or commission. She called the panel window dressing and said the problem is that its temporary and political because selectmen hold two seats on the board.

This panel is completely ineffectual, she said.

Bailey agreed there should be a permanent option and Chief Foti Koskinas agreed there should be oversight and accountability for the department, but said this ordinance wasnt the way to do it.

I welcome it, I want it, but for me there needs to be a fair balance, Koskinas said, suggesting codifying the existing panel and turning that into a board instead.

The proposed ordinance was submitted late last year by lead petitioner Tom Prince with several changes to the original version, which the RTM rejected last fall 32-1 with one abstention. One of the big issues in the original was the subpeona powers included in it.

Under the original proposal, the police would have handled the majority of investigations into complaints, while the review board would conduct the interviews and take the sworn testimony of the complainant, the accused police officer and their respective witnesses, according to Princes earlier presentation.

That effort was spearheaded by Jason Stiber, who made headlines back in 2018 when he was given a ticket for distracted driving. At the time, he claimed police had confused a hash brown for a cell phone. He was later found not guilty by a judge.

In this new ordinance, board members cannot hold other elected offices in town and board members will be chosen for their relevant qualities and expertise. This ordinance would also eliminate the subpoena power provision.

Hamlin said every resident should have the right to have their complaint heard and this board would be able to do interviews with the complainant and officer while the police chief would make the ultimate decision and have veto power to the boards recommendation. She said the ordinance wont interfere with the polices own investigation, but the investigation needed to be a fact finding mission.

There shouldnt be weighting in favor of the police officer, she said, adding the officer needs to be interviewed just like the complainant.

The subpoena power was again the focus of debate Thursday with some arguing the language included a back door to those powers without actually saying the word subpoena, but Hamlin agreed to address that section to make it clear the powers wouldnt be there.

Koskinas said the new ordinance has a lot of the same issues he had with the first one.

I find this ordinance to be more contradictory as you read through it than the last one, he said, adding he had questions about the investigative and review powers.

He said the investigation in these complaints should be done by people trained to do that type of work because they know what to look for and are able to determine credibility.

I will relinquish all investigation from the department as long as there are professional investigators reporting to the panel or the board, Koskinas said.

Hamlin said the process how its outlined in the proposal isnt confusing because its the same approach done in the courts.

This is the way it works in the criminal world exactly, she said.
Qatar Airways is boosting its service to Nigeria with the launch of four weekly flights to Kano on March 2, and three weekly flights to Port Harcourt on March 3, both operating via the Nigerian capital, Abuja.



The airline currently operates two daily flights to Lagos and four times a week to Abuja, which will expand to a daily service in March.



Kano and Port Harcourt will become the seventh and eight new African gateways launched by Qatar Airways since the start of the pandemic. Both routes will be served by the state-of-the-art Boeing 787 Dreamliner, featuring 22 seats in Business Class and 232 in Economy Class.



Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, Akbar Al Baker said: The airline was one of the few to keep operating to many African destinations throughout the pandemic and, as restrictions are lifted, is continuing to expand its network on the continent.



As home to the largest economy and population in the region, we see tremendous growth potential for travel and trade in Nigeria. It is a key market and an important part of our African growth strategy; the expansion of our presence across two new gateways is a testament to our continuous commitment to Nigeria.



We anticipate good reciprocal demand between Port Harcourt, UK, USA and destinations across Asia. For Kano we see the opportunity to grow traffic to and from markets such as KSA and India, as well as strong cargo prospects, he added.



As travel restrictions ease, Qatar Airways is restoring its services to all its African destinations. When Kano and Port Harcourt flights start operating, the airline will provide 188 weekly flights to 28 destinations in Africa. Qatar Airways African customers will also benefit from generous baggage allowances, which provide for up to 46kg in Economy Class split over two pieces and 64kg split over two pieces in Business Class.  TradeArabia News Service
Richard J. Leskosky taught media and cinema studies at the University of Illinois and has reviewed films for more than 30 years. He can be contacted at filmcritic@comcast.net. Follow him on Twitter @RichardLeskosky.
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Fly Arna, Armenias national airline, has revealed its new visual brand identity, the design of which reflects constant mobility and the colours of the logo inspired by the Armenian flag.

Soon to be launched by the Armenian National Interests Fund (ANIF) and Air Arabia Group, the Middle East and North Africas first and largest low-cost carrier (LCC) operator, the brand name Arna is derived from companys official name Armenian National Airlines with AR taken from Armenian, N from National and A from Airlines. Chosen following a public competition, the name Fly Arna was identified to be most inclusive and reflective of the spirit of the joint venture company to transform the aviation sector of the country.

Fly Arna signifies a new era in the growth of the Armenian aviation sector and will contribute to the nations tourism, hospitality, and business sectors.

The young, modern and a value-driven national airline will strive to become the most accessible and sensible choice for air travel in Armenia and beyond. Its brand values are Ambition  to motivate to build and grow the airline; Persistence  to build services that deliver real and tangible value to customers; and Innovation  to inspire creative solutions that helps keep a competitive edge while remaining practical and efficient.

Inspired by the logo and the brand ethos, Fly Arna aircraft livery reflects clarity and a forward-looking airline that is always on the move, with the letter A creatively displayed at the aircraft tail. The bright outlook in the brand identity will also be reflected through the aircraft interior, staff uniforms and across all customer touchpoints.

David Papazian, CEO of ANIF, said: Fly Arnas brand identity is truly reflective of the inspiring spirit and ethos of Armenia. This is highlighted by the involvement of the public in deciding the name to the colours used for the brand identity and the values that Fly Arna will promote. Todays unveil of Fly Arnas visual identity is an inspiring move that brings us one step closer towards the launch of the airline.

Adel Al Ali, Group Chief Executive Officer of Air Arabia, said: Fly Arnas visual identity launch is an important progress in the journey towards the launch of the airline. This step also marks the beginning of a new era in the growth of Armenias aviation sector, not only contributing to the countrys economic growth but providing its people with a reliable and value for money experience. We look forward to its rollout in the coming weeks.

Fly Arna follows Air Arabia Groups successful low-cost business model, taking Zvartnots International Airport (EVN) in Yerevan as its base. The Airline Operation Certificate (AOC) process has started and more details about the launch date, fleet, and destination network will be announced in due course.

ANIF and Air Arabia Group announced the launch Armenias new national airline in July 2021 followed by the reveal of the airline name in September 2021 following hundreds of suggestions from participants.-- TradeArabia News Service
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A Parthenon fragment, on loan from the Antonino Salinas Regional Archaeological Museum of Palermo, is seen Monday at the Acropolis Museum in Athens. The 2,500-year-old fragment is formally on loan from Sicilys A. Salinas Archaeological Museum, but both sides have said it could well end up permanently in Athens.
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(Newser)  Four days into a 10-day cruise, the trip was canceled because of COVID issues. That leaves the passengers who left New York on Sunday floating, stranded at sea, USA Today reports. Any hopes Aimee Focaraccio, who spent the day in St. Maarten, had for an early return were dashed by an announcement to passengers. "We will arrive as per schedule on the 19th in the morning," it said. Focaraccio is not looking forward to the rest of her birthday trip on the Norwegian Gem. "I really cant imagine four more sea days back to back without much to do," she said.

The line said Friday evening it isn't sure when the Gem will reach New York again, attributing the cancelation to "COVID-related circumstances." Other cruises, by Norwegian and other lines, have been canceled or suspended over the past week or so. Another Gem passenger said he has no complaints. "It was not the exact itinerary we signed up for but has still been an absolutely amazing cruise," Anthony Bivona told USA Today. Norwegian's total cancelations during the spike in COVID cases has reached 12. The Gem's passengers will receive a full refund, per Cruise Industry News. (Read more Norwegian Cruise Line stories.)
Radisson Hotel & Apartments Dammam Industrial City has reopened following a rebranding and refurbishment of the existing Park Inn by Radisson Hotel & Apartments Dammam Industrial, the only international 4-star hotel in Dammam Second Industrial City.



Located in the heart of the buzzing business district near Half Moon Bay Beach, famous for its sandy beaches, Radisson Hotel & Apartments Dammam Industrial City is just 35 minutes drive from King Khalid International Airport, with access to numerous nearby businesses and offices. The hotel is close to the popular Dhahran Mall and Modon Lake, the Kingdom's largest artificial lake with a 4-kilometer footpath surrounded by greenery.



The hotels 201 spacious rooms, 104 apartments, and common areas have been redesigned to feature a fresh, modern, and stylish atmosphere. Guests can enjoy access to the fitness centre, pool, and spa, for a simple delightful stay. The hotel also offers two restaurants and a lobby lounge. RBG restaurant offers a casual dining experience where guests can savour grilled international dishes for lunch or dinner, as well as the famous Super Breakfast buffet to start the day.



For a taste of Italy, guests can enjoy lunch and dinner in the soon to open Bocca Buona, where chefs will serve pizza to pasta straight from the open show kitchen. Guests looking for a tasty snack and a hot drink can visit Modon Cafe in the lobby lounge which will also showcase live sports.



Tim Cordon, Area Senior Vice President, Middle East, and Africa at Radisson Hotel Group, said: "We are delighted to rebrand the hotel to our fast-growing upscale brand, Radisson, which has been well-received across the Middle East due to its nature-inspired aesthetic and its ability to enable guests to focus on a work/life balance and find harmony in their travel experience.



The hotel complements our current hotel portfolio in Saudi Arabia, a region that remains a key market for us. We are excited to bring the Radisson brand to Dammam, an upscale hotel ideal for business or leisure travellers alike.



Radisson Hotel & Apartments Dammam Industrial City features facilities such as a ballroom, two versatile meeting rooms that can accommodate up to 490 guests, seven offices with natural daylight, and a 530-sq-m space for receptions, pre-function gatherings, and coffee breaks. In addition, each meeting room is equipped with high-end audio-visual technology.



Remmi de Graaf, General Manager Radisson Hotel & Apartments Dammam Industrial City, commented: "The team is very proud to be the first Radisson brand in Saudi Arabias Eastern Province. Located very conveniently, this is the only 4-star hotel in the 2nd Industrial Area in Dammam, and offers a little oasis where business meets leisure. We will continue to create memorable experiences for our guests with our dedicated team and modern facilities, and look forward to welcoming our guests for a simply delightful stay.  TradeArabia News Service
(Newser)  A woman catching the subway at New York City's Times Square on Saturday was pushed in front of an oncoming train and killed, per NBC News. Authorities called the attack random and said the suspect initially fled before turning himself into police a short time later. The 40-year-old victim, identified as Michelle Alyssa Go of New York, was waiting for a southbound R train around 9:40am when she was apparently shoved, police told the AP. A second woman told police the man had approached her minutes earlier and she feared he would push her onto the tracks. Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell, alongside new mayor Eric Adams, told reports at a news conference at the station that Go's murder was unprovoked.

Saturday's attack against Go, who was of Asian descent, also raised concerns amid a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes in New York and around the country. Police officials said the killing, including whether it was a hate crime, was under investigation, but noted that the first woman allegedly approached was not Asian. Police also identified the suspect, 61-year-old Simon Martial. Martial, who police said is homeless, was charged with second-degree murder. It was not immediately known whether he had an attorney who could comment. Police said Martial has a criminal history and has been on parole.

Subway conditions and safety have become a worry for many New Yorkers during the pandemic. Although police statistics show major felonies in the subways have dropped over the past two years, so has ridership, making it difficult to compare. And some recent attacks have gotten public attention and raised alarms. In September, three transit employees were assaulted in separate incidents on one day. Several riders were slashed and assaulted by a group of attackers on a train in lower Manhattan in May, and four separate stabbingstwo of them fatalhappened within a few hours on a single subway line in February.

(Read more New York City Subway stories.)
(Newser)  The president of the University of Michigan has been fired by the school's board of regents following an investigation into an alleged inappropriate relationship with a university employee. Per the Detroit Free Press, Dr. Mark Schlissel was removed by a unanimous vote announced Saturday evening following a Dec. 8 anonymous complaint and subsequent investigation. "We learned that Dr. Schlissel, over a period of years, used his University email account to communicate with that subordinate in a manner inconsistent with the dignity and reputation of the University," the announcement read.

Per the AP, a letter from the board dated Saturday included excerpts of emails exchanged between Schlissel and the employee. The employee wrote in a July 1, 2021, exchange that her heart hurts, according to the board, which said Schlissel responded: I know. mine too. He continued: This is my fault and that he was in pain too. The university made select communications that led to the decision publicly available, with the name of the employee redacted. They include a message from Schlissel about a New Yorker article titled "Sexual Fantasies of Everyday New Yorkers." Per the AP, Schlissel had a base salary of $927,000 a year and had announced plans to step down in June 2023, a year before his contract was to expire. Prior to his time in Michigan, Schlissel had been provost at Brown University. (Read more University of Michigan stories.)
(Newser)  Prince Harry has gone to court to fight a decision by the British government on security arrangements for his visits to the UK. Harry, who lost his government guards when he dropped his royal duties in 2020, wants to pay for security himself when he and his family go back, the BBC reports. But the private team he'd bring from California lacks relevant intelligence information and jurisdiction in the UK, he said. "In the absence of such protection, Prince Harry and his family are unable to return to his home," a statement said, per People.

The Home Office rejected the prince's offer to pay, and he's now seeking a judicial review by challenging the decision in the High Court. Harry went to London last July to help unveil a statue of his mother, Princess Diana. A spokesperson said Harry's security was "compromised due to the absence of police protection" at a charity event he attended on that trip. The legal spokesperson said Harry and his family have received threats from extremist groups in recent years. "The UK will always be Prince Harry's home," the statement said, but as the security arrangements stand, a visit would pose "too great a personal risk." (Read more Prince Harry stories.)
(Newser)  A dangerous winter storm combining high winds and ice was sweeping through parts of the US Southeast on Sunday, knocking out power, felling trees and fences, and coating roads with a treacherous frigid glaze. Tens of thousands of customers were without power in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida, the AP reports. More than an inch of snow fell per hour in some parts of the Carolinas, Georgia, Tennessee, and Virginia, according to the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center.

The storm was making air travel difficult in parts of the South. More than 1,000 flights at Charlotte Douglas International have been canceledmore than 80% of the airport's Sunday schedule, according to the flight tracking service flightaware.com. In Atlanta, where Delta Air Lines operates it main hub, more than 300 Sunday flights have been canceled. The FAA warned ground stops were possible at airports around Washington, DC. A meteorologist with the National Weather Service said to expect a "significant ice storm across portions of the central Carolinas," including the Charlotte area. In North Carolina, Interstate 95 was closed in both directions between Lumberton and Fayetteville due to low-hanging power lines.

More than 250,000 customers were without power by late morning Sunday, according to poweroutage.us. Hit especially hard was Georgia, with nearly 110,000 outages. South Carolina had nearly 90,000 customers without power. The remaining outages were in Florida, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Crews pretreated roadways in Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia but officials still urged people to stay off them unless travel was necessary. After lashing the South, the storm was expected to bring frigid and snowy conditions to the Northeast. Coastal areas on Long Island and Connecticut were expecting high winds and gale conditions, and widespread coastal flooding was predicted for both places by Monday morning.

(Read more winter storm stories.)
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Press Release

January 16, 2022 Villar aims to strengthen the livestock industry For decades now, the Philippines's livestock industry has received limited attention and developmental assistance from the government, Senator Cynthia Villar has renewed pitch to give it a boost. "The livestock sector comprising of cattle, hogs, poultry and dairy should be able to guarantee food security and reduce poverty in the countryside by giving better income and jobs to farmers and their families," said Villar. The sector's development can improve availability and affordability of safe and nutritious livestock, poultry and dairy products for the 110 M Filipinos, she added. The senator, chairperson of the Senate committed on agriculture, food and agrarian reform, noted that this sector's issues and problems should be addressed. This prompted her to seek the help of the Department of Finance to conduct a study on the competitiveness of the country's livestock sector to be the basis of the draft bill. The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) and Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) reported out their findings during the hearing. There are several bills related to this matter, which include Senate Bill No. 139 authored by her and Sen. Nancy Binay, seeks to strengthen and rationalize the livestock industry to promote its development, protection and regulatory functions. This shall cover dairy and native animals, poultry and establishment of a livestock development fund to secure yearly government support. Their proposed measure, along with Senate Bill 1297 filed by Sen. Lito Lapid, Villar said, will further boost the country's capacity for early detection and preventive response to livestock diseases. "The government's thrust must be that of early detection and control of the disease to prevent it from reaching the level of an outbreak and from spreading across entire regions," she added. Moreover, Senate Bill 821 of Sen. Sonny Angara as in Villar's bill calls for the propagation and utilization of Native Animals. Senator Ralph Recto's SB No.1048 is for providing financial assistance to backyard raisers affected by major animal disease epidemic while SB 2176 of Sen. Pangilinan is for the establishment of swine competitiveness enhancement fund. "The African Swine Fever which hit the industry in 2019 which resulted in the culling of thousands of pigs, wiping out entire farms and growers and local governments frantically imposing entry bans for all pork and pork-related or commingled products from disease-stricken areas. The outbreak adversely affected the 260 Billion-peso swine industry of the country," pointed out Villar. In the NEDA's presentation, it emphasized that yellow corn is the main component of animal feed production and the main driver of livestock and poultry prices. The yellow corn industry and animal feeds promotion and propagation have to be considered in crafting the development of the sector as well, like substituting corn with high protein vegetable as livestock feeds. The Department of Agriculture should have agencies for regulatory and disease control and development at the same time. Both are very important in supporting livestock, poultry and dairy industry. The senator believes that given the right investments and resources, proper implementation and transparency, the agriculture and food systems can provide adequate, affordable, safe and nutritious food to everyone, everywhere, every day - even in times of crisis," stressed the senator. ### ________________________________________ Villar, nais palakasin ang livestock industry Sa paglipas ng maraming dekada, limitadong atensyon at tulong sa pagsulong ang natatanggap ng livestock industry ng Pilipinas, nais ni Senator Cynthia Villar ang panibagong pagtutulak sa pagpapalakas ito. "The livestock sector comprising, hogs, poultry and dairy should be able to guarantee food security and reduce poverty in the countryside by giving better income and jobs to farmers and their families," ayon kay Villar. "The sector's development can improve availability and affordability of safe and nutritious livestock, poultry and dairy products for the 110 M Filipinos," dagdag pa niya. Binigyan diin ng senador, chairperson ng Senate committee on agriculture, food and agrarian reform, na kailangang agarang tugunan ang mga isyu at suliranin nito. . Bunga nito, hiniling niya ang tulong ang Department of Finance na pag-aaralan ang competitiveness ng livestock sector ng bansa na magiging basehan ng kanilang draft bill. Iniulat ng National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) at Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) sa SenTe hearing ang kanilang findings sa bagay na ito. "There are several bills related to this matter, which include Senate Bill No. 139 authored by her and Sen. Nancy Binay, seeks to strengthen and rationalize the livestock industry to promote its development, protection and regulatory functions. This shall cover dairy and native animals and establishment of a livestock development fund to secure yearly government support," pahayag ni Villar. Palalakasin ng kanilang panukalang bafas, kasama ang Senate Bill 1297 ni Sen. Lito Lapid, ang kapasidad ng bansa para sa mas maagang detection at preventive response sa livestock diseases. "The government's thrust must be that of early detection and control of the disease to prevent it from reaching the level of an outbreak and from spreading across entire regions," sabi pa niya. Bukod dito, gaya ng Villar bill, nananawagan din ang Senate Bill 821 ni Sen. Sonny Angara para sa propagation at paggamit Native Animals. Nais din ni Senator Ralph Recto sa kanyang SB No.1048 na magbigay ng pinansiyal na tulong sa backyard raisers na apektado ng major animal disease epidemic samantalang ang SB 2176 ni Sen. Pangilinan ay para sa pagtatayo ng swine competitiveness enhancement fund. "The African Swine Fever which hit the industry in 2019 which resulted in the culling of thousands of pigs, wiping out entire farms and growers and local governments frantically imposing entry bans for all pork and pork-related or commingled products from disease-stricken areas. The outbreak adversely affected the 260 Billion-peso swine industry of the country," giit ni Villar. Sa NEDA presentation, tinukoy na ang yellow corn ang pangunahing sangkap ng animal feed production at main driver ng livestock at poultry prices. Ikinokonsidera ang yellow corn industry at animal feeds promotion at propagation sa pag-unlad ng sektor gaya ng pagpapalit sa mais ng high protein vegetable bilang livestock feeds. Dapat magkaroon ang Department of Agriculture ng mga ahensiya sa regulatory at disease control at development. Mahalaga ito sa pagsuporta sa livestock, poultry at dairy industry. Naniniwala ang senador na sa tamang investments at resources, implementasyon at transparency, makapagbibigay ang ating agrikultura at food systems ng sapat, abot- kaya, ligtas at masustansiyang pagkain s lahat - saan mang lugar, sa lahat ng oras, kahit sa panahon ng krisis. ###
Biden picks Army Gen Cavoli as NATO Europe chief 03 May 2022 | 11:06 PM Washington, May 3 (UNI/Sputnik) US President Joe Biden nominated US Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli to be the next commander of the NATO forces in Europe, the Defense Department said on Tuesday. see more..

West too slow to grasp Russian threat to Ukraine: UK PM 03 May 2022 | 10:39 PM Kyiv, May 3 (UNI) The West was too slow to act over Russian aggression in Ukraine, UK Prime Minister said while addressing Ukraine's parliament on Tuesday. see more..

Ukraine may put neutral status on referendum: Zelensky 03 May 2022 | 9:32 PM Kiev, May 3 (UNI/Xinhua) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that his country may put the issue of neutral status on a nationwide referendum, the Ukrinform news agency reported Tuesday. see more..

US Supreme Court should uphold abortion law: Biden 03 May 2022 | 9:27 PM Washington, May 3 (UNI) US President Joe Biden on Tuesday said that the Supreme Court should uphold the Roe v. Wade ruling legalising abortion throughout the country as it is women's fundamental right to choose. see more..
Just a little fun plowing snow and messing around with the new camera. More to come! Hope you enjoy and remember to comment on Alaska videos you'd like to see!
Frank Murkowski was governor of Alaska from 2002 to 2006. He previously served in the U.S. Senate, where he served as chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee from 1995 to 2001.
BNA | Manama

The Daily Tribune  www.newsofbahrain.com

The president of the Arab World Institute in Paris has lauded the outstanding role of the Shaikh Ibrahim Center as a distinguished cultural beacon in the Arab world.

Jack Lang also praised the remarkable initiatives undertaken by the Culture and Antiquities Authority (BACA) President Shaikha Mai bint Mohammed Al Khalifa to broaden the concepts of culture in the Arab world and to build bridges with other cultures across the world.

Lang, Frances Minister of Culture from 1981 to 1986 and again from 1988 to 1993, pointed out that the Centers constant activities over two decades is evidence of the high status it has achieved as a cultural beacon.

Because of the pandemic conditions, I was not able to attend the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Shaikh Ibrahim Center, and I would like to celebrate with all enthusiasts the two decades since the establishment of this edifice, which is a cultural beacon not only within the Gulf region, but also in the Arab world, he told Bahrain News Agency (BNA).

Shaikha Mai has built bridges with different cultures and civilizations that today characterize Bahrain as a cultural beacon that is positively distinct from other countries, he added.

"We look forward to the next stage feature new cultural projects that contribute to extending more intellectual bridges between the Arab and Western world and between Bahrain and all countries of the world, as Bahrain today plays a pivotal role in introducing the world to the Middle Eastern culture and intellectual heritage, he said.

He stressed that all intellectual and cultural institutions support the exchange of programs in a way that contributes to builds more bridges of cultural and intellectual communication and enhances understanding of the other through cultural events, activities and evenings that highlight the historical, intellectual and cultural heritage of peoples.
Hillsborough, NC (27278)

Today

Scattered thunderstorms. High near 85F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms, some locally heavy early, then partly cloudy after midnight. Low near 65F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
ran received 700,000 AstraZeneca vaccine shots from Japan over Friday and Saturday as part of the countrys pledge to increase donations in response to the emergence of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.

The two shipments were delivered to Imam Khomeini International Airport, bringing Japans total donation to Tehran to 3.6 million jabs, ISNA reported.

Tokyo had sent another batch of AstraZeneca shots to Iran back in July.

Japan has been making large donations to Asian nations most in need of vaccines to help curb the outbreak around the world.

As per a grant aid project signed in October, Japan provided Iran with six MRI machines as well as 14 CT scan machines along other medical equipment.

Iran has vaccinated the majority of its population of over 85 million people with Sinopharm vaccine doses purchased from China.
SHANGHAI  The number of people in China who keep shiba inu dogs originally from Japan is increasing.

The popularity of the dog is growing steadily among young people who were attracted by the breeds charms through social media.

One 78-year-old man who took his shiba inu for a walk in a residential area in Shanghai recently said that he bought the dog as his grandchild begged for it, and that the dog is now the apple of his eye.

A growing number of households keep shiba inus, and there are more than 10 such dogs in his housing complex, the man said.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, a shiba inu cafe in Shanghai was bustling with around 20 customers. Among them, a male corporate worker says he loves shiba inus and often visits the cafe, while a couple from Singapore came to the cafe for the first time after they were mesmerized by the dogs on social media.
Twenty-two months into the pandemic, health care workers are dealing with record hospitalizations, unsustainable work schedules and abuse from a public thats frustrated and exhausted.

On top of all that, theyre also contracting the virus at higher rates than ever before, federal safety standards surrounding COVID-related working conditions in hospitals have been peeled back, and changes in workers compensation policies are making it harder for many who cannot work.

We have had record numbers of staff members that have been out with COVID, said Yale New Haven Health CEO Marna Borgstrom.

As of Wednesday, 439 staff members were out across the Yale system, down from 700 on a single day last week. Tom Balcezak, chief clinical officer at YNHH, called the trends in worker infections even more frightening than hospital admissions.

Hartford HealthCare reported 1,500 workers out with COVID on Wednesday, down from 1,600 last week. As of Jan. 11, over 500 hospital staff were out at Nuvance Health, a network including Danbury Hospital in western Connecticut, though the number had decreased in recent days.

Trinity Health declined to provide the specific number of staff out with COVID.

Were dropping like flies, said Sherri Dayton, a registered nurse at the Plainfield Emergency Care Center, an emergency center affiliated with Backus Hospital and part of the Hartford HealthCare System.

Bill Garrity, who serves as the president of the University Health Professionals Local 337, a union representing over 2,800 health care professionals at UConn Health, said keeping workers safe can start in the hospitals themselves. He wants to see more transparency from management about infections in the workplace to help control worker outbreaks.

Id love to know numbers [of workers infected] and where theyre stationed, said Garrity.

Changes in workers compensation policies

Earlier in the pandemic, the state and federal government put in place crucial workers compensation policies and federal safety measures that have since either expired or been relaxed.

At the state level, in July 2020, Gov. Ned Lamont signed an executive order that presumed that workers who contracted COVID between March 10 and May 20, 2020 did so at work, making it easier for them to collect workers compensation. But that policy is no longer in effect.

Now, several health care professionals report that when they test positive for COVID, theyre often told they likely contracted it out in the community and therefore are not eligible for workers compensation.

In December 2020, after the temporary workers compensation policy had ended, Sherri Dayton tested positive for COVID. Earlier that week, her manager alerted her that she had been in contact with two patients who came into the hospital for a tick bite and a skin infection who were later found to have COVID, she said.

When Dayton reported her positive result and applied for workers compensation, she was told that she likely contracted the virus somewhere other than the hospital, and her request was denied.

Workers compensation covers a range of expenses resulting from workplace harm, including medical bills and a portion of lost wages. It also covers all future medical bills related to the injury or, in the case of COVID, the disease. At a time when the long-term effects of the virus are unknown, that safety net is critical, many say.

Down the road, you might end up with an asthma problem. People didnt know asbestos was going to cause long-term problems, explained John Brady, vice president of AFT CT, a union representing health care professionals.

Brady added that nearly all COVID-related workers compensation requests hes seen have been initially denied, and many health care workers dont have the resources to know they should appeal the decision.

In Daytons case, she was compensated for lost wages and medical bills, but Dayton appealed the workers compensation denial in case she has future medical expenses associated with her infection. She has not received an update on her case in over a year.

OSHA, CDC policies in flux

Recent changes to federal policies also threaten to leave medical professionals less protected.

On Dec. 23, the CDC cut the quarantine period for infected health care workers from 10 days after a negative test to seven days. The agency noted that this was to help increase staffing for the coming omicron surge. The announcement also specified that the isolation time can be cut further if there are staffing shortages.

In July 2021, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the federal agency charged with ensuring workplace safety, issued a temporary standard that set specific COVID-related safety requirements for health care settings, including a requirement to develop a COVID hazard assessment and provide respirators for workers directly exposed to infectious cases.

At the end of 2021, that temporary standard lapsed. OSHA said it is committed to putting in place a permanent standard but has yet to do so. Even though the standard wasnt perfect, explained Brady, it provided specific guidelines that health care facilities had to follow in terms of COVID workplace safety.

These lapses in policies at both the state and federal level have left health care workers with less workplace protection during the peak of COVID infection rates. Health care worker infections also put a strain on staffing at a time when the states health care system is already bursting at the seams, officials said.

Its obviously affected hospitals and health care workers from a physical standpoint of being sick but also from a standpoint of our volumes are higher than they have been in the past, and were also dealing with people who are unable to work because theyre testing positive for COVID, said Dr. Seth Lotterman, an emergency room physician at Hartford Hospital.

Stretched thin, some hospitals are mandating overtime for certain health care professionals, often requiring them to stay for additional shifts with little notice. This can result in 12- to 16-hour work days.

On top of mandated overtime, Sherri Dayton reported that, in the emergency center, she and her colleagues have also been forced to treat an unsustainable number of patients at a time. Normally, she treats four patients at a time. Recently, she has been forced to treat six, seven, and, on a particularly difficult day, 11 patients at once.

We are exhausted. And we are shouting at the top of our lungs, Help us, said Dayton.
BETHEL Two New Haven men were arrested and another suspect is being sought after motor vehicle thefts on Wednesday, police said.

Tyrone James Felton, Jr., 21, and Tivon Edwards, Jr., 19, both of New Haven, were charged with second-degree larceny.

According to Bethel police, officers observed several suspicious motor vehicles in the area of Old Hawleyville Road and Route 302, including a vehicle registered out of New Haven, early Wednesday morning. The New Haven vehicle committed a moving violation and then took off at a high rate of speed, leading officers in a short pursuit that had to be terminated.

Officers later received a report of a 2015 Kia Soul stolen from the Old Hawleyville Road and Route 302 area. Later on Wednesday, officers received another stolen motor vehicle complaint from a resident on Old Hawleyville Road, who told police he heard someone in his driveway in the early morning hours and later found his 2010 Honda Odyssey had been stolen.

The 2015 Kia Soul, along with Felton and Edwards, were later found by the New Haven Police Department who arrested them.

The stolen Honda Odyssey was found in New Castle, N.Y. No arrest has been made yet in connection with that vehicle, but Bethel police said they recognized the suspect seen in video surveillance footage leaving from the vehicle as a New Haven juvenile with a history of motor vehicle thefts, and that an arrest is anticipated.

Bethel police are urging residents to lock their vehicles and keep their keys in their homes. They said both stolen vehicles were left unlocked with the keys inside.
DANBURY  Conditions at the federal prison in the city appear to have improved little, despite legislators demands last week for an investigation into allegations that the facility failed to follow COVID-19 isolation guidelines, according to allegations by staff and a lawyer involved in a lawsuit against the prison.

Infections are still high, with around 80 men  some allegedly at higher risk  remaining relocated in the Federal Correctional Institution Danburys auditorium, and staff are still not being provided appropriate personal protective equipment, according to Sarah Russell, director of the Legal Clinic at Quinnipiac University School of Law and a Quinnipiac law professor.

In a 1,500-word emailed statement to the News-Times sent in response to the allegations, the Bureau of Prisons said, in part, that the agency follows CDC guidance, the same as community doctors and hospitals, with regard to quarantine and medical isolation procedures, along with providing appropriate treatment.

The agency also said it is using critical testing tools to help mitigate the spread of the virus and continues to provide testing for COVID-19 symptomatic inmates, as well as mass testing or serial testing when indicated.

The BOP reports the number of active COVID cases has declined to 64 on Thursday, compared to 89 last week, but the attorney who has been communicating with the incarcerated individuals questions the validity of those numbers.

The facility is a low security federal correctional institution with a low security satellite prison and a minimum security satellite camp.

U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-Conn., sent a letter Jan. 4 to the U.S. attorney general, director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons and acting warden at FCI Danbury regarding highly disturbing reports that half of the women housed in a satellite camp had tested positive for COVID-19 and isolation guidelines werent followed.

At the time, the Bureau of Prisons declined to confirm nor deny the specific allegations, and to date, the agency has not sent a response to the letter, according to Blumenthals office.

Incarcerated individuals who test positive for COVID or have symptoms are medically isolated and provided medical care until they are considered recovered by medical staff as determined by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, the BOP said.

All institutions, to include FCI Danbury, have areas identified for quarantine and medical isolation, the bureau said. Inmates are treated at the institution unless medical staff determine they require hospitalization.

On Wednesday, a week after the letter was sent, facility administrators declared an emergency, activating their crisis team, according to Shaun Boylan, executive vice president with AFGE Local 1661 and employee at FCI Danbury.

There have also been more positive COVID-19 cases reported at the womens facility since last week, according to Russell.

Men in five units and the auditorium told her that unit-wide testing has not occurred since Jan. 5 or 6, she said.

There are also accusations of delays between reports of symptoms and testing, and delays in the isolation of people who have symptoms. Some people reported to Russell that they had not been tested after bunk mates tested positive.

Without regular unit-wide testing it is difficult to determine the scope of the outbreak and to respond to it appropriately, Russell said in an email to Hearst Connecticut.

The BOP uses PCR testing for the bulk of its testing, but FCI Danbury also uses rapid tests that provide results in to 10 to 15 minutes, the bureau said.

Initial reports last week reported that 80 men were being held in an auditorium after their units were turned into isolation units. This is still the case, Russell said.

Many of the men allegedly came from Unit M, which is a unit that houses people with special vulnerabilities, like the elderly, those with disabilities, or veterans with PTSD, Russell said. While reports suggest there are sufficient cots for everyone in the auditorium now, Russell reported that conditions are very crowded with cots only two feet away from each other.

The auditorium allegedly has no smoke detectors or fire alarm pull stations. Communication for incarcerated people housed there is limited.

Staff concerns

Inside, staff still arent being given appropriate personal protective equipment and are being asked to re-use their PPE, according to Boylan.

Russell also reported this shortage and alleged that staff sometimes enter units without masks on.

Since the onset of the pandemic, the BOP, including FCI Danbury, has maintained an ample supply of PPE and is utilizing them in accordance with CDC guidance, the BOP said.

The staff shortage is still causing issues, as well. Boylan reported that six staff members are being moved from various positions  from education programming, to drug assistance, to recreation specialties  to fill in as correctional officers due to staff shortages. This duty change comes with different hours and responsibilities. Staff not employed as correctional officers are asked to take on a role and draw on a two to three-week training that for many, occurred years ago, he said.

All staff assigned to correctional facilities are law enforcement officers and are considered correctional workers first, regardless of their occupation, the BOP said. All staff receive the same amount of training as correctional workers and are informed at the time of hiring they are expected to perform law enforcement functions during routine and non-routine situations.

The agency confirmed that some staff members have taken on temporary security roles at some correctional institutions to fulfill the agencys commitment to public safety.

Boylan previously reported to Hearst Connecticut that staffing shortages also leave workers showing up to work sick, bringing COVID into the facility with them.

The union protested in December, calling on Congress to take measures to address the staffing problems.

COVID cases

Since the outbreaks initial peak last week, the Bureau of Prisons COVID-19 dashboard has shown a gradual decline in cases at the facility. The facility now ranks 33rd in infections among federal prisons nationwide, compared to fifth last week.

On Thursday, the dashboard showed FCI Danbury had 64 active cases among its population, with 11 staff positive cases.

But Russell said she does not know what criteria the agency is using to remove someone from the count, and whether it is based on a five-day point from initially testing positive or another measure.

While she does not have a precise count, one woman told her that they estimated 12 people tested positive in the womens facility during this latest outbreak.

People incarcerated at FCI Danbury are incredibly scared, said Kylee Verrill, law student intern with the Legal Clinic at Quinnipiac University School of Law. To have people subject to such dangerous conditions two years into the pandemic represents a massive institutional failure.
While addressing the inaugural Startup India Innovation Week, PM Modi observed that even in the good old days, only a few enterprises would grow to be large.

The country will soon build a century of unicorns, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday, citing the establishment of 42 unicorn start-ups last year and Indias race to one billion internet users. He also stated that from now on, January 16 would be celebrated as National Start-up Day. Officials claim that the country now has 82 unicorns, each worth more than $1 billion, making it the worlds third largest unicorn population.

While addressing the inaugural Startup India Innovation Week, PM Modi observed that even in the good old days, only a few enterprises would grow to be large. However, now 42 unicorns have been created in the last year. These billion-dollar businesses are testimony of Indias Aatmanirbharta (self-sufficiency) and Aatmavishwasta (self-assurance), he added.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with around 150 start-ups to help the countrys start-up ecosystem. He emphasized the importance of start-ups having global goals and expertise catering to a broad and diversified market like India, rather than limiting themselves to the country. He remarked that our strength is Indias diversity. Its a part of our worldwide identity and the messengers of this variety are our unicorns and start-ups. He mentioned three major parts of the improvements that the government is undertaking to enhance innovation, entrepreneurship, and the start-up ecosystem, recalling the conception of the current decade as Indias techade. To begin, entrepreneurship and innovation must be freed from the maze of government protocols and bureaucratic silos. The second step is to put in place an institutional system to encourage innovation. Third, he stated, he will assist young inventors and businesses.

The PM went on to declare that the new drone program is starting to yield results, with the Army, Navy, and Air Force placing contracts worth over Rs 500 crore with drone businesses. According to him, Indias innovation indices are increasing at an exponential rate. Last year, nearly 28 thousand patents were issued, compared to 4,000 patents approved in 2013-14. Around 70,000 trademarks were registered in 2013-14. In 2020-21, however, more than 2.5 lakh trademarks were registered. Only 4,000 copyrights were given in 2013-14, compared to more than 16,000 the previous fiscal year, he claimed.

Lastly, the Prime Minister urged entrepreneurs to focus on fixing problems in the rural economy and industrial sector. He said that the efforts of the young people, companies, job generation, and wealth development are all for the good of the country. He added that he wants to work side by side with the youth to turn their excitement into the enthusiasm of the country.
Calling its inclusion on the UAE list a bizarre move, CAIR, in a statement posted on its Facebook page, has called on the United Arab Emirates to review the inclusion and remove organisations such as CAIR, the Muslim American society and other civil society organisations.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a US-based pro-Muslim group that enjoys close ties with the Obama administration, has been named as a terrorist organisation by United Arab Emirates. This has placed CAIR in the company of Al Qaeda, Islamic State and others.

Calling its inclusion on the UAE list a bizarre move, CAIR, in a statement posted on its Facebook page, has called on the United Arab Emirates to review the inclusion and remove organisations such as CAIR, the Muslim American society and other civil society organisations. It further claims that these organisations peacefully promote civil and democratic rights and oppose terrorism whenever it occurs, wherever it occurs and whoever carries it out.

In the past, CAIR has held multiple meetings with white house officials on a wide range of community issues and attempted to present itself as a mainstream Muslim organisation. On the other hand, it has also been linked to Hamas. CAIR was named along with 300 others as an alleged co-conspirator in a case regarding funding to extremist group Hamas.

Speaking about the inclusion in the UAE list, CAIR spokesperson Ibrahim Hooper has been quoted by Fox News as saying, Obama provided examples of religious leaders engaged in the ideological fight against extremism, quoting a Muslim sheikh who said, We must declare war on war, so the outcome will be peace upon peace. That sheikh is Abdullah bin Bayyah, a 79-year-old cleric who, even though lauded on the world stage for his recent efforts at peacemaking, is dogged by controversy over connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Back in 2021, Saudi Arabia had banned Tablighi Jamaat. Calling Tablighi Jamaat a gate to terrorism, it prohibited all its activities on Saudi soil. Meanwhile, Pakistan came out in Tablighi Jamaats support and said, Tablighi Jamaat is a global organisation. It has nothing to do with terrorism. History has shown that these people have never been involved in such activities. They are earning goodwill for Pakistan with the preaching of Islam all over the world.
On the heels of Caraluzzis opening a new wine store in Wilton, surprise competition has surfaced at another location it recently vacated in Bethel  a grocery store to compete with the nearby Caraluzzis Bethel Food Market.

In the works for a year, workers are completing finishing work and stocking shelves at La Placita Bethel Market at 289 Greenwood Ave. less than a mile south of Danbury. The new store has yet to publicize a target opening date.

The stores produce-basket logo is identical to that of La Placita Fresh Market in New Rochelle, N.Y., which carries both mainstream groceries and the foods of Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Guatemala, Argentina and Ecuador among others, including Latin American herbs and cheeses, and fresh bread and prepared fare.

According to a commercial brokerage listing, more than 4,000 houses and apartments in Bethel and Danbury are situated within a mile of the plaza.

In a filing with the Connecticut secretary of states office, La Placita Bethel Market lists Wilson Narvaez as its principal and its mailing address at a CTown Supermarket in Peekskill, N.Y., which Narvaez runs. Narvaez could not be reached Tuesday for details on the new Bethel store.

On his LinkedIn page, Narvaez cites the goal of expanding the family business into a national brand. CTown has independently operated locations in Danbury, Norwalk and Stratford on the Bridgeport line, as well as in Hartford and New Britain.

The La Placita name has been used by a number of small neighborhood grocery and convenience stores, including in Bridgeport, New Haven, Norwalk and Stamford. The secretary of state recently posted incorporation papers for another La Placita grocery store in Norwalk.

Located just off Grassy Plain Street and owned since 2014 by Greenwich-based Urstadt Biddle Properties, the Bethel Hub Center plaza includes a RiteAid pharmacy and a handful of smaller tenants. After shuttering at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bethel Cinema next door is nearing a grand reopening under new ownership.

Caraluzzis Wine & Spirits long occupied La Placitas 14,000-square-foot space before moving into a newly constructed building adjacent to Caraluzzis Bethel Market at the opposite end of Greenwood Avenue. The company dates back to 1949 in Bethel.

Prior to Caraluzzis Wine & Spirits, the former Finast Supermarkets chain had a location at the Bethel Hub Center.

The clientele here is pretty loyal to the Caraluzzi family and they run a pretty good operation, said Matt Knickerbocker, first selectman. Its a good addition for downtown Bethel  [La Placita] has a particular focus in terms of the clientele they are marketing to.

Caraluzzis is accustomed to head-to-head competition  or in Newtown, eye-to-eye, with its store ithere across the street from a Big Y World Class Market. Another Caraluzzis supermarket is under construction in Danbury, just off Interstate 84 on Mill Plain Road, which will vie with Stop & Shop, Trader Joes and Whole Foods stores nearby.

In December, Caraluzzis opened its latest liquor store in a former Chase bank branch adjacent to its Georgetown store on Route 7 at the crossroads of Redding, Wilton, Weston and Ridgefield. Downtown Weston is nearing the reincaration of the former Peters Market as Lilys Weston Market, as reported in August by Weston Today.

Includes prior reporting by Kendra Baker and Rob Ryser.

Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; @casoulman
EAST HAVEN  Three security guards have begun working at two schools in the district after being hired due to security issues.

The security guards  two at Joseph Melillo Middle School and one at East Haven High School  began work last week.

They have hit the ground running, Richard Caponera, chief of operations and oversight, said at a Board of Education meeting Tuesday. Our administration is very pleased with having them on board.

One of new security guards previously was a lieutenant judicial marshal who retired after 30 years. Another was a chief judicial marshal and instructor at the academy who retired after 32 years. The third new security guard was a corrections officer who retired after 21 years and then became a lead security guard at another local high school.

Caponera said all three have extensive experience with children and have taken part in training, policy writing and implementation of current technologies and methods.

The district plans on giving the guards time to acclimate to the schools before consulting them about moving forward with further security plans.

Board member Dominic Milano sat in on the interviews of the two candidates with the marshal background, stating they made a great fit.

The hiring of the new security guards comes after concerns regarding security and safety of buildings, primarily the middle and high schools.

In November, videos of fights were taken at the middle and high schools and shared on social media platforms such as Snapchat and Instagram, officials said.

Fights included an altercation at East Haven High School in which school staff and the school resource officer broke up the fight, Patch reported. Another fight, at the middle school, involved a student being assaulted by multiple others against a locker.

East Haven police Capt. Joseph Murgo said Friday that despite videos showing a chaotic scene, the incident was handled quickly, appropriately and in accordance with Board of Education policy.

We were called to the school after everything was under control and enforcement action was taken against several students who were involved. Nobody was seriously injured during that incident, Murgo said.

There were six main students involved in the fight and six arrests were made in the form of juvenile summonses, Murgo said.

For weeks following the incident, police maintained a presence in and around the schools.

Other safety concerns include recent nationwide trends such as the TikTok challenges and other social media threats that have been popping up in school districts around the country, according to Murgo.

Murgo clarified that the increase in staffing is not directly related to the November fight.

These fights led to parents and some staff attending a Nov. 16 Board of Education meeting to voice concerns about both students and staff in the buildings.

Cindy Giammatti, union president for the districts paraprofessionals, said the fight was disturbing and scary for adults at the middle school.

If the staff member did not intervene in that attack, that child would have been taken out in an ambulance, probably sitting in a hospital today, Giammatti said at the Nov. 16 meeting.

Giammatti added that having a school resource officer in the building is beneficial but not a deterrent.

The SRO program was revitalized this year after not being in East Haven schools since 2011, according to Murgo.

Other parents said their children are afraid of attending school due to fights and threats, with some asking for increased police presence, metal detectors, bag checks and limited entrances/exits.

After the meeting, board Chairwoman Michele DeLucia sent an email to administrators regarding the safety concerns and to let the administration know they have the boards support.

At a Dec. 7 special board meeting, Superintendent of Schools Erica Forti made a statement about the concerns, saying any behaviors that disrupt the educational process, endanger people or property or violate the districts policies are not allowed, and that appropriate disciplinary action would be taken.

The safety and security of our students and staff remains our number one priority, Forti said. Rules and policies have been established to create a safe and educationally sound environment for learning.

Forti added that the district would continue working with SROs, the Police Department, social workers, school behavioral health centers and the security team to ensure safety in the district.

Forti did not return a message left with the districts central office Friday.

At the Dec. 14 meeting, the board again discussed security in an executive session before DeLucia made a motion to hire three security guards.

The board was also looking into prices of metal detectors and gates, DeLucia said.

As of Jan. 11, the board did have prices for these materials but planned to wait for the input of the new security guards before making purchases.

christine.derosa@hearstmediact.com
HAMDEN  A 22-year-old local man was killed after a shooting late Saturday on Fairview Avenue, police said. .

Hamden police said they received reports of shots fired around 10:45 p.m. Officers found one vehicle in the roadway with a gunshot victim inside it.

The victim, who was not immediately identified by police, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police also found ballistic evidence and multiple handguns at the crime scene.

The states medical examiners office and Connecticut State Police are assisting with the homicide investigation, police said.

Anyone with information or surveillance video related to the shooting is asked to contact Detective Jomo Crawford of the Hamden Police Department Major Crimes Unit at 203- 230-4048.
After a 10-hour standoff in a Texas synagogue ended last night with four hostages freed and the suspect killed by the FBI, Jewish leaders said that while no copycat threats exist in Connecticut, they are strengthening security measures for congregations across the state.

Judy Alperin, the CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven, said she was one of thousands of people watching via livestream as the Colleyville-based Congregation Beth Israels Saturday services were interrupted by the suspected hostage taker.

Alperin said in the past 24 hours, her organization and several other federations representing the Jewish community across the state have been in constant communication. There are no credible threats to houses of worship in the state, Alperin said, adding that she and other leaders sent out messages to reassure the community that there was no cause of worry.

According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, an angry man could be heard ranting and talking about religion at times during the livestream, which didn't show what was happening inside the synagogue. The hostage-taker, who was killed after an FBI SWAT team entered the synagogue around 9 p.m. on Saturday, is reportedly a British man who was demanding the release of an imprisoned Pakistani neuroscientist convicted of trying to kill American military personnel in Afghanistan.

It was frightening and horrific, Alperin said of the hostage situation. We have made security one of our main community priorities and focus over the last several years out of out of necessity. Weve seen a growing trend of attacks and threats against the Jewish community across North America and also here in our state of Connecticut. So yesterday was a manifestation of our worst nightmare scenario.

The New Haven federation just recently hired Regional Security Advisors as part of a longstanding effort to boost security measures for Jewish faith organizations across the country, Alperin said. The Hartford federation also has a similar adviser. Security advisers are former law enforcement officers who advise the Jewish federations in Connecticut on safety protocols, Alperin said.

Mike Shanbrom, the adviser for the greater New Haven area, immediately reached out to law enforcement partners in the region after the incident, asking them to increase patrols around congregations, Alperin said.

We have good, strong relationships with our law enforcement partners so that they're familiar with the buildings and what's going on, Alperin said.

Michael Bloom, the executive director of the Jewish Federation Association of Connecticut, said the association has for years now lobbied the state and federal government extensively to boost funding for security infrastructure.

With the creation of the states Nonprofit Security Grant Program in 2021, around $3.8 million has already been disbursed to aid 97 nonprofits at heightened risk of a terrorist attack, hate crime, or violent act. Eligible nonprofits are able to receive a maximum of $50,000 per site to cover costs related to security infrastructure.

Bloom said while the grant program is promising, federation leaders are still pushing elected officials for additional dollars.

Last nights attack adds more urgency to the necessity of that money, Bloom said.

The need is real in Connecticut, Bloom said. Unfortunately, this latest incident is not new. It's just further evidence that we need to be vigilant, further evidence that the rise of anti-Semitism is real and that more resources are needed.
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COTONOU, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) -- Benin on Wednesday received a second batch of Sinovac COVID-19 vaccines as well as syringe units donated by the Chinese government.

The handover document was signed Wednesday afternoon in Cotonou, between the Chinese Ambassador to Benin Peng Jingtao and the Beninese Health Minister Benjamin Hounkpatin.

Hounkpatin said that this donation followed a first batch made on March 21, 2021, which had made it possible to support the launch of vaccination in his country. According to him, China was very early on by Benin's side since the outbreak of the pandemic and has always shown its support at all stages of Benin's fight against the pandemic.

For his part, Peng said he saw in this donation a new gesture of solidarity from China to help the people of Benin to find a normal life. He stressed that China always remains a loyal partner, friend and brother of Benin.

According to data from the World Health Organization, 1,815,764 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered as of January 3 in Benin, with 1,421,442 people fully vaccinated, or 11.7 percent of the population. 
Yinka Oyebode, chief press secretary to Kayode Fayemi, governor of Ekiti, says it is impossible for his principal to drop a rumoured an...

Yinka Oyebode, chief press secretary to Kayode Fayemi, governor of Ekiti, says it is impossible for his principal to drop a rumoured and undeclared presidential bid for Bola Tinubu, former Lagos governor.

Oyebode made the clarification following rumours that Fayemi had decided to drop his ambition and support that of Tinubu.

The reports came after both men held a closed-door meeting on Wednesday.

On Monday, Tinubu said he informed President Muhammadu Buhari of his intention to run for the presidency at the 2023 polls.





In a statement on Saturday, Oyebode said Fayemi has not indicated interest that he would run for the presidency, hence he could not have dropped his bid and pledged support to Tinubu.

Oyebode said their interaction was a family meeting of minds that was centred on national issues.

It was a family meeting of minds. It is therefore disingenuous of the spin doctors who were nowhere near the venue of the meeting to begin to second guess discussions at the meeting, he said.

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Meeting between the two leaders dates as far back as their days in exile, when they were both involved in the struggle to wrest the country away from military jackboot.

What makes the matter worse is that such spin doctors, surreptitiously scrambling for relevance have been weaving, not half truths, but blatant lies into the Tinubu-Fayemi meeting, saying it signposted Dr Fayemi surrendering his undeclared ambition to Asiwaju Tinubus declared one.

Specifically, they have been dishing out barefaced and unsubstantiated lies that Dr Fayemi at the closed door meeting debunked the raging rumour of his 2023 presidential ambition and pledged support for the national leader of the APC Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

The spin doctors were so consumed by their fictional hogwash that they could not consider it an impossibility for Fayemi to drop a rumoured, yet undeclared ambition, even when Asiwaju Tinubu said he was still consulting as to whether to run or not.

It must have been sourced from the rumour mill, or as a beer parlour gist. At its best, it is a mere conjecture.

The aide added that while Fayemi is currently focused on developing Ekiti state, he would not hide his ambition if he is interested in running for the presidency.
Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, says the federal government has made some progress in the fight against insurgency in Nigeria. T...

Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, says the federal government has made some progress in the fight against insurgency in Nigeria.

The Governor, however, said the progress is not good enough as long as Boko Haram members are still killing innocent Nigerians.

He made the assertion during 2022 Armed Forces Remembrance Day Ceremony in Port Harcourt on Saturday.

Wike called on President Muhammadu Buhari to redouble efforts in fulfilling his electoral promise of fighting insecurity in Nigeria.

We acknowledge that some progress has been made in the fight against the insurgents.

However, the generality of Nigerians believes that the progress made cant be good enough insofar as Boko haram, its affiliates and the bandits are still active in the North-East, North-West and some other parts of the country, killing, maiming and kidnapping helpless people, including school children, and destroying and displacing hapless communities.

We, therefore, call on Mr President to redouble his efforts and fulfill his cardinal electoral promise to secure the country and ensure that Nigerians feel safe and remain safe and secure wherever they are in their own country.

Governor Wike further stressed the need for the Federal Government to make the equipping of the armed forces a priority.

He also announced the donation of the sum of N50million as a support fund that will help widows of fallen heroes.
Aare Onakakanfo of Yorubaland, Iba Gani Adams has vowed to reinvent the glorious days of the southwest region and the Yoruba race. A...

Aare Onakakanfo of Yorubaland, Iba Gani Adams has vowed to reinvent the glorious days of the southwest region and the Yoruba race.

Adams, a strong advocate of regionalism, reiterated his intention to work for the actualization at the Saviour Ministries Cherubim and Seraphim (C&S) in Ikeja, Lagos.

The Sunday church service was part of events for the 4th year anniversary of his ascension as the Aare, a position last held by business mogul and philanthropist, M.K.O. Abiola.

Adams expressed gratitude to God for the opportunity to weather the storm by coping with the demands of the office.

The traditional leader, who observed a Jumat service on Friday, promised to fulfil the promises he made in Oyo during his inauguration.

My installation as the 15th Aare Onakakanfo of Yorubaland in 2018 came with a lot of hope and expectations from home and abroad,

From my humble background as an activist, leader of Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) and Global Convener of Oodua Progressives Union (OPU), I knew the burden of leadership, he said.

Adams said he worked for the establishment of the regional security outfit, Operation Amotekun, and South-West Security Stakeholders Group (SSSG) while assisting the less-privileged, students, traders and athletes.

In the last four years, we have done our best in securing the South-West. For the legacies of the Yoruba race to endure, we will leverage on our past successes to reinvent the glorious days, he said.

His wife, Ayinba Mojisola Adams, thanked God for helping the Aare to sustain the core values of the institution.
The Supreme Court has ruled in favour of Guaranty Trust Bank after it reversed its earlier decision which dismissed an appeal by GTB again...

The Supreme Court has ruled in favour of Guaranty Trust Bank after it reversed its earlier decision which dismissed an appeal by GTB against a N2.4bn judgment given in favour of Innoson Motors Nigeria Limited by the Court of Appeal in Ibadan, Oyo State.

A senior official of GTB, who confirmed this on Sunday, said, Yes, the Supreme court ruled in favour of GTbank on Friday.

A judgment delivered on Friday by a five-member panel, led by Justice Olukayode Ariwoola, held unanimously that the Supreme Court erred when, in a ruling on February 27, 2019, it erroneously dismissed the appeal marked: SC/694/2014 filed by GTB.

In the lead judgment, written by Justice Tijani Abubakar, but read on Friday by Justice Abdu Aboki, the court held that it was misled by its Registry, which failed to promptly bring to the notice of the panel that it sat on the case on February 27, 2019, and that GTB had already filed its appellants brief of argument.

The judgment was on an application by GTB seeking the re-listing of the appeal on the grounds that it was wrongly dismissed.

The Supreme Court said the panel that sat on the case on February 27, 2019, being notified of the existence of the appellants brief of argument, would not have given the ruling which dismissed GTBs appeal on grounds of lack of diligent prosecution.

Relying on Order 8 Rules 16 of the Supreme Courts Rules, Justice Abubakar, in the lead judgment, held that the apex court has the power to set aside its decision in certain circumstances, like any other court.

He added that such circumstances include where there is any reason to do so, such as where any of the parties obtained judgment by fraud, default or deceit; where such a decision is a nullity or where it is obvious that the court was misled into giving a decision.

Justice Tijani held that the circumstances of the GTB case fall into the category of the rare cases where the Supreme Court could amend or alter its own order on the grounds that the said order or judgment did not present what it intended to record.

I am convinced that at the material time that the appellants appeal was inadvertently dismissed by this court, there was in place, a valid and subsisting brief of argument filed by the applicant.





It will be unjust to visit the sin of the courts Registry on an innocent, vigilant, proactive and diligent litigant.

It is obvious from the material before us, that there were errors committed by the Registry of this court, having failed to bring to the notice of the panel of Justices that sat in chambers on the 27th February 2019 that the appellant had indeed filed its brief of argument.

This is a case deserving of positive consideration by this court.

Having gone through all the materials in this application, therefore, I am satisfied that the appellant/applicants brief of argument was filed before the order of this court made on the 27th of February 2019 dismissing the applicants appeal.

The order dismissing the appeal was therefore made in error. It ought not to have been made if all materials were disclosed. The application is, therefore, meritorious and hereby succeeds, Justice Abubakar said.

He proceeded to set aside the courts ruling of February 27, 2019, dismissing GTBs appeal and ordered that the appeal marked 694/2014 be relisted to constitute an integral part of the business of the court until its hearing and determination on the merit.

Other members of the panel  Justices Ariwoola, John Okoro, Helen Ogunwumiju, Aboki  agreed with the lead judgment.
An elder and former governor of Anambra State, Chief Chukwuemeka Ezeife, has expressed disappointment over the position of the President, ...

An elder and former governor of Anambra State, Chief Chukwuemeka Ezeife, has expressed disappointment over the position of the President, Muhammadu Buhari, that the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, will not be released from detention.

Kanu was arrested last year in Kenya and brought back to Nigeria before he was charged with offences bordering on treasonable felony and terrorism.

President Buhari had told Igbo elders led by the First Republic parliamentarian and Minister of Aviation, Mbazulike Amaechi, who visited him at the State House, Abuja, that though their request for Kanus release was heavy, he (Buhari) would consider it.

The President was, however, categorical in an interview with Channels Television when he said he would not release Kanu and that the IPOB leader should defend himself in court.

Speaking in an interview with PUNCH on Buharis latest stand on the matter, Ezeife said he and his friends were bound to be disappointed, saying the President, by his recent position, rubbished all that happened during the Igbo elders visit to the State House in Abuja.

The former governor said, There is nothing we can do. After the meeting, the people who are familiar with him said he responded to us truthfully and that he took our case very seriously and that his answer gives hope.

We went away with that, that there is hope. But for him now to, in public, rubbish all that happened, I am bound to be disappointed and so would be my friends who were there.

On the way forward, he urged the President to work out an agreement with all groups involved in the current agitation for self-determination with a view to establishing a political arrangement that would satisfy Nigerians.

One thing we can still do is this, Nnamdi is detained, Igboho was put in a crisis position, the South attacked and some people were killed, so many other complaints as well. The Ijaw people are complaining, the Middle Belt has declared their non-compliance anymore and South-South has been in that shape.

I think what the President should do is to try to solve all these problems with one committee. If he can assemble maybe five people per zone and let them look at all the reports, including 2014, all the constitutions we have had, the 1963 Constitution and all that, and work out an agreement with all the groups for a Nigeria with political rearrangement that would satisfy other people.

I dont want to just say I am very disappointed because I am very much interested in Nigeria surviving. So, I suggest this caucus of knowledgeable people who can work out a new arrangement politically for Nigeria. The political solution is the only one that can solve the problem.

Buharill not renege on promise, says Amaechi

However, in a separate interview with Amaechi, the leader of the Igbo elders delegation to Aso Rock, he expressed optimism that the President would not renege on his promise to consider a political solution to Kanus matter.

Amaechi said, Kanus situation can be solved either politically or even legally. It can be solved legally by the Attorney General. When I met the President, he told me he would consider my request on Nnamdi Kanu.

There are many ways to kill a rat. So, I have no reason to doubt the President. People need to trust him because he is not the type of President who talks without knowing what he is saying. He is a highly principled man.

I dont think the President has reneged on what he told me. He has so far not. All I know is that discussions are going on. I cant tell you more than that. We are in contact and I have trust in the Presidents words.
Bishop David Oyedepo, President and Founder of Living Faith Church, also known as Winners Chapel Worldwide, has revealed a revelation he g...

Bishop David Oyedepo, President and Founder of Living Faith Church, also known as Winners Chapel Worldwide, has revealed a revelation he got from God regarding the end-time church.

In a sermon at the churchs headquarters, Cannanland, Ota in Ogun State, the renowned clergy said the supreme God is working towards enlarging churches to kingdoms.

According to him, before the second coming of Christ, the churches would have ambassadors across the globe with governors in every state while local governments will be controlled by captains.

He noted that the political authorities would be bowing to the authorities of the church kingdoms which will be controlling the economy of every nation across the world.

He said, God told me that every church is little in his sight until it becomes a kingdom. This end-time church of Christ will have ambassadors around the world.

The church will have governors all over states that political governors will be bowing to. They will say lets go to the state governor of winners. There will be captains in all local governments.

Church secretariat in every nation will be an embassy. He showed me humorously where He is taking the church to where strong nations will bow to the authorities of the churchs kingdoms.

You will have like the Baptist Kingdom, Assemblies of God Kingdom, Redeemed Church of God Kingdom and the Winners Kingdom etc. All the churches that are given birth to by Jesus will be turned to the kingdoms before Christ returns.

We are not just going for church growth but church kingdom where we will be controlling education, agriculture and control commerce.
China's Zhengzhou on Thursday launched nucleic acid testing for key groups, in an effort to better contain the spread of a local COVID-19 outbreak. #GLOBALink





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Yes. Gov. Hochul chose Mr. Benjamin, and she's stuck with him through the election.

No. The state should have the option to remove someone under criminal indictment.

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Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko speaks while greeting Belarusian servicemen at a military airfield in Minsk, Belarus, on Jan. 15, 2022. Lukashenko on Saturday praised the role of the peacekeeping forces of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) while greeting Belarusian servicemen participating in the operation in Kazakhstan at a military airfield. (Xinhua)

MINSK, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Saturday praised the role of the peacekeeping forces of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) while greeting Belarusian servicemen participating in the operation in Kazakhstan at a military airfield.

Lukashenko said that it was the first time the CSTO peacekeeping forces had participated in an operation to ensure the security and stability of the organization's member state.

The measures taken by the CSTO and the deployment of peacekeepers saved Kazakhstan from the most unfavorable situation and prevented a "color revolution," he said.

The joint efforts of the CSTO peacekeeping forces has also demonstrated the close ties of the CSTO member states, he added.

The CSTO peacekeeping forces were deployed to the Central Asian country to help normalize the situation following days of violent protests. 

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko (C) inspects the Belarusian servicemen at a military airfield in Minsk, Belarus, on Jan. 15, 2022. Lukashenko on Saturday praised the role of the peacekeeping forces of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) while greeting Belarusian servicemen participating in the operation in Kazakhstan at a military airfield. (Xinhua)
When Lawrence Brooks, the countrys oldest-known World War II veteran, turned 111 in September, he received more than 10,000 cards, a salute from a squadron of aircraft and a happy birthday call from Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards.

His daughter, Vanessa Brooks, 60, heard her fathers end of the conversation, as the governor thanked him for his Army service and chatted with him about his big birthday. As the call concluded, it seems, the governor told Mr. Brooks to reach out if he needed anything.

Yeah, man, my roof is leaking, she heard her father tell the governor.

Two hours later, someone was knocking at her door in New Orleans Central City area, and on Saturday there was Kavin Griffin of the Central South Carpenters Regional Council, standing beside a trash bin of rotten roofing material. The council bought almost $10,000 in new materials, and volunteer union members from Local 1098 in Baton Rouge and Local 1846 in New Orleans plan to reframe and shingle the entire roof.

Mr. Brooks wont have to worry about a roof anymore, Griffin said.

The leaky roof was the result of shoddy post-Katrina construction, said Vanessa Brooks, who shares the house with her father. She recalled how hard it was to find anyone to repair it during the months after the 2005 storm. She now knows the contractor she hired did inferior work.

+7 6 ways Katrina has shaped homes in New Orleans: open floor plans, 'granite everywhere' New Orleanians born in the aftermath of hurricanes Betsy and Camille may not have understood why their parents kept axes in their attics  unt

That became apparent later when she signed a contract to put solar panels on the back roof, which sagged badly from the weight of the panels, causing cracking on the inside walls and ceilings. The solar contractor removed the panels but did not seal the holes from the installation. It was then that the water began pouring into the walls on both sides of the house, spotting the ceiling above her fathers bed and along the walls of his bedroom and the bathroom.

Thats when I knew we had a real problem, Vanessa Brooks said. She worried about mold and even about the ceiling collapsing.

Griffin said the gap between the main houses roof and the roof on a rear addition was so big he could easily slip his hand in it.

But Lawrence and Vanessa Brooks combined income was not nearly enough to pay for repairs. She called and called around town looking for charitable help. I reached a lot of entities; they didnt get back to me, she said.

Thats become a more common problem around New Orleans as the cost of living and property taxes has increased: Longtime homeowners are financially stretched to the point where they cannot make repairs, said Andreanecia Morris, head of HousingNOLA. She said the local governments owner-occupied rehabilitation program, which is on temporary hiatus because of the coronavirus pandemic, is typically overwhelmed by applications.

Morris thinks city and state officials know about the level of need but fail to acknowledge the problem and act accordingly.

Vanessa Brooks remembers putting her name on long lists for repairs, and how helpless she felt. For the past three years, she said, all she could do is pray that her roof would be repaired.

Maybe, for some reason, God wanted to use Governor Edwards to help us, she said. Or maybe it was that my daddy had to be the one to ask.
Though Raquel Oliveira and Luana Perrotta both grew up in Rio de Janeiro, they met in New Orleans through Brazilian food pop-ups. They collaborated on events highlighting Brazilian culture and food, and they eventually created Tropicalia Kitchen, which moved into the kitchen space at St. Roch Tavern just before the pandemic began. They have cooked for pandemic relief efforts, including Feed the Second Line, Southern Solidarity and Makin Groceries. At St. Roch, they are currently serving Brazilian-style bar food and specials from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and they also do catering. Find more information at tropicaliakitchen.com or on Instagram, @tropicaliakitchen.

Gambit: How did you start cooking?

Raquel Oliveira: Growing up, food was very important, so I automatically fell into that scene. I went to the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City. I worked in various restaurants in New York as a line cook and eventually sous chef and executive chef. Then I moved to New Orleans.

I came here to visit and it was like, This feels like home. It felt so relatable with the weather and the culture and the feeling of the city. Its been 10 years now. I worked as a sous chef for five years at Rue 127.

Luana Perrotta: I grew up in Rio and moved to New Orleans six years ago because my ex-husband was doing his PhD here.

I had a job at Clesis (Restaurant & Catering), a boil spot. That was my first kitchen job here. I was boiling seafood, I was a line cook, and then I started managing their catering. Its a small family business. I learned a lot from them. It was nice to start my restaurant career there.

Thats where I started doing Brazilian pop-ups, because they closed two days (a week) and they offered me the space. (I called it) Dona Nola. I made Brazilian-style fried chicken and pao de queijo, the cheese breads. Black bean soup is a classic. Coxinha, fried dough filled with chicken. I would go to places like the Frenchmen Hotel and do pop-ups. Id do Brazilian empanadas and sandwiches and soups in winter. Caldo verde is potato and collard green soup with sausage. Butternut squash and coconut milk soup.

Gambit: How did you start Tropicalia Kitchen?

Oliveira: Its such a small city, so we had friends that overlapped. They kept telling me about some Brazilian babe that was here. Eventually we met.

In the beginning, we both had full-time jobs. We were just doing pop-ups because we really wanted to make that happen. My pop-up was Miss Farofa. At that point, I was selling Brazilian kebabs with farofa and the sides.

Perrotta: When I met Raquel, we both already had ideas, but we needed somebody to jump in with. We felt very confident that we could do a festival. We cooked for the Brazilian Bash in 2017.

Oliveira: It was a crazy idea. We threw a huge event at Second Line Brewing. There was lots of food that we made. There were Brazilian bands playing and dance performances and capoeira. Art workshops for the kids. There were art vendors. There was a lot going into it, but it was all done by us, and we didnt even have a car.

Perrotta: We had almost 400 people coming. Thats how (the band) Amigos do Samba came up  that was the first event they ever played.

Oliveira: After we did these events, we were talking about what the next step would be. Then the opportunity to be full-time in the kitchen at St. Roch Tavern came up, and we decided it would be a good fit.

Perrotta: We were already doing catering together. (At St. Roch) we could do bar food, which is big in Brazil. We can do hot plates there and have more of a local, community clientele.

Oliveira: We were like its Miss Farofa and Dona Nola, we need a name.

Perrotta: Tropicalia came because it is the name of a Brazilian music-cultural movement. The idea is the mix of Brazilian music and what was happening in other countries, the African diaspora in Brazil. Its a big mix. Were both into the cultural aspect of food. When were cooking, its also about music and dancing and sharing more than the food.

Gambit: What dishes are you making at Tropicalia?

Oliveira: When we think about creating a menu, in Brazil its huge to just share food when youre drinking. We have yuca croquettes that are stuffed with mozzarella cheese or beef. We always have these shrimp bites. Its deep-fried wonton pockets.

Perrotta: In Brazil, we call them pastel.

Oliveira: Its like a take on our very classic dish bobo de camarao. We stuff these pockets with shrimp, pureed yuca and coconut milk.

Perrotta: We have salted cured catfish cakes. Thats like our take on codfish fritters.

Oliveira: Thats served with a relish with Kalamata olives, malagueta chilies and olive oil.

Perrotta: The most classic one is rice and beans. Its similar to New Orleans but we use black beans, because in Rio they use black beans mostly. Thats one of our best sellers. People can add meat. We have pulled pork, because we also have a sandwich with pulled pork and roasted pineapple.

Oliveira: We have weekly specials as well. We try to do traditional dishes once a month, like a classic feijoada. I describe it to people as a boucherie on a plate. Its everything you can find from a pig. We dry salt cure pigs feet, pigs ears, pig tails, and theres ribs, pork belly and smoked sausage. We simmer it for hours with black beans and its seasoned with fried garlic. Its served with collard greens, white rice, farofa and orange slices.
As a shiny black hearse eased up to The National WWII Museum on Saturday, eight soldiers in full dress uniform stood at the curb, their white gloves ready to carry the countrys oldest World War II veteran into his funeral.

At the service inside, White House senior adviser Cedric Richmond delivered a message to Lawrence Brooks family from the commander in chief.

Jill and I send heartfelt condolences as you mourn the loss of your beloved Lawrence," he read from President Joe Biden's letter. "Please know that our entire country is standing with you during this difficult time.

Lawrence will be remembered as a strong man and a good soldier. As a member of the greatest generation, he served our nation with honor and represented the best of who we are as Americans.

Brooks died Jan. 4 at age 112, having been feted annually on his final few birthdays with tens of thousands of cards from well-wishers across the country and either a party at the museum or a visit to his Central City house by the museums singing trio, the Victory Belles. Last year on Veterans Day, Biden called Brooks to say he was one of the reasons our country is still free."

A native of Norwood, north of Baton Rouge, Brooks was drafted into the Army in 1940 at age 31. He was discharged in August 1945 and worked as a forklift operator in New Orleans until he retired.

Richmond, a Louisiana state legislator who went to Washington D.C. in 2011 as a member of Congress elected from New Orleans, said he felt thankful for Brooks, a Black man like himself, who lived through countless hardships - including Jim Crow segregation, racism and integration - but opened many doors for Richmonds generation.

Because he was here, I can be here, said Richmond, 48. Its because of his sacrifice, his courage, his determination that we were able to achieve anything that we wanted to do. It was his blood, sweat and tears that paved the way for me to do all that I have been able to do.

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Brooks also achieved stardom within the Armys 91st Engineer Battalion, which sent his white-gloved pallbearers from Fort Hood, Texas, to bury one of their own.

You cant Google the 91st without finding out about Lawrence Brooks, said Lt Col. Patrick Sullivan, the battalions commander. Its a diverse unit now, but at the time Brooks served, as a private first class, it was made up of Black soldiers led by White officers. They were dispatched throughout the Pacific Theater, in Australia, New Guinea and the Philippines to build airstrips, bridges and roads. Brooks also spent time shining shoes, cooking, cleaning and chauffeuring White officers.

Brooks, said Sullivan, epitomized the three-word motto of his battalion: Acts, Not Words. And that action came despite barriers. The very country that he defended in combat, at the time, did not recognize him as an equal because of the color of his skin.

After the service, the One Shot Brass Band played the funeral dirge A Closer Walk with Thee outside the museum, and women mourners changed out of heels to dance as Brooks flag-draped casket was carried through the Central Business District on a caisson pulled by two white Clydesdales. Hundreds of cars and Jeeps, many festooned with U.S. flags, followed.

Reki Smith, 13, one of Brooks 32 great-grandchildren, said he had not realized how famous his ancestor was until Richmond read Bidens letter aloud.

That was cool, he said. Awesome. Amazing.

Still, his memories are of an unassuming, loving family patriarch who gave big hugs on holidays and watched Saints games with him and his cousins. To me, hes just grandpa, Reki said.
Anne Rice, the New Orleans-born author of the beyond-popular 1976 novel Interview with the Vampire and several sequels, returned to her hometown Saturday afternoon.

Rice, who died Dec. 11 at age 80 in Rancho Mirage, California, where shed lived for the past few years, was flown into Louis Armstrong International Airport. From there her remains were borne to Lake Lawn Funeral Home and Cemeteries, by hearse, attended by a motorcycle police escort.

The acclaimed queen of contemporary Gothic literature would later be placed in a stately, neoclassical crypt that was first built as the final resting place for her husband, the poet and artist Stan Rice, who died in 2002. A daughter, Michele Rice, who died of leukemia as a child in the 1970s, is also interred there.

A white tent was erected adjacent to the tomb, to protect the attendees of Anne Rice's private memorial ceremony from Saturday's wind and persistent rain. Urns on the steps of the tomb gushed with large white and pale-green bouquets.

Rices son and fellow author, Chris Rice, answering questions by email via a publicist on the day before the funeral, said his mothers burial ceremony would be accompanied by a violinist performing some of her favorite songs, including "Younger Than Springtime" and "Overhead the Moon is Beaming." The latter, he wrote, is a classic Sigmund Romberg tune she used to sing to me as a lullaby as a child.

Chris Rice said he accompanied his mothers body on her final flight, with a handful of her staff, relatives and friends, including the author Eric Shaw Quinn.

Saturdays service was intended for the close family, where we could privately express our grief, he said. But he assured his mothers fans that we're planning a very large public celebration of life in New Orleans later in the year, one that will be fun and loud and glittering and absolutely Anne.

He attributed the delay of a celebratory Crescent City sendoff to the surging COVID-19 pandemic. We're hoping that circumstances will allow more of the world to open up in the months ahead, and this will allow all our beloved covens from all over the time they need to gather, he wrote.

The day before the funeral, three Rice fans arrived at the 150-year-old cemetery to behold her crypt. Terri Kelly of Phoenix momentarily choked up at the realization that the beloved author would soon be sealed behind its heavy metal gate.

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Rice has been a part of my life since I was 18, said Kelly, who is now 52. When news reached her of Rices death, she mourned. Rice, she said, was among her pantheon of personal heroes, including Stephen King, Ozzy Osbourne and Clive Barker.

She said she makes pilgrimages to Rice sites every time she visits New Orleans. In the hours before the funeral, other Rice fans left small tributes at the entrance to the tomb, including a palmfull of pebbles, a ring, a photograph and a Carnival mask.

The weather was dreadful Saturday, with dramatic purple-gray skies, mist and occasional downpours. Anne Rice, who sometimes arrived at book signings in a coffin, might have considered the tearful atmosphere an enhancement.

Chris Rice, 43, said the last years of his mothers life were an opportunity to become closer, both geographically - she moved from New Orleans to southern California to be nearer him - and emotionally. At the height of his mothers success, he said, he had been a typical rebellious teen who took a dismissive and anxious attitude toward his parents, distancing himself from them.

But more recently, he and his illustrious mother became professional colleagues and business partners, even writing two novels together.

Rice's alluring antihero, Lestat, is among New Orleans' favorite fictional archetypes, right up there with Stanley Kowalski and Ignatius J. Reilly. Her tomb, on Lake Lawn's oak-lined Avenue Bell, stands amid other ornate burial chambers bearing real-life Crescent City icons with names such as Fertel, Schwegmann and Besthoff. At the end of the block lies Al Copeland, founder of the Popeyes Fried Chicken chain, with whom she once famously feuded.

Rice, for whom New Orleans architecture was sacred, bristled when Copeland opened a restaurant with a deliberately glitzy design at a St. Charles Avenue location that was a crucial locale in her Vampire Chronicles. She famously made her feelings known in 1997 via a full-page advertisement in The Times-Picayune. Copeland responded with a lawsuit that failed.

As irony would have it, the old adversaries are now neighbors.
A magistrate court commissioner increased bail to $1.4 million Saturday for Benjamin Beale, accused of beating and strangling Julia Dardar, dismembering her body and stuffing the parts in a freezer inside a bus at their shared New Orleans house.

Beale was booked with second-degree murder late Friday, after an autopsy determined that Dardar has been beaten and strangled. The 36-year-old mother of two teenaged daughters split with her husband and moved in with Beale in 2021. Her husband reported her missing Dec. 23, three days after a friend said he saw Beale driving her car without her.

Police went to question Beale twice over the coming days. They said Beale told them Dardar had been the process of moving out of the house, and that she might have taken her own life or overdosed on illegal substances.

Officers say they doubted the story, so they obtained a search warrant and returned Tuesday at midday to Beale's property in the 2300 block of Pauline Street, in the Florida neighborhood. Inside a deep freezer, in a bus that was parked in the backyard, they found a womans headless torso, a head, hands and other body parts. The freezer was connected to the house's electricity. Nearby was a power saw, goggles, plastic garbage bags and a face shield.

Police then booked Beale, 34, who also is also known as Kelley Kirkpatrick, with obstruction of justice and running a methamphetamine laboratory at the house. Investigators said they found ingredients and equipment used to produce the highly addictive drug.

Authorities couldnt immediately identify the corpse or determine the cause of death, however, because the remains had to thaw. By Friday that had happened, and they confirmed it was Dardar, as they had suspected all along.

An autopsy showed she had been beaten and strangled, police said. Investigators obtained a warrant to book Beale, still in custody from Tuesday's arrest, with second-degree murder.

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Beale was initially jailed in lieu of $400,000 bail. On Saturday, Magistrate Court Commissioner Albert Thibodeaux added $1 million during a brief virtual hearing.

Second-degree murder is punished by life in prison in Louisiana. Obstruction of justice carries a maximum prison term of 40 years.

Attorneys for Beale said little during Saturday's court hearing, saying they would reserve their bail-related arguments for a later proceeding.

Dardars survivors include two daughters, ages 13 and 17. Loved ones remembered the Slidell resident as an artistic person who loved working on cars as a mechanic and doting on her girls, before she developed a meth addiction that precipitated a split from her husband, among other things.

One of the things over which Dardar and Beale reportedly bonded was their affinity for Burning Man, the free-form art and music festival held annually in the Nevada desert. Last year, they wrote online that they went to California together to collect a bus that a fellow "burner" had left to Beale in a will. Dardar helped fix the bus before the pair returned to New Orleans some time after Hurricane Ida struck Aug. 29, according to neighbors and some of her writings online.

Late Friday, Dardars estranged husband, in a Facebook post, told Beale and another person to burn in hell.

No matter who did it, the post read, I hold you two (expletive) responsible  in leading her down this path and not stopping it.
A Lafayette man was sentenced this week to 10 months in prison for his role in a broad insurance scam to stage traffic accidents with 18-wheelers in New Orleans.

Ryan Wheaten, 54, is one of 33 defendants charged in the federal investigation. Thirty have pleaded guilty, including Wheaten, who copped to mail fraud conpiracy.

U.S. District Judge Lance Africk, whom President George W. Bush nominated to the court, ordered Wheaten imprisoned on Wednesday and mandated that he pay $11,000 in restitution.

Prosecutors said Wheaten and three other people were traveling in a pickup truck that crashed May 17, 2017, into a tractor-trailer merging onto the Pontchartrain Expressway near Calliope Street. Their driver, known as a "slammer," got out and fled in a waiting vehicle operated by a "spotter." One of the other passengers slid behind the wheel of the wrecked pickup truck, told police he had been driving and blamed the trucker for the wreck.

Wheaten and other defendants filed claims for injuries, and an insurance company paid them about $10,000, the government said.
A tip to Crimestoppers Inc. helped investigators identify and arrest a man in a fatal hit-and-run in the French Quarter, New Orleans police said Saturday.

Officers apprehended Rodolfo Gonzales, 29, on Friday night in the 6300 block of Chef Menteur Highway. He's accused of striking and fatally injuring a pedestrian Jan. 9 in the 100 block of Bourbon Street.

The Police Department released a photo of the suspect SUV and sought the public's help on Friday at about 4 p.m., and arrested Gonzales about four hours later.
TOKYO, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Daichi Nakashima, an editor at a Japanese publishing house, told Xinhua at a recent reading event in Tokyo that he hopes his novel can help more Japanese, especially Japanese teenagers, increase "their understanding of other cultures and contribute to the cross-cultural communication between Japanese and Chinese teenagers."

In 2019, Nakashima, who won the Panda Cup Japan Youth Essay Contest in Japan, wrote a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping to send his greetings and best wishes and express his willingness to promote China-Japan friendship.

Xi wrote back to him, expressing his hope that the young people of the two countries would make positive contributions to creating a better future for bilateral relations.

Nakashima was greatly encouraged, saying he takes it as his mission to make positive contributions to creating a better future for bilateral ties.

The Japanese young man said so and did so. Since then, he has spent his spare time helping Chinese students apply for Japanese universities at an overseas study service agency, while volunteering to help students who have just arrived in Japan catch up on the Japanese language.

During this process, Nakashima gained a deeper understanding of the difficulties foreign students face in their study and life after coming to Japan, and their efforts to integrate into the Japanese society, which he recorded in his first novel, Polaris of the Border.

The main character, a Chinese girl who followed her mother to Japan as a child, tells the story of her struggle to assimilate into the Japanese society and find her identity while helping foreign students and befriending many foreigners.

The novel won the 61st Children's Literature Award for New Writers organized by Kodansha, a famous publishing house in Japan.

The novel combines elements including Chinese pop songs and popular foods, from which readers can learn about Chinese culture and people's living conditions. The Kodansha jury said it is "a work that crosses borders and thinks from the perspective of the earth."

"There is a lot of children's literature in Japan about Japanese children overcoming difficulties and achieving success, but there are very few works featuring foreign children, and there are very few novels about cross-cultural communication. Maybe that's why 'Polaris of the Border' stands out," Nakashima said.

Nakashima said he hopes people would communicate across cultures while keeping in mind their own cultural roots.

"Due to the epidemic, people from Japan and China have had fewer opportunities to meet and communicate in the past two years. I hope Japanese readers can feel the real and fresh side of other countries through my novel," Nakashima said.

"This year marks the 50th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and China. I hope my novel can be translated into Chinese in the future and contribute to the cross-cultural communication between the young people of the two countries," he said. 
A Port Sulphur woman has died two weeks after being injured a New Year's Day traffic wreck near Alliance, Louisiana State Police said Saturday.

Troopers said Anara Miller, 28, was southbound in a 2018 Ford Fiesta, in the left lane of Louisiana 23, when the wreck occurred at about 2 a.m. To her right was a southbound 2022 Subara Ascent driven by Jose Garcia-Bonilla, 44. Garcia-Bonilla tried to turn left near Windmill Lane, but Miller's car struck his on the left side.

Miller, unrestrained, suffered severe injuries and was taken to a hospital. She died Friday.

Garcia-Bonilla, restrained in his car, suffered minor injuries. He has been cited for improper turning.

Toxicology tests for whether Miller was impaired are pending. Tests of Garcia-Bonilla's blood indicate he was not impaired, State Police said.
It may be going too far to accuse Endymion of inciting civil war, but it just staked out a position in disputes that are roiling American society.

Its choice of grand marshal for this year's version of its superkrewe parade is Raymond Arroyo, who has come to dominate religious cable as news director and top host at Alabama-based Eternal Word Television Network, which habitually denigrates Pope Francis and truckles to former President Donald Trump.

While Trump's fantasies about stolen elections have split civil society down the middle, progressives and traditionalists within the church are so rancorously on the outs that the possibility of schism is being raised in Catholic circles.

This is nothing new, and, while earlier schisms have led not only to warfare but to such delights as the Spanish Inquisition, a latterday Torquemada is inconceivable in modern America. Arroyo is nevertheless a throwback to an intolerant era, according to the National Catholic Reporter, which sees him as more akin to Cotton Mather than to any historical Catholic figure.

Arroyo is a native and resident of New Orleans who felt like a good choice to lead the parade because he is a very vibrant person with connections to many people here, according to Endymion President Dan Kelly.

That Arroyo is a Catholic might be more of an advantage in New Orleans if he didn't come across as a harbinger of schism. Pope Francis calls EWTN's disparagement of the church the work of the devil.

The issues that divide Catholics will strike outsiders in the 21st century as, to put it politely, quaint. There are still plenty, for instance, who accept that they are eating the actual flesh and drinking the actual blood of Christ when they receive consecrated bread and wine at Mass. Although it is unlikely that rows about transubstantiation will break out along the neutral ground as Endymion rolls down Orleans Avenue, Arroyo's starring role will remind the faithful of more current bones of contention.

The magisterium these days is liberal on such questions as the death penalty and the treatment of immigrants. But all liberal notions strike the church's reactionary wing, with Arroyo to the fore, as degenerate. Meanwhile, on EWTN, as NCR puts it, faith is always made subservient to a political agenda, a Republican and increasingly Trumpian agenda.

Relations are no more harmonious on the secular front, where Barbara Walter's new book, How Civil Wars Start, and How to Stop Them, warns that the USA is within the danger zone and has the commentariat in a tizzy.

Arroyo is not the first Endymion grand marshal from the world of television, but Anderson Cooper, who filled the role in 2011, was not a controversial choice, being best known at the time for news reports out of New Orleans on CNN in the aftermath of Katrina.

There was a time when Carnival krewes took on weighty issues in their parades, however. The most striking came in 1873, when Comus rolled with a creationist lampoon of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, and 1877, when Momus launched a savage attack on Louisiana's Reconstruction government.

In modern times, Endymion and its fellow superkrewes Bacchus and Orpheus have tended to select grand marshals celebrated for pizzazz rather than activism. But, especially after a COVID-induced hiatus, maybe Arroyo's views about the Catholic church will be overlooked amid the jollity leading up to Shrove Tuesday.

Email James Gill at gill504nola@gmail.com.
As a new election year dawns, Republican U.S. Sen. John Kennedy has two challengers for reelection, and each one has a role model in mind.

Newcomer Luke Mixon is planning to follow the John Bel Edwards playbook.

A moderate Democrat who also graduated from a prestigious military academy  the U.S. Naval Academy, not Edwards West Point  Mixon is angling to buck the states overall Republican leanings by running up the center. Like Edwards, Mixon hails from a rural part of the state. Like Edwards, hes out to put a little distance between himself and the national party, and to focus on integrity as well as issues.

In explaining their common outlooks, Mixon told the Baton Rouge Press Club last week that Edwards does a fantastic job of always putting the people of Louisiana over his political party and his politics.

Gary Chambers, who joined Mixon in announcing for the six-year term last week, is looking not to Baton Rouge but to Atlanta for inspiration.

An enthusiastically progressive Baton Rouge consultant and activist who fared surprisingly well in a losing bid for Congress last year  most notably in heavily Democratic New Orleans  Chambers has likened himself to U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, the first Black Democratic senator elected from the South. Warnocks other relevant distinction here is that he unseated a Republican incumbent (albeit an appointed one, Kelly Loeffler) as Chambers aims to do.

Georgia is on my mind and all theyve done there. ... Our demographics are similar, he said, although the two states voting patterns, of late, have diverged.

Kennedy may be the old hand of the bunch, but hes got a role model in all this, too: a guy named David Vitter.

Not the Vitter who lost badly to Edwards for governor in 2015, but the Vitter who won reelection to the seat Kennedy now holds in 2010.

At the time, Vitter was coming off the same prostitution scandal that Edwards would use to such brutal effect five years later, but he still easily defeated Blue Dog Democratic U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon of Napoleonville. He did it not by running so much against Melancon, but against the sitting Democratic president at the time, Barack Obama.

It worked so well that U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy mimicked him in 2014, when he took out three-term Democratic incumbent Mary Landrieu by highlighting how often she voted with Obama.

When Vitter retired and Kennedy ran in 2016, he too followed suit by rallying behind then-candidate Donald Trump, although he really didnt need the coattails. And even after Trump lost four years later, Kennedy stuck with him and voted against certifying President Joe Bidens win in Arizona, the basis for Mixons contention that the senator lacked the moral courage to do the right thing.

Moral courage notwithstanding, the underlying advantage all these men had was the R next to their names, at a time when Senate races  unlike gubernatorial contests, although they are shifting more in this direction  tend to serve as referenda on national politics.

It makes sense. The party that controls the Senate can help a presidents agenda become reality, or make sure it doesnt.

Thats how Republican leader Mitch McConnell was able to push through Trumps last-minute nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court after having refused to give Obama nominee Merrick Garland a hearing. Thats why many Democrats want to exempt voting rights legislation from the filibuster and use their narrow majority to pass it without having to attract Republican votes.

All of this may matter more than the fact that Kennedys most memorable first term moments have been his goofy appearances on Fox News, or that Mixon looks good on paper and Chambers has a track record of appealing to voters and raising money.

And it may matter more than the looming debate about the candidates actual qualities, even though that part of the campaign promises to be entertaining. It already is, actually, thanks to a video that Chambers released showing in no uncertain terms that Kennedys hokey drawl is a recent affectation.

Chambers also pointed out in the video that Kennedy, in his earlier incarnation, was a Democrat.

Unless his opponents can make like Edwards and Warnock and flip the script, the fact that he no longer is could be enough to send him back to Washington.
The text of a Supreme Court opinion and even the justices votes can change, sometimes dramatically, between the time they take a first vote on the case during a private conference following oral arguments and when the decision is announced. That happened in the 1992 abortion case Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which reaffirmed the right to abortion. Initially, as Evan Thomas recounted in his biography of Justice Sandra Day OConnor, it seemed there were five justices willing to overrule Roe v. Wade. But that May, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote to Justice Harry Blackmun that there had been some developments. Kennedy and OConnor and Justice David Souter had been meeting secretly to save a womans right to abortion, Thomas wrote.
Scranton, Pa. - A Clarks Summit man was sentenced to prison after being found guilty of fraud, aggravated identity theft, and false statement offenses for a scheme that spanned three states.

United States District Court Judge Malachy E. Mannion sentenced Brian Larry, 60, to 94 months' imprisonment. A federal jury previously convicted Larry of all 13 charges in his indictment on May 10, 2021.

According to United States Attorney John C. Gurganus, Larry defrauded his former employer, a Wilkes-Barre based automobile warranty company, out of over $400,000.

From January 2014 through October 2018, Larry, the manager of the claims department, stole the personal information of warranty policy owners. Larry then provided it to his coconspirators, who created false invoices for nonexistent automobile repair work supposedly performed at various garages in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania.

The scheme included the forgery of the policy owners signatures on the paperwork. The false and forged documentation was then sent to the warranty company, where Larry approved payment of the invoices, in exchange for cash kickbacks.

During the course of the scheme, Larry and his coconspirators obtained approximately $400,000 paid out by the warranty company pursuant to the false invoices, including thousands of dollars in repair work for Larrys personal vehicle that he charged to other policy owners.

The evidence at trial showed that Larry then falsified internal warranty company documents in an attempt to conceal his crimes. When confronted by FBI special agents, Larry denied receiving cash kickbacks in exchange for his participation in the scheme.

In pronouncing the sentence, Judge Mannion highlighted that Larry had expressed no remorse for his illegal conduct. Judge Mannion also ordered Larry to pay $394,701.96 to the victim of his crimes, and to serve three years of supervised release following service of his imprisonment term.

Three of Larrys coconspirators also were convicted in this investigation:

1. Matthew Gershkoff, age 64, of North Providence, Rhode Island pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit wire and mail fraud, and to aggravated identity theft, and was sentenced to 30 months of imprisonment and three years of supervised release.

Gershkoff was convicted of preparing false invoices for nonexistent automobile repairs at multiple automobile repair shops located in Rhode Island and in Massachusetts, and for forging policy owners signatures. He pleaded guilty on May 18, 2020, to causing between $250,000 and $550,000 of fraudulent loss to the Wilkes-Barre based automobile warranty company, and was ordered to pay restitution of $385,352.19.

2. Herman Cabral, age 62, of Cranston, Rhode Island, pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit wire fraud, and was sentenced to 10 months of imprisonment and three years of supervised release.

Cabral was convicted of processing false invoices for nonexistent automobile repairs through his Providence, Rhode Island automobile detailing shop, A Plus Auto Services. Cabral pleaded guilty on July 23, 2019, to causing between $150,000 and $250,000 of fraudulent loss to the Wilkes-Barre based automobile warranty company, and was ordered to pay $211,644.03 in restitution.

3. Jason Pannone, age 40, of North Providence, Rhode Island pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit wire and mail fraud, and to aggravated identity theft, and was sentenced to 18 months of imprisonment and two years of supervised release.

Pannone was convicted of processing false invoices for nonexistent automobile repairs through his Providence, Rhode Island automobile detailing shop, Platinum Auto Services, and through Ultra Auto Services, where he was employed. Pannone pleaded guilty on March 23, 2021, to causing between $95,000 and $150,000 of fraudulent loss to the Wilkes-Barre based automobile warranty company, and was ordered to pay restitution of $128,667.16.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Phillip J. Caraballo and Jeffrey St John prosecuted the case.

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Video: All hostages are out alive and safe after an hours-long standoff ended on Saturday night at a synagogue in Colleyville in the U.S. state of Texas. (Xinhua)

At least four hostages, including a rabbi, were taken earlier on Saturday at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, just outside Fort Worth. No injuries were reported among the hostages.



HOUSTON, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- All hostages "are out alive and safe" after an hours-long standoff ended on Saturday night at a synagogue in Colleyville, south central U.S. state Texas, Governor Greg Abbott tweeted.

Colleyville police confirmed the information just before 10 p.m. local time (0400 GMT on Sunday).

A police car is seen blocking the road to the Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, a suburban city of Fort Worth in Texas, the United States, Jan. 15, 2022. (Photo by Dan Tian/Xinhua)

The suspected hostage taker is dead, according to Colleyville Police. Multiple media outlets reported that the suspect claimed to have set bombs in several locations inside the synagogue.

A bang was heard near the synagogue shortly before the rescue, according to a Xinhua reporter on the scene. It wasn't immediately clear what the noise was.

At least four hostages, including a rabbi, were taken earlier on Saturday at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, just outside Fort Worth. No injuries were reported among the hostages, one of whom was released earlier in the evening.

Photo taken with a mobile phone shows Colleyville Police Chief Michael Miller speaking about the hostage rescue at the press briefing in Colleyville, a suburban city of Fort Worth in Texas, the United States, Jan. 15, 2022. (Photo by Dan Tian/Xinhua)

The hostage taker required the release of Aafia Siddiqui, who was sentenced in 2010 to 86 years in prison for the attempted murder and assault of U.S. officers in Afghanistan, and is incarcerated in the federal prison in Fort Worth, local media reported.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki tweeted on Saturday evening that President Joe Biden was briefed on the hostage situation. 
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Pleasant weather for new construction fueled the continued demand for lumber. At the same time, forest fires and transportation problems in British Columbia hurt lumber supply, creating the perfect storm for higher prices.

March lumber, which had traded as low as $500 per thousand board feet in late August, blasted to $1,244 on Thursday. Building supply stores may have to pass their higher costs on as builders and do-it-yourselfers compete to buy before prices escalate further.

Midday Friday, lumber for March delivery brought $1,314 per thousand board feet.

Gas traders on Russia watch

Natural gas, nitrogen fertilizer and wheat could be in for wild swings as NATO nations continue to resolve the build-up of troops along the Ukrainian border.

Saber rattling increased Thursday as a Russian foreign minister stated Moscow might deploy troops to Venezuela or Cuba if tensions with the U.S. continue. Russia produces natural gas for Europe and can throttle supply at their political whim.

Natural gas is used to make anhydrous ammonia (providing nitrogen for corn), so farmers are especially interested in any related geopolitical news.

March natural gas traded $4.05 per 10,000 BTU.

Grains get dumped

Grains fell sharply Thursday following Wednesdays USDA crop report. The report was generally perceived as neutral but prompted selling as much-needed moisture arrived in Argentina and traders liquidated huge positions ahead of the Martin Luther King exchange holiday.

Rising inflation numbers at retail and wholesale levels should be bullish for grains, helping farmers fetch higher prices.

However, fears of a sharp rise in input costs, especially land and fertilizer, continue to plague their hopes of overall profits.

The price of anhydrous ammonia, for example, has climbed to $688 per ton, a big jump compared to last year.

As of midday Friday, corn for March delivery traded at $5.94 per bushel, March wheat brought $7.40, and March beans were at $13.69. Oats were the biggest percentage loser, dropping 60 cents per bushel at $6.08 by Friday.

Inflation rate roars skyward

In addition to housing costs, cars, gas and food led the way up in the latest Department of Labors Consumer Price Index released Wednesday morning. Animal proteins and new vehicles raced up the fastest.

The Producer Price Index indicated a 9.7 % increase compared to last year.

Opinions are solely the writers. Walt Breitinger is a commodity futures broker in Valparaiso. He can be reached at 800-411-3888 or www.indianafutures.com. This is not a solicitation of any order to buy or sell any market.

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YINCHUAN, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Police in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region have busted an online drug trafficking racket, arresting a total of 55 suspects, according to the regional narcotics control office.

Through joint efforts of the Ningxia police and police from Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Guangdong Province, Sichuan Province and Chongqing Municipality, among other regions, the gang operating in 15 provinces, regions and cities was busted.

In May 2020, police in Ningxia's Shizuishan City found that a man surnamed Zhao from the regional capital Yinchuan had purchased cannabis leaves in large quantities through the internet multiple times and sold them to drug addicts in various cities in Ningxia.

The police nabbed Zhao in February 2021 and extracted information about the drug trafficking gang from him.

The investigation revealed that a drug peddler from Guangxi bought hemp seeds from abroad, and planted and processed them into marijuana. The peddler then asked others to mail the illicit substance to several locations across the country through express parcels.

This gang of drug peddlers consisted of a six-level drug trafficking network that involved purchasing, planting, processing, distributing, selling and consuming drugs.

To date, 55 suspects have been arrested, and 354 grams of heroin, 244 grams of crystal meth, 4,963.5 grams of methamphetamine and 115 cannabis plants have been seized.

The case has been transferred to prosecution. 
Lake County currently has the second highest death toll since the start of the pandemic in the entire state, with a large increase in the past seven days, according to data from the Indiana Department of Health.

Preceding Lake County, Indianapolis currently the highest reported death toll, with 2,485 residents who have died from coronavirus since 2020.

Statistics updated Friday showed that there have been a total of 1,451 deaths in Lake County, 456 in Porter County, 306 in LaPorte County, 59 in Newton County and 113 in Jasper County.

On Jan. 8, data showed there were 1,394 deaths in Lake County, indicating that 57 more people have died from the virus in the county in a week's time.

Over the past seven days, Porter County recorded nine more deaths, LaPorte recorded 10, Newton County had one more death and Jasper County recorded five more deaths.

In total, COVID-19 has killed a total of 19,491 Hoosiers since the start of the pandemic, indicating an additional 532 deaths statewide in the last seven days, Friday data showed.

State health records show a total of 3,467 Hoosiers were hospitalized with COVID-19 as of Friday, according to the Indiana Department of Health. Currently 37.9% of ICU beds are in use by coronavirus patients with only 9.2% of ICU beds in the state available.

The color-coded classifications for Indiana's 92 counties has 81 counties in the worst-possible red rating and only 11 in the orange designation, with none of the counties in the blue or yellow designations, showing a continuing increase of infections.

The worst-possible red rating indicates an uncontrolled spread of coronavirus, which is classified as 200 or more positive cases per every 100,000 residents.

Currently Lake County, Porter County, LaPorte County, Jasper County and Newton County are all in the red rating.

Across state lines, a total of 7,302 residents in Calumet City and 6,272 residents in Lansing have tested positive for the virus.

State health officials are urging Hoosiers age 5 and up to reduce their chances of COVID-19 infection, hospitalization and death by getting vaccinated against COVID-19, or by getting a COVID-19 booster shot for those previously vaccinated, as soon as possible.

The free COVID-19 vaccine is available, in most cases without an appointment, at 1,488 locations across the state, including retail pharmacies, health clinics and hospitals.

Records show more than 3.59 million Hoosiers age 5 and up, or 59.8% of the state's eligible population, are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, including 54.1% of eligible Lake County residents, 59.8% in Porter County, 54.7% in LaPorte County, 40.3% in Newton County and 45% in Jasper County.

So far, a total of 1,549,826 people have received a booster shot statewide.

A complete list of COVID-19 vaccine sites is available online at ourshot.in.gov.

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Old World Market has brought the world to downtown Valparaiso for decades, serving up vino, prosciutto and other fine imports.

The specialty gourmet grocery store at 76 S Washington St. specializes in cheeses, cured meats, craft beers, wines and artisan foods, mainly imported from Europe.

A destination for gourmands and oenophiles throughout Northwest Indiana, Old World Market just celebrated its 20th year in downtown Valpo last year. It's had three different owners over the years and continues to expand its reach as consumer taste grows more discerning and sophisticated.

"People want to try to new cheeses and wine," owner Patty Locke said. "People have become much more culinary. With the cooking shows and everything on television, big remodels on kitchens and TikTok, people have gotten to feel more comfortable trying new recipes and seeking out the products we carry."

Northwest Indiana is home to several specialty European markets, such as Euro Mart in Dyer, Aroma Euro Market in Schererville and Busy Bee Imports in Merrillville. Imports of European food have been rising, with the United States importing $23.9 billion in agricultural products, including $6.3 billion in wine and beer, in 2019, the most recent year for which data was available, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

A passion for food

Patty Locke and her husband Craig bought Old World Market three years ago.

"Somebody let me know it was for sale," she said. "I had been doing catering. I worked as a chef at Aberdeen Bed and Breakfast and grew up eating and drinking this type of food. I said, 'Let's do it.' I'm from the Region and moved to Valpo 27 years ago. I saw the growth there."

Locke said she's had a passion for food since an early age.

"My family is old world Italian," she said. "We had an Italian dinner every Sunday at 6 p.m. Food is what keeps the family together. I ate and cooked this type of food so it was an easy transition. We took over on a Tuesday and were ready to open the next day."

Since taking over the 1,000-square-foot specialty grocery store, the Lockes have bulked up the deli, sandwich and charcuterie offerings and the wine and cheese club. Whenever the coronavirus pandemic finally recedes, they hope to expand educational offerings, such as classes on wine pairing.

They've also brought in more product lines, stocking many European products, especially from Italy, France, Spain and Holland.

"We have more and different foods," Locke said. "We have more French, more Italian. We now have the lunch boxes and catering for weddings, bridal showers, baby showers and corporate events."

They are always looking for new and interesting items from all over the world.

"There's nothing in that store we don't try," she said. "I'll be up at 3 a.m. looking for new things on the internet. We are competing with the grocery stores so we have to make sure we are one step ahead. We're just a small mom-and-mom shop going up against the big dogs. That's why we try to find amazing foods with clean ingredients that are made with a passion and love for food."

They have expanded the deli, adding many grab-and-go sandwich options such as Italian, muffaletta and turkey sandwiches. They're made with prosciutto and other imported meats that are all sliced on site.

"We make them in the morning and put them in the counter," she said. "Everything is fresh that day. We regularly get calls at 10 a.m. to pull this or that sandwich and set it aside."

Charcuterie also has taken off in popularity since they first took over. Old World Market offers both charcuterie boxes and grazing tables for larger gatherings.

"I grew up eating charcuterie, which was just part of Antipasto, not just cured meats but olives and cheeses," she said. "Charcuterie has blown up. It's taking off quite a bit with our catering. We supply fresh hand-cut cheeses and meats."

The specialty grocery has six different sizes of charcuterie boxes, one of which serves 30 to 40 people. It also once filled a 22-foot-long grazing table for 400 people for Indiana Furniture's 50th anniversary.

"A lot of artistry goes into it, like with arranging the flowers," she said. "We have to have girls on-site for hours. We cut and slice everything ourselves and make it look photogenic. It's a work of art."

Charcuterie has become increasingly popular at social events.

"I think more people are realizing they can entertain without being stuffy," she said. "Meats and cheeses are easy without being fussy."

Exploring flavors, textures

Old World Market also has more than tripled its wine and cheese club from about 48 members to 150 members. Each month members get two wines paired with a cheese.

"It's been exploding. which is great," she said. "We pair cheeses and wines. We know exactly what wines are on our shelves and can tell somebody what flavors go with it. We have wines from all over the world and try to make it more personal and approachable. We teach people it doesn't matter if it costs $6 or $300, it can still be a great bottle of wine. We don't push the most expensive wine. Wine doesn't have to be pretentious. We just really recommend people broaden their horizons." Customized gift baskets also have proven to be a popular addition. People have called in from as far as California and Oregon to order baskets, which can be loaded with a tailored selection of meats, cheeses, snacks, mustards, pretzels and candies. "It's an easy gift that we make personalized depending on people's tastes," she said. "They've been popular with realtors who want to pick up a little gift for the housewarming." The Lockes run their store with the help of their daughter Julianna and son Roman. "People love the family atmosphere," she said. "It's easy and comfortable. It's a family-owned business. I've found people appreciate family-owned businesses." Old World Market has many regular customers, some of whom show up at the same time every Saturday morning.

"It's a great shop," she said. "It's been a staple of downtown Valparaiso."

Locke would like to eventually expand the space to be able to offer counter service. Old World Market also wants to do more wine tastings and expand upon charcuterie and wine and cheese classes it has taught at a few retirement communities in Valparaiso, when it's safe to do so.

"We offer classes at different locations, whether people's homes or stores," she said. "We teach your palate how to break down flavor notes or about the different textures and flavors of food, how just a little bit of honey on a spicy meat can add an explosion of flavor."

Locke said she's glad to share her passion for food with others.

"When I was growing up, I was the kid who brought prosciutto or mortadella sandwiches to school," she said. "Now it's popular and cool. I think with television and social media it's become more more OK to try new ethnic foods and explore different meats, cheeses and candies from around the world. People want to know how sweet a pastry from Italy is. They want to try new things and new flavors."

For more information, visit oldworldmarketonline.com or call 219-476-0700.

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CROWN POINT  The coronavirus pandemic caused a delay in a trial for a man charged with murdering a 14-year-old Chicago girl and dumping her body in a Gary alley in 2019.

Deonlashawn Simmons, 36, had been scheduled to face a Lake Criminal Court jury starting Jan. 31.

Judge Natalie Bokota told Simmons on Friday morning she and her colleagues in the Lake Superior Court Criminal Division canceled trials scheduled in January due to concern about the spread of COVID-19 in Lake County.

Simmons has pleaded not guilty in the murder of Takaylah Tribitt, who was found shot to death Sept. 16, 2019, in an alley near East 20th Avenue and Pennsylvania Street.

The teen had been sexually assaulted, her hands were bound behind her back with a cord and a separate cord was wrapped around her neck. None of Tribitt's injuries appeared to be consistent with a struggle or strangulation, according to court documents.

Defense attorney Michael A. Campbell said Simmons wanted to keep the case on the trial calendar because the parties remained deeply divided despite discussions of a possible nontrial resolution.

Bokota rescheduled Simmons' trial for the week of March 14.

The judge did not address Simmons' pending motion to suppress his statements to detectives with the Lake County/Gary Metro Homicide Unit during two interviews in the fall of 2020.

Campbell wrote in court filings that police obtained statements from Simmons in violation of his Miranda rights.

Detectives asked Simmons questions about his Facebook profile before they verbally advised him of his Miranda rights, did not provide him with a written copy of his Miranda rights, and didn't tell him they were there to speak with him about a homicide investigation or that the interviews were being recorded.

Lake County Deputy Prosecutor Douglas Shaw wrote videos showed the detectives read Simmons his constitutional rights, repeatedly stopping to ask if he understood them. Each time, Simmons nodded his head up and down and verbally acknowledged he understood, Shaw wrote.

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Many of America's most populous cities reported record-breaking homicide totals last year, but much of Northwest Indiana avoided becoming part of that trend.

Gary, which has accounted for a majority of Lake County's homicides since reporting began in 1985, ended the year with six fewer cases than it recorded in 2020.

Gary logged 48 homicides in 2021, or about 54.5% of the 88 homicides reported in all of Lake County, according to police and death records.

It's the second-lowest percentage of Lake County cases Gary has ever reported. The last time Gary reported a lower percentage was in 2011, when it logged 30 of the county's 56 cases, or about 53.6%.

The only Northwest Indiana community that didn't buck the national trend was Hammond, which shares a border with Chicago, Burnham and Calumet City in Cook County.

The Cook County medical examiner's office said earlier this month preliminary data showed it handled 1,087 homicides cases, marking the first time since 1994 that it had seen more than 1,000 cases.

Hammond saw 16 homicides in 2021, up from six in 2020 and nine in 2019, records showed.

The last time Hammond logged more than 16 homicides was in 2000, when the city reported 22, FBI data showed.

Hammond detectives secured charges in half of last year's cases, resulting in a clearance rate of 50%, Lake Criminal Court records showed.

The Lake County/Gary Metro Homicide Unit cleared about 46% of cases in 2021, resulting in a higher clearance rate than the city has seen in years past, Gary police Cmdr. Jack Hamady said.

Of the city's 48 homicides, detectives secured charges in 11 cases, eight were pending review by the Lake County prosecutor's office and three cases were closed for other reasons, such as the death of a suspect, he said.

East Chicago Deputy Police Chief Jose Rivera said police have cleared five of the 13 cases recorded this year, or about 39%.

The city logged 12 homicides in 2020 and seven in 2019. Police recently secured charges in a 2020 homicide, bringing the clearance rate for that year to 100%.

In most of the 2021 cases, detectives discovered the victims knew the suspects, he said.

"It was something personal. Whether it was drugs or not," Rivera said. "Acquaintances, family  whatever the situation may be, they knew the suspects. They weren't just random."

Guns used in 86% of cases

Rising gun violence proved to be one national trend Northwest Indiana didn't buck in 2021.

Gunshot wounds were the cause of death in 86.4% of the 103 confirmed homicides across Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties in 2021, up from about 81% of cases in 2020. The cause or manner of death in three cases in 2021 remained pending.

Firearms were used in 44 of Gary's 48 homicides, 15 of Hammond's 16 cases, 12 of East Chicago's 13 cases, five of Michigan City's six cases and all three of Merrillville's confirmed homicides. Merrillville police did not respond to a request for comment about a possible fourth homicide case, which also involved a gun.

The manner of death also remained pending in a Porter County sheriff's police case, which involved two men whose deaths were caused by gunshot wounds.

Blunt force trauma was a cause of death in eight homicides in 2021, down from nine in 2020. Five people were stabbed to death in 2021, up from three in 2020. In one Michigan City case, a woman died from chemical poisoning, officials said.

The number of children who died by homicide fell in 2021 after rising for three years in a row.

Six children were killed in Northwest Indiana in 2021, down from 15 in 2020, 12 in 2019 and four in 2018, data showed.

Three of the children killed in 2021 died at the hands of family members, according to police and court records.

Darius Whitley, 7 months, died from blunt force trauma March 8 after his mother left him in the care of family member April Gross, 17, records state. Gross was charged with murder, but she subsequently was deemed incompetent to stand trial.

Judah Morgan, 4, of LaPorte County, and Keegan Fugate, 3, of Gary, were killed Oct. 11 and 12, respectively, both shortly after they were returned to the care of their biological parents, court records showed.

The LaPorte County prosecutor's office charged Judah's father and mother in his homicide. The Lake County prosecutor's office filed charges against Keegan's mother and her boyfriend.

Three children were killed by gunfire in 2021, down from five in 2020.

Thomas DeLaCruz, 13, was shot to death Oct. 31 while trick-or-treating with other children in Hammond's Hessville section. Mark Evans, 16, was shot to death Aug. 27 while driving with an adult passenger in Gary.

Tobigah Goins, 17, of Gary, was fatally shot Nov. 12 in Gary. Two men wounded in an exchange of gunfire with Goins told police the boy had tried to rob one of them.

Two law enforcement officers lost their lives in the line of duty in 2021.

Lt. Eugene Lasco, a correctional officer at Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, was fatally stabbed and another correctional officer was wounded in an attack Feb. 21. The Indiana Department of Correction named a 38-year-old inmate as a suspect, but the inmate has not been charged, online court records showed.

Retired police Officer Richard Castellana, 55, of Tinley Park, was shot to death June 11 when he was ambushed by two men during a bank robbery at the First Midwest Bank branch in Calumet Township, according to federal court records.

Castellana was working as a security guard at the bank. He retired from the Cook County Sheriff's Office in 2019, after 35 years of service.

Besides Lasco's homicide at Indiana State Prison, two inmates died as a result of stabbings inside the facility, according to Indiana State Police and LaPorte County Coroner Lynn Swanson.

Daniel L. Heflin, 30, originally of Goshen, died Jan. 20 after he was stabbed in the head, Swanson said. He was serving a sentence for a murder in Elkhart County. Indiana State Police detectives secured charges against two men, and charges against a third person were pending further review, Indiana State Police Sgt. Glen Fifield said.

Juwan Jones, 25, originally of South Bend, bled to death Oct. 15 as a result of stab wounds, Swanson said. He was serving a sentence for an attempted murder in South Bend, court records showed.

The number of people killed by police fell to two in 2021, down from five in 2020.

Mark Bivins, 28, of Lansing, was fatally shot when he exchanged gunfire with police after a pursuit that started in Dyer and ended with a crash in Munster. A man riding in a vehicle with Bivins was charged with felony unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon and resisting law enforcement.

Alexander Tuzinski, 30, died May 1 after he was shot by Porter County sheriff's police, who entered his South Haven home following a call several hours earlier about a disturbance.

Police said Tuzinski had a gun in his hand. His family has questioned how officers handled the situation. Prosecutor County Prosecutor Gary Germann said in August he had reviewed all reports and body camera footage and determined the shooting was tragic but justified.

Chief: More work to be done

Tuzinski's homicide was the only case recorded by Porter County sheriff's police, but the cause and manner of death for two people remained pending.

Adam Pritchard, 30, and Andrew Howell, 32, were found shot to death Dec. 13 at a home in the 600 block of Grandview Avenue, north of Valparaiso. Cpl. Benjamin McFalls said the case remained under investigation and no further details about the circumstances of the deaths could be released.

The Porter County Sheriff's Department recorded zero homicides in 2020 and three in 2019, previously released data showed.

Valparaiso recorded three homicides, up from two in 2020 and zero in 2019, according to city police and the Porter County coroner's office.

"It is important to note that these investigations were not random acts of violence that occurred within our community," police Sgt. Joe Hall said. "Each investigation revealed a connection or association between the victim and his assailant."

Valparaiso police thanked community members for their support during the investigations and offered condolences to the family and friends of each of the victims, he said.

Portage reported zero homicides in 2021, down from one in 2020 and two in 2019.

"Portage is a very safe city where random violence is not something we generally experience," Sgt. Rob Maynard said.

Homicide is often the end result of a high-risk lifestyle, he said.

"Gang membership, participating in the drug trade and substance abuse are the three strongest predicating factors to being the victim," he said. "If you can stay away from those, youve made some good lifestyle choices, which will contribute to overall personal safety."

Indiana State Police investigated and secured charges against a woman in connection with a fatal shooting Sept. 27 on the Indiana Toll Road in Lake County.

Hobart recorded two homicides in 2021, up from zero in 2020 and 2019. Police secured charges in both cases, one of which was the shooting death of 75-year-old Region attorney William "Bill" Enslen.

In Michigan City, Police Chief Dion Campbell said his department is "cognizant of the fact that we have much work to do," despite a decrease of one homicide in 2021.

"We collectively understand that our world had become more and more complex," Campbell said. "Instead of pointing fingers, the Michigan City Police Department  along with our elected officials and community members  will be working together to provide solutions and strategies to combat these violent crime trends."

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VALPARAISO  The Board of Commissioners got pushback this week on spending plans for the countys $33 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding.

Elizabeth Gingrich, of Valparaiso, urged the commissioners to devote some of the money to addressing clean air issues.

We have a very slim window of time to act, she said. The United States ranks highest for per capita for carbon emissions, and Indiana and Louisiana are the two worst states. Indiana also is ranks third for coal consumption. Porter County is 1.4 times the federal standard for air pollution emissions, she added.

Our kids are breathing in diesel fumes, the dirtiest sort of energy, twice a day, Gingrich said. The county could use some of its money to shift to electric buses or put solar panels on county buildings, she said.

Homelessness, mental health and opioid addiction are other areas where the county could spend some of the money, Gingrich added.

Have a special meeting where people dont have to take off a day from work where people can come and put in their 2 cents, she said.

Robin Lane, of Valparaiso, urged others to familiarize themselves with the toolkit on spending local coronavirus recovery funds, which she found on the states website, IN.gov.

Im very aware of it, Commissioner Jim Biggs, R-North, said.

Theres actually a couple of teams that its recommending we get together, including government leaders, teachers, educators, health care workers, nonprofits, engineers and lawyers, Lane said. She urged the county to form a team with representatives like these to assess the disparate impact on affected sectors and look at ways to address these issues.

As a healthcare worker, I am absolutely heartbroken that so many people are suffering right now, she said.

Sheila Sweeney, of Valparaiso, shared an online petition with more than 130 signatures and comments so far.

As a citizen, I feel like the pandemic wreaked a lot of havoc, Sweeney said. Its not over.

Deaths resulting from domestic violence are up 186% over pandemic in Indiana, she noted. Housing Opportunities had to give tents to the homeless last summer for lack of housing options. The county jail is the only place people can recover from addiction, she said.

The $5.5 million for the (Memorial) Opera House seems excessive to me, Sweeney said. If its possible, rescind this plan and start over to get public input.

There should be vigorous opportunity for public input from all your citizens as well as your nonprofits, she said.

Gilles Charriere, of Valparaiso, also criticized the plan for spending the first half of the $33 million. Everybody Ive talked to so far is not thinking this plan is wise.

I feel like we need to do a do-over, he said. Charriere asked the commissioners to pass a resolution urging the County Council to vote against the commissioners own ordinance on how to use the first tranche of the ARPA funds.

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INDIANAPOLIS  Last year was one of the bloodiest years in Indiana history as Indianapolis set yet another homicide record with 271 murders, while Evansville, Fort Wayne and South Bend all had deadly years.

Perhaps, just perhaps ... its because Indiana is awash in guns.

On Tuesday, the Indiana House voted 63-29 on HB1077 the constitutional carry bill that would abolish permits to carry handguns. According to National Instant Criminal Background Check System that was created by the 1998 Brady Act, these checks have increased steadily over the past three years after spiking during the 2016 election cycle.

Indiana NICS firearms checks totaled 1,815,531 in 2021, down slightly from 1,935,587 in 2020. In 2019, there were 1,450,565 checks. These checks spiked to 1,436,725 in 2016 and 1,076,917 in 2015 when there was speculation that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was heavily favored over Donald Trump. Rumors were rampant that a third Clinton administration would herald new gun restrictions.

While Indiana has a population of 6.8 million people, the NICS checks during these five years totaled 7.7 million.

Donald Trump pulled off the most stunning upset in American history in 2016, and afterwards NICS checks declined to 830,357 in 2017 and 896,145 in 2018.

In 2021, Indiana had 972 suicides for a rate of 14.2 per 100,000 people, which ranked 36th in nation, with 58.6% of those suicides were by firearms.

According to the website Bearingarms.com, a recent review of Indianapolis violence issues, specifically involving guns, from March 2018 to February 2020 found around 75% of people had multiple arrests before the homicide. Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said on average, both suspects and victims had more than five prior arrests. The suspects, on average, were arrested at least seven times by the time of the homicide incident, Allison Davids, Intelligence Analyst at the Crime Gun Intelligence Center, said.

The number of non-fatal shootings in Indianapolis has almost doubled since 2015, when there were 426 shootings, increasing to 424 in 2016, 433 in 2017, 448 in 2018, and 746 in both 2020 and 2021. Nearly half of the 271 homicides committed in Indianapolis last year (45.7%) are still unresolved, according to the 2021 homicide report released by IMPD.

In 2021, Allen County and Fort Wayne had 48 homicides, just short of the record of 49 set in 2016, while in Evansville 21 people were murdered, the most since 2017 and, according to the Evansville Courier & Press, one of the highest totals since the late 1960s.

This mayhem is also occurring on Indianas doorsteps. Chicago recorded 836 murders in 2021, the most since 1994. In Louisville, there were 188 murders, topping the old record set in 2020 of 173.

HB1077 is sponsored by State Rep. Ben Smaltz, R-Auburn, who said last week as the bill passed out of committee on a 9-3 vote, Im here with House Bill 1077 representing Mr. and Mrs. Lawful Hoosiers to tell that person that they dont need to be delayed; theyve done nothing wrong their entire life. They should be able to defend themselves in public, at home and where they choose."

This bill represents a big win because it cuts government red tape for law-abiding Hoosier gun owners, Smaltz said. As lawmakers, we need to do whats necessary to protect our Second Amendment rights. That means getting this legislation across the finish line. Its my hope the Senate considers and acts on this important bill this session.

The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette reported that a Smaltz constituent survey in 2019 asked, Do you believe Hoosiers who are legally permitted to possess a handgun should be able to carry a handgun in public without first applying for and obtaining a state-issued license? Smaltzs results showed 64% saying no, 31% yes, and 5% undecided.

The bill, similar to a measure that died in the Senate last year, is drawing opposition from law enforcement agencies. Lafayette Police Chief Patrick Flannelly told the House Public Policy, Should this bill pass, there will be no means for our officers to know if a person is legally carrying a handgun. Law enforcement relies on the license  as a precious filter to prevent the carrying of handguns in public by applicants with prohibiting criminal histories, drug addiction or mental illness. This bill shifts the burden to officers.

Indiana State Police statistics revealed about 30% of the 10,000 rejected handgun applications were due to a prior felony conviction. Without licensing, intrusive traffic stops will take longer as officers seek to determine whether a subject is prohibited from gun ownership

Its still a process of begging the government for permission to exercise a right you already have, said Guy Relford, a 2nd Amendment attorney, who spoke before the committee.

But Democrat State Rep. Mitch Gore, who serves as a captain in the Marion County Sheriff Department, explained, Law enforcement generally is opposed to the bill, and its not because the law enforcement profession is a bastion for liberalism, but its because it has serious negative implications for what we do every day. The more information that law enforcement can get, the more secure they feel at a traffic stop or on the scene of an incident.

Brian Howey is publisher of Howey Politics Indiana. Follow him on Twitter @hwypol. The opinions are the writer's.

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Ghalia Ahmed, a 38-year-old Palestinian woman from the West Bank city of Tulkarm, makes interactive books for children using cardboard and cloths in the West Bank City of Tulkarem, Dec. 28, 2021. (Photo by Nidal Eshtayeh/Xinhua)

by Sanaa Kamal

RAMALLAH, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Ghalia Ahmed, a 38-year-old Palestinian woman from the West Bank city of Tulkarm, spends long hours a day making interactive books for children using cardboard and cloths.

Ghalia, a pharmacist and mother of three, told Xinhua that she came up with the idea two years ago when her daughter asked her to buy an interactive book like the one she saw on TV.

"I looked for an interactive book in most of the libraries in the West Bank, but I couldn't find any. Therefore, I decided to make one by myself," she said.

At that time, Ghalia used multi-colored cardboard and fabric to make her ten-page interactive book that contained pet figures and some of her girl's favorite cartoons.

"I was very happy when I was able to fulfill my daughter's dream of getting this type of book," she said, adding the books made her more interactive with other children and prevented her from using a mobile phone.

Soon after, her relatives and colleagues also asked her to produce such books for their children too.

In order to make unique interactive books for each child, Ghalia used to chat with their mothers so that she could learn more about each one of the children.

In addition, the quality and content of books differ according to children's ages, as they start from the most easy-to-read books to interactive books.

"I make books for children starting from the age of 11 months, as these books are distinguished by containing only three colors, which are white, black, and red because the child at this age is usually unable to distinguish colors," Ghalia said.

"For one-year-old and above, I start introducing colors into books to develop children's nervous system," she continued.

"After that, I make books based on sight, touch and interaction, in order to teach children the basic skills of interacting with the tools in their hands," she explains.

Those positive feedbacks encouraged Ghalia to turn her initiative into an investment project, as she manufactures interactive books and markets them through her social media.

Ghalia's industry of interactive books is not limited to normal children. She also makes interactive books for children with special needs, such as Down syndrome or children with problems of speech, hearing, and vision.

"These books are made based on scientific, methodological and psychological studies, after consulting with specialists, as they contain activities appropriate to the psychological state of these children," she noted.

Ghalia aspires to set up her own workshop and employ some women to produce as many books as possible, and export them to Arab countries.

The books she made cost from 45 to 100 U.S. dollars each.

Ghalia was able to sell and export interactive books to Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, the United States of America and the Gaza Strip. 

Ghalia Ahmed, a 38-year-old Palestinian woman from the West Bank city of Tulkarm, makes interactive books for children using cardboard and cloths in the West Bank City of Tulkarem, Dec. 28, 2021. (Photo by Nidal Eshtayeh/Xinhua)

Ghalia Ahmed, a 38-year-old Palestinian woman from the West Bank city of Tulkarm, makes interactive books for children using cardboard and cloths in the West Bank City of Tulkarem, Dec. 28, 2021. (Photo by Nidal Eshtayeh/Xinhua)

Ghalia Ahmed, a 38-year-old Palestinian woman from the West Bank city of Tulkarm, makes interactive books for children using cardboard and cloths in the West Bank City of Tulkarem, Dec. 28, 2021. (Photo by Nidal Eshtayeh/Xinhua)

Ghalia Ahmed, a 38-year-old Palestinian woman from the West Bank city of Tulkarm, makes an interactive game for children using cardboard and cloths in the West Bank City of Tulkarem, Dec. 28, 2021. (Photo by Nidal Eshtayeh/Xinhua)
We celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day on the third Monday of January  this year, Jan. 17.

On Aug. 28, 1963, King delivered one of the great speeches in American history, popularly known as the "I Have a Dream" speech. It is a speech that must be dusted off and studied anew today, because it contains the very message that our nation sorely needs to hear and digest now. A message that has been tragically lost and buried and replaced with great and destructive distortions.

Two things jump out when reading through that speech.

One is how this black preacher captured in his words that day the heart and soul of America.

Second, how King's great message that day stands in total contrast to the rhetoric peddled by today's progressives as the remedy to our racial strife.

The indictment of the woke movement is that America is the problem.

King offered up America as the solution.

He talked about the "magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence."

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'"

The problem, as King explained, is not America or the eternal truths that were brought to bear in its founding.

The problem was the failure of the nation to live up to the challenges of its great founding principles.

This was the heart of King's message that day.

He appealed to the nation to realize the dream of its founding fathers. Not to crush it and bury it, as we hear today.

The problem is not white people.

"The marvelous new militancy ... must not lead us to a distrust of all white people," he said.

And, of course, the most memorable and oft-quoted line of the speech, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

What has happened instead? Where has this great message of King gotten lost?

In the name of racial justice, our race campaigns today are defined by selection and placement based on race, based on the color of skin, and not based on the content of character, as King implored the nation to do.

King's speech is divided into three parts.

Part one is an appeal to the nation to live up to its great founding principles.

Part two is an appeal to black Americans to rise up and act accordingly in the noble cause of the pursuit of liberty and justice. Let's not drink "from the cup of bitterness."

Part three is an appeal to the ideals of the Christian soul of the nation.

He quoted the prophet Isaiah that "the crooked places will be made straight ... and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together."

Biblical truths and ideals have been sadly lost to wokeism, which has for all practical purposes become a religion in itself.

Let's honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. now, as we come out of COVID-19 and enter 2022, by revisiting and taking to heart the great truths he spoke on that summer day in Washington, D.C., 1963. Great truths that have very sadly been cast to the side and replaced with the religion of politics and power.

Let us honor King by seeing America as he presented it then, as embodying the ideals of a free nation under God.

And then we can join hands and sing, as King appealed, "the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."

Star Parker is president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education and host of the weekly television show "Cure America with Star Parker." The opinions are the writer's.

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Multiple layers of information are essential for a complete telling of the complex issues unfolding in our cities, towns, country and world every day.

News agencies that don't use an array of layers to report the stories that swirl on local, national and global levels are failing their audiences  loyal readers like you.

For so many years, we've done our best to serve the readers of our traditional print product with as complete a telling of Northwest Indiana's news as possible  all within the confines of a traditional print publication.

But news in the modern era is too complex to be confined. We realized that years ago when we made strong pushes into the urgent sharing of news through our website.

Yet there remained a gap between the print and digital platforms, placing the two services onto separate islands.

Starting today, we're creating a direct bridge  called NewsVu  between the important printed newspaper you read every day and the array of other layers of related content we offer through our rapidly growing digital news coverage at nwi.com.

Beginning in today's editions, you'll notice several little NewsVu boxes, known as QR codes, near some of the articles on The Times front page.

The column you're reading now has one. Try it out. Open the camera app on your smartphone and point the camera at the code, which is a square that appears to be made up of other squares and lines. A link will show up in the camera's field of view on your smartphone screen. Tap that link, and it will take you to a collection of videos we've produced for our popular "Riding Shotgun with NWI Cops" series, which places viewers in the squad cars of Region police as they do their jobs.

You'll be seeing many more of these QR codes today and going forward in your newspaper.

This NewsVu feature provides direct bridges between the articles you read in the print edition and a plethora of other layers of digital content we offer online.

What are some more of these layers?

A column on today's front page by our Midwest meteorologist, Matt Holiner, has a QR code that will take you to a video he produced, explaining the wild twists and turns that weather patterns have taken within the past year.

Sometimes our reporters and photographers capture far more powerful photos than we can possibly use in print. In such cases, a QR code will take you to a collection of dozens of other photos that we couldn't fit in your paper copy of the news.

Or imagine a major criminal court case is unfolding, and you would like go beyond the actual article about the case itself. At times, we'll be able to include digital copies of court documents and other publicly released bits of evidence in the case on our website, putting one QR codes scan away.

Videos, podcasts, photo galleries, digitized court documents, interactive digital graphics and a host of other features are used with regularity on nwi.com to provide a richer experience for our readers. Now our traditional newspaper readers will have a direct line to this content.

We invite you to cross these information bridges from print to digital by making wide use of the new QR code features in The Times of Northwest Indiana.

You now have a much easier way of accessing all that we have to offer.

Executive Editor Marc Chase can be reached at 219-933-3327 or marc.chase@nwi.com. Follow him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/marc.chase.9 or Twitter @nwi_MarcChase. The opinions are the writer's.

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TORKHAM, Pakistan  The Taliban, thankfully, didnt figure out Mohammad was a police officer.

Mohammad, 55, had worked for years in Laghman Province east of Kabul, where chasing militants was part of the job. Then the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan. They killed his boss. Mohammad figured he and his family were next.

We left Afghanistan mainly to protect our lives, said Mohammad, who insisted on being identified only by his first name to protect his extended family from reprisals. On Aug. 16, he, his wife and their five children reached Spin Boldak, a town on the Afghanistan side of the border, before crossing to Chaman on the Pakistan side. To get there, they navigated watchful Taliban and paid Pakistan security forces $900 in bribes.

On the highway, Taliban fighters were stopping and searching travelers, said Mohammad. But, luckily, they did not recognize me because, maybe, I was a low-ranked cop.

The Pakistan authorities are watching worriedly to see whether more refugees like Mohammad and his family come pouring over the border. The government is expecting as many as 700,000 at a potential cost of $2.2 billion as the authorities set up camps and ways to track and feed them.
Late Wednesday evening, Jan. 5, dozens of art world insiders received a fund-raising message from Nancy Pelosi. Im in disbelief, the text began. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the violent, deadly insurrection on our nations capitol, and several reports show Republicans surging in the run-up to the midterms. We need to send a strong message that our democracy is sacred.

The message was typical enough of the calls to arms blasted by progressive campaigns and organizers like ActBlue and MoveOn. But then, the kicker: Thats why I need you to show up at the opening of artist Paul Chans new exhibition at Greene Naftali Gallery, tomorrow 

Pelosi then recited the news release for Chans new show.

It turns out the text was a joke. But the subtext was not. The storming of the Capitol Building was too dire to ignore, with half a dozen lives lost, traumatized police and hundreds of rioters facing criminal charges. Chan, an artist, activist and satirist, and a winner of the prestigious Hugo Boss Prize (as the Pelosi text emphasized), is not alone among those compelled to face Jan. 6 through their artwork: The anniversary had a handful of other memorial openings.
In the fall of 1959, Ciro Scala, just out of high school, was commuting to a clerical job in Times Square from Staten Island and also going to City College, uptown on Convent Avenue in the evenings. The trip home  which relied on the IRT to Lower Manhattan, the Staten Island Ferry and then a bus to New Brighton  took about two and a half hours, although sometimes it extended to three, getting him home, in every instance, past midnight. Ground down, he eventually gave up and stopped attending classes, which he did with a sorrowful resignation.

The youngest of five children, Ciro was the son of Southern Italian parents who had resisted assimilation. They never talked about school, he told me recently. We had to work. The whole idea was to get a job. High school, yes, but after that, college was not discussed. Instead he was to help support his family.

The move to Staten Island, when Ciro was a teenager, meant they had a home with a shower for the first time. Previously, the family had lived in a cold-water flat in Brooklyn on the border between Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant at a time when the area still had many factories. Bathing was a matter of standing at the kitchen sink. Ciros three sisters all shared the same bed  two at the head, one at the foot. In the summer when it was hot, everyone slept on the roof.
A strong winter storm that coated highways in the Carolinas and Georgia with ice and knocked out power to nearly 200,000 customers headed early Monday into the Northeast, where it was expected to leave a foot of snow or more in some places. The most significant snowfall is expected overnight.

The storm will likely move west of Washington, D.C. around midnight, and then north into Pennsylvania, northern New York State and Vermont, and landing in the province of Quebec by Monday evening, said Jim Connolly, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

In the South, where some governors declared states of emergency, areas such as central Mississippi and central North Carolina had already received more than nine inches of snow, while portions of central South Carolina had up to a half-inch of ice, the National Weather Service said.

This storm is going to be pretty significant in terms of generating travel impacts, outages and things of that nature, said Rich Otto, a meteorologist with the Weather Service.
The United States has a vexed relationship with immigration. A core narrative of our country is that it is a melting pot, even though our government has excluded different groups of migrants for centuries. The much-vaunted nickname nation of immigrants leaves out those who were here before colonization (Native peoples) and those who were brought here against their will (enslaved Africans). Theres a gap, in other words, between the romantic image of America many of us learn about as children and its grittier realities. Arrivals, a thought-provoking exhibition at the Katonah Museum of Art, uses historical and contemporary art to probe that gap.

Curated by the art historian Heather Ewing, the show considers how newcomers to this land have shaped it and been received. Notably, the exhibition dispenses with the word immigration in favor of something more capacious: Arrivals includes those who may not fit official terminology. In its own way, the show still upholds the idea of the United States as a rare melting pot of peoples and ideas  except its not starry-eyed about it.
Spider-Man just finished saving the very fabric of reality, but to hear President Biden tell it  at least on Saturday Night Live  the wall-crawler is the one to blame for the continuing pandemic.

To kick off the first new S.N.L. of 2022, James Austin Johnson returned in his recurring role as Biden for a news conference in which he told the nation that theres one simple thing you can do to make this whole virus go away: Stop seeing Spider-Man.

Addressing the White House press corps in the shows opening sketch, Johnson said: This virus has disrupted our lives. Its canceled holidays, weddings, quinceaneras, gender-reveal parties, wildfires that started as gender-reveal parties.
Steve Jenkins, an award-winning childrens book author and illustrator whose passion for science, as well as his meticulous and vibrant cut-paper collages, brought the natural world to life, died on Dec. 26 in Boulder, Colo. He was 69.

His wife, Robin Page, said the cause was a splenic artery aneurysm.

How many ways can you catch a fly? And who eats flies, anyway? Why do turtles clean hippopotamuses, and how? What do you do if you work at the zoo? What do baby animals do the day theyre born? How do animals talk to each other? How do birds make a nest? His books, often written with Ms. Page, answered questions like those  posed by children (as well as still-curious grown-ups)  about animals and the world around them.

Insatiably curious himself, Mr. Jenkins combined the rigor of scientific inquiry with exquisite illustrations and clear language to explore subjects like animal sight, as in Eye to Eye: How Animals See the World (2014), which explains how a house cat sees in the dark. (At the back of its eye is a reflective layer called a tapetum, which bounces light back through the cats retina.)

His Extreme Animals series covered the trickiest, the speediest, the deadliest and the stinkiest of animals. That last category included the European roller chick, which vomits all over itself to ward off predators. (Its vomit is so malodorous because of the toxins in the grasshoppers that the chicks are fed by their parents.)
AMMAN, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- An officer of the Jordanian Armed Forces was killed on Sunday and three other border guards were injured in an exchange of fire with smugglers along the border with Syria, the state-run Petra news agency reported.

At dawn on Sunday, a group of smugglers opened fire at Jordanian border guards, who fired back and forced the smugglers to return to the Syrian territories, the Petra news agency quoted a source at the Jordan Armed Forces as saying.

The clash resulted in the death of captain Mohammad Khudayrat and the injury of three others, who were taken to a hospital for treatment, the source said.

Following an inspection of the area, the border guards seized large quantities of narcotics, the source said, adding that the security forces will deal firmly with any smuggling attempts.

In 2021, the Jordan Armed Forces announced that it foiled around 361 smuggling attempts and confiscated large quantities of narcotics of several types. 
Before the pandemic, Davos came to connote not simply the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum itself, but a state of mind. Pro-capitalism, pro-democracy, pro-globalization, Davos is the spiritual home of the stakeholder capitalism movement (which encourages companies to be better corporate citizens) and a testing ground for any number of new win-win market-oriented solutions to combat climate change, ameliorate hunger and repair frayed international relations.

More practically, Davos also came to refer to an entire universe of satellite events, subconferences and loosely affiliated marketing stunts that all took place in Switzerland throughout mid-January. Facebook constructed a temporary headquarters on the towns main thoroughfare, known as the Promenade. Salesforce held a private lunch in a giant geodesic dome.

Yet no matter what party might be going on or which company had the best off-site augmented reality installation, the inner sanctum of Davos has always been the Congress Centre, a convention space that serves as the gatherings nexus and main stage. It is where, in 2020, you might have found Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany or President Donald J. Trump addressing a crowd of thousands while, in an adjacent lobby area, Jane Goodall took in a demonstration of Googles new mapping technology.

Normally packed with lanyard-wearing conference goers hustling from a meditation session led by monks to a panel discussion about sovereign wealth funds, the halls of the Congress Centre are, for the time being at least, empty.
Neither New York City nor the state requires restaurants to close if workers test positive for Covid. The citys health department has updated its guidance for employers in response to the winter surge in cases. That advice includes encouraging testing, and ensuring that employees stay home if they feel sick or test positive. On Dec. 27, the department ordered that all on-site employees must be vaccinated.

President Biden has said that health and safety are paramount, while also emphasizing the need to keep businesses and schools running. In late December, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shortened the isolation period recommended for people infected with Covid from 10 days to five, and did not require that they obtain a negative test result before coming out of isolation.

Many New York restaurants have stayed open even when theyve learned that an employee has been infected. Breads Bakery, for example, hasnt closed any of its four locations since the start of the pandemic.

If an employee tests positive, that person must stay home for five days, then present a negative test result and be symptom-free for at least the past three days to return to work, said Gadi Peleg, the owner. Other employees can continue working without being tested if they dont have symptoms.

Even with all these safety measures, it has been a struggle. The last month has been disappointing, Mr. Peleg said. The bakeries have had more workers out sick than any other time during the pandemic. It seems like we didnt get the bang from the buck from getting everyone vaccinated.

Kaya Trefz, a barista at the location in Union Square, said some employees have been hesitant to get a Covid test because the bakery is short-staffed. If someone has to call out to get tested, who is going to work and cover that? she said. There is a lot of stress and anxiety about that.
The thing is, the Ukrainian government doesnt know what its up against, he told me. They have this optimistic belief that they can end the war and free Donetsk and Luhansk. This isnt going to happen. Russia has the resources to sustain this conflict for decades.

The Ukrainian-controlled portions of Donbas are still shot through with secessionist sentiment. Many of the people who supported secession in 2014 are still around, including officials. Some of them still hold office. In an effort to purge Donbas of the worst offenders, the Zelensky government has suspended local elections in the region, a move that has earned rebukes from democracy advocates.

Ukrainian prosecutors have brought hundreds of cases against Ukrainians in Donbas for treason and sedition. Some of the defendants have fled to Russia, but many have stayed. Few have faced full trials, and only a handful have been sentenced. When I asked a judicial activist in Kyiv why this was, she said she believed the main reason was political. With Zelensky growing unpopular, the judges worried the next regime to take power in Ukraine might be another tied to Moscow. They didnt want to risk their careers, never mind their lives.

Donbas offers little to Russia, which does not need the regions coal or its sad vestiges of industry. Presumably the Kremlin does not want the burden of Donbass public-sector budgets or its pensioners. Unlike Crimea, home to Russias Black Sea Fleet, Donbas has no strategic value  except as a platform for further menacing Ukraine  and no beach resorts.

What, then, does Russia want with it? Putins thinking has been so far removed from public scrutiny that any answer to that question is very conjectural. It depends on the drift of your Kremlinology, which in turn depends on your presumptions about his power. Russia analysts who are of the (prevailing) view that Putin approaches omnipotence ask what his realpolitik long con in Donbas can be. Hes always got one, their thinking goes. One possible explanation is electoral. Though Putin refuses to acknowledge an official Russian role in Donbas, the region has added an estimated 600,000 voters to the Russian rolls. If the results of last falls elections are to be believed, they support his United Russia party.

Those who class Putin with other world leaders  that is, as a mortal navigating among rivals  ask if Donbas doesnt represent the rare miscalculation on his part. Euromaidan was a convenient pretext to invade Crimea, an idea long contemplated in the Kremlin. The Donbas operation was probably more impulsive, and it has met with a Ukrainian defiance few in Russia, or for that matter in Ukraine, would have predicted in 2014. Russian intentions there have seemed to evolve. Donbas has served variously as a bargaining chip with Western powers, a cudgel to hold over them, a hobbyhorse for the home audience and an albatross. Seizing Crimea increased Putins popularity hugely but only for a time. And while his ratings get a bounce with every southernly rattle of the saber, years of economic sanctions have the reverse effect.

Shortly before I arrived in Donbas, a remarkable open letter was published on the Kremlin website in Russian and English. That it bore Putins signature doesnt mean he wrote it, but the 7,000-word letter did unfurl with the kind of party-congress loquacity this otherwise terse president sometimes indulges. On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians recounted the joint histories of Russia and Ukraine from the ninth century onward. Striking a conciliatory note, Putin lamented Bolshevik crimes in Ukraine (nothing of Stalin) and confessed that the war in Donbas was in my mind our great common misfortune and tragedy.
All this innocence, these young kids, Mr. Dukuray, 60, said. They have no business being here.

Aminata Sillah, 42, had arrived early. She couldnt enter the mosque because it was so packed, so she laid a blue prayer rug on the ground in the frigid morning air inside one of the tents. She tugged anxiously at her boots.

Her aunt Fatoumata Drammeh was among those who died on Jan. 9, along with Ms. Drammehs three children, when an electric heater set off the fire and acrid smoke filled the apartment building on East 181st Street, suffocating people as they tried to flee the 19-story complex. Im devastated, Ms. Sillah said. Ms. Drammehs coffin was the first to be brought into the mosque.

Mr. Adams, Ms. James and Mr. Schumer sat in the front row facing the coffins.

Sheikh Musa Drammeh, the leader of the Islamic Cultural Center, didnt hold back his anger, and his voice rose sharply as he directed his words to them.

If these people lived in Midtown Manhattan, this wouldnt have happened, he said. They would not have needed space heaters. The conditions in which they lived in the Bronx caused their death.

Turning toward the officials, he asked: Mr. Mayor, you heard? Mr. Schumer, you heard?

We are No. 1 for everything bad in the Bronx, he said, as the crowd agreed loudly. They will never achieve the American dream because they lived in the Bronx. Their families will never see them again because they lived in the Bronx. We are having this funeral today because they lived in the Bronx.

Mr. Adams rose and said that the families had his commitment as the mayor to give them support.

What is happening here in the Bronx, it is what is happening across our city, where the communities with Black, brown and immigrant people are, he said. Its time to end those inequalities so we dont have our babies and our families torn apart by tragedy. The American dream for too many burned in that fire.
Its going to kill everybody, she said.

Mr. Romero looked at his wife carrying their unborn child, his 19-year-old son, Anthony, his 7-year-old daughter, Jlana, and summoned soothing words. Were here together. Were going to be all right. He said nothing about the fear ramping up in his mind.

Next door, in 12N, Tatiana Strahn, 28, grabbed a sweater and held it over her mouth, then charged out of her apartment. Her 2-year-old son, Owen, was three floors up at her aunts home, and nothing could stop her from going after him. Not so long ago, she had lost two family members in a fire in the Dominican Republic.

Her eyes stinging from the smoke, Ms. Strahn felt for the staircase walls to guide her up through the dark. On the 15th floor, she bumped into a boy about 8 or 9 years old who was on his way down. What are you doing here? she shouted. Wheres your mom? Get into an apartment, get out of the stairs!

His eyes were big and confused. Shes coming down, he said, then turned and scurried back up.

In the hallway, Ms. Strahn called out to her aunt: Maria! A door flung open. Her aunt rushed out carrying Owen, his face pressed into her neck. The three headed down the stairs.

Back inside her home, Ms. Strahn began to panic. Smoke was flowing in, and now she had six people to worry about. Aunt Maria who suffered from anxiety. Owen and her 4-year-old daughter, Leilani. The childrens father, Efrain Sifuentes, on his usual weekend visit, who had a broken leg and was on crutches.

Charely, her older sister from Connecticut, was also here, having surprised her for the weekend to tell her she was pregnant. She had brought her 11-year-old daughter, Yoriely. And then there were the two golden retrievers.

Ms. Strahn ordered everyone into the least smoky bedroom while she wedged blankets at the entrance to their duplex and attempted to seal the doors edges with packing tape. Mr. Sifuentes filled pots with water to drench the area, hobbling back and forth from the sink.
New York State recorded about 48,000 coronavirus cases on Friday, a nearly 47 percent drop from the roughly 90,000 cases reported a week earlier, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced on Saturday.

The total number of positive cases  47,870  represented only 14.6 percent of the 327,427 tests reported by the state, a significant decline from the 23 percent positivity rate recorded on Jan. 2.

Hospitalizations also seemed to decrease slightly, with 38 fewer hospitalizations recorded on Friday compared with the day before.

This and other recent data show that the latest surge in New York driven by the Omicron variant may be starting to trend downward from a Jan. 9 peak, and that several Northeast states  including New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island  may be heading in the same direction.
Being a native Delawarean, I know Mr. Biden and worked on several of his campaigns for the U.S. Senate. No one should ever question his commitment to civil rights or the African American community. He is a genuine and great public servant.

Opinion Debate Will the Democrats face a midterm wipeout? Elizabeth Warren explains her priorities and writes, if we fail to use the months remaining before the elections to deliver on more of our agenda, Democrats are headed toward big losses.

explains her priorities and writes, if we fail to use the months remaining before the elections to deliver on more of our agenda, Democrats are headed toward big losses. Mark Penn writes that without a U-turn by the Biden administration, voters increasingly motivated by fear over a variety of issues will generate a wave election like those in 1994 and 2010.

writes that without a U-turn by the Biden administration, voters increasingly motivated by fear over a variety of issues will generate a wave election like those in 1994 and 2010. Thomas B. Edsall asks, as the midterms approach, to what degree are Democratic difficulties inevitable, and which challenges stem from the partys strategic choices?

asks, as the midterms approach, to what degree are Democratic difficulties inevitable, and which challenges stem from the partys strategic choices? Ezra Klein speaks to David Shor, who discusses his fear that Democrats face electoral catastrophe unless they shift their messaging.

However, Mr. Biden, having been a member of the Senate for 36 years, wrongly thought the solution to ensuring voting rights lay in Washington, D.C. He expected elected officials would work across the aisle to pass meaningful legislation, as they often did when he was a senator. But, as so many of us have witnessed in recent years, Joe Bidens Senate simply does not exist anymore. Instead, extremist Trump loyalists, desperate to keep their power, began an efficient and well-funded campaign to minimize Black and brown voters, first in Georgia, and then, in a domino effect, in state legislatures across the country.

So what do we do now?

First, President Biden must show his strength as a leader. The American people have little respect or patience for a weak leader, but they will support and stand with a strong one. Extreme Trump loyalists have been gutting voting rights with an ax, while Democrats have tried to defend them with a butter knife.

Its time for Mr. Biden to show the 50 senators who reliably back the Democratic agenda that the nation did not elect 51 presidents. He needs to use his powers as president to show that opposing him comes with consequences, not unlike how President Johnson played hardball during negotiations on the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Neither friendships nor history with the Senate has worked, and inaction is unacceptable, so Mr. Biden must now draw a line in the sand. Our elected officials in Washington need the president to sign their bills, approve funding for their local projects, and secure their nominations for appointments. If senators are not going to support this top priority of the Biden administration, then the president needs to make clear that democracy will come first, before their own special projects, interests and priorities.

Second, the White House and the Democratic Party need to create a massive education campaign on the changes that have been made to our local voting rights laws. The reality is that most people still do not know whats happening. Building this narrative cannot be done with one trip to Georgia or with one speech, nor will it be done with overzealous rhetoric. This fight must be about educating and informing people, not politics as usual. Mr. Biden and his administration need to consistently share with the American people what these new pieces of anti-voting legislation across the country are doing to our democracy and to our people. He must share the stories of those who will now struggle to exercise their democratic right. The facts must be showcased until every American understands what has occurred over the past year.
Ned Gardner

Apex, N.C.

To the Editor:

Rebecca Solnit does not discuss the role of the media in spreading lies among Republicans. There is Fox News, which has become a propaganda front for Donald Trump, before, during and since his presidency. And there is the plethora of right-wing internet sites, whose most outrageous lies are often repeated and brought into the mainstream of political opinion by Republican office holders.

The stream of misinformation is pervasive. Democrats have participated in this, too, even if not to the extent that Republicans have. It takes motivation and effort to sort fact from fiction, and for many people that is too hard.

Michael E. Mahler

Los Angeles

To the Editor:

As a clinical therapist who worked in addiction treatment facilities, I was reminded each day of the basic human need for approval and acceptance. We all seek to feel a part of our community, our family and our country. This promotes interdependence and solidarity, and generally strengthens our social bonds.

The need for approval, however, can be so great (even desperate) that we surrender ourselves to the group in exchange for the validation it offers. The group embrace is very reassuring  particularly if ones self-image is a little shaky  and eliminates the need for the thought and self-reflection that take time and effort, and insist that, sometimes, we stand alone in our ideals and beliefs.

An integral part of the addictive personality, the need for approval further explains the gullibility and cynicism that Rebecca Solnit describes so accurately.
Ukraine is not asking for the West to defend it. Rather, it is asking for help to prepare for this fight by bolstering our military capacity. Moreover, the best way to defend Ukraine is to defend Western doctrines and values, including the no spheres of influence principle barring large countries from dominating their neighbors and NATOs open door policy of welcoming new applicants to the alliance. Close cooperation between Ukraine and the alliance  like military exercises, which enhance the Ukrainian Armys ability to work with NATO member states and also remind Russia that Ukraine is not alone  should continue.

While we understand the discussion about the risks of admitting Ukraine to NATO, there also should be discussion among NATO member states about the risks of not doing so. Blocking Ukraines accession could give Russia the perception it has a veto right in NATO or stands to benefit from instigating conflicts in other countries seeking membership in the alliance.

These are our asks. And in the meantime, we are preparing for the worst.

Until very recently, polls showed Ukrainians were largely afraid of rising utility bills and the deteriorating economy, and less than half said that a war was possible. Thats because after nearly eight years of Mr. Putins aggression, Ukrainians have gotten used to his (unfortunately) successful use of saber rattling as a tactic to get an invitation to negotiations with the West on his own terms.

But now, Ukrainians are increasingly preoccupied by the prospect of a new invasion. They dont believe the talks with Mr. Putin will be productive, which means Russia will see military action as the only way to bring Ukraine back into Moscows sphere of influence. These concerns echo in my work at a think tank here and in conversations with friends and family.

Not surprisingly, a popular topic these days is how to join civilian resistance units to complement the military in case of an invasion. Billboards in many Ukrainian cities and on highways urge people to join the ranks, with a phone number to enlist. Ive seen Facebook posts pop up about the necessity for a so-called emergency bag of essential items to grab when an invasion starts.

Even Kyiv  which has been considered almost a safe haven, distant from the war in the east and occupied Crimea  is on edge over fears Mr. Putin could attack Ukraine.

Updates on the diplomatic talks dominate the evening news and animate Facebook conversations. As one of our polls has shown, a majority of Ukrainians are convinced that Mr. Putin would continue to needle Ukraine even if it gave up its hopes of joining NATO or the European Union in the future.
Lets face it  producing on Broadway in the best of times is a ridiculous proposition, and the amount of risk involved doesnt make sense for any sane person, said Mara Isaacs, a lead producer of Hadestown. But the dreamers will continue to dream. Yes, its going to be harder for a little while, but I do believe we will recover.

One major challenge producers face now is shoring up consumer confidence. Follow the social media account of any Broadway show and youre likely to see a simple message: Broadway is open. Worried about safety? All patrons are vaccinated and masked, and many theaters have stopped selling food and drinks so masks can stay up.

The most popular shows are still packed, but not quite as tough to get into as they were: Last week, there were seats available even at the industrys most in-demand shows, including Hamilton, The Music Man and Six. (Premium seats at Hamilton were selling for $299, compared to $847 before the pandemic.)

And this has become a good time for bargain hunters. Tickets to shows like David Byrnes American Utopia and the best musical Tony winner Moulin Rouge!, both of which were routinely sold out before the pandemic, are now discounted at the TKTS booth in Times Square. And the citys annual Broadway Week, which starts Tuesday and offers 2-for-1 tickets for most Broadway shows, this year will last 27 days  the longest in the programs history.

I would never be able to afford a normal Broadway ticket, but now it seems super affordable to someone like me, said Amy Grimm, a 45-year-old administrative assistant from Brooklyn, who this month has seen Girl From the North Country and Six. She said she enjoyed Girl, but added, There was hardly anyone in the audience, and it was sad to see. Six, she said, felt more normal. I hooted and hollered through my mask, she said, and it was fine.
RTHK: US bans Martin Shkreli from pharmaceutical sector

A federal judge banned Martin Shkreli for life from the pharmaceutical industry, ruling on Friday that the former drug executive could again harm society by monopolising important medications.

Shkreli, who has been serving a seven-year prison sentence on securities fraud, must also pay US$64.6 million in damages to victims, said US District Judge Denise Cote, ruling on a case brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and six states.

"Banning an individual from an entire industry and limiting his future capacity to make a living in that field is a serious remedy and must be done with care and only if equity demands," Cote wrote.

"Shkreli's egregious, deliberate, repetitive, long-running and ultimately dangerous illegal conduct warrants imposition of an injunction of this scope."

"The risk of recurrency here is real," Cote said. "Shkreli has not expressed remorse or any awareness that his actions violated the law."

Once dubbed "the most hated man in America," Shkreli, 38, became infamous for suddenly raising the price of the HIV drug Daraprim in 2015 by 5,000 percent  from US$13.50 a pill to US$750.

Shkreli reached exclusive supply agreements for a key ingredient for Daraprim, delaying generic competition for at least 18 months, Cote wrote in the decision, which followed a December 2021 trial.

Shkreli's company, Turing, was renamed Vyera, and settled with the FTC and other parties shortly before the trial, agreeing to pay US$40 million in ill-gotten gains.

In a 135-page ruling, Cote said Shkreli continued to direct Vyera's policies and choose executives even from prison.

"Whether he used a smuggled phone or the prison's authorised phones, he stayed in touch with Vyera's management and exercised his power over Vyera as its largest shareholder."

Shkreli has been in prison since 2017 and is set to be released in October 2023, or one year earlier pending successful completion of an early release programme. (AFP)

This story has been published on: 2022-01-16. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
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TEHRAN, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian on Sunday called for resolving the refugee issues and anti-Syrian embargoes as means to help settle Syria's crisis, according to Iran's Foreign Ministry.

"Without considering the issue of refugees and the sanctions imposed on Syria, (resolving) the crisis in this country cannot be directed in the right direction," Amir Abdollahian said at a meeting with the visiting UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen.

Amir Abdollahian thanked the special envoy for helping the national dialogue, peace and stability in Syria, emphasizing Iran's efforts in helping him succeed in restoring peace and stability in Syria.

Underlining Iran's view on political solution to the Syrian crisis from the beginning of conflicts, he said that the United Nations has been considered, by Iran, as a part of the pursuit of a political solution in Syria.

He blamed the "illegal presence of U.S. forces as well as the Israeli attacks on the Arab country for disrupting the political settlement of conflicts in Syria," and stressed the need for international community and the United Nations to pay attention to it.

For his part, Pedersen described the situation in Syria as stable, noting that under current situation, no involved party is talking about regime change in Damascus.

He also stressed the preservation of national sovereignty, political establishment and territorial integrity of Syria.

Iran has been a major ally of the Syrian government in its fight against the armed rebels since 2011. 
Three hostages escaped from a Texas synagogue on Saturday night, ending a harrowing day of threats, prayers and negotiations that included the earlier release of another hostage.

The suspect is dead, officials said, and his motives are still under investigation.

Heres what we know so far.

What happened?

Malik Faisal Akram, 44, was identified by the F.B.I. on Sunday as the man who took four people, including a rabbi, hostage on Saturday morning at a service at Congregation Beth Israel. The Reform synagogue is in Colleyville, a city of about 26,000 residents that is about 15 miles northeast of Fort Worth, Texas.

The service had been livestreamed, and on the stream, Mr. Akram could be heard shouting about dying and demanding to get a woman he said was his sister on the phone. The immediate area was evacuated, and residents were instructed to remain home and avoid approaching the synagogue.
As the Omicron surge spreads across the country, sending Covid-19 case counts to new heights and disrupting daily life, some universities are preparing for a new phase of the pandemic  one that acknowledges that the virus is here to stay and requires a rethinking of how to handle life on campus.

Schools are asking: Should there still be mass testing? Does there need to be contact tracing? What about tracking the number of cases  and posting them on campus dashboards? And when there is a spike in cases, do classes need to go remote?

Universities from Northeastern in Boston to the University of California-Davis have begun to discuss Covid in endemic terms  a shift from reacting to each spike of cases as a crisis to the reality of living with it daily. And in some cases, there has been backlash.

I think were in a period of transition, hopefully to an endemic phase, Martha Pollack, president of Cornell University, said. I say hopefully because with this pandemic, we dont know whats coming next.
WASHINGTON  Microsoft warned on Saturday evening that it had detected a highly destructive form of malware in dozens of government and private computer networks in Ukraine that appeared to be waiting to be triggered by an unknown actor.

In a blog post, the company said that on Thursday  around the same time government agencies in Ukraine found that their websites had been defaced  investigators who watch over Microsofts global networks detected the code. These systems span multiple government, nonprofit and information technology organizations, all based in Ukraine, Microsoft said.

On Sunday, President Bidens national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the government was examining the code that Microsoft first reported. Weve been warning for weeks and months, both publicly and privately, that cyberattacks could be part of a broad-based Russian effort to escalate in Ukraine, Mr. Sullivan said on CBSs Face the Nation, noting Russias long history of using cyberweapons against Ukraines power grid, government ministries and commercial firms.

But he cautioned that we have not specifically attributed this attack yet, and that Microsoft and other firms had not, either. But were working hard on attribution, he said, adding that it would not surprise me one bit if it ends up being attributed to Russia.
WASHINGTON  During a rally in Arizona on Saturday, former President Donald J. Trump repeated his lie that the 2020 election was stolen and made other false claims about the pandemic and the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6 last year. Heres a fact check.

What Mr. Trump Said

The left is now rationing lifesaving therapeutics based on race, discriminating against and denigrating, just denigrating, white people to determine who lives and who dies. If youre white, you dont get the vaccine, or if youre white, you dont get therapeutics.

False. There is no evidence that white Americans are being denied access to vaccines or treatments.

Mr. Trump referred to a Wall Street Journal opinion column criticizing New York States guidelines on two limited antiviral treatments that ask health providers to prioritize the therapies for immunocompromised patients and those with risk factors. The guidelines, which were released in late December, said, Nonwhite race or Hispanic/Latino ethnicity should be considered a risk factor, as longstanding systemic health and social inequities have contributed to an increased risk of severe illness and death from Covid-19.

State officials have defended their guidelines by citing data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which show that Black, Hispanic and Native Americans are about twice as likely to die from Covid-19 than white Americans. A spokeswoman for New York States Department of Health told Fox News that race did not disqualify patients from treatment but that the guidelines instead considered race as one risk factor.
DAKAR, Senegal  Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, a former president of Mali who came to power on the promise of honest leadership but was ousted in a coup in 2020 amid allegations of corruption, died on Sunday at his home in Bamako, the capital. He was 76.

His death was confirmed on Twitter by Abdoulaye Diop, a former minister of foreign affairs, and by the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali. The cause was not made public, but Mr. Keita had for years sought medical treatment in the United Arab Emirates and was hospitalized in September shortly after being overthrown.

Mr. Keita, popularly known by the initials I.B.K., was president from 2013 to 2020, one of the most turbulent periods in Malis recent history. Coups bookended his tenure: One in 2012 precipitated a crisis that led to his winning an election in a landslide and another in August 2020 brought his arrest by armed soldiers who forced him to resign on television, later releasing him.

During his time in office, insecurity spiraled higher in Mali, a diverse, landlocked West African country known for its ancient manuscripts and evocative music.
The authorities closed several beaches in Peru on Sunday and warned about abnormal wave activity.

The deaths in Peru were reminiscent of the aftermath of the powerful tsunami set off by an undersea earthquake off Indonesia in December 2004 that killed more than 250,000 people. A dozen of the dead then were hit by waves on the eastern coast of Africa, in Kenya and Tanzania.

In Tonga on Sunday, many residents lost not only communication ties but power. Up to 80,000 people there could be affected, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies told the BBC.

One immediate need was clear: potable water.

The ash cloud has, as you can imagine, caused contamination, said Ms. Ardern, the New Zealand prime minister. Thats on top of already a challenging environment, in terms of water supply.

New Zealand and other nations in the region pledged to give Tonga aid to recover. So did the United States. But with heavy concentrations of airborne ash making flights impossible, it was difficult even to know what was needed.

Ms. Ardern said flights over Tonga were planned for Monday or Tuesday, depending on ash conditions. New Zealands navy was also preparing a backup plan, should the ash remain heavy, she said.
Both Mr. Netanyahus decision to engage in negotiations and his engagement with Mr. Barak, a former judge considered a doyen of the Israeli legal establishment, have therefore surprised some Israelis.

Mr. Barak said that he had agreed to play a role because Mr. Netanyahu, in cases that did not affect him personally, had historically helped to protect judicial independence and because a partial confession by Mr. Netanyahu might help heal social divisions and restore trust in the judiciary.

Its of national importance that this thing should result in the accused himself saying, I admit that I have done it, Mr. Barak said in a phone interview.

The case caused two years of political stagnation, largely because it splintered Mr. Netanyahus right-wing voter base as well as his right-wing allies in the Israeli Parliament  a fissure that led to four inconclusive elections from 2019 to 2021. After the first three votes, Mr. Netanyahus remaining allies won enough seats to stay in power, but not enough to form a stable coalition government or pass key legislation like a national budget.

The impasse ended after a fourth election last year, when three small right-wing parties agreed to form a grand coalition with ideological opponents from leftist, centrist and Islamist parties to create a parliamentary majority large enough to force Mr. Netanyahu to leave office.

If Mr. Netanyahu, currently the leader of the opposition, does agree to the deal and leave politics, analysts said that the decision would destabilize, though not necessarily completely collapse, the fragile current coalition government. The logic that glues the alliance together would weaken if he were forced to abandon representative politics because it might tempt right-wing members of the current government to form a different coalition with the new leader of Mr. Netanyahus party, Likud.

But Likud will take time to elect a chairman. And once elected, the new leader might still be too closely tied to Mr. Netanyahu to be a viable partner for his right-wing opponents, said Anshel Pfeffer, an Israeli political columnist and biographer of Mr. Netanyahu.
The Justice Minister has said that a zero-tolerance approach will be central to a new Government strategy tackling gender-based violence, as the investigation into the murder of Ashling Murphy continues.

Irish police are still hunting for the killer of Ms Murphy, a 23-year-old teacher who was found dead after going for a run on the banks of the Grand Canal in Tullamore.

The murder has caused widespread anger and shock in Ireland and beyond, with tens of thousands of people attending vigils in recent days to remember Ms Murphy.

The Garda said it had made significant progress in its investigation, but was not releasing details for operational reasons.

A photo of Ashling Murphy is displayed on the big screen during the Heineken Champions Cup match at The Sportsground in Galway (Brian Lawless/PA)

It is understood that gardai have identified a new person of interest, who is believed to be in hospital in the Dublin region, and are waiting to speak to him.

It comes amid reports that searches have been carried out in Tullamore and Dublin as part of the investigation.

On Sunday, Helen McEntee said that a new Government strategy to tackle domestic, sexual and gender-based violence will be published by the beginning of March.

It would, the Justice Minister said, take a zero-tolerance approach to violence against women.

She told Newstalk: I think what weve seen this week really is an outpouring of grief right across the country from women, men, children, all of whom have come together in solidarity with Ashlings family and her community.

But in particular, have come together to demand that there is zero tolerance for this.

I myself have often decided, well, Ill go out for a walk at this time of the day or Ill go to this area because it could be safer. That shouldnt be the case.

And what weve seen now is everybody in society coming together to say this should not be the case. We should not tolerate this.

Justice Minister Helen McEntee (Niall Carson/PA)

She said that the new strategy will build on the previous strategies produced by the Government.

Were building on the progress that has been made and we have made progress, but were looking at it slightly differently. We have set a clear goal  zero tolerance.

She said that all Government departments, state agencies and the gardai, as well as the wider community, needed to play a role in ensuring the strategy is a success.

Ms McEntee was asked about the cancellation of hundreds of emergency calls to gardai in 2019 and 2020, which last year led to a public apology from Commissioner Drew Harris, and whether victims could have confidence in a police response.

We have all committed collectively to make sure that that does not happen again. And that when somebody takes that difficult step to come forward, that they will be treated with the respect and the dignity and the support that they deserve, she said.

As vigils and memorials to Ms Murphy continue to be held, prayers were said at masses across the country on Sunday for the young teacher.

People hold a vigil outside the London Irish Centre in Camden for Ashling Murphy (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

The funeral of Ms Murphy will take place on Tuesday at St Brigids Church, Mountbolus, in Co Offaly.

At a vigil in north London on Saturday, people held candles and stood in silent tribute outside the London Irish Centre.

Traditional music was played in honour of Ms Murphy, a talented fiddle player, while some of the crowd quietly sang or hummed along.

Anna Johnston, cultural officer at the London Irish Centre, said people had come together in solidarity with those who knew and loved Ms Murphy and all the women of Ireland and further afield who are angry, distressed and heartbroken.
Palestinian Ghalia Ahmed makes interactive books out of fabric at her home in the West Bank city of Tulkarem, on Dec. 28, 2021. (Photo by Nidal Eshtayeh/Xinhua)



Ghalia Ahmed, a Palestinian mother of three, came up with the idea of creating hand-made interactive books two years ago, when her daughter asked her to buy one but she could not find any in the West Bank.

Now, Ghalia uses multi-colored cardboard and fabric to make dozens of interactive books, which are also sold to other Arab countries.

by Sanaa Kamal

RAMALLAH, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Ghalia Ahmed, a 38-year-old Palestinian woman from the West Bank city of Tulkarm, spends long hours a day making interactive books for children using cardboard and cloths.

Palestinian Ghalia Ahmed makes interactive books out of fabric at her home in the West Bank city of Tulkarem, on Dec. 28, 2021. (Photo by Nidal Eshtayeh/Xinhua)

Ghalia, a pharmacist and mother of three, told Xinhua that she came up with the idea two years ago when her daughter asked her to buy an interactive book like the one she saw on TV.

"I looked for an interactive book in most of the libraries in the West Bank, but I couldn't find any. Therefore, I decided to make one by myself," she said.

At that time, Ghalia used multi-colored cardboard and fabric to make her ten-page interactive book that contained pet figures and some of her girl's favorite cartoons.

"I was very happy when I was able to fulfill my daughter's dream of getting this type of book," she said, adding the books made her more interactive with other children and prevented her from using a mobile phone.

Palestinian Ghalia Ahmed makes interactive books out of fabric at her home in the West Bank city of Tulkarem, on Dec. 28, 2021. (Photo by Nidal Eshtayeh/Xinhua)



Soon after, her relatives and colleagues also asked her to produce such books for their children too.

In order to make unique interactive books for each child, Ghalia used to chat with their mothers so that she could learn more about each one of the children.

In addition, the quality and content of books differ according to children's ages, as they start from the most easy-to-read books to interactive books.

"I make books for children starting from the age of 11 months, as these books are distinguished by containing only three colors, which are white, black, and red because the child at this age is usually unable to distinguish colors," Ghalia said.

"For one-year-old and above, I start introducing colors into books to develop children's nervous system," she continued.

"After that, I make books based on sight, touch and interaction, in order to teach children the basic skills of interacting with the tools in their hands," she explains.

Palestinian Ghalia Ahmed makes interactive books out of fabric at her home in the West Bank city of Tulkarem, on Dec. 28, 2021. (Photo by Nidal Eshtayeh/Xinhua)

Those positive feedbacks encouraged Ghalia to turn her initiative into an investment project, as she manufactures interactive books and markets them through her social media.

Ghalia's industry of interactive books is not limited to normal children. She also makes interactive books for children with special needs, such as Down syndrome or children with problems of speech, hearing, and vision.

"These books are made based on scientific, methodological and psychological studies, after consulting with specialists, as they contain activities appropriate to the psychological state of these children," she noted.

Ghalia aspires to set up her own workshop and employ some women to produce as many books as possible, and export them to Arab countries.

The books she made cost from 45 to 100 U.S. dollars each.

Ghalia was able to sell and export interactive books to Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, the United States of America and the Gaza Strip. 
Walkers and joggers returned in large numbers on Saturday to the popular Fiona's Way route along the Grand Canal in Tullamore after the reopening of a section following the brutal murder of Ashling Murphy.

The stretch of the walkway from the Fiona Pender monument at Puttaghaun to Boland's Lock reopened on Friday evening after being closed from Wednesday afternoon following the murder.

Joggers and walkers, including unaccompanied women and men, made the trek down the Greenway from early morning on Saturday.

Large numbers of people of all ages also visited the memorial to Ashling at the Fiona Pender monument with many leaving flower and messages and lighting candles.

People also stopped to reflect and pray following the terrible events of the past week which have engulfed the county and the entire nation in an outpouring of grief.

Ashling's Funeral Mass will be celebrated in Mountbolus Church at 11am on Tuesday next with her remains reposing at her family home on Sunday and Monday.
A COVID-19 vaccine mandate for truckers crossing into Canada from the United States is now in effect, raising worries about future disruptions to the supply chain.
BOSTON (AP)  Microsoft said late Saturday that dozens of computer systems at an unspecified number of Ukrainian government agencies have been infected with destructive malware disguised as ransomware, a disclosure suggesting an attention-grabbing defacement attack on official websites was a diversion. The extent of the damage was not immediately clear.



The attack comes as the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine looms and diplomatic talks to resolve the tense stand-off appear stalled.



Microsoft said in a short blog post that amounted to the clanging of an industry alarm that it first detected the malware on Thursday. That would coincide with the attack that simultaneously took some 70 government websites temporarily offline.



The disclosure followed a Reuters report earlier in the day quoting a top Ukrainian security official as saying the defacement was indeed cover for a malicious attack.



Separately, a top private sector cybersecurity executive in Kyiv told The Associated Press how the attack succeeded: The intruders penetrated the government networks through a shared software supplier in a so-called supply-chain attack in the fashion of the 2020 SolarWinds Russian cyberespionage campaign targeting the U.S. government.



Microsoft said in a different, technical post that the affected systems span multiple government, non-profit, and information technology organizations." It said it did not know how many more organizations in Ukraine or elsewhere might be affected but said it expected to learn of more infections.



The malware is disguised as ransomware but, if activated by the attacker, would render the infected computer system inoperable, Microsoft said. In short, it lacks a ransom recovery mechanism.



Microsoft said the malware executes when an associated...
Newsy 25 Jan 2022

Watch VideoUkraine's leaders sought Tuesday to reassure the nation that an invasion from neighboring Russia was not imminent, even..
Rapper Wavy Navy Pooh has been fatally shot while reportedly "driving with two children and a woman" in Miami.
Rohit Sharma, who replaced Virat Kohli as team India's ODI captain last year was shocked to hear the latter's decision to relinquish Test captaincy.
NATO's secretary general says that while there's an urgent need for diplomacy to resolve the crisis in eastern Europe, it's up to Russia  not Ukraine  to show flexibility.
The British man who was shot dead after taking four people hostage at a Texas synagogue has been named by the FBI as Malik Faisal Akram.
Investigations are under way after reports of a mysterious environmental smell across parts of Edinburgh.
TRIPOLI, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Libyan Foreign Minister Najla Mangoush on Saturday called for international cooperation against illegal migration in the country.

Mangoush made her remarks during a visit to an illegal migrants' reception center in the capital Tripoli, as part of the government's efforts to provide assistance for illegal migrants.

"The Minister said that the illegal migration issue costs Libya great economic and security resources, adding that this issue requires serious international cooperation by the international humanitarian organizations and the neighboring countries in order to control illegal migration and protect the humanitarian and health rights of the migrants," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Libya has been suffering insecurity and chaos since the fall of the late leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, becoming a preferred point of departure for illegal migrants who want to cross the Mediterranean Sea to European shores.

According to the International Organization for Migration, more than 32,000 illegal migrants have been rescued and returned to Libya in 2021. 
Former prime minister Sir Tony Blair has said he could understand how rule-breaking parties in No 10 could happen, but that they were still inexcusable.
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp hopes the fact this season is far from normal will give his side a chance of reeling in Premier League defending champions Manchester City at the top of table.
Upworthy 19 Jan 2022

U.S. and U.K. authorities have been slow to confirm details on the timeline of when British suspect Malik Faisal Akram, accused of..
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Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani prisoner in the United States whose release was reportedly demanded by a Texas hostage-taker this weekend, is serving an 86-year sentence for the attempted murder of American soldiers.
Former Israeli PM understood to be in advanced talks with state attorneys office over admitting to two counts of breach of trust



#stateattorney #benjaminnetanyahu #corruptiontrial
Authorities on Sunday identified a 44-year-old British national as the man who took four people hostage at a Texas synagogue for 10 hours before an FBI SWAT team stormed the building, ending a tense standoff.
Opalesque Industry Update - Man Group, the global, technology-empowered active investment management firm, today announces the launch of a new initiative, Capital Asset Solutions ('CAS') within Man Solutions Limited. The initiative is led by new hires Dan Robinson and Stephan Muecke, who are based in London. The CAS initiative will combine the breadth of Man Group's investment capabilities across global credit markets with specialised expertise in regulation, product structuring and liquidity management to build solutions for clients operating in complex, regulated markets. The focus is predominantly on the global retirement services and savings market distributed through insurance, pension fund and wholesale channels. The CAS initiative will develop and manage an institutional investor focused multi-asset credit strategy that dynamically allocates to both liquid and private markets across Man Group. In addition, CAS will strategically partner with insurance firms to deliver tailored and flexible solutions focused on both liabilities and asset management that will look to help them improve their competitiveness, increase their resilience and grow. This will involve providing insurers with flexible capital, either through direct investment, reinsurance or other forms of balance sheet enhancing transactions, as well as leveraging Man Group's sophisticated asset management capabilities. All of these solutions will be provided within Man Group's existing prudential regulatory framework. Dan Robinson joins the firm from CIFC Asset Management, where he was the CIO of their European business. He brings over 20 years of experience managing credit strategies across hedge funds and private equity, including three years at Apollo Global Management, where he was Head of Liquid Credit (Europe), and twelve years at Oaktree Capital. Dan joins as Managing Partner of Capital Asset Solutions. Stephan Muecke joins the firm from Swiss Re. He brings over 15 years of experience in private equity, M&A, and liability solutions in the regulatorily complex insurance space and has held several senior asset management and insurance strategy roles throughout his career. Prior to Swiss Re, Stephan spent time with Oaktree Capital and Merrill Lynch. Stephan joins as Managing Partner of Capital Asset Solutions. The duo bring with them more than 35 years of asset management and insurance experience combined. They will be joined by a team of industry professionals experienced in providing asset management and capital solutions in regulated markets. Luke Ellis, CEO, Man Group, said: "Substantial structural change in both global asset management and global insurance markets over the past decade has starved insurers of yield and created a more complex regulatory environment. By leveraging Dan and Stephan's significant expertise, and combining it with our established alternative investment platform, we think we are well positioned to provide innovative asset, portfolio and capital solutions for insurers and in related product areas. The markets we are targeting are vast, so there is scope to create a scalable insurance asset management business and we are looking forward to building out our capabilities in this area." Dan Robinson, Managing Partner, CAS said: "We believe there is a huge opportunity to match the needs of investors in complex regulated markets, like insurance, with investment products optimised for their return, liquidity and regulatory needs. The sophistication and breadth of Man Group, especially in credit, technology and bespoke solutions, in conjunction with a commitment to provide capital, represent a very compelling offering across our target markets in our view. This requires an integrated approach and we are very excited to add our specific expertise in delivering these solutions to clients." Stephan Muecke, Managing Partner, CAS said: "In our opinion, Man Group is ideally positioned to establish itself as a strategic partner for insurance companies globally by integrating insurance and asset management capabilities. Fundamental to its new insurance strategy will be the ability to deploy flexible capital throughout the cycle and - in combination with our capital efficient asset management solutions - enable our partners to navigate the increasingly competitive insurance market. We are also delighted to be providing clients with access to attractive risk pools through investment solutions at the intersection of the insurance industry and capital markets." As at 30 September 2021, Man Group had $139.5 billion in funds under management. Article source - Opalesque is not responsible for the content of external internet sites
Jon Nelson, 55, and his wife, Tammy, own JNelson Farms in Lincoln Township. At JNelson, they raise grass-fed, grass-finished beef on open-pasture, no-confinement land for people who want nutritionally dense protein without additives.

Our goal is to regenerate the soil that we raise our cattle on to increase the organic content and fertility to leave it better for the next generations, Nelson said.

They also want to eliminate the need for synthetic chemical inputs. Their farm covers 350 acres. They have 350 head of cattle spread across their farm and four others in Michigan. Their partners on other farms help take care of the cattle. Their customers include family, friends, retailers, and distributors who serve restaurants and grocery stories. Customers can also order on their website and then pick the meat up following certain procedures at the store on the farm.

Nelson is a graduate of Pittsville High School in central Wisconsin, near Marshfield. He earned a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Minnesota and a masters degree in manufacturing management from Kettering University in Flint.

Nelson retired in 2021 from Dow after working for 32 years at Dow Corning and then Dow. His last position was as the North American distribution manager for electronic-grade silicones. The Nelsons have been married for 21 years. They have six kids, two grandkids, and one grandkid on the way.

How long have you owned your business?

Ive been in farming all my life. We bought this farm in 2000, started selling grass-fed beef in 2011.

What inspired you to own this business?

A lifelong interest in production agriculture and a passion for creating healthy food directly for customers.

What makes this area a great place to own a business?

Great area for raising grass-fed beef because of the abundance of water thats available, more than any other area in the United States. Theres no need for fighting over irrigation rights in Michigan.

What are some ways your business is active in the local community?

We support many local fundraisers with products for auctions, plus we provide beef for Michigan-based charities including juvenile homes. Fostering Hope in Michigan, weve provided beef and volunteered a lot. Another one is Eagle Village. Western Michigan Teen Challenge and Saginaw Teen Challenge.

What are some of your interests and hobbies?

We enjoy traveling to visit our kids, friends and family, both domestic and internationally, when we get back to doing that (after COVID). Also active in our church, Christian Celebration Center. We enjoy spending a lot of our time taking care of people.

What are some local businesses you work with that help make your business a success?

Michigan State University Extension Service provided an awful lot of support for us. Our distributors: Cherry Capital Foods in Traverse City, Apsey Farms in Reed City, Provision Family Farms in White Cloud, Trillium Wood Farm in Williamston, and Washtenaw Meats in the Ann Arbor area. Stores locally include Jacks Fruit and Meat Market in Midland, Health Hut, and Pats Food Center in Freeland.

Final thoughts to share with the community?

We appreciate all of our customers and partners and their support of our endeavor to provide healthy food. We encourage people to go to our website (jnelsonfarms.com) and contact us any time. We have beef available at all times for any size orders.
MOGADISHU, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- A Somali government spokesman Mohamed Ibrahim Moalimuu was injured in a suicide car bombing in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, Sunday, said a police source.

Police spokesman Abdifitah Aden said that a suicide bomber blew himself up at Moalimu's vehicle at a busy Dabka intersection in Mogadishu.

"The government spokesman is currently hospitalized in Mogadishu," Aden told journalists and promised to provide more details once the ongoing investigations are completed.

Witnesses said the former journalist escaped with slight injuries and is out of danger.

No group has claimed responsibility for the latest attack in the restive city but the militant group, al-Shabab, frequently stages such attacks in the capital and elsewhere in Somalia. 
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Ann Brown, age 67, of Palestine, Texas, passed away Sunday, May 1, 2022 in Palestine, Texas. Funeral service will be held at 10AM on Friday, May 6, 2022 at Evangelistic Temple. Burial will follow at Tennessee Colony Cemetery. Visitation will be held from 6PM to 8PM on Thursday, May 5, 2022 a
Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - Libyan Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Najla al-Mangouch expressed concern here Sunday that illegal immigration was draining important security and economic resources of the Libyan state
Photo: (Photo : STR/AFP via Getty Images)

A Tokyo mom in her 30s has decided to give up her baby for adoption after she learned that the sperm donor she hired to conceive lied about his ethnicity and education.

The married mother also filed a two-million lawsuit against the sperm donor for fraud and emotional distress. According to reports, she believed that the sperm donor was a single Japanese man who finished college at Kyoto University. However, she found out later on that he was Chinese, married, and never went to the prestigious research school.

In 2019, the woman and her husband decided to hire a sperm donor for their second child since they learned he has a hereditary disorder. They didn't want to risk passing on this condition to their next offspring.

To make their plans of expanding their family happen, she looked for the right candidate on social media with specific criteria in mind. Their arrangement was that she and the sperm donor would have intercourse until she got pregnant. That happened ten times with the couple's chosen candidate, who was in his early 20s.

Read Also: Healthy Baby Born From Frozen Embryo 27 Years Ago Sets World Record

Unregulated Sperm Donation System

However, several months into her pregnancy, the woman and her husband discovered the sperm donor's lie. He only agreed to the arrangement because he wanted physical intimacy. By then, it was too late for the mother to undergo an abortion, so they decided to put the baby up for adoption.

On the other hand, the couple's lawyer said that the woman had sleeping disorders because of what she had been through, including making the decision to give up the child. They filed the lawsuit to ensure that the man would not target other couples and tell the same lies.

According to Vice, commercial artificial insemination and sperm donations are unregulated and very limited in Japan, thus creating an underground market. Some use international sperm banks that cost a fortune, while others turn to cheaper options, such as scouring social media for anyone willing to take the risk.

Misa, a local who has used a sperm donor before, said that the woman did not understand the risk of going through an underground transaction. Social worker Mizuho Sasaki also criticized the mother for being "shallow" and treating the child like a commodity she could discard when she realized she didn't want the baby anymore.

A Sperm Donor with Mental Illness

Meanwhile, Laura and David Gunner in the U.S. also used a sperm donor to conceive their child more than two decades ago. Steven would live until 27 years old only because he suffered from a mental illness, schizophrenia, for more than half his life.

Upon Steven's death, his parents looked up the details of sperm donor 1558 from the Donor Sibling Registry, which led them to 18 other half-siblings and the donor's mother. From these sources, the Gunners learned that the sperm donor had a history of schizophrenia and died due to drug overdose two years before Steven. He didn't share his mental illness in the donor questionnaire from the sperm bank.

The Gunners are now supporting the enactment of legislation that would see stricter disclosures of the donor's health. They believe that had this law been in place before, they would have prevented the birth of a son with an inherited mental illness.

Related Article: New York Woman Learns Her Longtime Gynecologist is Her Biological Father
Photo: (Photo : NELSON ALMEIDA/AFP via Getty Images)

An anti-vax dad from Canada has been on the run for more than two months, taking his seven-year-old daughter with him to prevent her mother from getting her vaccinated.

Mariecar Jackson told CBC News that her ex-husband, Michael Jackson, failed to return their daughter after she was in his custody in November. The child was supposed to be with her dad for a week only, but Michael deliberately ignored two court orders requiring him to bring his daughter back to his mom.

The mother has no clue where Michael took their child and has likely fled Saskatchewan. Thus, Mariecar and her lawyer, Jill Drennan, have turned to the media to make a public appeal to locate the girl and her dad.

Read Also: Do's and Don'ts of Addressing Vaccine Hesitancy Among Family Members

Can't Let Vaccination Happen

However, on Friday, January 7, Michael went live but under a disguise in an online talk show with host Laura Lynn to talk about his situation with his ex-wife. He confirmed that he took his daughter away because Mariecar ignored any discussions with him over their child's vaccination.

He was aware that Mariecar planned to get their child vaccinated once it is approved for her age group. While she had medical authority over their daughter, the dad said he could not let this happen as per their divorce agreement.

Later on, the seven-year-old was also on the show and told the host that she didn't want the vaccine because this could change someone's DNA. Despite numerous health agencies debunking these myths, the girl believes that the vaccine will also make her sick or kill a person.

Michael said he's protecting his daughter and following God's mission. He also brought along the daughter in the live interview so that viewers could see that she's happy and healthy.

Mommy Will Not Stop Looking

Mariecar further appealed to her daughter in her appearance on CBC News by saying that she would not stop looking for her.

"Every day, I pray that someday you'll be home," the mom said, hoping that their daughter would see the clip as well. "Mommy is standing strong and someday we will be together."

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police did not have any comment on the case. On the other hand, the Regina Police Service said they couldn't open a criminal investigation against the father because the court orders lacked the proper verification.

Vaccine Hesitancy in Saskatchewan

Meanwhile, Health Canada authorized COVID-19 vaccines for children above five years old in Canada in November 2021. However, the uptake has been slow in provincial towns like Saskatchewan due to vaccine hesitancy among the parents. Saskatchewan has the lowest vaccination rate as well in all of Canada.

Studies from the University of Saskatchewan indicated that many locals believe that the vaccine trials are insufficient, and misconceptions about vaccine safety continue to proliferate. Others have refused the vaccine due to religious or medical grounds.

Experts from the university also said that those who didn't want the vaccine are more than likely not wearing a face mask or observing social distancing, thus raising more concerns from health officials who have been trying to control the rising cases. The province of Saskatchewan has over 10,000 active cases as of January.

Related Article: Routine Childhood Vaccinations Dropped During the Pandemic, Causing Concerns for Parents and Doctors
TRIPOLI, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Libyan Prime Minister Abdul-Hamid Dbeibah on Saturday stressed the importance of the contribution of young physicians to improving the healthcare in Libya.

"We are confident of the ability of our young physicians to improve the healthcare in our country, when needs are provided. This serves our quest to provide proper healthcare in all parts of the country," Dbeibah said during a speech at the second training forum of medical students and young physicians, held in the capital Tripoli.

The forum, which brings together a large number of young physicians and medical students across the country, seeks to come up with scientific recommendations and launch training programs to improve the capabilities of young physicians in Libya.

Due to years of armed conflict and instability, Libyan authorities have been struggling to provide proper basic services, mainly in areas of healthcare and education, for its people. 
Photo: (Photo : JAVIER SORIANO/AFP via Getty Images)

Dave Bennett has made medical history as the first man who received a pig heart transplant. The pig's heart had been genetically modified to work inside a human body.

The 57-year-old dad, who has been waiting for a new heart for some time, got the good news from his team of doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center on New Year's Eve. They informed him that the FDA finally granted the emergency authorization for the pig heart transplant, which meant that they could proceed with the ground-breaking operation as soon as possible.

So, on Friday, January 7, 2021, Bennet underwent surgery without any hitches and has been recovering well from the unique procedure. His doctor, Dr. Bartley Griffith, told USA Today that the new heart looks "reasonably happy in its new host" after the surgery. The outcome has also exceeded all expectations.

For over 45 days, Bennett has been hooked to a machine that helped pump blood into his body. After the transplant, the dad is off the machine, breathing on his own and speaking softly to the medical team.

His doctor said Bennett was not supposed to be off the machines until another week. However, his new transplanted heart was "rocking and rolling," and his health has generally stabilized; thus, he progressed earlier.

Read Also: Dad Gives New Son a Unique Baby Name in Honor of His Workplace

Why Was Bennett Chosen?

The father had a procedure called Xenotransplantation, which involves transplanting animals' cells, tissues, and organs into a human body. His doctors chose a pig heart because of its similarities with a human heart. A pig's heart may also be easily genetically altered through procedures used for the human heart.

Revivicor developed the one-year-old pig used for the transplant. It had ten genes modified with four genes knocked back and inactivated to reduce the chances of rejection. Six human genes were also included in its genome to ensure that Bennett's body would not reject the pig heart.

According to his doctors, Bennett was not ideal for a human heart transplant because he didn't have regular medical appointments and didn't take his medications as prescribed. The experts noted that, based on previous surgeries, patients who fail to follow their doctor's orders usually do not survive a transplant procedure.

But scientists have been studying for years on transplanting pig hearts into the body of baboons through genetic modifications that will one day prove to be helpful to humans. Such a procedure fitted right for Bennett.

The dad was also an ideal candidate for this first pig heart transplant procedure because he did not have any ethical, moral dilemma about this scientific breakthrough. In 2013, Bennet had heart surgery for a pig valve implantation.

Significant for the World

Bennett's son, David Bennett Jr., hailed the successful outcome that has given hope for countless other people. He relayed that this father was in the operating room for three days and emerged with some swelling in his body.

While David Jr. said that his father's first words were, "I can't take this," he knows his dad is the strongest deep inside. The son said this had been a miracle for their family, the U.S., and the rest of the world.

"I myself have some heart issues at 37 years old so my dad is certainly changing the future for even myself," the son said.

Related Article: Matthew Coleman: Dad Seeks Forgiveness for Killing His Children Whom He Believes Had Serpent DNA
Hon. Yaw Dr. Osei Adutwum, MP for the Bosomtwe Constituency, and the Minister of Education, through hard work and dedication, on the 2nd January 2022 together with Nananom and Nickseth Construction Company Limited cut sod for the construction of a new ultramodern Senior High School at Sawua to provide quality education for the people of the Bosomtwe District in the Ashanti Region.



Hon. Dr. Osei Adutwum said, as has been the vision of President Akufo Addo, which he has always reiterated, in order to transform society you need to transform education and not just simple education, but Science, Technology, and Engineering education. According to the minister, the project is to be completed in one year, hence the selection of three contractors for its execution is coming out as one of the best senior high schools in the country.



The Minister re-echoed the trust he has in Nickseth Construction Company Limited to provide value for money, recounting the good the company has been doing for mother Ghana. He cited the infrastructure development at the newly established school, Deduako Girls Senior High School at Deduako in the Bosomtwe District of Ashanti Region as the handiwork of Nickseth Construction Company Limited.



Dr. Godfred Owusu-Boateng, the chairman of the Board of Directors of the company, responding to the question why Nickseth Construction Company Limited has been doing so well in the construction industry, said the company, mindful of its mission and vision of To maintain a strong passion for a touch of excellence towards timeless perfection in the construction industry, lives according to its core values, adding that this is why Nickseth Construction Company Limited always leads.



The Queen mother of Sawua, Nana Akosua Abrafi II, hailed Hon Yaw Osei Adutwum for the gesture and for showing good leadership to make the district proud. She prayed for the minister and the construction companies that the good Lord endows them with all that is needed to complete the project.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









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A couple celebrating their 81st wedding anniversary were told "it wouldn't last long", their daughter has said.



Ron and Joyce Bond, aged 102 and 100, who live at Shenley Wood Retirement Village in Milton Keynes, are thought to be the UK's longest-married couple.



They married on 4 January 1941 in Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire.



Their daughter Eileen said: "It was said of them at the time of their wedding it would not last long. How wrong did folks get that?"



Last year, the couple received written congratulations from the Queen on reaching their Oak anniversary.



Ron, from Blaina in Blaenau Gwent, and Joyce, who was born in Bow Brickhill, Milton Keynes, met in Bletchley and married at Newport Pagnell Register Office on a day when there was three inches of snow on the ground.



"There were queues of couples as Ron's section were all being sent abroad to assist with the war effort," said Mrs Bond.

The pair agree it was love at first sight and believe they are evenly matched in the relationship.



"There is no boss in our relationship. We both give and take," said Mrs Bond.



"We never expected to reach 81 years of marriage. We know we are very fortunate to have achieved this amazing goal. It feels excellent."



Mr Bond said: "Sometimes life is hard but we work through it together. We look after each other, too."



The couple had two children, Eileen and Bill, and now have three grandchildren, six great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild.



Mr Bond worked at a Shell garage in Bletchley before retiring while Mrs Bond worked at Woolworths in Queensway. The pair moved to the retirement village in 2013.



Their daughter said her parents were a "truly inspirational couple".



"There was always a warm welcome and lots of love for all," she said.



"Dad worked hard to provide for the family, while mum worked hard at keeping our home and us clean and tidy.



"You only have to spend time with them to know they love and care for each other, even after 81 years of being married."

Source: BBC









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The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) has condemned the attack on Radio Ada (93.3 FM), a community radio station in the Greater Accra region.



The Foundation has demanded an immediate investigation and prosecution of perpetrators.



A group of thugs numbering about 12 on January 13, 2022, stormed the premises of the community radio station, assaulted two of its journalists and vandalised equipment.



A journalist at Radio Ada who is also the External Communications Officer of the media house, Julius Odoi, told the MFWA that the hoodlums invaded the station at around 11:45 am after a drinking binge at a nearby drinking bar.



They demanded to see the Manager and when told by the security guards that he was not available, the intruders forcibly entered the building. They broke the studio door and caused mayhem.



According to Odoi, the thugs ordered Gabriel Korley Adjaotor, who was presenting a music programme, to stop his presentation.



Before the presenter could react, they disconnected cables, smashed computers and attacked the console and microphones, disrupting the broadcast in the process, Odoi told the MFWA in a telephone conversation.



After upsetting the studio, the thugs assaulted the presenter amidst warnings to the station to stop its Manor Munyu programme, a regular feature that discusses the state of the salt mining industry, the mainstay of the Ada economy.



The invaders who had come carrying bottles of alcohol, also forced another journalist, Gideon Amanor Dzeagu, to kneel for several minutes while they proceeded to turn the whole premises into a mess by breaking their bottles and littering the place with alcohol and shards.



The Ada Songhor programme is highly critical of the operations of Electrochem, the firm accorded the rights to mine salt in the Songhor Lagoon. Electrochem has in the past had to write to the Management of the radio station to complain about alleged misrepresentations about its operations and demand an apology. There is, however, no indication that the attackers are linked to the salt mining firm.



Meanwhile, the presenter, Gabriel Korley Adjaotor, is said to be responding to treatment, having been rushed to the District Hospital for attention.



The Ada District Police Commander, DSP Andreas Mifetu, confirmed to the MFWA in a telephone chat that his outfit issued a medical form to the presenter after the station reported the assault.



The Police chief also confirmed that a team of officers have been dispatched to the premises of Radio Ada to verify the incident, as part of investigations.



The management of the radio station, in a statement, has announced that the station will shut down for a few days to enable it to review and repair the extent of the damage caused.



Radio Ada has a reputation for critical reports which hold the powerful to account. On August 2, 2018, the police stormed the station in search of one of its radio presenters, Joseph Korletey Korley, popularly known as DJ Koxterio. The journalist had angered the chiefs of the traditional area by demanding that they account for the funds raised at the annual cultural festival, Asafotufiami.



The MFWA vigorously condemns this shameful attack on Radio Ada and its staff by the cowardly hoodlums. It is a vicious attack that seeks to silence the media house and instil fear in journalists.



We are confident that the station and its staff will continue to stand firm in service to the public and demand that the authorities take measures to provide them the needed protection. We urge the police to conduct thorough investigations into the incident and bring the perpetrators to book.

Source: MFWA









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Radio Ada, a community-based media outlet in the Ada East District of the Greater Accra Region has petitioned the National Media Commission (NMC), National Communication Authority (NCA) over the vandalization of its properties by some assailants.



Mr Noah Dameh, Radio Ada Deputy Station Coordinator told the Ghana News Agency in an interview that thugs, numbering about eight, one of whom was armed with a pistol, on Wednesday, January 13th entered the studio and forcefully destroyed the doors and invaded the on-air studio.



Mr Dameh said the gangs thereafter beat up a presenter, Mr Gabriel Adjawutor, and vandalized the on-air studio equipment - the console, microphones, and others.



He said the group also held two Radio Ada staff together with visitors at the station at the time of the incident hostage for several minutes.



He noted that a complaint has been lodged at the Big Ada Police Station and the Police had visited the Studio to take an inventory of the damaged equipment.



The Deputy Station Coordinator explained that the presenter who was beaten up has since been sent to the Ada East District Hospital for treatment and discharged.



Mr Dameh condemned the unorthodox means of seeking redress stressing that the law courts among others were available where anybody having any form of issue with a Media House or a citizen can go to.



He said using violent means does not resolve problems, let engage and use the right means to address our problems in society, and urged the entire Ada community to desist from activities that would threaten the peace of the area.



Mr Dameh noted that in view of the destruction of the properties, the stations normal programmes would be temporally suspended, but would continue to broadcast news and play patriotic songs.



"Our listening community is assured that Radio Ada will thereafter continue to broadcast and that its commitment to inform and to give voice to the Dangme community, particularly those least voiced, remains unchanged," he emphasized.





Source: GNA









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A young man was caught on camera deliberately pushing a woman onto the tracks in Rogier metro station in Brussels, Belgium.



The Terrifying incident occurred at around 19:45 on Friday evening, January 14. CCTV footage shows the train stopping moments anything could have happened. She was quickly helped off the tracks by bystanders, according to Brussels public transport company STIB.



Guy Sablon, the spokesperson for STIB, told The Brussels Times: "The driver reacted very well but is very much so in shock, as is the victim."



The victim and Metro driver were taken to hospital and returned home after receiving care.



The suspect has been arrested.



Brussels police spokesperson Sarah Durant said: "Thanks to the distribution of the images of the suspect within the police services, he was intercepted a few minutes later while he was in the metro station De Brouckere."









Woman pushed under wheels of subway train in Brussels. Train driver managed to stop just in time.



Suspect  a 23yo French citizen  detained. Motives as yet unknown. pic.twitter.com/Zl3N4rMeRE



 RT (@RT_com) January 16, 2022









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Law enforcement teams stage near Congregation Beth Israel while conducting SWAT operations in Colleyville, Texas on Saturday afternoon, Jan. 15, 2022. Authorities said a man took hostages Saturday during services at the synagogue where the suspect could be heard ranting in a livestream and demanding the release of a Pakistani neuroscientist who was convicted of trying to kill U.S. Army officers in Afghanistan. (Lynda M. Gonzalez/The Dallas Morning News via AP)
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A police car is seen blocking the road to the Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, a suburban city of Fort Worth in Texas, the United States, Jan. 15, 2022. All hostages "are out alive and safe" after an hours-long standoff ended on Saturday night at a synagogue in Colleyville, south central U.S. state Texas, Governor Greg Abbott tweeted. Colleyville police confirmed the information just before 10 p.m. local time (0400 GMT on Sunday). The suspected hostage taker is dead, according to Colleyville Police. Multiple media outlets reported that the suspect claimed to have set bombs in several locations inside the synagogue. (Photo by Dan Tian/Xinhua)

HOUSTON, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- All hostages "are out alive and safe" after an hours-long standoff ended on Saturday night at a synagogue in Colleyville, south central U.S. state Texas, Governor Greg Abbott tweeted.

Colleyville police confirmed the information just before 10 p.m. local time (0400 GMT on Sunday).

The suspected hostage taker is dead, according to Colleyville Police. Multiple media outlets reported that the suspect claimed to have set bombs in several locations inside the synagogue.

A bang was heard near the synagogue shortly before the rescue, according to a Xinhua reporter on the scene. It wasn't immediately clear what the noise was.

At least four hostages, including a rabbi, were taken earlier on Saturday at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, just outside Fort Worth. No injuries were reported among the hostages, one of whom was released earlier in the evening.

The hostage taker required the release of Aafia Siddiqui, who was sentenced in 2010 to 86 years in prison for the attempted murder and assault of U.S. officers in Afghanistan, and is incarcerated in the federal prison in Fort Worth, local media reported.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki tweeted on Saturday evening that President Joe Biden was briefed on the hostage situation. 

Police cars are seen blocking the road to the Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, a suburban city of Fort Worth in Texas, U.S., Jan. 15, 2022. All hostages "are out alive and safe" after an hours-long standoff ended on Saturday night at a synagogue in Colleyville, south central U.S. state Texas, Governor Greg Abbott tweeted. Colleyville police confirmed the information just before 10 p.m. local time (0400 GMT on Sunday). The suspected hostage taker is dead, according to Colleyville Police. Multiple media outlets reported that the suspect claimed to have set bombs in several locations inside the synagogue. (Photo by Dan Tian/Xinhua)
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A new co-working and event space is coming to Aikens east side with plans to open fully in February.

The Urban+Rural Roost, located at 703 Richland Ave. E., will feature a podcast studio, meeting rooms, office spaces and conference rooms. Outside there is a backyard event space with wooden picnic table, fire pit and a bar inside a renovated Airstream are available for rentals.

Gary Finnan, the owner of Urban+Rural, wanted to fill in some of the destination tourism-related gaps in Aiken.

Before coming to Aiken, Finnan worked in consulting for wineries, breweries and other hospitality-related ventures in California.

One of the things that is interesting is theres an influx of new people coming to Aiken who are used to having other experiences outside of town. At the same time, theres a demand or expectation for younger people to want to stay here, and they dont, Finnan explained. But the reality is that there isnt a lot of draw; so, hopefully, with this spaceis that we infuse that millennial culture, technology and social aspects.

Finnan wants to make internet access a priority for Aiken users who may struggle with online connectivity in their homes.

Aiken is struggling with internet connection, so we are finding a lot of people who are wanting to get out of their home now and want to come here; and we have four offices upstairs that are leased out, and it's kind of a collaborative space with meeting rooms, Finnan said.

One of the businesses working alongside Urban+Rural Roost is Aiken Podcasts, an expansion of Augusta Podcasts.

David Bash, CEO of Augusta Podcasts, alongside chief marketing officer Chris Nabholz, saw a potential for new storytelling and creativity in the Aiken community.

Aiken Podcasts will be working alongside Finnan to create a modern American village.

The idea is that you come here and you can go from podcast to collaboration space to culinary to event pop up, and the fun part is that, hopefully, Aiken Podcasts is going to be creating content with all of their creative staff and telling local stories , Finnan said.

Nabholz is excited to show people a space that can break the barrier of entry for the audio world.

When we first started working in Augusta, what we found was that it was really important for us to have a studio because not a lot of people have studios, he said. They havent made that kind of investment. And so when we came to Aiken, we wanted to be able to do the same thing where it is like, eventually over time, we want this to be a cultural thing where people want to set stuff up and be creative.

Having an actual space where you can come to and see and use as an example and get inspiration from and do creative stuff from and feel comfortable doing it is really important to building the foundation of that culture, Nabholz said.

Finnan hopes that the new co-working and event space sparks creativity and connectivity.

Its not just about space, its about the people who are going to collaborate here, Finnan said. I cant really emphasize that enough. Collaborate and incubate, and thats a large part of helping people grow their brands.
Cigarettes, car parts, drink cans, beer bottles and fast-food wrappers were a major part of Saturday morning's scenery for a small group of volunteers in action along Laurens Street, also known in part as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Highway.

Kandace Cave, program coordinator for Keep Aiken County Beautiful, organized the effort and had a quintet of volunteers in action, scooping and plucking roadside trash and depositing filled, bright orange garbage bags alongside the road for pickup, all in early observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Comprising her corps of volunteers were Pat Kirk, John Brightbill (chairman of Keep Aiken County Beautiful) and the trio of Gerald Simmons, Tommy Cheatham and Robert Evans (all with Junk Luggers of the CSRA).

Simmons and his daughter "are constantly picking up other people's garbage," Simmons said. "I take Walmart bags with me on hikes and stuff, so it's kind of nice to come out here and do it, and it's good to give back to the community and stuff like that, and pick up stuff. I found a car seat  tucked back in the woods, and a bunch of Zaxby's boxes and nothing to crazy. No money or nothing. It was a fun time."

Evans, referring to the roadside residue, noted that "90% of it was items that should have been in household trash."

Simmons, a native of the southern Minnesota town of Fairmont, said he was looking forward to the prospect of some seriously wintry weather in the next day or two, to stir some good memories of his younger years.

Cave wrote, "We are thankful for the few volunteers that came out to serve the community on this chilly morning. We removed nearly 200 pounds of litter in an hour! Just imagine how much more we could gotten with a few more folks."

She added, "Litter in the community impacts everyone. I have yet to meet a person that claims to love litter. Thats why its so encouraging when people donate their time to help make Aiken County cleaner, especially on a cold winter morning."

Cave's agency was created in 2019, and normally has one pick-up effort on the northern end of Laurens Street in connection with MLK Day and another around Independence Day.

"We try to go where the need is," she said. "Lots of pedestrian litter, as expected. There are a lot of people who walk through here. Not a lot of places to dispose of your garbage or your waste as you're walking, so not a lot of surprises. A lot of cigarette butts, a lot of cigars. Things like that."
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HOUSTON, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- A British citizen has been identified as the suspect who held four hostages inside a synagogue on Saturday at Colleyville in the U.S. state of Texas and died there after hours-long standoff, multiple local media outlets reported on Sunday, citing federal law enforcement sources.

All four hostages, including a rabbi, made it out alive and safe.

The FBI identified the suspect as Malik Faisal Akram, 44, who entered the United States two weeks ago via New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport, according to media reports.

Fox News Digital reported that British government's Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office confirmed the death of a British man in Texas on Sunday.

No explosive material has been found on the suspect and the scene, said a CBS News report. Multiple media outlets reported earlier that the suspect claimed to have set bombs in several locations inside the synagogue.

The authorities are currently assessing Akram's mental health and investigating whether he appeared on any terrorist screening database or watchlist, said the report.

U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters on Sunday that authorities "just don't have enough facts" to speculate the motive of the hostage taker, calling the standoff "an act of terror."

"I don't think there is sufficient information to know about why he targeted that synagogue or why he insisted on the release of someone who's been in prison for over 10 years, why he was engaged - why he was using anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli comments," Biden told reporters.

The hostage taker reportedly required the release of Aafia Siddiqui, who was sentenced in 2010 to 86 years in prison for the attempted murder and assault of U.S. officers in Afghanistan, and is incarcerated in the federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas.

"Immediate crisis is over. Yet the fear of rising antisemitism remains," Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas tweeted on Sunday.

However, the FBI said on Saturday night it believed the hostage taker was "singularly focused on one issue, and it was not specifically related to the Jewish community."

There was no indication of "any kind of ongoing threat," said FBI Dallas special agent in charge Matthew DeSarno at a news briefing, noting the investigation would have "global reach."

"I am grateful to be alive," Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, one of the hostages held for about 11 hours in the synagogue, said on Facebook on Sunday. 
GREENVILLE  A dangerous storm combining high winds and ice swept through South Carolina's Upstate and much of the Southeast on Jan. 16, knocking out power, felling trees and fences and coating roads with a treacherous, frigid glaze.

Winter Storm Izzy dumped more than an inch of snow per hour in some parts of the Carolinas, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia, according to the National Weather Service.

Snow totals for most of the Upstate ranged from 1 to 4 inches, though portions saw more. The Spartanburg-Greenville Airport saw about 6 inches, according to the Weather Service's Greer Office. Travelers Rest, a city in Greenville County, received up to 9 inches of snow, the Weather Service Eastern Region tweeted that day.

Downtown Greenville was hit with 5 inches of snow, according to the Weather Service. Thousands of footprints were crunched into the snow and icy mix that sticks to the sidewalks. Residents walked the streets, with sleds in hands and hats on heads, bracing the winds wiping snow into their faces for a Sunday snow day.

People walked with care as most of the sidewalks and roads downtown were unplowed. Some people even slipped.

Cars turned the white snow of the area brown with sludge as they went way under the sped limit.

Most of the businesses were dark, closing for a citywide snow day. On the outside of town, a beer hall remained lit with customer thawing from the cold outside and watching football on TV.

Dogs darted around, exploring the snow. One even took a quick plunge into the Reedy River before quickly dashing out.

North Carolina residents were surprised by the snowfall. The storm dumped as much as 10 inches of snow in some areas of western North Carolina as the system moved across the state, said Brian Hurley, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.

About 13 inches of snow fell in Saluda, North Carolina, according to the Weather Service.

Kristen Baker Morrow's 6-year-old son made snow angels after their home in Crouse, North Carolina, got 4 inches of snow that morning, but she said they couldn't stay outside long because of the uncomfortable wind chill.

"It took 30 to 45 minutes to get everything on for about 10 minutes in the snow, but it was definitely worth it for him, to get our pictures and make some memories," said Morrow, a 35-year-old registered nurse.

About 100,000 residents in the Upstate, Midlands and Pee Dee regions lost power by mid-afternoon, according to poweroutage.US, which tracks outages nationwide. More than 260,000 customers were without power by mid-afternoon. The remaining outages were in Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.

At about 8 p.m., there were nearly 50,000 outages scattered across the state.

Crews in South Carolina pretreated roadways across the state, but officials still urged people to stay off them unless travel was necessary.

The Midland region mainly saw freezing rain in the morning, said Chris Rohrbach, a meteorologist from the National Weather Services Columbia office. Forecasters predicted there would be no more freezing rain that afternoon, he said.

"There is some concern of black ice overnight, Rohrbach said. There was just so much freezing rain that melted and could refreeze. It is something to be cautious of when driving. People should take their morning commute a bit slower than they normally would.

Anyone who must travel should ensure their vehicle is in good condition, checking the fluids, battery and tires before taking to the roads. Motorists should fully charge their cellphones and pack extra blankets and snacks in case of delays.

Two people died in North Carolina when their car drove off the road and into trees in a median east of Raleigh. The driver and passenger, both 41-year-old South Carolina residents, were pronounced dead at the scene of the single-vehicle crash.

Greenville city spokeswoman Beth Brotherton told The Post and Courier that earlier in the morning, 20 cars were stuck in the snow on Church Street Bridge downtown and local police have since coned off the bridge.

Maj. Gen. Van McCarty of the S.C. National Guard said his agency coordinated with state authorities in advance of the storm, and had 14 vehicle recovery teams available for assistance.

Some COVID-19 testing and vaccine clinics may close or have different hours in light of the snow. People should contact clinics on the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control's website to confirm hours before going on Jan. 17.

The Weather Service's Columbia office issued ice storm warnings for counties across the upper middle portion of the state for most of the day. By nightfall, they had been downgraded to winter storm warnings, but the danger of black ice on the roadways, downed trees and power outages continued through 8 a.m. Jan. 17.

The following Weather Service advisories are in effect for South Carolina:

Winter storm warning for the Anderson, Cherokee, Greater Greenville, Greater Oconee, Greater Pickens, Spartanburg and York areas. Mixed precipitation and black ice. Additional snow and sleet accumulations will be less than one inch. Wet roads will refreeze, becoming icy and slippery.

Winter storm warning for the mountain areas of Greenville, Oconee and Pickens. Snow and black ice. Additional snow accumulations of up to 1 inch. Winds gusting as high as 40 mph. Wet roads will refreeze, becoming icy and slippery.

Special weather statement warning of black ice tonight through Monday morning. A winter storm affected much of the region with ice, snow, and sleet Saturday night and Sunday. Roads became wet in many areas as temperatures warmed Sunday afternoon, but as temperatures fall overnight those roads are likely to become icy again. Slippery, treacherous road conditions may persist in some areas into Monday morning. Transportation agencies are advising the public to stay off roads unless absolutely necessary. Any motorists that do venture out are urged to use extreme caution. If a road looks wet, it likely is covered in a thin sheet of ice.

The storm was making air travel extremely difficult in some parts of the South. About 14 flights were canceled Jan. 16 at the Charleston International Airport.

The nation's hardest-hit airport  Charlotte Douglas International  remained open around dawn, the airport said in a weather briefing. But more than 1,200 Sunday flights there were canceled  more than 90 percent of the airport's Sunday schedule, according to the flight tracking service flightaware.com. Charlotte is a major hub in the South for American Airlines.

In Atlanta, where Delta Air Lines operates its main hub, more than 300 flights were canceled.

In the Asheville area, local television footage showed snow accumulation covering the streets with white. Buncombe County closed all parks, libraries and solid waste facilities through Jan. 17. In Boone to the northeast, Appalachian State University suspended many operations Jan. 16 and told all but certain essential workers to remain away from campus until at least the next morning.

The Weather Service confirmed that a tornado with 118 mph winds struck southwest Florida. The tornado was on the ground for almost 2 miles with a maximum path width of 125 yards. Thirty mobile homes were destroyed and 51 had major damage. Three minor injuries were reported.

Edward Murray, 81, told the Naples Daily News in southwest Florida that he was inside his mobile home Sunday morning when a tornado picked it up and tossed it on top of his neighbor's home.

"That's my house that's turned upside down," he told the newspaper. "The tornado took me off my feet, blew me toward the east wall and buried me under the sink, refrigerator, kitchen chairs and everything else."

Murray and his daughter, Cokie, escaped unharmed, crawling from the wreckage.

After lashing the South, weather forecasters say the Northeast can expect similar conditions.

New York City was expected to be spared from most, if not all, of the snowfall, but Long Island and Connecticut coastal areas were expecting gale conditions. Upstate New York was projected to get hit with up to a foot of snow to go along with high winds.

About 6 to 13 inches of snow was expected in parts of east-central Ohio and western Pennsylvania from the afternoon of Jan. 16.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Mount Pleasant is making moves to limit future hotel development to specific areas.

The proposed zoning changes were given initial approval at the last Town Council meeting Jan. 11, with a 7-2 vote in favor.

Under the proposal, hotels and boutique hotels would become a conditional use, based on land-use designations laid out in the town's comprehensive plan.

Full-size hotels would be limited to areas classified as "town scale commercial" that were determined to be appropriate for more concentrated development and business uses that serve the entire population. They're also suited for future hotel development, per the plan, due to their proximity to other amenities tourists can utilize.

Houston Northcutt Boulevard and Carolina Park are two examples of town scale areas. Future hotels would also be allowed in the waterfront district around Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum.

Boutique lodgings would be permitted in "community scale commercial" areas where town officials determined development should be more focused on serving nearby residents. Mount Pleasant recently changed its definition of a boutique hotel to a property with 25 or fewer rooms, down from a maximum of 50.

There are five community scale "hubs" currently recommended as appropriate for boutique hotels:

Belle Hall/Long Point Road area;

area; Seaside Farms at the Isle of Palms Connector;

at the Isle of Palms Connector; The intersection of Chuck Dawley and Coleman boulevards;

The intersection of Highways 17 and 41; and

The Republic Tract on Highway 41.

Along with those hubs, boutique hotels could also be built anywhere a full-size hotel is permitted.

At a planning committee session Jan. 3, council member G.M. Whitley said that establishing the new hotel rules was really "making a decision about what Mount Pleasant is going to be long-term."

Whitley spoke about striking a balance between welcoming visitors and serving the needs of residents.

"If we wanted to live in a tourism mecca, we would have moved downtown," Whitley said.

The zoning changes are for the entire town of Mount Pleasant, but the public comments at council's Jan. 11 meeting only pertained to one site: a property on Ben Sawyer Boulevard that used to house the secondhand furnishings store Page's Thieves Market.

Developer Michael Bennett of Charleston-based Bennett Hospitality has had the high-profile property under contract with intent to develop it as a hotel. An affiliate of his firm purchased the site in a deal that was recorded Jan. 4.

Under the proposed changes council reviewed last week, the property would not be suitable for a full-size hotel since it's not in a "town scale" area. Also, the site isn't part of one of the hubs that's been recommended as appropriate for boutique hotels.

"The zoning y'all are considering would make it not acceptable for a hotel," Bennett said of the site during the public comment portion of Tuesday's council meeting.

When the proposal came up for discussion, council member Gary Santos asked whether the changes would affect what Bennett is "trying to do."

Mayor Will Haynie asked whether the town had received any application or formal request to build a hotel at the Ben Sawyer site.

Town staff said it hadn't. It was also noted that proposed changes council was reviewing do not address specific parcels.

In addition to his appearance before council Tuesday, Bennett spoke at the most recent Planning Commission and Planning Committee meetings about his company's desire to develop the Ben Sawyer site as a hotel with 74 rooms and 16 bungalows. At 90 guest units total, that would be considered a full-size hotel under the town's definition.
A brief window into the collapse of a tiny Charleston financial institution launched during the civil rights movement of the 1960s has been shut.

But the behind-the-scenes investigation remains open.

It was just over a year ago when federal regulators swooped in and took over CO Federal Credit Union, citing "unsafe and unsound" business practices.

More than eight months later, as summer was giving way to fall, the tiny and troubled financial cooperative at the corner of Spring and Rutledge was deemed beyond repair and closed after a 55-year run. The National Credit Union Administration found that CO Federal "was insolvent and had no prospect for restoring viable operations."

By then, regulators were already looking under the hood to learn what led up to the downfall. A primary person of interest was a self-described finance entrepreneur from Georgia whose elusive ways set off a game of cat and mouse that came to an end this month

For roughly two years, Vincent Terry dodged efforts by investigators to establish a paper trail connecting him and the failed CO Federal. The two sides came face to face in U.S. District Court in Charleston in late September to determine whether he was in contempt for failing to produce a boatload of documents the NCUA wanted to see.

Judge Richard Gergel laid down the law at the September hearing, telling Terry "this dance is over."

It was music to the NCUA's ears. Its first formal demand for documents came in the form of a subpoena issued in 2019. It was seeking information dating back several years about Terry's business activities, his personal finances, his acquaintances, his taxes  and about his dealings with CO Federal and its management.

Fed up with the stonewalling, the NCUA sued him last February in a move that would force him to appear in court and answer questions.

CO Federal was a grassroots product of the civil rights movement that opened its doors in 1966 to serve the disenfranchised. It was organized by partners led by the late Esau Jenkins, a Johns Island native who spent much of his adult life seeking to lift the local Black community out of poverty. The goal was to fill a void for low-income minorities who were being denied loans and access to other basic financial services.

The mission-driven lender went about its business for more than five decades without attracting much notice  until it started to falter.

Regulators believe Terry met with CO Federal management in February 2019 and presented himself and his newly formed Westminster Mortgage of America LLC as licensed underwriters and brokers of real estate loans.

Probably left unsaid was that he and his similarly named Westminster Mortgage LLC of Atlanta previously had agreed to turn in their licenses in Georgia over "allegations including purposefully withholding documents requested ... and refusal to permit an examination," according to financial regulators.

Also, Terry had filed for personal bankruptcy nine times since 1998 and numerous businesses he helped incorporate ended up failing, the NCUA said.

And while it turned out that he wasn't authorized to underwrite mortgages in South Carolina, he and his company still brought loans in the door at CO Federal, primarily for himself, friends, relatives and other acquaintances. Most never repaid the money, according to the NCUA.

At the September court hearing, Terry was given about a week to turn over all the information the NCUA wanted or face jail time. But it never came to that.

The original Oct. 6 deadline came and went. The following month, the NCUA told the judge that Terry still hadn't fully complied with the court order, namely because investigators were having trouble accessing certain e-mails and financial records.

Then, without explanation, Gergel announced on Dec. 28 that he was ready to call it a wrap. The NCUA didn't object, essentially saying that it required no further prodding from the bench to help it find out what brought down the former "Community Owned" Federal Credit Union.

With that, the lawsuit was closed on Jan. 3, though the civil investigation goes on.

"So we got what we needed," said Beth Warren, a federal prosecutor in Columbia who worked with the NCUA on its case.

"I'd definitely agree with that," added Wells Dickson, a Mount Pleasant and Kingstree attorney who represented Terry during the lawsuit but is no longer involved in the matter. "It took awhile. It was complicated, but it all worked out."
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A Charleston-based beer brand that credits its birth to a Cuban vacation could soon live up to its name with an expansion to a pair of island nations in the Caribbean.

Island Brands, maker of Island Coastal Lager and other brews that compete head-to-head with big brands like Budweiser and Coors, is considering expanding its distribution territory to include Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and the South American country of Costa Rica. The move follows triple-digit growth in sales in the company's key Southeast markets, including the Carolinas and Georgia.

Island Brands also is finalizing expansion into markets in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. The company's beers are also available on all Carnival Cruise Line ships, including the Carnival Sunshine which is home-ported in Charleston.

While the brand is already available in large supermarkets like Publix and Harris Teeter, Island Brands is looking for placement with smaller, independent retailers, such as convenience stores and gas stations.

First brewed in 2017, Island Brands has raised more than $4 million through crowdfunding campaigns.

Company co-founders Brandon Perry and Scott Hansen say they got the idea to create a beer while vacationing in Cuba.

Cuba is beautiful  the people, the food is great, the cigars, the water, the architecture. They have everything, except they dont have any damn good beer, Hansen told The Post and Courier.

While political obstacles have kept Island Brands from accomplishing its goal of selling beer in the island nation, the brand has flourished in its current seven-state Southeast footprint with a valuation topping $117 million and year-over-year revenue growth of 9 percent, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Imports spur record

It's no surprise considering the Port of Charleston has been setting monthly cargo records for the past year due to a pandemic-fueled consumer buying binge, but the State Ports Authority said 2021 was the best calendar year in the maritime agency's history.

The port's cargo terminals handled 2.75 million containers measured in 20-foot increments during 2021  a 19 percent increase from 2020 and a 13 percent increase from 2019.

"2021 was a truly banner year for South Carolina Ports," Jim Newsome, the SPA's president and CEO, said in a written statement. "Amid tremendous and ongoing supply chain challenges, we handled record-breaking cargo volumes, while consistently providing capacity and fluidity for our customers."

Charleston's port set monthly year-over-year container records for 10 consecutive months in 2021, from March through December, with much of the cargo consisting of imported retail goods. The port handled 1.29 million loaded import containers  up 25 percent from last year  with appliances, furniture, clothing and electronics driving much of the growth.

Loaded export containers were up 5 percent year over year, to 814,964 boxes.

The SPA's rail-served inland port in Greer handled a record 160,234 containers moved between trucks and trains, up 14 percent rom 2020, while the inland port in Dillon handled 29,412 such moves.
Hundreds of students are being packed into auditoriums for classes taught by a single teacher. Educators are losing planning periods that are necessary to prepare for lessons. Custodians and cafeteria workers are being thrown into classrooms and asked to watch children.

South Carolina schools are facing a logistical nightmare as the highly transmissible omicron variant infects a record number of students and staff.

During the first week of January, 31,522 S.C. students were required to quarantine, according to data from the state Department of Health and Environmental Control. This is approximately a 372 percent increase from the number quarantined the week of Dec. 13 before most students went on winter break.

The skyrocketing number of cases and quarantines in the state has caused operational woes for district officials. Because omicron is a highly transmissible variant, many school districts are seeing a greater number of breakthrough cases among staff members than they experienced during the delta variants surge at the beginning of the 2021-22 school year.

More Coverage To read more in-depth stories from The Post and Courier's Education Lab, go to postandcourier.com/education-lab.

Its creating a dire situation for many districts as more staff members stay home each day to isolate and quarantine. The staffing is such a problem that it's contributed to 12 school districts going virtual as of 10 a.m. Jan. 14.

Were all drinking from a million fire hoses and you just cant catch up, said Dawn MacAdams, coordinator of health services at Richland School District Two in Columbia.

Even though it's difficult to keep schools open, districts are trying to keep students learning in person as long as possible. Data suggests that students perform better when they learn in person. From the 2018-19 to 2020-21 school years, the percentage of students who met or exceeded expectations on standardized test scores dropped in every subject except for the English I End of Course exams, according to the S.C. Department of Education annual school report card.

Having students learn remotely also puts a societal strain on parents, some of whom have to miss work to watch over their children.

When we switch to virtual, that is an incredible hardship for our families, where if they dont work they dont get paid, said Lexington School District One Superintendent Greg Little.

Even though district leaders want students in school, many remain reluctant to mandate masks, one of the most effective ways to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

The mask divide

Only three of the states 10 largest school districts  Charleston County, Richland School District One and Richland Two  are requiring masks. In those districts, school leaders felt it was important to keep students, staff and visitors masked while cases are so high.

On Jan. 4, the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control adopted new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance that shortens the quarantine period for positive cases from 10 to five days. Students can return to class on the sixth day after they tested positive if their symptoms have improved and they havent had a fever in the past 24 hours, but they have to wear a mask through the 10th day after testing positive.

Districts are required to keep track of which students tested positive and how many days it has been since they returned.

At Richland One, Richland Two and in Charleston, education leaders say its a simple task because everyone is required to wear the masks.

I dont know how you enforce it when you dont have a mask mandate, MacAdams said.

Other major districts have avoided implementing mask requirements, saying they want to continue giving parents the choice on what their child wears. Districts now have the freedom to implement mask requirements if they choose, but it wasnt always that way earlier this school year.

A state budget rule backed by Gov. Henry McMaster prohibited the use of state funds to implement mask requirements. On Sept. 27, that budget rule was overturned by a federal judge, who said it violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. Since then, few districts have started requiring masks even though there were no legal barriers.

I think were really at the peak of it, were not considering adding something, Little said about the potential of reinstating a mask requirement as cases rise.

He added that more and more students are wearing masks despite the lack of a requirement because of the new DHEC rules.

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At Kershaw County School District, cases have stayed low despite a lack of a mask mandate. Since the start of the pandemic, Superintendent Shane Robbins said that he has used every tool at his disposal to mitigate virus spread at the 10,856-student district.

The district put federal COVID relief funds toward paying for infrared temperature scanning systems at entrances to buildings, plexiglass barriers on desks, electrostatic sprayers that disinfect surfaces, UV light rays on buses and HEPA filters to increase air quality. The district has also created isolation rooms for sick students and staff members, and is working to have social distancing where possible. Eighty-one percent of its staff are vaccinated.

So far the districts cases havent surpassed its school-year peak of around 250 student positives in August.

If you walk in our schools right now, because the spread has increased, youre seeing more and more students and staff members wear a mask than they did before Christmas, Robbins said.

The staff experience

In the first week of January, 2,010 staff members were placed in isolation with COVID-19 and another 1,375 were put in quarantine for being a close contact, according to DHEC data. At some schools, 10 to 15 percent of the total staff are out, causing major disruptions to the entire day.

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At a Dorchester District 2 meeting about COVID-19 severity on Jan. 14, Jack Mansor, principal of River Oaks Middle School in North Charleston, reported that 27 percent of his teachers were at home due to the pandemic. Later that day, the district announced that it would transition Dubose and Oakbrook middle schools to virtual learning from Jan. 18 to Jan. 24.

"At the end of the day it's not sustainable," Mansor said. "My teachers are getting tired, students are tired."

The situation is causing an overall sense of uneasiness for teachers across the state, said Sherry East, president of the South Carolina Education Association.

Teachers are being asked to cover for classes, forgo their planning and break time, and teach students online and in person. It's exacerbating the burnout teachers were already feeling from the previous two years of the pandemic.

Ive heard of teachers working the cafeteria line, I've heard of teachers cleaning their own classrooms, Ive heard of custodians working as substitutes right now, East said.

It ultimately creates a worsened experience for the students, where school has become more about child care than education. Educators like East wonder if it would be better for districts to just go online for two weeks so the virus can calm down.

But theres problems with that plan, as well. Patrick Kelly, a teacher and director of government affairs for the Palmetto State Teachers Association, said that if a teacher is out sick, they shouldnt be expected to work, even remotely. If they're out, theyre either personally ill or they have a child at home who is sick.

In both of those situations, it is inappropriate to ask the teacher to be at home delivering instruction, he said.

Both Kelly and East are concerned that this latest wave will be the tipping point for many teachers who have considered quitting their profession.

The state is already in the midst of a teacher shortage crisis, with 1,063 vacancies at the start of the 2021-22 school year, according to the Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention and Advancement's annual report.

The dire situation that teachers find themselves in right now should be a wake-up call for state lawmakers as they move through the legislative session, Kelly said.

We started at a deficit, which means we have no margin within our staffing and human resources to respond to something like this, he said.

Jerrel Floyd contributed to this story.
It was the first Sunday of 2022.

The pulpit inside Greater Goodwill AME Church was decked in white liturgical linen, acknowledging the sacrament of Holy Communion. The choir wrapped up a familiar worship song, the words proclaiming God's faithfulness: "Down through the years, the Lord has been good to me."

Members stood, waving their hands in praise.

Later that week, the church posted on its Facebook page that in-person worship services would be suspended for four weeks. The decision was in response to the recent statewide surge in COVID-19 cases, dominated by the omicron variant.

"It was very disappointing," said the Rev. Adrian Kollock, pastor of Greater Goodwill. "We were really getting back into the flow of things."

After getting a taste of normalcy in their houses of worship, some Charleston area churches are once again suspending physical gatherings in response to the uptick in COVID-19 diagnoses. It's a frustrating predicament for congregations who enjoyed just a few months of live worship after watching worship online for over a year.

The rise in cases crosses the nation, and South Carolina is not exempt. The state saw a record high for a single day of reporting when the state Department of Health and Environmental Control logged more than 10,000 cases on Jan. 1. Higher numbers have been reported since.

The Rev. Byron Benton, pastor of Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist, said church leaders are particularly concerned over hospitals becoming overwhelmed. The church, which has welcomed members in pews for roughly six months, announced it would be suspending physical assembly for the rest of the month.

Benton pointed out how medical facilities have been reaching capacity in California, and he fears South Carolina might be on a similar track.

"What we want to do is make sure we contribute to the lack of spread," Benton said. "We were virtual for an entire year. So, we can definitely be virtual for a month or two if need be."

As congregations struggled early on in the pandemic over whether to reopen their doors, parishioners watched as restaurants, retail stores and other gathering spaces began welcoming guests. Churchgoers questioned why churches couldn't do the same.

Benton acknowledged similar questions may be asked by believers today as they see some houses of worship call off physical gatherings while businesses stay open.

Nonetheless, COVID-19 numbers have been going up, Benton said. The last thing the church should do is replicate the mistakes being made by secular institutions, he said.

"If (the church) is doing everything the world is doing, then were probably not doing what were supposed to be doing," Benton said. "We must be true in our identify in Christ in what it means to love our brothers and sisters."

Congregations still want to still serve the community. Goodwill held a free vaccination and testing clinic recently in partnership with a local hospital. They will continue to host monthly food distributions, too.

The Sunday services are online this month, the church is far from being closed, Kollock said.

Were going to stay alive," he said.
The Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation has named a new group of grant recipients that are part of its "Broadening Narratives" funding initiative. Three of the grants will fund South Carolina programs.

The foundation supports land conservation, artistic vitality and regional collections for the people of the Lowcountry region and Chicago.

It marks the second round of organizations to receive the Broadening Narratives grant, a recently instituted initiative to fund specific projects that bring forward underrepresented stories, which collectively illustrate BIPOC communities, LGBTQ+ perspectives, working-class narratives, small community experiences, as well as other underrepresented groups and viewpoints.

For many years, smaller community-based organizations have done the hard work of maintaining the important stories that their collections tell as a labor of love and preserving identity," David Farren, executive director of the Foundation, said.

"Broadening Narratives is helping to bring much needed resources to these organizations to ensure that those stories are not only saved but also shared with others so that the cultural history of the Lowcountry becomes richer and more voices are heard.

The initiative is reflective of a current funding trend in the arts and cultural sector, with foundations and other organizations seeking to support communities that previously have been marginalized. Another such effort is Southern Cultural Treasures, a $6 million initiative to help BIPOC organizations throughout the South, which was started by South Arts and the Ford Foundation.

The three new Lowcountry-based grant recipients are Clemson University, Gibbes Museum of Art and The Educational Foundation of the University of South Carolina Lancaster. The recipients will receive a range of $25,000 to $100,000 to fund new projects.

Clemson University received funding for a collection of artifacts at the Seashore Farmers Lodge, a nationally registered historic site and museum in James Island founded by the African American settlement community of Sol Legare in the 1800s.

"The grant will enable the descendant community of Sol Legare to preserve its history and culture and to broadly share an important and largely unknown story of African Americans in the South," said Dr. Jon Marcoux, director of Clemson University/College of Charleston Graduate Program in Historic Preservation. He added that the initiative will illuminate the unique historical experiences of underrepresented groups, and in doing so, help reframe the history of the Lowcountry, the South and the nation.

Another recipient, the Gibbes Museum of Art, will use its grant to create an exhibition drawing parallels between noted Charleston Renaissance artist Ned Jennings and British Aesthete and artist Aubrey Beardsley.

According to Chase Quinn, curator of education and programs at the Gibbes Museum of Art, the funding will enable the museum to mount a landmark exhibition and related programming revisiting the work of Jennings, who he said is one of Charlestons most original, if undersung, artistic minds.

"(We) will recontextualize the art of the Charleston Renaissance to include the influences of LGBTQIA+ artists, kinship networks and stories that have for too long gone overlooked as a part of the fabric of Charlestons art history," he said.

The Educational Foundation of the University of South Carolina Lancaster will also receive funding to support a collection of oral histories and artifacts, alongside research efforts, at the Native American Studies Center.

Stephen Criswell, director of Native American Studies Center at University of South Carolina Lancaster, said they will document, preserve and share cultural traditions of tribes that reside in or have historic roots in the Lowcountry  specifically, the Waccamaw Indian People, the Wassamasaw Tribe of Varnertown Indians, the Edisto Natchez-Kusso Tribe of South Carolina, the Beaver Creek Indians, the Santee Indian Organization, the Yamasse Indian Nation, the Winyah, the Chicora and the Wassamasaw Indian Nation of South Carolina.

The funding will enable the center to record and make available oral histories, as well as to archive, curate, catalog and preserve artifacts or materials provided, and to create a multimedia, interactive traveling exhibit to raised the awareness of the cultural contributions of the Native American tribes along the South Carolina coast.

"Handmade canoe paddles, foodways, drumming and singing are all long-held cultural traditions that often are not as visible nor as well-known as other forms of Lowcountry art. Collecting oral histories and traditions will exhibit where non-native and native cultures both differ and intersect," he said.

Additionally, the Foundation renewed its $25,000 grant to each of the five Broadening Narratives advisory groups that assisted with the formation of the Broadening Narratives funding initiative: the College of Charlestons Lowcountry Digital Library, Southeastern Museums Conference, Black Metropolis Research Consortium, Chicago Collections Consortium, and the Chicago Cultural Alliance.

For the past five years, the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation has convened five advisory groups to assist with the formation and execution of the Broadening Narratives funding initiative. These include Black Metropolis Research Consortium, Chicago Collections Consortium, Chicago Cultural Alliance, College of Charlestons Lowcountry Digital Library, and the Southeastern Museums Conference.

The funding can also provide the necessary resources for organizations to advance their diversity, equity, and inclusion goals, among other imperatives.

"It is also critical to cultural institutions in the Lowcountry striving to better reflect the broader communities they serve, particularly in the context of a renewed reckoning with racial injustice and a global pandemic," Quinn said.

For more information on the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, visit www.gddf.org.
SUVA, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- The eruptions of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai valcano in Tonga on Friday and Saturday have a significant impact on the South Pacific island country, especially its capital Nuku'alofa.

According to Tonga's news website Matangi Tonga Online, Friday's violent volcanic eruption continued for over 12 hours and the volcano also erupted for eight minutes on Saturday, sending plumes of ash into the sky.

The Royal Palace grounds, the waterfront and main street were flooded in Nuku'alofa, but information about the extent of damage in the island country is unavailable because its communication with the outside world has been cut off since Saturday evening as a result of the volcanic eruptions.

According to Radio New Zealand, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told a press conference Sunday afternoon that New Zealand High Commission in Nuku'alofa was in contact with local authorities and that damage assessments were underway.

She said that the New Zealand High Commission said the tsunami waves had a significant impact on the foreshore on the northern side of Nuku'alofa, with boats and large boulders washed ashore. Shops along the coast were damaged, and there would be a need for a major cleanup.

The undersea cable has been impacted, probably because of power cuts, and the Tongan authorities have been trying to restore communications, according to her.

Ardern pledged that New Zealand will provide aid to Tonga and if necessary, New Zealand is ready to send planes and naval vessels. Reconnaissance flight will be useful in viewing the impact of the volcanic eruptions on the low-lying islands.

Meanwhile, in Fiji, airborne ashes from Tonga are seen over the southernmost islands from Vatoa southward, with the ashes floating as far north as Tubou and Moala, and about to move to the island of Kadavu.

Fiji's National Disaster Management Office (NDMO) said on Sunday that if the prevailing winds continue at the current level, airborne ashes could reach Fiji's central Lau and eastern Viti Levu, the major island of Fiji.

The NDMO and the Fiji Meteorological Service have advised the people living on islands in the eastern area of the country to take necessary precautionary measures to avoid any exposure to the airborne volcanic ashes from Tonga.

The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai valcano, about 65km north of Nuku'alofa, is part of the highly active Tonga-Kermadec Islands volcanic arc, a subduction zone extending from New Zealand north-northeast to Fiji. Over the past decades, the volcano has erupted several times. 
South Carolina residents prepared for unusually foul weather as a winter storm was expected to blanket large swaths of the Upstate, Midlands and Pee Dee regions with ice, sleet and snow beginning early Jan. 16.

Gov. Henry McMaster told residents in an afternoon press conference Jan. 15 at the S.C. Emergency Operations Center in Columbia to prepare for power outages and near impassable roads as a winter storm that has already buried large parts of the Midwest in snow quickly travels south.

If things unfold as we expect, there will be a lot of power lines going down, and, despite an enormous army of people out there to put them back up, they could be down for two or three days, or maybe longer," he said.

The National Weather Service's Columbia office issued an ice storm warning for counties across the upper middle portion of the state through early Jan. 17. One-quarter to one-half inch of ice was forecast to accumulate throughout the day Jan. 16. Combined with wind gusts of up to 30 mph, the NWS said power outages and tree damage are likely.

Matt Gropp, a meteorologist for the Columbia office, said the counties of most concern were Lancaster, Chesterfield, Newberry and Fairfield.

Counties south of that area, including the city of Columbia, were under a winter weather advisory until 4 p.m. Jan. 16, as freezing rain was forecast to cause up to one-tenth of an inch of ice accumulations and wind gusting up to 35 mph.

Finally, a winter storm warning was issued for the Piedmont region of South Carolina from until late Jan. 16. Two to 5 inches of sleet, snow and ice is expected to fall in the South Carolina foothills, with less accumulation elsewhere in the region.

If the forecasts hold true, this weekend's ice storm will be the hardest to hit the state since February 2014, when a devastating amount of freezing rain fell across the eastern and southern Midlands, damaging trees and leaving thousands of residents without power for days.

Another storm earlier in 2014 caused ice to accumulate on support cables for the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge in Charleston. As the weather warmed, chunks of ice rained down on passing vehicles, forcing officials to close the passage for several days.

"It is a pretty rare event to get a widespread ice storm like this," Gropp said.

The governor declared a state of emergency Jan. 14, allowing state agencies to coordinate resources ahead of the wintry weather.

S.C. Highway Patrol troopers will be monitoring the roadways for hazardous conditions and responding as quickly as possible for calls. S.C. Department of Public Safety Direct Robert Woods said at the Jan. 15 press conference that operations will begin at 5 a.m. Jan. 16, but they are prepared to deploy sooner if necessary.

S.C. Transportation Secretary Christy Hall said her staff has poured 1 million gallons of brine material on key roads in preparation of the storm.

The state has 300,000 gallons of deicing material and 60,000 tons of salt to break up ice accumulation, she said.

"Once this storm starts to move in, driving conditions will become very hazardous," Hall said. "We are recommending you extremely limit your travel, and avoid travel, if at all possible, due to these driving conditions."

Anyone who must travel should ensure their vehicle is in good condition, checking the fluids, battery and tires before taking to the roads. Motorists should fully charge their cellphones and pack extra blankets and snacks in case of delays.

Maj. Gen. Van McCarty of the S.C. National Guard said his agency has been coordinating with state authorities in advance of the storm, and will have 14 vehicle recovery teams available for assistance.

Nanette Edwards of the S.C. Office of Regulatory Staff warned residents that scammers may call during the storm claiming that their utilities will be disconnected unless they pay money.

"Please do not send money," she said. "The utilities during inclement weather, they suspend disconnection of services, so please do not respond to such a request."

The Lowcountry is expected to be spared the worst of the storm.

Meteorologist Michael Stroz of the NWS Charleston office said Lowcountry residents should expect 1 to 2 inches of rainfall into the afternoon Jan. 16.

Stroz said forecasts showed a very low probability of ice in northern Dorchester and Berkeley counties.

The NWS has issued a gale warning for coastal waters as the storm is expected to cause high winds in the region, Stroz said.

The winter storm also caused the governors of Georgia, Virginia and North Carolina to declare states of emergency as it barrels down on the Southeast before heading toward the Eastern Seaboard.

By Jan. 14, the fast-moving storm had already dropped heavy snow across a large swath of the Midwest, where travel conditions deteriorated and scores of schools closed or moved to online instruction. Iowa was hit the hardest. Brad Small, a meteorologist with the NWS, said the airport in Des Moines saw more than 14 inches of snow and a big swath of the central and southern Iowa recorded between 9 inches and a foot of snow.

In perhaps a preview of the kind of problems east, the Iowa State Patrol had reported that 207 motorists were assisted and 78 crashes had occurred in the four hours between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. Jan. 14, according to the Des Moines Register.

And in Chicago, where a mayor once lost a bid for reelection because, in part, of the city's failure to adequately respond to a massive blizzard when he was in office, the streets and sanitation department was on Saturday morning equipping more than 200 trucks with snow plow blades to keep the streets passable during and after the expected storm.

Parts of Tennessee could get as much as 6 inches of snow, forecasters said, and northern Mississippi and the Tennessee Valley region of Alabama could receive light snow accumulations. With lows predicted in the 20s across a wide area, any precipitation could freeze, making driving difficult if not hazardous.

Travis Wagler said he hadn't seen such a run on supplies at his South Carolina hardware store in at least two winters.

"We're selling everything you might expect: sleds, but also salt, shovels and firewood," Wagler said from Abbeville Hardware on Jan. 14.

A winter storm watch extended from just north of metro Atlanta to Arkansas in the west and Pennsylvania in the north, covering parts of 10 states including Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia. Travel problems could extend into metro Atlanta, where about 2 inches of snow brought traffic to a slip-sliding halt in 2014, an event still known as "Snowmaggedon."

Nearly 2,000 flights within the U.S. have already been canceled for Jan. 16 in anticipation of snow and ice in the South, according to the flight tracking site flightaware.com, which tracks flight cancellations worldwide. A major U.S. airport hub for American Airlines  Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina  led the list of cancellations for U.S. airports.

Possible power outages and travel problems could be exacerbated by any coating of ice  and winds gusting to 35 mph, the National Weather Service said.

"Hopefully, the storm will underdeliver, but it could overdeliver. We just don't know," said Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp as he announced storm preparations. He was taking no chances as he declared a state of emergency and crews began treating major roads and highways in north Georgia.

The city of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, had to borrow workers from other departments to help treat roads ahead of the storm because COVID-19 had caused a shortage of workers, spokesman Randy Britton said. Even volunteers pitched in to help as the city stepped up its normal schedule of preparing for winter weather, he said.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper signed an emergency order and the administration urged people to stay at home once the storm hits. The state highway agency warned that labor shortages meant crews might not respond to problems areas as quickly as normal.

The storm, after its expected weekend dip into the Southeast, was then expected to head into the Northeast while dropping snow, sleet and rain around the densely populated Eastern Seaboard.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A teenage Anthony Thompson watched from his downtown Charleston home national news broadcasts of civil rights protesters being sprayed with water hoses and bitten by police dogs.

Thompson was angry. He wished the protesters had retaliated.

It wasn't until he heard the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. speak about the strategy of nonviolent protests during a visit to Charleston that Thompson began to understand the power of nonviolent resistance.

"For the first time, it kicked in," said Thompson, 69.

Today, Thompson, an ordained minister, has reached thousands with his message of forgiveness and his belief in its power to lead toward racial healing. The message is, in part, influenced by King. But it largely stems from Thompson's personal experience of how forgiveness gave him internal peace following the death of his wife, Myra Thompson, who was among the nine victims killed in 2015 by a white supremacist in Emanuel AME Church.

Nonviolent resistance has long been in Thompson's DNA.

His mother, Mable Thompson, worked as a housekeeper for a prominent White family in Charleston. Mable was also passionate about social justice. Anthony Thompson recalled how she participated in a civil rights demonstration in Alabama.

Thompson thinks he and his brother internalized his parents' nonviolent efforts at resisting racism. The two boys would sell peanuts at the zoo at present day Hampton Park. One day, while the boys sold the snacks, a White male officer chased them away while shouting racial epithets.

We took chances," Thompson said. "I think I got that from my mom and dad. Thats how they fought. They didnt degrade anybody. They didnt get mad or want to fight. Their manner was so calm. It was 'we forgive you, but were going to beat this.'"

Day of tragedy

The morning of June 17, 2015, Myra Thompson had been outlining a Bible lesson that she would teach at Emanuel that night. She had just entered the ministry, and it would be her first time solely leading Bible study. Myra had a special aura about her that day. She was so excited.

"She was bubbling over with joy," Anthony said.

Anthony Thompson didn't join his wife at Emanuel AME that evening. Myra told him to instead attend Vacation Bible School at his own church, Holy Trinity Reformed Episcopal on Bull Street.

When Anthony Thompson returned home, he received a call from a parishioner at Emanuel about the shooting. He rushed to the scene. Thompson, a former probation officer, saw nine ambulances near the church. He fell to the ground once he was told his wife was among those killed.

"At that very moment, I gave up everything," Thompson said. "I said, 'I'm not preaching anymore."'

Two days later, the bond hearing was held for Dylann Roof, who has since been convicted and sent to federal prison for the killings.

Thompson hadn't planned on speaking. But when the judge asked for the family of Myra Thompson, a voice told him to get up. It was the same voice Thompson heard, at age 7, that called him to preach. Thompson recognized it as it the voice of God.

Some family members had already expressed forgiveness toward Roof at the hearing. Thompson got up and preached a similar message. Earlier that day, he had read a biblical passage in Luke 17 about the need to forgive.

"I said, 'Son, I forgive you,'" Thompson said, reflecting on the moment. "My family forgives you. We would like you to take this opportunity to repent.'"

Almost immediately, Thompson felt a sense of peace, the kind of peace he equates to the Bible describes as the peace "that surpasses all understanding." It was as if the anger Thompson been harboring immediately left him.

"My body began to shake," he said. "I was light as feather. It was as if I could float in that room.  I've got that same peace today. It allowed me to move forward."

Thompson's forgiveness was a form of resistance in the sense that it was a refusal to allow Roof the ability to maintain power over Thompson's life. Forgiveness, Thompson said, is a rebellious act.

"Forgiveness is not about the person you forgive," he said. "It's about you."

One day after the shooting, a reporter asked Thompson if he would ever consider taking back the mercy he'd expressed toward Roof.

Thompson said revoking his forgiveness is like giving away his peace.

"I would've been going through my life hating (Roof)," Thompson said. "(Forgiveness) was my way of getting control  not allowing him to control my destiny."

A new ministry

Thompson realized God was calling him to a new ministry: spreading the Gospel of forgiveness and its ability to bring about healing. He's addressed thousands at churches, schools, conferences and other venues. He's spoken to media outlets across the globe, sharing his story. His book, "Called to Forgive," was an effort to further expand his message's reach.

Thompson said he believes his message is bringing about change. He has a number of anecdotes telling about White people who've admitted their prejudices.

Thompson recalled one moment when he preached at a Mount Pleasant church that boasts around 900 members. A White woman stood after Thompson's sermon. She spoke about how her racism had been influenced by her family and friends. She said after hearing the Emanuel families forgive Roof, she asked God to forgive her of her own past racism.

She brought her two sons to hear Thompson's sermon "so they could hear that racism is wrong."

She also asked for Thompson's forgiveness.

"I've never heard anything like that in my life in the city of Charleston," Thompson said. "The Lord is working."

The Rev. Marshall Blalock, pastor of First Baptist Church in downtown Charleston, said hes been blessed by Thompsons friendship over the years.

He is nationally known now, but the notoriety has not changed him, Blalock said. Anthony walks in that same grace every day. He lives that faith humbly no matter where he is or who he is with.

Thompson's son, Anthony Thompson Jr., sees his father's actions as an authentic expression of his Christian faith. It's one thing to preach about forgiveness. It's another thing to actually display it, the younger Thompson said.

You can only be who you are and it comes out of you naturally," he said.

The elder Thompson wants to further his work. The minister is planning what would be an annual prayer walk in downtown Charleston. The goal is for a diverse group of participants to stop at seven landmarks where "acts of sin were committed in the city of Charleston." The effort will focus on repentance, reconciliation, and unity. Thompson has created a foundation to lead the initiative. He plans to launch its website later this month.

"It's about uniting the city of Charleston," he said.

The forgiveness demonstrated by the Emanuel AME families resonates with the long history of Black Americans attempting to find joy in despair.

James Cone, the deceased theologian who is widely considered the father of Black liberation theology, spoke about forgiveness in his 2015 interview with The New Yorker.

He told the publication the forgiveness displayed by the families was an effort to find victory in defeat.

"Its You cant destroy my spirit,'" Cone told the magazine. "'I have a forgiving spirit because thats what God created me to be.'"

Thompson's message doesn't let Whites off the hook. White people must repent, he said. Though today's White Americans haven't participated in slavery, they reap the benefits, which are seen in today's social and economic inequities, Thompson said.

Thompson, who was the speaker for this year's MLK ecumenical service at Greater St. Luke AME on Jan. 16, sees a connection between his message and King's philosophy of nonviolence. In his sermon "The Meaning of Forgiveness," King preached that he saw forgiveness as the solution to the nation's "race problem." King saw forgiveness as a "weapon of social redemption."

Similar to King, Thompson feels that forgiveness can bring about racial healing.

"Martin Luther King Jr. once said: 'We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love,'" Thompson said at the service.

Thompson said that the Black community could have burned the city down after the Emanuel AME church shooting and could have killed other people. But then Roof would have gotten the race war that he had wanted, Thompson said.

"In the end, we would have destroyed our livelihood, our welfare, our economy, our community and all that we love and enjoy about the city of Charleston," he said.

Thompson said to choose forgiveness is to choose love  love for our lives, morals and of the love of God.

Olivia Diaz contributed to this report.
Syndicated and guest columns represent the personal views of the writers, not necessarily those of the editorial staff. The editorial department operates entirely independently of the news department and is not involved in newsroom operations.
COLUMBIA  The senator newly holding South Carolina's purse strings in a year the Legislature has unprecedented amounts of cash is known by his colleagues as a frank-talking, hard-working leader who's been preparing for the role for decades.

Sen. Harvey Peeler, a retired dairyman and former "herder of cats"  his term as the chamber's GOP leader  ascended to the most powerful gig at the Statehouse following the November death of Florence Republican Hugh Leatherman at age 90.

Lawmakers and lobbyists alike are watching to see how Peeler negotiates a windfall of more than $6 billion that's expected to push this year's state spending packages above $16 billion.

Asked if that makes his first year as the Senate's chief budget writer more difficult, Peeler talked dollars and cents: "I don't have anything to compare it with, but I've always found I always enjoyed life more when I had money than when I didn't."

New to the job of Senate Finance chairman, Peeler doesn't automatically inherit the immense influence Leatherman amassed over two decades of shaping state spending. But the 73-year-old Gaffney Republican brings far more experience into the role he's essentially been training for since the GOP took control of the chamber in 2001.

Under Senate seniority rules, the alphabet is why Leatherman outranked Peeler to take the chairman's seat then.

While both were first elected in 1980, and both had been on the Finance Committee since 1985, "L" comes before "P."

So Peeler accumulated other leadership roles, including Senate majority leader, chairman of Finance's higher education subcommittee and Medical Affairs Committee chairman. In 2019, senators elected Peeler their first president, a position created following a voter-approved change in the chamber's presiding officer.

Peeler considers that his proudest moment as senator. He had to resign that position to become Finance chairman.

How his influence grows in his new role is up to him, said Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, who became the chamber's GOP leader after Peeler stepped down from that post in 2016.

"Legislative power comes with the ability to get others to go along with you. Peeler starts in a better position than Leatherman did, and he has used the president position to create a lot of credibility," Massey, an Edgefield Republican, said. "He's very well-prepared. His whole life has prepared him for this position."

Peeler, known for boiling things down in colloquial "Gaffnese," assessed it with his typical humor.

"People always told me I led like Moses," he said. "I always took that as a compliment, but maybe they were talking about it taking me 40 years to get to the promised land. That's about what it took."

A dairyman's path to the Senate

Like Leatherman, Peeler brings to the role his outlook as a businessman shaped by a no-nonsense upbringing on the family farm.

But in Peeler's case, it was a dairy farm in Gaffney, in the Upstate between Spartanburg and Charlotte, started in 1919 by his grandpa, who Peeler recalls following around like a shadow. Down the road was the dairy processing plant his father built after returning home from World War II. He can't remember how young he was when he started his milk delivery routes, but it turned out to be good prep for campaigning.

"Delivering milk door to door, I knew everybody, and everybody knew me," he said.

When he graduated from Gaffney High School, he never considered going anywhere other than Clemson University.

"People asked, 'Why do you want to go to that cow college?' 'To major in dairy science of course,'" he said.

After he graduated in 1970, Peeler Jersey Farms became a third-generation business, which he ran, as vice president and general manager, with his younger twin brothers, Bob and Bill. Together, they expanded distribution in the greater Upstate region, delivering mainly to stores and restaurants, as the business model evolved from glass to paper to plastic containers.

After the family sold the business in 1998, Peeler's entrepreneurial side kicked in, as he invented and trademarked Vend-A-MOO, a type of vending machine that provided around-the-clock access to fresh milk in gallon jugs. Five machines operated in the Gaffney area for a decade. He thinks the idea can still take off with some technology upgrades.

As for politics, Peeler first got the bug after the Legislature passed the Home Rule Act of 1975, which expanded local authority of county government previously controlled by the representing senator. His fellow Gaffney-ites encouraged him to run for Cherokee County Council.

"I did and liked it," Peeler said.

Four years after winning that race, he ran for a Senate seat representing Cherokee, Union, Newberry and Saluda counties, campaigning around the district towing a 14-foot fiberglass cow behind his truck that's been used ever since by he and his brother. (Bob Peeler later sought statewide office, winning bids for lieutenant governor in 1994 and 1998 but losing a gubernatorial primary in 2002 to Mark Sanford.)

With the 1980 election, Harvey Peeler replaced a Union senator convicted of accepting bribes from FBI informants paying hundreds of dollars for the promise of a state job.

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"It was almost like destiny," he said about his path to County Council and on to the Senate. "People knew me. I was raised right. I knew right from wrong at an early age.  I never dreamed I'd be in the Senate for 40-plus years."

He came to the Senate as a Democrat, as the overwhelming majority of legislators did then. At the time, it would've been impossible to get elected as a Republican, Peeler said. In 1981, just five of the state's 46 senators were Republicans.

Peeler's party switch more than doubled the chamber's GOP ranks, to 11, in 1990, five years before Leatherman did the same.

For Peeler, it was a turn of conviction, not convenience, said former Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston.

"Peeler didn't make a change philosophically," said his former deskmate, also first elected in 1980 but as one of those then-rare Republicans. "He was a conservative Democrat who became increasingly uncomfortable because of the trek of that party to a more liberal position."

But his vote was always shaped by what voters back home would accept and understand, McConnell said.

"He'd talk about his constituents having coffee at the local Hardee's and what they were saying, and you knew where Harvey was on that issue," he said. "He'd get up and say, 'How am I going to explain that to the folks over coffee?' The reason he's got longevity is because he's stayed in touch with them."

And as a former Democrat who started in the majority, switched into the then-GOP minority and helped it grow into a supermajority, Peeler is "forever cognizant of the fact there are two parties," said Sen. Gerald Malloy, D-Hartsville, who nominated Peeler for Senate president.

Humor when needed

Colleagues in both parties say he's attentive to arguments on both sides of an issue and willing to compromise  a practice Democrats, especially, hope continues as he puts a budget together.

"Harvey shows up and sits in his chair. As people roam around the lobby and the cloak room, Peeler focuses on the person on the podium and pays attention," Malloy said.

And senators appreciate Peeler's ability to keep debates agreeable with some well-timed levity.

"He's unique in that he has a tremendous sense of humor and can break the ice in a tense situation by telling a story to lighten the moment," said Sen. Nikki Setzler, D-West Columbia. First elected in 1976, Setzler is the only senator who's served longer than Peeler.

"Even when we've disagreed, we worked well together," said Setzler, noting their joint work co-sponsoring the 2014 Read to Succeed law that aimed to get all students reading on grade level by third grade.

While heralded at the time, the law's goals are a long way from being met. But its lasting achievements include the Legislature's commitment to finally expand state-paid, full-day 4-year-old kindergarten statewide, through an amendment Democrats insisted on and Peeler supported.

As for how Peeler could differ from his predecessor, some Republicans are hopeful his rise will clear a path for sweeping changes to the tax code. Leatherman resisted big overhauls, particularly after the Great Recession and midyear budget cuts.

"While Leatherman was chair there was widespread understanding there would not be major changes in the tax code, and it wasn't going to be worthwhile to charge up that hill when ultimately it wouldn't be successful," said Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, first elected in 2008. "That's going to change, and I think that's really good news.

"Sen. Leatherman was a master, but he was about pragmatic dealmaking," Davis continued. Peeler's "going to want to do something bold and something proactive."

He believes Peeler alluded to that last month when he gave up the president position and said as finance chair he will "focus on fiscal conservatism and building and maintaining a taxpayer-friendly tax system."

Other senators disagree that signals a big shift.

Asked what he was suggesting in his short speech, Peeler said it's too soon to lay out what he wants to tackle.

"I don't think that fooled anybody or surprised anybody. What you see is what you get. I'm not going to change," he said. "If you liked Harvey yesterday, you'll like him today. Conversely, if you didn't like him yesterday, you're not going to like him today."

However, he has noticed a change in how other people react to him since he became chairman.

"I always thought my jokes were funny," he said. "Now they're hilarious."
The recent talks between Russia and the West to defuse their tensions have ended without any breakthrough, auguring potential tension escalations, while the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) even warned of the risk of a new military conflict in Europe.

The latest Russia-West engagements started with a Russia-U.S. meeting in Geneva on Monday, followed by negotiations between Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna on Wednesday, and then a NATO-Russia Council meeting in Brussels on Thursday.

Pessimistic sentiments prevail after the three rounds of fruitless talks, as gaps on fundamental issues remain "unbridgeable."

EXPANSION VS "AGGRESSION"

Efforts have failed, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said after the talks ended. The NATO chief has, on several occasions in a week, warned Russia about the "high political and economic price" of any possible new aggression against Ukraine.

Russia has repeatedly accused the West of threatening its security by expanding NATO eastwards and deploying weapons systems near its borders.

"Negotiations were initiated in order to get specific answers to specific fundamental questions raised. It is on these fundamental issues that disagreements have been recorded," the RIA Novosti news agency quoted Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.

Analysts believe that Russia is willing to establish a longer-term security cooperation framework with Western countries led by the United States, while America has failed to respond to Russia's security concerns.

After the talks, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who headed the Russian delegation in talks with the United States in Geneva on Monday, said that the main questions were "still up in the air, and we don't see an understanding from the American side of the necessity of a decision in a way that satisfies us."

"We do not trust the other side," he noted. "We need ironclad, waterproof, bulletproof, legally binding guarantees -- not assurances, not safeguards."

Ryabkov stressed that Russia has no plans to attack Ukraine, and there was no reason to fear an escalation of tensions with Ukraine.

"Certain threats or warnings were put forward, we explained to our colleagues that we have no plans to attack Ukraine," Ryabkov said. "There is no basis for fearing any escalated scenario in this regard."

Russia's military build-up against Ukraine features "tens of thousands of combat-ready troops, tanks, artillery, armored units, drones, a lot of electronic warfare systems," said NATO.

Russia is seeking guarantees of NATO's non-expansion, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, but NATO is not happy to see Russia's interference with NATO's expansion plans.

"No one else has the right to try to veto or interfere in that process. And this is about fundamental principles for European security. It's about the right for every nation to choose their own path," Stoltenberg said at a press conference with Estonian President Alar Karis this week.

RUSSIA WANTS QUICK RESULTS

In a recent interview with German radio Deutschlandfunk, Stefan Meister, an expert on Russia at the German Council on Foreign Relations, said that he had low expectations of the efforts underway to defuse the situation because Russia put forward a maximum requirement as the basis for negotiations, which cannot be met by either the United States or NATO.

"I would say it is rather their process, which has started and that is perhaps the chance that NATO and Russia start the process again to talk about European security, arms control and all these issues," said Meister.

Meister believed that Russia is a good negotiator. Russia went first with maximum demands in the first round, and then it can still move away from it.

However, Michel Collon, a Belgian writer of several books on NATO, maintained Russia's demands were "very reasonable."

"What would Washington say if you had Russian troops at the border of Canada or Mexico? They would say it's a provocation," Collon told Xinhua.

Volodymyr Ishchenko, a research associate at the Institute of East European Studies at the Free University of Berlin, said in an article that a correlation between support for NATO and different visions of Ukraine's national identity makes the issue especially divisive.

Many Ukrainians see NATO as a shield against Russia, while others feel that a NATO membership would surrender more of Ukraine's sovereignty to the West, which they feel has been happening since 2014, and, at the same time, would increase tensions with Russia, escalate internal tensions among Ukrainians, and drag the nation in one of the United States' "forever" wars, said Ishchenko.

After a week of talks, the related sides were not any closer than they were before. Further talks are not currently planned. Moscow has reiterated that it is not interested in protracted discussions but wants quick results.

Foreign policy expert Fyodor Lukyanov, who is close to the Kremlin, told Russia's state newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta that the differences are "apparently irreconcilable" and that a "new and rather dangerous escalation would be needed or could occur," in order "to force" the parties to new forms of agreement.

However, Lukyanov noted that it is still unclear what exactly will happen.





Produced by Xinhua Global Service
Time is finally up for Ralph Northam as governor of Virginia. Today, Glenn Youngkin replaced him.

Had Northam been a Republican, his time might have been up two years ago, after it was discovered that he once dressed up in black face and he admitted doing so (Northam later tried to weasel his way out of this admission). And there were, in fact, loud calls from some Democrats for Northam to resign.

But the racial-reckoning race-hustling movement wasnt all that bothered by Northams long-ago transgression because it saw an opportunity. It saw that Northam would likely push through much of the movements radical race-based agenda to atone for his youthful indiscretion. The fact that Virginias other two statewide elected officials, a pair of Democrats, had scandals of their own didnt hurt Northams survival prospects, either.

Northam, elected as something of a centrist, ended up delivering much of the lefts agenda. He abolished the death penalty, facilitated voting fraud, expanded Medicaid, and legalized marijuana.

After selectively reading some black history, he formed a commission to review how that history is taught in schools, thus paving the way for indoctrination of students in Critical Race Theory. He appointed the first Cabinet-level diversity officer in any U.S. state, and charged her with pushing for race-based hiring and promotion practices.

He issued around 1,200 pardons to criminals, compared to only about 200 by Terry McAuliffe, who held the previous Virginia record. He even endorsed something that seems dangerously close to infanticide.

Its no surprise, then, that Northam leaves office with high praise from the left, including the Washington Post. And from himself. Northam has pronounced himself a better person than when he took office. He added, I think Virginias a better Commonwealth.

The Commonwealth doesnt agree. Its voters elected a Republican governor for the first time in three elections and only the second time in six. A state strongly trending Blue now seems up for grabs again.

This week, in his final state of the Commonwealth address, Northam urged the General Assembly to embrace the spirit of unity and inclusiveness, and to eschew hyper-partisanship. Translation: Please leave dont overturn the radical, hyper-partisan policies I rammed through when my party held power.

The new speaker of the Virginia House had an appropriate response. Todd Gilbert tweeted:

Ralph Northam is leaving office as his own lost cause, condescendingly lecturing us all from some assumed moral high ground because he read the book Roots and then went on a non-stop reconciliation tour. Saturday cant come fast enough.

Unfortunately, Democrats still control the Virginia Senate. Thus, there will be limits to what Youngkin and the House can do.

But they can do plenty, and should. They should attack Northams radical policies with the same relentlessness that Northam and his party imposed them when they held power.
 Okay, who had underwater volcano on their Bingo card for 2022?

 It must be quite difficult to be a New York Times columnist. From todays Maureen Dowd column:

Biden was elected to be Not Trump, to be a comfortable old shoe. He overpromised and underdelivered. People wanted competence and stability and instead we get incompetence and instability.

But. . .

As hapless as Biden and his coterie are, we cant give up on the president because hes all that stands between us and the apocalypse at the hands of Trump, DeSantis, Pence, Kristi Noem and future Chief Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

Cue DeSantis is worse than Trump and Hitler in three, two. . . Oh, wait: Already under way.

 What the world needs now is a Kamala Harris Random Platitude Generator. And weve got one!

 Dodgy gain-of-function research? Who, us? St. Anthony Fauci (blessed be his name) and Francis Collins in the Washington Post in 2011 writing under the telling headline, A flu virus risk worth taking:

Two recent studies co-funded by the National Institutes of Health have shed light on how this potentially grave human health threat could become a reality. Working carefully with influenza viruses they have engineered in isolated biocontainment laboratories, scientists in Europe and the United States have identified several mechanisms by which the virus might evolve to transmit efficiently in the ferret, the best animal model for human influenza infection. This research has allowed identification of genetic pathways by which such a virus could better adapt to transmission among people. This laboratory virus does not exist in nature. . . Given these uncertainties, important information and insights can come from generating a potentially dangerous virus in the laboratory. . . Safeguarding against the potential accidental release or deliberate misuse of laboratory pathogens is imperative.

Well done, guys. You ended up creating the very thing you said you were aiming to avoid.

Collins has recently retired. Why does Fauci still have a job?
Thanks to all the local, state, and federal law enforcement officers  some 200 in total  who rescued the rabbi and others taken hostage at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas yesterday. The hostage taker interrupted Shabbat services that were live streamed over Facebook yesterday morning to demand the release of Lady Al Qaeda. Within ten hours law enforcement conducted an operation that resulted in the rescue of the hostages and the death of the hostage taker one way or another. It could have been so much worse. The Times of Israel quotes congregation Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker saying hes grateful to be alive.

Colleyville Chief of Police Michael Miller and FBI SAC Matthew DeSarno briefed the press after the rescue operation last night (video below). DeSarno doesnt say much. The Jerusalem Post story does a good a job conveying the known facts. The New York Post story is here.

We apparently are not to draw inferences from the fact that the hostage taker seized on a Jewish congregation or that he demanded the release of Lady Al Qaeda. The Biden administration assures us that there is more that we will learn in the days ahead about the motivations of the hostage taker. Seth Frantzman is not quite so reticent in the Jerusalem Post column Officials are afraid to say antisemitism when Jews are targeted.

UPDATE: Jacob Magid has just posted this Times of Israel story on Rabbi Cytron-Walker.
At least 20 people were killed by non-state actors in three attacks across Nigeria last week (January 9  15).

A review of the incidents indicates a significant decline when compared to the previous week when over 200 people were killed in six attacks.

One of those killed last week was a police officer.

The three cases were recorded in the North-central and South-east, the four other zones recorded no incident.

The Northwest zone  which has been the epicentre of violence by armed terror groups operating as bandits, who have killed hundreds of people in the past few months  witnessed no reported killings last week. However, there were multiple cases of kidnappings in the region during the period.

PREMIUM TIMES compiled the incidents from media reports. Thus, unreported cases are not included.

Below are the recorded incidents:

18 in Plateau

At least 18 people were killed after armed bandits invaded Ancha community in Miango district of Bassa Local Government Area of Plateau State.

The report said the attack on the community occurred in the wee hours of Wednesday and lasted over two hours.

Farmlands, vehicles and over 100 residential homes, and other valuables, were destroyed during the attack.

One in Abuja

A young man, identified as Mohammed, was shot dead while driving on a highway in the Federal Capital Territory.

Mohammed was said to have been in a car with his friend, a member of the National Youths Service Corps who was in uniform, when a yet-to-be-identified person shot at them.

The suspect was said to have overtaken them before pulling the trigger.

One in Imo

A police inspector attached to the Mgbidi Divisional Police Headquarters in Imo State was shot dead during an attack on the police facility by some gunmen.

The attack, which happened at about 9 p.m. on Friday, left another officer injured, the report said.

Imo, like other states in the South-east, has experienced fatal attacks on police facilities and other public facilities. Dozens of people including security officials have been killed in such attacks. The attacks are often linked to the outlawed pro-Biafra group, IPOB.

A few days ago, an Improvised Explosive Device was thrown into a police facility in Imo State by gunmen. No life was lost in the attack, according to the police.

Zero case in terrorized North-west

Most states in the North-west and North-central regions, especially Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto, Kaduna, Kebbi and Niger, have been experiencing attacks by terror groups, otherwise known as bandits, who kidnap and sometimes kill their victims.

Unlike previous weeks where the tallies of fatalities are dominated by victims of banditry attacks, no case was recorded last week. It is unclear if this is because of the ongoing military operation in the region which the military says has intensified and achieved some successes including killing some leaders of bandits.
The annual Armed Forces Remembrance Day was celebrated across the 36 states of Nigeria including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on Saturday.

The event, which involves laying of wreaths at the National Arcade in Abuja and various parade ground in states, was the climax of the main activities lined up to celebrate the armed forces in 2022.

The Armed Forces Remembrance Day is a day set aside every year to celebrate personnel of the Army, Air Force, Navy and Police who have died in the line of duty.

The event is also used to honour veterans still alive and as a medium for soliciting financial, moral and material support for the families of the fallen heroes.

It is usually celebrated on January 15, there are however usually activities lined up about a week to the day to commemorate the remembrance.

In Abuja, the nations capital, President Muhammadu Buhari on Saturday, led the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, members of National Assembly, service chiefs and members of the diplomatic corps to honour the nations fallen and living heroes.

The event, which involved laying of wreaths at the National Arcade in Abuja, was the climax of the main activities lined up to celebrate the 2022 anniversary.

First to lay the wreath was the President, followed by the Vice President, the Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives and Chief Justice of Nigeria.

In another order, the Minister of Defence, Bashir Magashi and his Federal Capital Territory counterpart, Mohammed Bello, laid the wreaths.

Thereafter, the Chief of Defence Staff, Lucky Irabor; the Chief of Army staff, Faruk Yahaya; Chief of Air Staff, Isiaka Amao and Chief of Naval Staff, Awwal Gambo, performed the exercise.

Other dignitaries, who also performed the wreath-laying ceremony are members of the diplomatic corps and their representatives as well as Nigerian Legion and widows of late officer/soldiers represented by Aisha Lemu.

Mr Buhari, thereafter, signed the anniversary register and released the ceremonial pigeon as a symbol of national peace.

Here is how some other states celebrated the event:

North-west

In Zamfara State, the governor, Bello Matawalle, expressed appreciation to the security forces for the achievements so far recorded in the fight against banditry and kidnapping in the North-west.

He said through the efforts of the security forces, the state government had rescued 1,897 victims abducted by bandits and kidnappers in the state.

Mr Matawalle applauded the Nigerian Armed Forces and their sister agencies in the state for what he described as exceptional contributions in the effort to restore law and order in Zamfara.

He, however, appealed to the security agencies to be more proactive and remain professional in the discharge of their duties, urging them to adhere to and operate within the extant local and international laws guiding security operations by showing compassion and respect to all law-abiding citizens.

South-west

In Ekiti, the governor, Kayode Fayemi, restated the need to provide support for retired soldiers as well as families of armed forces personnel killed in the fight against insurgency, banditry and other crimes.

The governor said Nigerians owe families of fallen heroes a duty of care, support and prayers at all times to ameliorate their pains and loss.

He commended President Muhammadu Buhari for improving the pension and service entitlement of armed forces personnel.

Mr Fayemi emphasised the need to provide required materials, equipment and financial assistance for the armed forces to enable their personnel at the warfront to win the battle against insurgency, banditry and other criminal acts in the country.

In Ondo, Governor Rotimi Akeredolu said his administration has disbursed N7.5 million revolving loans to 52 widows of fallen heroes in the state.

The governor said the gesture was to assist the widows of the fallen heroes so that they would less dependent on the society for survival.

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He commended the military for its efforts in the fight against terrorism, banditry and other criminal elements in the country.

He called on the people to complement governments efforts by donating generously towards the well-being of the legionnaires and also by employing the services of members who are still fit in productive enterprises.

In Lagos State, the governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, said the efforts and sacrifices of the fallen heros had not been in vain, as the state government had been supporting the soldiers to keep the territorial integrity of the nation secured.

Mr Sanwo-Olu laid the wreath to commemorate this years Armed Forces Remembrance Day, and the military parade was followed by a traditional 21 gun-salute to honour the valour of the departed service personnel.

After laying the wreath, he said that the sacrifice made by the fallen heroes was supreme and marked the symbol of the nations unity.

The governor charged members of the armed forces to continue to uphold the fine traditions bequeathed to the military by the departed soldiers.

In Osun, the governor, Gboyega Oyetola, described the Armed Forces Remembrance Day as a day of sober reflection on the sacrifices of the soldiers for a united country.

He noted that the heroes, in the quest for sustaining unity and collective sovereignty, paid the supreme sacrifice to keep the country united, indivisible and peaceful.

The governor said his administration was fully committed to further encouraging members of the armed forces through diverse interventions.

He added that his administration would continue to raise the bar in the provision of qualitative governance in a manner that improved the living standard of the people.

North-central

In Kogi State, the governor, Yahaya Bello, after laying the wreath reiterated his administrations commitment and support to the servicemen and families of the fallen heroes.

Mr Bello said that his administration would continue to prioritise security of all citizens and residents of the state, noting that the welfare and logistic support to servicemen in the state remained paramount.

The labour of the fallen heroes who paid the ultimate price to keep the country together shall never be in vain.

And the only way to ensure that is for the government at all levels to rise up in ensuring a peaceful society, Mr Bello said

South-east

Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia on his part called on Nigerians to appreciate the sacrifices of the armed forces by engaging in acts that promote peace and harmony in the country.

The governor, who was represented by his deputy, Oko Chukwu, said that Nigerians should show greater commitment toward nations peace and unity.

He said that the occasion ought to serve as a solemn reminder of the need for Nigerians to resolve and renew their commitment to continue to live in unity.

According to him, the gallantry of the nations fallen heroes cannot easily be erased because it has been engraved into the nations existence.

North-east

Governor Inuwa Yahaya of Gombe State enjoined Nigerians to remember the sacrifices of the fallen heroes by supporting their families.

Mr Yahaya, represented by Deputy Governor Manassah Jatau, said that fallen heroes had made sacrifices for Nigerians to be free from insecurity, fear, unhappiness and other forms of misery.

According to him, the ceremony is to remember veterans, fallen heroes and a sign of respect towards particular tribute to the heroes who have paid the supreme price for the peace of the country.

The governor also appealed to Nigerians to support security agencies with relevant and timely information as a way of contributing to the solution of insecurity.
The Nigerian Army has said its troops of the Joint Task Force (JTF) Operation Hadin Kai (OPHK) have repelled an attack on Biu town, Borno State.

A statement by the Army spokesperson, Onyema Nwachukwu, a brigadier general, on Sunday, said the attack was carried out by the Boko Haram/ISWAP terrorists on Saturday.

This comes a day after the terrorists released a video that went viral on social media where the Tukur Buratai Institute for War and Peace, a research institute of the Nigerian Army University located in Buratai village, Biu LGA, was attacked.

In the video, the terrorists were seen destroying equipment and bringing down flags hoisted in the institute.

But Mr Nwachukwu said the terrorists met their Waterloo when the troops engaged them in superior gunfire killing five of the terrorists on the spot.

The terrorists were said to have taken to their heels when they could not bear the heat.

The criminal elements met their Waterloo, when the gallant troops of 231 Battalion and 331 Artillery Regiment swiftly routed them in a failed incursion at Maina Hari village in Biu on Saturday15 January 2022.

In the intense battle, troops unleashed superior fire power on the terrorists, neutralizing five BH/ISWAP terrorists, compelling others to withdraw in disarray, the statement said.

Read full statement:

OPERATION HADIN KAI: DECISIVE BLOW, AS TROOPS NEUTRALIZE BHT/ISWAP TERRORISTS IN BIU ATTEMPTED INFILTRATION

Troops of Sector 2 Joint Task Force(JTF) North East(NE) Operation HADIN KAI(OPHK) have dealt decisively with Boko Haram(BH) and Islamic State West Africa Province(ISWAP) terrorists, who made frantic attempt to infiltrate the ancient town of Biu, Borno State.

The criminal elements met their Waterloo, when the gallant troops of 231 Battalion and 331 Artillery Regiment swiftly routed them in a failed incursion at Maina Hari village in Biu on Saturday15 January 2022.

In the intense battle, troops unleashed superior fire power on the terrorists, neutralizing five BH/ISWAP terrorists, compelling others to withdraw in disarray..

The gallant troops also captured from the terrorists, one gun truck, one Deshka M Anti Aircraft Gun, one HK 21 Machine Gun, one Rocket Propelled Grenade Bomb, 137 rounds of 12.7mm Anti-Aircraft Rounds amongst others. Troops are currently in pursuit of the fleeing terrorists.

ONYEMA NWACHUKWU

Brigadier General

Director Army Public Relations

16 January 2022
The so-called "Summit for Democracy" held by the U.S. last month is not based on the rules of international legitimacy, Syrian deputy foreign minister has said. #GLOBALink





Produced by Xinhua Global Service
The Commandant-General of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Ahmed Audi, has disbanded the anti-vandal unit of the Rivers State command, following the allegation of illegal bunkering leveled against personnel of the unit by Governor Nyesom Wike.

Mr Audi also ordered the immediate suspension of the head of the unit in the state and directed the personnel involved to report at the command headquarters in Abuja for further investigation.

The swift action taken by me is to close any identified gaps in our operations and service to the nation, I will not tolerate any act of indiscipline, compromise or sabotage under any guise, the civil defence spokesperson, Olusola Odumosu, said in a statement on Sunday.

We will investigate those fingered in the allegations and deal decisively with them if found guilty to serve as a deterrent to others.

Governor Wike on Friday accused the civil defence team in Rivers of aiding and abetting illegal oil bunkering in the state, and ordered the immediate redeployment of the head of the team

The civil defence spokesperson, Mr Odumosu said the suspension remains enforced pending the outcome of an independent enquiry set up to look into the allegations leveled against the unit by the governor.

The commandant-general said the allegation was shocking. He vowed to fish out the erring officers and rejig the unit.

Our moral principles are not negotiable, we are going to rejig the unit and fish out those spoiling the name of the corps, my fight against vandals, illegal oil bunkerers and those stealing our collective wealth and sabotaging our economy is unflinching and we will redoubled our efforts to whittle down this act of sabotage and bring to justice anyone not in tune with our vision and mission for the service, he said.

Governor Wike also accused a divisional police officer in Rivers as operating an illegal oil refinery in the state.

Mr Wike, who said the officer heads the police division in Emohua Local Government Area of the state, demanded his redeployment from Rivers State.

He must leave this state. I cant be governor here and the security man owns an illegal refinery. No, it is not possible. The man has to go. Take him to wherever they allow bunkering, Mr Wike said in Government House, Port Harcourt, in a meeting with local council chairmen and heads of security agencies in the state.

Police investigating Wikes allegations  Officer

The police spokesperson in Rivers, Grace Iringe-Koko, told PREMIUM TIMES, Sunday afternoon, that the police were investigating the governors allegation against the officer.

Mr Wike has repeatedly said that the soot in Port Harcourt and its environs is caused by the operation of illegal refineries in the state, and has vowed to go after their operators.
There are indications that South-east residents may be forced to observe a four-day lockdown from Monday, as the IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanus treason trial is set to resume at a Federal High Court, Abuja.

Mr Kanu is scheduled to appear in court from January 18 to January 20.

IPOB, an outlawed group leading the agitation for the creation of an independent state, Biafra, from Nigerias South-east and part of South-south, had suspended its earlier Mondays sit-at-home order, in preference for it (the order) to be implemented only on the days Mr Kanu appear in court.

The region is likely going to observe the sit-at-home order on the affected days, in addition to the Mondays, despite it being suspended.

The court, in November, adjourned the trial of Mr Kanu to January after Mr Kanus lawyers staged a walk-out. The lawyers had accused the Nigerias Secret police, SSS, of preventing them from entering the courtroom.

Despite its suspension, residents of the five South-east states  Enugu, Ebonyi, Anambra, Imo, and Abia  have continued to observe the Monday sit-at-home order, mostly out of fear.

Some residents and motorists have been attacked lately in the region by gunmen for stepping out of their homes on Monday in violation of the suspended order.

PREMIUM TIMES, last Monday, reported the shootings in some parts of Enugu and Anambra states by suspected IPOB members trying to force a return to the suspended sit-at-home order.

Business owners express fears

A commercial bus driver in Enugu, Joachim Nebo, is afraid that he would suffer enormous loss in the days to come because of the sit-at-home order.

Mr Nebo told PREMIUM TIMES he would definitely not make enough money to pay his childrens school fees if residents are not allowed to go out for their daily businesses.

This is the beginning of the term. My children have gone back to school, but school fees were not paid. At the end of this week now, teachers will start chasing them to bring school fees. Where can we get it? he said.

Ifeanyi Igwe, a businessman who sells Agro-chemicals in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, is feeling sad that his proposed trip to purchase goods next week may not materialise.

He said he is sure of losing N130,000, at least, if the residents are prevented from going out for their businesses for that number of days.

Arinze Ajaezu, who sells computer accessories in Onitsha Main Market, Anambra State, said he risks losing a huge amount of money if the state is locked down for four days.

READ ALSO:

As a businessman, it will affect me very well, he said.

At Aba, the commercial city of Abia State, Ifeanyi Chukwu, a businessman who sells fabrics, said it may become difficult for people to even feed their family if businesses are crippled in the state.

IPOBs position

The IPOB spokesperson, Emma Powerful said on Saturday that the sit-at-home order in the region is only for Tuesday, January 18, and that the other two days in which Mr Kanu would appear in court are excluded so as not to compound the pains of the people.

The residents, however, are likely to stay off the streets on Monday, and perhaps the other days, for fear of being attacked.

The agitation for Biafra has led to several killings and destruction in the South-east.

Some of the South-east leaders have been putting pressure on President Muhammadu Buharis administration to release Mr Kanu from detention to pave the way for talks that could bring an end to the insecurity in the region. The president has, however, said he will not interfere in the judicial process.
The national leader of the All Progressive Party (APC), Bola Tinubu, on Saturday, paid a condolence visit to Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, on the recent deaths of two prominent traditional rulers and a former Governor of Oyo State, Adebayo Alao-Akala.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the former governor of Lagos State and some of his political associates visited Mr Makinde at the State Government House, Agodi in Ibadan.

Mr Makinde, while appreciating Mr Tinubu for the visit, said that his action had proved that he stood for politics without bitterness.

According to him, this is the year political parties will elect their candidates toward the 2023 elections, but you visited here in spite of our political differences.

During this political season, you may have to question yourself on why you need to come to the Oyo State Government House because people might have different interpretations to it.

But, you sent a message across to me and I was delighted to host you in Ibadan.

We really thank you for this visit and we have taken proper notice that you have risen above politics.

And for your going around to come and share with us at this moment that we are grieving, we say thank you, Mr Makinde said.

He wished Mr Tinubu well in his political quest to govern Nigeria.

According to him, we want the best for this country and only the best is good enough at this particular time.

Earlier, Mr Tinubu said the purpose of his visit was to condole with Mr Makinde, his government and the entire people of Oyo State over the demise of the former governor, Adebayo Alao-Akala and two traditional rulers  Soun of Ogbomoso, Jimoh Oyewumi Ajagungbade and the Olubadan of Ibadan, Saliu Adetunji.

He said the departed traditional rulers and Mr Alao-Akala, would be greatly missed because of their contributions to the development of the state.

The former Lagos State Governor said that the reigns of the two prominent traditional rulers in Ogbomoso and Ibadan were peaceful, adding that they had contributed immensely to the peaceful atmosphere in the state.

He said that Mr Alao-Akala equally contributed immensely to the political development and the love radiating within the political arena in the state.

Mr Tinubu also commended Makinde for receiving him in spite of the short notice given for the visit, saying that the governor had demonstrated good character, which he said was rare.

People get, sometimes, intoxicated with power and the arrogance of office can be overwhelming, but not with you; thanks for receiving us so quickly.

With the demise of these three figures in Oyo State, we share in your loss.

You, as the governor on the saddle of power, take responsibility for the situation here.

I want to say we thank God that Ibadan had been peaceful and not a den of violence, but peaceful.

Every other thing that has happened has taught us in the book of religion that we are just passing through and we will leave one day.

But, no matter how long, it is difficult to absorb the loss easily, Mr Tinubu said.

NAN reports that the Oyo APC governorship candidate in the 2019 election, Bayo Adelabu; Soji Akanbi and James Faleke, were among those on the entourage of the APC national leader.

(NAN)

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A Nigerian, Ibironke Adeagbo, has been named a board member of the international charity, Streetinvest, barely three months after she made the list of eight Nigerians honoured for `breaking the glass ceiling in the UK.

The eight Nigerians were honoured last October in London for their outstanding performances in various fields of human endeavours while in the diaspora.

Mrs Adeagbo, 52, who is a graduate of the Onabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye in Ogun, is a chartered accountant and the Chief Executive Officer of IA-Foundation, a charity based in London, England.

IA-Foundation is active in Nigeria, where the group is working to lift the human condition of out-of-school children and the girl-child, to ensure they are educated, to curb insecurity and poverty.

In a letter to Mrs Adeagbo, announcing her appointment as treasurer of Streetinvest, the chairman of the group, Cees Kramer, said that Ronke would be a brilliant addition to Streetinvest in its drive to improve street childrens lives around the world.

He described Mrs Adeagbo as a well-rounded quintessential accountant with immense integrity and credibility, who would add huge value to the strategic growth of Streetinvest as a global operator.

Speaking on her appointment in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Sunday, Mrs Adeagbo said she was honoured to be appointed as treasurer and board member of Streetinvest.

She assured that she would replicate the success story of IA-Foundation in Streetinvest, to make the group a global brand.

She said she had a passion for adding value to the lives of children anywhere in the world, especially the less-privileged ones in developing countries such as Nigeria.

In a related development, Mrs Adeagbo has applauded Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno for signing the states Child Protection Bill into law.

She noted that Borno had become the 29th state in Nigeria to sign the bill into law, describing the development as encouraging.

This will further protect children on the streets in their transition to getting off the streets into the classroom, she stated.

Mrs Adeagbo pleaded with other states in Nigeria yet to sign the bill into law to do so without further delay, to give children in Nigeria renewed hope and future.

(NAN)
A few days after Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu acceded the requests of the Lagos council of the National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives (NANNM), which led to the suspension of its three-day warning strike, another category of health professionals in the state has threatened to down tools over unmet demands by the government.

The workers, under the umbrella of the Nigerian Union of Allied Health Professionals (NUAHP), have issued an ultimatum, accusing the government of persistent inequity in the health sector.

Ultimatum

The health workers recently issued a 21-day ultimatum, threatening to down tools from midnight of January 31, 2022, should the government fail to meet their demands.

The union in a statement signed by the assistant state secretary, Sode Adegbenro, noted that its state executive council, in conjunction with relevant stakeholders, resolved at a meeting held on January 6, 2022, to issue the ultimatum due to the observed unresponsiveness of the state government to lingering issues.

The statement highlighted 13 of the issues in the ultimatum, which include the non clinical call duty allowances and commencement of their full payments; non-Implementation of what it described as the full Consolidated Health Salary Scale (CONHESS), improved welfare and working conditions, and payment of hazard allowance for all members.

The SEC hereby urged all to fully embrace this as a collective struggle and warned against sabotage of any manner to the union directives, it added.

NUAHP is made up of professionals across clinical sections such as pharmacists, physiotherapists, laboratory scientists, radiographers/imaging scientists, dental technologists and other related professionals.

We are on it

In a brief telephone interview with PREMIUM TIMES on Saturday, the public relations officer of the states ministry of health, Tunbosun Ogunbanwo, confirmed the government has received the ultimatum and that appropriate offices and officials are working on how to resolve the issues.

On the ultimatum, he emphasised that the government is addressing it.

Something is on already, we are working on it, Mr Ogunbanwo said.

NANNM Strike

On January 10, 2022, the Lagos State council of NANNM announced the suspension of its industrial action, following a two-hour meeting between Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and the leadership of the nurses union at the state house.

A statement by the chief press secretary to the governor, Gboyega Akosile, confirmed the approval of the striking workers requests by the governor.

According to Mr Akosile, most of the requests by the nurses that could be approved immediately were granted by the governor, and those requiring further deliberations have also been approved for further discussion.
President Muhammadu Buhari has again directed the military to respond robustly to cases of killings and kidnappings by bandits in Niger State and to give effect to strategic objectives through the use of force.

Garba Shehu, the Presidents spokesperson, who revealed this in a statement on Sunday in Abuja, said the directive was handed over to the Defence Headquarters by the president.

The president stated that military operations had become necessary to check the continued attacks on communities in Niger by bandits and remnants of Boko Haram terrorists fleeing theaters of war in the North-west and north-east parts of the country.

In a message to the government and people of Niger, the president said:

I will like to express sincere sympathies to the government and people of the state following recent security incidents.

The Federal Government is willing to strengthen support and cooperation with all the states.

I believe that with full cooperation of citizens, we will surely overcome this problem.

READ ALSO:

According to him, security is a responsibility of every member of the community and only through solidarity and cooperation with law enforcement agencies can we defeat the problems finally.

Despite military operations to contain them, bandits have continued to wreak havoc in some states in the north-west and north-central states especially Zamfara, Kaduna and Niger States with no end in sight yet.

Some communities in Niger State recently came under attacks by bandits which resulted in loss of lives and destruction of farmlands and properties

(NAN)
The Governor of Kano State, Abdullahi Ganduje, on Sunday, paid a condolence visit to the Chairperson of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state, Ahmadu Danzago, who took the position on the intervention of the court.

The visit was to condole Mr Danzago on the recent death of his elder brother on Saturday.

Mr Danzago was elected APC chairperson at a state congress on October 18, 2021 conducted by a faction of the party led by a former governor of the state, Ibrahim Shekarau.

Governor Ganduje had on the same day attended a parallel congress organised by his loyalists, which produced Abdullahi Abass as state chairperson.

In a Facebook post, Mr Gandujes new media aide, Abubakar Ibrahim, said the governor was escorted on the visit by Mr Abbas.

Also in the governors entourage were some members of his cabinet.

The visit followed the latest judgment by the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in Abuja on Thursday, which dismissed two motions filed by the Mr Ganduje-led faction of the APC against the recognition of the Danzago-led leadership of the party in Kano.

Previous rulings of the court on November 30 and December 17, 2021, were also against the Mr Gandujes faction.

The two factions had held parallel congresses and produced two sets of state executives on October 18.

The FCT High Court, on November 30, declared the congress conducted by Mr Shekaraus group as valid and the officials it produced as the duly elected leaders of the APC in the state.

On December 17, the court affirmed its decision after rejecting a motion filed by the Mr Ganduje-led faction asking the court to stay execution and set aside the judgment.

The judge, Hamza Muazu, further imposed a fine of N1 million against the plaintiffs for filing a frivolous and time-wasting motion.

Mr Muazu, on Thursday, rejected two motions for setting aside the judgment and stay of execution on local government congresses.

The Mr Ganduje-led faction had filed the motions following their appeal regarding the matter. They had subsequently transmitted the records of appeal to the Court of Appeal, a crucial procedural step that sets the stage for the hearing of the appeal.

Ruling on Thursday, the judge, Mr Muazu, struck out the applications on the basis that he had lost jurisdiction to hear the case, the records of appeal having been transmitted to the Court of Appeal.
The Management of the Federal University of Lafia (FULafia) says the four students of the institution who were abducted on January 13 have been released by their abductors.

The announcement of their release was contained in a statement signed by Abubakar Ibrahim, Head, Information and Public Relations Unit of the institution and made available to newsmen on Sunday in Lafia.

According to the universitys spokesperson, the students were released at the late hours of January 15.

He added that, Shehu Abdul-Rahman, the vice chancellor of the university, expressed gratitude to the state government and the public for their contributions, prayers and support during the trying moment.

He further said that the VC expressed appreciation to the security agencies for their timely interventions that led to the quick and safe return of the students.

Consequently upon their release, the students have undergone medical checks and they were all found to be in good conditions to immediately resume their studies.

He called on the students to remain calm and go about their normal activities on both campuses of the University.

He therefore assured the parents, students and the public of the institutions commitment to make lives and property safe in and around the campuses.

(NAN)
Gunmen in the early hours of Sunday abducted two staff of the Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers (NCRIB), alongside another victim, in Isara axis of Lagos-Ibadan expressway end of Ogun State.

The suspected kidnappers, dressed in military camouflage and numbering four, allegedly seized the victims said to be on their way back to Lagos from Ibadan, when the car in which they were travelling broke down at about 6.45a.m.

The Executive Secretary of Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers (NCRIB), Tope Adaramola, who confirmed the incident, said the victims were abducted while in the process of fixing the car.

He said the gunmen emerged from the bush and marched them into the bush, adding that as of the time of filing this report; the kidnappers had contacted the management demanding N20 million each for the victims to regain freedom.

Mr Adaramola said the kidnappers used the mobile phone of one of the victims to demand the ransom, adding that the management had equally reported the incident at the Divisional Police Headquarters in Isara.

Kidnapped Olawuyi kidnapped victim Kidnaped bude

He said a similar report was made by the management of the company to Ogun State Police Headquarters.

Abimbola Oyeyemi, the police spokesperson in Ogun State, confirmed the incident when contacted. He said the Special Anti-Kidnapping Unit of the State was already tracking the kidnappers and making efforts to rescue the victims unhurt.
The National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, says Nigeria will win the ongoing war against banditry, kidnapping, killing and other security challenges facing the country.

Mr Tinubu gave this assurance on Sunday when he paid a condolence visit to Governor Aminu Masari of Katsina State over the recent assassination of his Commissioner for Science and Technology, Rabe Nasir.

According to him, the country is larger and greater than those criminals, therefore, the Federal Government should adopt all the necessary measures to eliminate them.

It is also a very trying period for Katsina State, as it is going through a lot of security challenges. Please, whatever happens to one of us, happens to all of us.

Let us be vigilant to help our country, let us preach peace and a change of mind to those who are determined to bring terrorism, kidnapping and evil doings to our midst.

I urge the Federal Government, under the able leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari as the Commander Chief of the Armed Forces, to use all necessary means to eliminate these people.

We share and we will continue to pray with the Katsina Government and also the people of the state to conquer the evil of kidnapping s and the killing of innocent people, Mr Tinubu.

In his response, Governor Masari noted that the current security challenges in the state started with cattle rustling, which he described as community banditry.

He said the bandits lived within the community and were not invading from the forest.

He, however, said that with time the forest became a place where the criminals, such as kidnappers, hid their victims until ransom is paid for them.

What we have discovered is that the majority of what is going on now is community banditry. So, we have community issues which we have to resolve before going forward, the governor said. (NAN)

Katsina is one of the north-west states constantly being attacked by bandits and cattle rustlers

Several efforts by security personnel to contain them have not yielded much results as banditry and kidnapping have remained unabated in the state.

(NAN)
Tom Jacobs of Bellevue, Washington, loves treasure hunts.

Since 2010, the former U.S. naval officer has participated in online volunteer projects that allow anyone who is interested -- "citizen scientists" -- to look through NASA telescope data for signs of exoplanets, planets beyond our solar system.

Now, Jacobs has helped discover a giant gaseous planet about 379 light-years from Earth, orbiting a star with the same mass as the Sun. The Jupiter-size planet is special for astronomers because its 261-day year is long compared to many known gas giants outside our solar system. The result also suggests the planet is just a bit farther from its star than Venus is from the Sun. The finding was published in the Astronomical Journal and presented at an American Astronomical Society virtual press event on Jan. 13.

Uncovering this planet and pinning down its size and mass required a large collaboration between professional astronomers and citizen scientists like Jacobs. To track the planet, they engaged in "a global uniting effort, because we all need to go after it together to keep eyes on this particular planet," said Paul Dalba, astronomer at the University of California, Riverside, and lead author of the study.

"Discovering and publishing TOI-2180 b was a great group effort demonstrating that professional astronomers and seasoned citizen scientists can successfully work together," Jacobs said. "It is synergy at its best."

How the discovery happened

The signature for the newly discovered planet was hiding in data from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS. Using TESS data, scientists look for changes in brightness of nearby stars, which could indicate the presence of orbiting planets.

Jacobs is part of a group of citizen scientists who look at plots of TESS data, showing the change in a star's brightness over time, in search of new planets. While professional astronomers use algorithms to scan tens of thousands of data points from stars automatically, these citizen scientists use a program called LcTools, created by Alan R. Schmitt, to inspect telescope data by eye. That's why Jacobs' group, which includes several citizen scientists and two veteran astronomers, calls themselves the Visual Survey Group. Many of them met while working on Planet Hunters, a NASA-funded citizen science project through Zooniverse that focused on data from NASA's Kepler spacecraft.

On February 1, 2020, Jacobs happened to notice a plot showing starlight from TOI-2180 dim by less than half a percent and then return to its previous brightness level over a 24-hour period, which may be explained by an orbiting planet that is said to "transit" as it passes in front of the star from our point of view. By measuring the amount of light that dims as the planet passes, scientists can estimate how big the planet is and, in combination with other measurements, its density. But a transit can only be seen if a star and its planet line up with telescopes looking for them.

A graph showing starlight over time is called a "light curve." The Visual Survey Group alerted two professional scientist collaborators -- Paul Dalba at the University of California, Riverside, and Diana Dragomir, assistant professor at the University of New Mexico, that this light curve was potentially interesting.

"With this new discovery, we are also pushing the limits of the kinds of planets we can extract from TESS observations," Dragomir said. "TESS was not specifically designed to find such long-orbit exoplanets, but our team, with the help of citizen scientists, are digging out these rare gems nonetheless."

Computer algorithms used by professional astronomers are designed to search for planets by identifying multiple transit events from a single star. That's why citizen scientists' visual inspection is so useful when there is only one transit available. Since this is the only instance of the TOI-2180 b star dimming in this dataset, it is called a "single transit event."

"The manual effort that they put in is really important and really impressive, because it's actually hard to write code that can go through a million light curves and identify single transit events reliably," Dalba said. "This is one area where humans are still beating code."

But how could the team rule out other explanations for the brief dip in starlight? Could they be sure they had found a planet? They would need follow-up observations.

Fortunately, Dalba was able to recruit the Automated Planet Finder Telescope at Lick Observatory in California. "I use that telescope to measure the wobble of the star to then determine how massive this planet is, if it is a planet at all," he said. The research team also used the Keck I telescope at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii to perform some of these measurements when Lick Observatory was threatened by wildfires.

With 27 hours of observations spread over more than 500 days, Dalba and colleagues observed the planet's gravitational tug on the star, which allowed them to calculate the planet's mass and estimate a range of possibilities for its orbit. Still, they wanted to observe the planet's transit when it came back around to confirm the orbit. Unfortunately, finding a second transit event was going to be difficult because there was so much uncertainty about when the planet would cross the face of its star again.

Dalba pressed on, and organized an observing campaign including both professional astronomers and citizen scientists using telescopes at 14 sites across three continents in August 2020. To support the campaign, Dalba camped for five nights in California's Joshua Tree National Park and looked for the transit with two portable amateur telescopes. The collaborative effort yielded 55 datasets over 11 days.

Ultimately, none of these telescopes detected the planet with confidence. Still, the lack of a clear detection in this time period put a boundary on how long the orbit could be, indicating a period of about 261 days. Using that estimate, they predict TESS will see the planet transit its star again in February 2022.

About the planet

TOI-2180 b is almost three times more massive than Jupiter but has the same diameter, meaning it is more dense than Jupiter. This made scientists wonder whether it formed in a different way than Jupiter.

Another clue about the planet's formation could be what's inside it. Through computer models they determined that the new planet may have as much as 105 Earth masses worth of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. "That's a lot," says Dalba. "That's more than what we suspect is inside Jupiter."

Astronomers still have much to learn about the range of planets that are out there. About 4,800 exoplanets have been confirmed, but there are thought to be billions of planets in our galaxy. The new finding indicates that among giant planets, some have many more heavy elements than others.

In our solar system, gigantic Jupiter orbits the Sun every 12 years; for Saturn, a "year" is 29 years. We don't have giant planets like TOI-2180 b between the Earth and Sun. But outside the solar system, astronomers have found dozens of exoplanets that are even bigger than Jupiter and orbit much closer to their stars, even closer than the orbit of Mercury.

With an average temperature of about 170 degrees Fahrenheit, TOI-2180 b is warmer than room temperature on Earth, and warmer than the outer planets of our solar system including Jupiter and Saturn. But compared to the array of transiting giant exoplanets that astronomers have found orbiting other stars, TOI-2180 b is abnormally chilly.

"It's a nice stepping stone in between most giant exoplanets we've found, and then really cold Jupiter and Saturn," Dalba said.

What's next

When TESS observes the star again in February, Dalba and the citizen scientists are eager to get the data and dive back in. If they find the planet's signature, confirming the 261-day period, that would give more meaning to the data from their global campaign to find it in 2020.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, which launched on Dec. 25, could potentially observe this planet and its atmosphere. But there's another reason Dalba is excited about Webb's capabilities. Given that in our own solar system, Jupiter has rings and moons, Webb could be used to look for the presence of small objects orbiting TOI-2180 b.

So far, no rings or moons have been found outside of our solar system with certainty, but one reason could be that many exoplanets are found very close to their star, whose gravity might strip such objects away. TOI-2180 b, located at a farther distance from its host star, might present an interesting opportunity for such a search. "I think this is a fun system for that later on in the future," Dalba said.

When he's not pursuing his planet-hunting hobby, Jacobs, the citizen scientist, works with nonprofits that help people with disabilities find employment in their communities.

The Visual Survey Group members "devote many hours each day surveying the data out of pure joy and interest in furthering science," said Jacobs. Collectively, the team has co-authored more than 68 peer-reviewed science papers, including the discovery of transiting "exocomets" or comets outside the solar system crossing the face of a star.

"We love contributing to science," Jacobs said. "And I love this type of surveying, knowing that one is in new undiscovered territory not seen by any humans before."

More About Citizen Science

NASA has a wide variety of citizen science collaborations across topics ranging from Earth science to the Sun to the wider universe. Anyone in the world can participate. Check out the latest opportunities at science.nasa.gov/citizenscience.

About TESS

TESS is a NASA Astrophysics Explorer mission led and operated by MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Additional partners include Northrop Grumman, based in Falls Church, Virginia; NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley; the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian in Cambridge, Massachusetts; MIT's Lincoln Laboratory; and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. More than a dozen universities, research institutes, and observatories worldwide are participants in the mission.

The National Science Foundation Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship Program contributed support to this study.

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Yemi Osinbajo is the man who will lead us in the right direction, with the help of God and millions of Nigerians, the New Tribe, that have been yearning for an opportunity to side-step all the forces that have been pulling us apart, so that Nigeria can truly emerge as the giant it long should have been.

My name is Sola Adeyeye. I am here to report for duty not as a professor of Biological Sciences, nor as a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I am here, just like every one here gathered, as a member of a New Tribe, one that is totally committed to the advancement of Nigeria. It is an enormous privilege to stand here before you today; an honour to stand before the New Tribe at the birth of what I dare declare will go down as the most consequential event of the 2023 election season. The opportunity to be here is not one that I take for granted, as this offers me not just the rare privilege to see the future ahead of its coming, but a chance to speak at an event that heralds the dawn of a new day for Nigeria. It is a moment in history that I would not miss for anything else. This moment captures, in essence, all that I have spent my years pushing  the birth of a New Tribe that transcends all the divides that have kept Nigeria down.

History has brought our country to a defining moment. To be deaf to the moment is to miss the significance of it. To be blind to the signs of the times is to lose track, lose momentum, and lose the essence of the moment. It is always about the moment. It is about this moment. It is about today and what it portends for tomorrow. We gather here today because of what this moment is saying to us as Nigerians. He who has ears, let him hear what this moment is saying. She who is wise, let her pay attention to this moment. Let him or her, who is diligent, rise to the occasion as Nigeria gives birth to a new tribe.

Nigeria has been calling for a new tribe for over six decades. Nigeria summons us to rise over and above our differences to embrace the things that we have in common. Nigeria enjoins us to rise beyond localised tongues and tribes to become a new Tribe  THE NIGERIAN. Because I am a biological scientist, please permit me to clarify that I am liberally using the word tribe in a colloquial sense to refer to a subspecies, Homo sapiens nigerianus. A new tribe where no one is pulled down on account of differences in ethnicity or religion. The new tribe that cares for the man at the top, just as it cares for the talakawa. This new tribe that embraces each and every one, irrespective of tongue, because we are all one tribe, a people bound by one destiny under God.

It is instructive that it is in Kano that we are launching the birth of this new tribe. The story of Kano is the story of Nigeria, the story of overcoming odds, of defiance and resilience in spite of many darts thrown its way. The story of Kano is the story of the ancient walls that surround the old city, walls that have remained standing for centuries, despite wars and attacks. Indeed, Kano represents the indomitable spirit of Nigeria. No wonder, Kano is described by World Heritage Sites as the most impressive monument in West Africa.

The story of Kano is the story of Nigerians who, on the back of agriculture, commerce and industry, built a city whose growth has been wholly organic, having neither served as an administrative national capital like Lagos and Abuja nor as a regional capital like Ibadan, Enugu and Kaduna. Some say that Kano is a city, others say it is a city-state. They all affirm that Kano is a city, constantly pregnant with other cities in its womb.

With its population, history of activism, level of political awareness and peculiar political culture, it is no wonder that Kano votes have always come as a political tide to push Nigeria in the right direction, at the most critical juncture. Beyond that, the progressive and activist political culture here has positively permeated other parts of Nigeria. If the progressive tendency in Nigerian politics has the objective of putting the welfare of the talakawa at its core, that, in part, is because of the foundation laid by people like Aminu Kano, whose politics was wholly dedicated to the welfare of the masses. So, in many ways, the choice of Kano as the place to launch the new tribe is symbolic and historic. In Kano we find the numbers, the richness of culture and resourcefulness that will serve as the raw materials for the future we so desperately desire. Kano speaks to our past, the present and our future in unique and evocative ways. It is appropriate that it is in the city of Kano that we today launch the birth of a new tribe that will herald the birth of a new Nigeria.

The journey which began for our party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), in 2013 comes full circle, ten years after, in 2023. It is a new dawn beckoning upon us to make history. And the new tribe intends to do just that.

Next year, Nigerians will be summoned to make an exceptional judgment worthy of the times. The forces of history enjoin us to search carefully amongst us for a bold, brave and tireless leader with a resolve to take on challenges that may come our way. A leader with a strong vision for our nations future, one who has the courage to make unpopular decisions, a leader with the ability to put our times in the perspectives of history. At that supreme moment we have to get it right. I believe we have that leader in Yemi Osinbajo who personifies the calm river that runs deep. A decent and honourable man, both in his private and public life.

Indeed, we are faced with a number of challenges as a country, but truth be told, we have surmounted a number of them. The work of laying the foundation has taken us more time than we envisaged, but then, the fact that the critical building blocks are in place, in certain areas, is proof of progress and a sign that we are going in the right direction. We now stand at the cusp of a new birth at the most critical point in the life of our country. We are faced with the double task of deciding on which direction to go to move our country forward, and of choosing the person to lead us in that direction.

For me, it is an easy choice to make. For millions of Nigerians, given a chance, it should equally be an easy choice to make, except that many are mired in pessimism that arose from wanton betrayal by governments. For the New Tribe here gathered plus millions of our cohorts all over Nigeria, our choice is clear and simple!

The moment has chosen for us a man that Providence has prepared for the task. The moment speaks to choosing a man who transcends all tribes, an embodiment of the New Tribe, defined not by the cacophony of dialects but the symphony of our common humanity. The moment requires a man who is able to galvanise the ideals and ideas that will unfold the beckoning glory of a new Nigeria.

My compatriots, history is encapsulated in moments. This moment of Nigerian history has itself chosen a man and that man is Professor Oluyemi Oluleke Osinbajo, the vice president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Yemi Osinbajo is the man of the moment for Nigeria. He is well-grounded and adequately prepared. A tested and trusted hand, with the right temperament, the intellectual fire power, and governance ethos best suited for this moment. Yemi Osinbajo is the man for the moment. Not for his own sake, but for the sake of our country, Nigeria.

Let me confess to a fact that all of us here already know. No Nigerian, including Yemi Osinbajo, has all the answers. Professor Osinbajos uniqueness is the God-given capacity to ask the right questions, the answers to which must come from all of: We the people, guided by God and inspired by a leadership that has a wholesome character, yes, even in Nigeria, leadership with integrity, shall provide the answers to the problems that have beset us for far too long.

Yemi Osinbajos rise to prominence is not a fluke or a national infatuation but the consequence of his remarkable skills  a keen intellect, noble intentions and the wit and grace to express them in ways that have inspired millions across the country. Osinbajo has a rare gift exactly suited to the fearful times  he knows the language of reassurance and hope. Whatever Osinbajo says is carefully considered, whether in private discourse or in public fora; Osinbajo has been the voice of moderation, combining common sense and compassion on issue after issue.

Yemi Osinbajo is the man who will lead us in the right direction, with the help of God and millions of Nigerians, the New Tribe, that have been yearning for an opportunity to side-step all the forces that have been pulling us apart, so that Nigeria can truly emerge as the giant it long should have been.

Our country needs a statesman who envisions Nigeria as a self-sufficient, self-sustaining, upper middle tier country in the shortest possible time. Such a person must be one with tall dreams and big ideas. That is Osinbajo. Big dreams, beautiful and noble, are the stuffs that propel heroes.

Yes, Nigeria needs a president with the grasp, depth, fecundity, confidence, grit, and fortitude to see beyond the frightening and seemingly intractable predilections that beset us. This moment has gifted us such a man: His name is Osinbajo.

I believe that the moment is here. I believe that the New Tribe has been prepared for this moment and that you will step up, in different parts of Nigeria, as enablers of this moment.

It is a new day. It is a new dawn. May history be kind to the New Tribe for the foresight in recognising this moment for what it is and rising up for it. May history be kind to the people of Nigeria. May history be kind to the chosen man of the moment, Yemi Osinbajo. He is a man who, at any crossroads, can be counted on to lead in the right direction.

May history be kind to us all, as we make history. May history be kind to the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Sola Adeyeye is the senator for Osun Central in the National Assembly.
The most mis-recommending criterion against a Tinubu presidency is that, in mental depth, the Lagos Landlord is just a whiff higher than Muhammadu Buhari. Remove the cockney accent he feebly mimics, you will find out that most times, his extempore speeches lack coherence, logic and verve.

I was at the Alausa Governors Office in Lagos. Accessing the governor was like seeking a needle in a haystack. His Press Secretary had sent word up that an irritant interloper had come to ferret a response to a news magazines damming expose on the governor. After hours of waiting, a commissioner (name withheld) sauntered in and met me where I sat immovably like Mount Kilimanjaro. You cant write that story, he began in a steely voice laced with a veiled threat. Go back to Ibadan. We will talk to your boss. That was how the story never saw the light of the day.

The Nigerian Tribune, of which I was the Features Editor during this period, had sent me in pursuit of the facts or fiction surrounding the news magazines report. The principal of that ancient school, Government College Ibadan (GCI), had suddenly gone AWOL then, becoming as incommunicado and inaccessible as the proverbial excrement of the masquerade. Through the grapevine, there was an allegation that Alhaji Lam Adesina, the governor of Oyo State at the time, had ordered that all data of the schools attendees during the period of Governor Bola Tinubus supposed attendance of GCI be brought to him in the Government House, where they were then placed under lock and key. The media that were seeking the corroboration or converse of those claims, went after the Principal of GCI. He had disappeared into thin air. Perhaps, a one-on-one interview with the governor would do?

In 1999, one Dr Waliu Balogun wrote a petition against Tinubu, leveling a number of damning allegations that bordered on fraudulent claims of educational attainments. Among other things, he accused Tinubu of lying in an affidavit attached to his Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) form that he lost his degree certificates while he was on exile between 1994 and 1998. The news magazine later published those details in a gripping expose which left sour tastes in the mouth.

One after the other, all of Tinubus claims, sworn to under oath in the Form CF001 he filled with INEC, were shredded to smithereens by the magazines story. St. Pauls School, Aroloya, Lagos, which he claimed to have attended, was found never to have existed, in the investigative reporting of the magazine, just as his name was conspicuously missing from the records of the Government College, Ibadan, which he claimed to have attended between 1965 and 1968. Indeed, GCIs alumni association, the Old Boys of the school, debunked the claim of having him as a member. So also was Tinubus claim to have attended Richard Daley College, Chicago, between 1969 and 1971. Punctured also were the governors claims of being a student of the University of Chicago in the U.S. between 1972 and 1976, as well as obtaining a B.Sc degree in Economics from the university. A request to those institutions for affirmation of Tinubus studentship by the magazine came up with a resounding No. Till date, in spite of his having vanquished the legal principalities spearheaded by Chief Gani Fawehinmi (SAN), with the Supreme Court voiding Fawehinmi on technical grounds, none of Tinubus classmates, schoolmates or even teachers, has come out in public to counter the facts of the legal behemoth erected against him.

Four years later, in 2003, it was time for Tinubu to fill the Form CF001 again, in pursuit of his second term bid. His enemies who were waiting for him to make those claims again were dazed when they saw what the governor filled. In all the columns, the gentleman simply filled NOT APPLICABLE  Primary School: Not Applicable; Secondary School: Not Applicable and; University: Not Applicable! Could that have meant that the man never attended any school?

Tinubu was not alone. Rife as expectations were from the new-found Nigerian republic in 1999, like alligators, renowned for the incredible nasal power of smelling a drop of blood, even in ten gallons of water, Nigerians smelt crises in the cache of scandals that involved newly elected office holders of the republic. Less than three months after commencement of the Fourth Republic, Nigeria began to manifest noticeable cracks. It took political scientists and students of Marxian dialectics to allay our fears and tell us that those cracks were curative, self-correcting and akin to the Marxist postulation of thesis and antithesis which, when they jam, produce a synthesis.

In a quick succession of messy, damming scandals, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Salisu Buhari; Senate President, Evan(s) Enwerem and Bola Tinubu got entangled in seismic, roiling scandals of identity misappropriation, subversion of their oaths of office and perversion of truth. While the earlier two were swept away by the typhoon of the crises, Tinubu not only survived the ignominy, to spite the allegations, he is today one of the top three most consequential and powerful Nigerians alive, and a presidential office aspirant to boot.

Salisu Buhari, the affable and young Speaker of the lower parliament had just then been unraveled by the media as an age inflator and certificate forger. Hitherto a Kano-based businessman, Buhari had made an entry into politics, but barely two weeks after being sworn into office, the now rested news magazine, TheNews, in its February 16, 1999 edition, published details of his age and certificate forgery. The magazine wrote that he was actually born in 1970 and not in 1963 as he had claimed.

Again, TheNews put a lie to Buharis claim of having graduated from the University of Toronto, stating that he not only did attend the school, the mandatory youth service he claimed to have undergone at Standard Construction in Kano was equally fiction. On July 23, 1999, like a rain-soaked squirrel, Buhari was contrite, disgraced and admitted all the allegations. I apologise to you. I apologise to the nation. I apologise to my family and friends for all the distress I have caused them. I was misled in error by a zeal to serve the nation. I hope the nation will forgive me and give me the opportunity to serve again, he murmured as he resigned from the House. He was subsequently convicted of certificate forgery, sentenced to two years in prison but was pardoned by President Olusegun Obasanjo.

The truth is that since 1960, seldom has Nigeria had a political aficionado who has deployed the genius of the streets in the service of politics, as Bola Tinubu has done. Scarcely can anybody have the mis/fortune of encountering him without becoming a captive of his cash influence. Someone once said that even the god of Mammon would be envious of Tinubus sagacity in deploying its essence as a weapon.

Senate President, Evan Enwerem, was to kiss the canvass a little while after. In the race for the Senate presidency, he had sidestepped his closest sprinter rival, Chuba Okadigbo, for the office by 66 to 43 votes. Shortly after his ascension in 1999, Enwerem was shoved into the sieve, and scrutinised on the allegation of an identity opacity. He was held up on the fire-spitting wire gauze for the falsification of his name. A ball-fire of controversy erupted on whether Enwerems real name was Evan or Evans. In the melee, on November 18, 1999, his ouster, spearheaded by Okadigbo and his allies, became a fait accompli.

Between his consequential emergence on the political turf of Nigeria in 1999 and now, only an armchair, analytical yokel will underrate or belittle Bola Ahmed Tinubus awesome and colonising genius in Nigerian politics. He became so consequential that some translucent analyses compare him to the sage, Obafemi Awolowo. It appears that immediately he got away from the drowning tidal waves of that identity theft legal tango and the lacerating fisticuffs of his numerous political adversaries, Tinubu tightened his muscles on the political levers of Lagos, a State which had always been the microcosm of Nigeria since it became the federal capital of independent Nigeria in 1960. He saw how the almighty power of the media, like a mammoth whale, almost succeeded in capsizing his ship of state and political career.

Rising from the ashes of the crises, Tinubu encircled his claw-like fists on the media, meandering himself into its total corpus and essentialising himself in its operations. While English crime thriller writer, Rene Lodge Brabazon Raymond, popularly known as James Hadley Chase, says that fear opens the wallets of the rich, Tinubus street chemistry, which he deploys, says that licit and illicit favours, prebends and perks, imprison consciences and arrest captives faster than the glue gum traps mice. Unconscionably, Tinubu waves these aces with the magisterial clinicality of a professional executioner, succeeding in the process in harvesting a huge cache of political, media, government, judicial, corporate, etcetera clienteles inside his massive pouch.

The truth is that since 1960, seldom has Nigeria had a political aficionado who has deployed the genius of the streets in the service of politics, as Bola Tinubu has done. Scarcely can anybody have the mis/fortune of encountering him without becoming a captive of his cash influence. Someone once said that even the god of Mammon would be envious of Tinubus sagacity in deploying its essence as a weapon.

Within the span of his Lagos governorship of eight years, from someone who those who knew him said was passably well-to-do, Tinubu grew a monstrous wealth, such that a 2015 back page opinion piece in The Sun newspaper claimed he owned almost half of Lagos and urged Buhari to clone the Vladimir Putin method with which the Russian president neutralised drug czars who funded his presidential emergence. Within this period, Tinubu also acquired a humongous political influence within Lagos and outside, that could rank aside those of the Pharaohs and emperors of old. In 2007, an ex-governor, who witnessed the miasma of power flakes encircling him as he arrived the Lagos airport, jealously told me that it was godlike.

Superficial analyses of Tinubu claim that his vice-hold grip on Lagos can be found in his ability to build and plant people in state and national offices, while sustaining a linear pattern of succession. This, such analysts claim, reflects his sagacity. Those who know the modus operandi of this power retention system however put a lie to it. To them, deep beneath it is an opaque, yet fastidiously maintained and pervasively sustained system of mega corruption and the perpetuation of self hegemony, through a carefully mastered mind-coercion, which is promoted by a cultic abidance to an oath of allegiance.

Those who see Tinubus strength in his fluid recruitment of aides, should also be able to answer why he suffers the huge casualty of his investment in such persons? Could it be that he uses them as indentured viceroys? Or that the rebellion we see from them is an attempt to set themselves free of his hold? From Babatunde Fashola, Muiz Banire, Akinwumi Ambode to Rauf Aregbesola, and many others, there must be a single thread that unifies Tinubus foot soldiers rebellion against him. Unfortunately for Tinubu, this same set of soldiers, knowing the secrets of the sustenance of their power machine, are today against his emergence as Nigerias president and will willingly supply the fire that will incinerate his ambition. In Yorubaland today, apart from Lagos and Osun States, which APC governor can Tinubu claim to be under him?

If nothing else, the controversy provoked by Chief Bisi Akandes My Participations unraveled the mythic notion that Tinubu promotes his aides to the top for the love of country. Back and forth arguments, especially about Vice President Yemi Osinbajos nomination in 2015, revealed that not only is the Lagos landlord obsessed with the self alone, the ascension of others in his loop is secondary and subordinated to the personal interest. The world saw that Tinubu grudgingly acceded to Osinbajos candidacy, only when his personal interest hit the rocks.

Last week, however, Bola Tinubu paid a visit to President Buhari, a few hours after the latter granted an incoherent interview where he claimed that if he named his successor, the fellow could be assassinated. A content analysis of the presidents statement must have revealed to Tinubu that he could never have been the one Buhari was referring to. Tinubu must know that Buhari knows that a plan to murder Death would be easier done than assassinating Nigerias Mafia don, the Capo dei capi himself.

Yoruba will totally support Tinubu in his presidency dream if he agrees to fill in the INEC forms all those claims he made of his roots in 1999. He must fill in the 2023 Form CF001 St. Pauls School, Aroloya, Lagos, as his primary school; Government College, Ibadan; Richard Daley College, Chicago and the University of Chicago as his alma maters, without Senator Tokunbo Afikuyomi swearing on oath that he filled them for him by proxy.

The most mis-recommending criterion against a Tinubu presidency is that, in mental depth, the Lagos Landlord is just a whiff higher than Muhammadu Buhari. Remove the cockney accent he feebly mimics, you will find out that most times, his extempore speeches lack coherence, logic and verve.

Counter-arguments have been proffered against the school of thought that says Tinubus ultra-stupendous wealth should recommend him against vying for the Nigerian presidency. You will recollect that the military apparatchik argued along this line against an MKO Abiola presidency. Abiola, they said, was as wealthy as to grant Nigeria loans. Weak as the argument was, it is strong in Tinubus disfavour, for its moral and deleterious implications. While the world knew that Abiolas wealth was procured from international dealings, especially in ITT, Tinubu is said to own a pie in virtually every sector of the Nigerian economy, ranging from oil, steel, finance (tax), airline, real estate, to the media, and you name it. These are all operated in names of shells and proxies. In all these, as the Americans say, we can see the bucks but not the shop. What morality will Nigeria be preaching by having a president of such opaque composition and disposition?

Either real or imagined, it is said that the only thing that is real about Tinubu is his person and that every other ascription on him is a borrowed robe. He has not come in the open to effectively disclaim the allegation that his name is not his name; that the parents he claimed were not his; that the certificates he claimed to be his are not and that the schools he claimed to have attended, didnt know him. I dont know a baggage bigger than this for a country like Nigeria that is struggling to sell herself to the world, to now have its president burdened by this pernicious pedigree.

With the calamity that the Buhari presidency has posed to Nigeria, it will be more calamitous to have a Tinubu as his successor. Governing Nigeria is not all about identifying surrogates who will man critical political offices for future political gains. Nigeria needs a cerebral, healthy, comparatively morally overboard president, a man  borrowing from Oscar Wildes description of his gay partner friend, Sir Alfred Douglas in De Profundis  who is not a man for whom the gutter and all that is in it fascinates.

One would have expected Tinubu to heed the counsel of Apala music icon, Ayinla Omowura. Omowura must have had in mind leaders who are heavy-laden, burdened by baggage of their past, when he counseled that, as all shrubs and leaves in the forest should not be the predilection of a herbalist seeking curative herbs; not all palm trees in the forest should excite the palm-wine tapper either. In Yoruba, he expressed this as, gbogbo ewe ko lojawe nja; gbogbo ope ko lonigba ngun. Sagacious leaders who carry stupendous moral baggage of the Tinubu hue should know the forests they ought to venture into.

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The forests of presidential contest that the Lagos Landlord is about to venture into is what same Omowura, in his vinyl, referred to as igbo odaju  the forest of the heartless, the hard carapace-hearted hunters. At least not anyone who does not have the benefit of a real mother  a real mothers prayers are like magic, steeped in mystical and metaphysical powers. Anyone, said Omowura, who does not have a real mother who can provide the protection of witchcraft for them, should not venture into igbo odaju. Never! Abraham Lincoln, father of the American nation, also alluded to this when he said, I remember my mothers prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.

Some Yoruba lament what they call the predilection of the Yoruba for pulling themselves down. This piece would be their perfect example. It is thinking like this that has condemned Nigeria to stagnation. The truth is, the Yoruba are very proud of their pedigree and wear it like a lapel on their sleeves. So how can the same Yoruba who have preached moral uprightness to the rest of the world for centuries, now queue behind a man who cannot point his right hand at his fathers homestead? Let the rest of Nigeria be rotten eggs. The Yoruba will still underscore the societal purity. It should gladden us that the Yoruba are the ones revealing the maggots in their home so that when they expose the maggots in others, they will occupy a higher moral ground. It is better for the Yoruba not to lift a presidential leg forward than lift one that is riddled with a festering and putrid sore. In any case, what Nigeria needs is a president that is a leader who is not crippled by ill health and is adequately schooled in the nuances of 21st century solutions to our self-inflicted, existential challenges.

Since independence in 1960, six major Yoruba sons have attempted a shot at Nigerias civilian presidency (excluding fringe aspirants of Babangidas political guinea-pig era). They are Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Alhaji Lateef Jakande, Chiefs Abiola, Bola Ige, Olu Falae and Olusegun Obasanjo. If Tinubu carries through his recent declaration, he will be joining this pantheon. Of this lot, Tinubu would be the only one whose pedigree is shrouded in a miasma of dubiety.

Yoruba will totally support Tinubu in his presidency dream if he agrees to fill in the INEC forms all those claims he made of his roots in 1999. He must fill in the 2023 Form CF001 St. Pauls School, Aroloya, Lagos, as his primary school; Government College, Ibadan; Richard Daley College, Chicago and the University of Chicago as his alma maters, without Senator Tokunbo Afikuyomi swearing on oath that he filled them for him by proxy.

Festus Adedayo is an Ibadan-based journalist.
From a professional viewpoint, I think Tinubu ought to issue a statement dissociating himself from any 419 statement of endorsement stealing other peoples names and fraudulently attempting to annex their goodwill.

Following the rather impromptu manner of their heros declaration of interest in the presidency, shortly after informing President Buhari of his intention, Bola Tinubus supporters resorted to the old game of stealing the identities, voices and integrity of well regarded men of honour, purporting them to have endorsed Tinubus aspiration.

The Jankara ambush started when the social media caught fire with a post indicating that Dr Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank (AfDB), had endorsed Tinubu. The post read: If Senator Bola Tinubu could make Lagos the 5th richest economy in Africa and the safest state in Nigeria then be sure what he will do as Nigeria President. Akinwumi Adesina ~ 11/01/2022. (Copyright Adesina?)

Those who know Dr Adesina well swore that his standards were much higher than the opportunistic strain of contrived patriotism on offer in the political space in Nigeria. Adesina had earned a name as one of the best ministers of Agriculture that Nigeria ever had. Now hes taking the African Development Bank to previously uncharted heights. He numbers among Nigerias greatest technocratic exports. Why would such a man literally jump the fence to endorse Tinubu?

A rebuttal came before the Tinubu gang could make any mileage from their fraud. But there was no letup. Shortly after, they targeted another big fish, Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka. I have, in the last couple of years, written about several groups stealing Wole Soyinkas name and voice in pursuit of their villainous goals. But this is the first time the camp of a presidential aspirant is stealing Soyinkas image (integrity, nobility of character, creativity, honour, global intellectual renown, etc.) to deodorise their candidate.

The clowns could not even write correct English. The least one would expect, in a situation where anyone is trying to attribute anything to Soyinka, is that the grammar would be correct. How in the world would the real Soyinka be caught saying, I have never involve myself in politics or campaign for any politician, but in 2023 I will involve in politics and campaign for longtime friend in 1993 Nadeco struggle. Nobel Laurel Professor oluwole soyinka, (sic)

Nobel Laurel? Ho-ho! Playwright RB Sheridan would have pronounced a pox on the idiots who composed this cheap fakery. It is so idiotic, it is difficult to beat even in fiction!

The image and quote were shared all over social media in a programmed way to give maximum mileage to the malignant rumour. One would have thought that anyone interested in a political office would rely on his own integrity and track record, not steal the image and voices of his betters.

The inimitable Soyinka, tired of being a regular victim of these crooks, was roused to save his name. In his press statement, Soyinka said: One can only hope that the public has learnt to identify fake news and join in the urgent task of exposing and disgracing these despicable touts.

Many Nigerians have also been wondering about Tinubus unannounced visit to the president with the sole intention of intimating him with his ambition. Considering the fact that Nigerias system of government is more of what I have described over the years as Babacracy, instead of democracy, can one then interpret Tinubus visit as the visit of one aspiring Baba to an incumbent Baba in the spirit of Babacracy?

The literary icon made his political stand clear, miffed as he was by the sheer illiteracy of the authors of the fakery: For the avoidance of doubt, I have not even thought of 2023 much less inserted candidates into coveted positions.

According to the professor, the message was an old recycled forgery that keeps popping up time and again. Those who pass it round do themselves and their recipients a disservice. Find something worthwhile to occupy your time. In any case, we have no business with politics in the land of the dead and the most recent information I have on me is that I died some time last year.

The level of perfidy and distortion of reality that some political desperadoes are ready to unleash on the society is staggering. The calculation of those who concoct these lies is that the eminent people whose names and voices have been stolen would feel too big to descend into the gutter with the lie pedlars. What they dont reckon with is that their victim needs not jump into the cesspit with them  he could simply reclaim his name and image, and leave the forgers in their habitual sludge. You cant rescue a pig from the mud pit. Its his habitat.

Many Nigerians have also been wondering about Tinubus unannounced visit to the president with the sole intention of intimating him with his ambition. Considering the fact that Nigerias system of government is more of what I have described over the years as Babacracy, instead of democracy, can one then interpret Tinubus visit as the visit of one aspiring Baba to an incumbent Baba in the spirit of Babacracy?

Oby Ezekwesili was not amused by some other endorsements, which seemed to take the electorate for granted. Her comment: I watched one of those so-called public analysts boast that, Bola Tinubu has consulted the President. It is a given that Bola Tinubu will be the next President of Nigeria. She laments, In a Democracy o! Its not your fault.

By jumping the gun, so to say, it seems Bola Tinubu is, this time, over-reaching himself like the proverbial gorilla which needed to wait for one more day for the magic potion transmuting him from animal to man to complete its work, but chose to dance in the market, half-man, half-animal. Now, Tinubu has activated his legion of foes ahead of time and the predictable bashing, muck-raking, and demystification has started in earnest.

One Jalingo-based Tanko Yusuf reminded Tinubu on social media that politics is not just a game of who declares first.

In 1999, Bola Ige was the first to declare. In 2003, it was Abubakar Atiku. In 2007, it was Odili and Ibori. in 2011 it was Ribadu in front and in 2015, President Jonathan started the race before anyone could say Jack Robinson! In 2019, we all cannot forget quickly how Governor Fayose launched his campaign. What do they have in common? They were all losers!

Tinubu is a cat with nine lives. My Biology teacher taught me that to land safely, every cat must conserve its angular momentum, rotate its body and slow its rate of rotation in such a way that it lands on its feet Every wise cat weighs its odds. Or does it?!

Bola Tinubu is, to be sure, not anyones political spring chicken. He is one of the most experienced players in the political field. That is why the resort of his sympathisers to stealing the names and voices of eminent sons of the land is so unfortunate. I know that in a political grouping, there will be all sorts of characters, including low-lifers, whose only way of showing relevance is by using extra-legal means from their operational headquarters in the cesspit to support their boss. But it is the duty of every aspirant to draw the line and read the riot act to his followers.

From a professional viewpoint, I think Tinubu ought to issue a statement dissociating himself from any 419 statement of endorsement stealing other peoples names and fraudulently attempting to annex their goodwill.

I have argued in the past that by the very nature of Nigerian politics, people who excite extreme positive or negative passions in people dont win the trophy at the end of the day. And that applies elsewhere also. Remember a lady called Hilary Clinton? But for the fact that her opponent in the U.S. presidential election was actually sworn in and went on to defecate all over the White House for four lamentable years, half of which tenure was virtually Covidised, many people would still have sworn that they were dreaming and that the rest of us should wake them up when the nightmare was over.

Tongues have been wagging that Tinubus visit to Buhari was to upstage another aspirant suspected of also nursing a presidential ambition and who seems to be in the good books of the president and his minders. Whatever may be the case, Tinubu has to be careful about his messaging. Yes, Nigerians are looking for a ready-made president, but they are not looking for a man who sees the office as the fulfilment of a personal ambition.

Commenting on Tinubus press conference after conferring with Buhari, Tanko Yusuf jeered: Seating lonely in an empty room, with no political friends or associates, he came cap in hand to ask for permission to run for office from a man that didnt need to give it, and left a resounding message: this is about me, this is about my personal ambition

It is good Asiwaju himself admitted he was saying the truth and nothing but the truth, when he spoke of his lifelong personal ambition. We have no problem with his ambition, we just want a president that wants the job because of us not because of himself!

Tinubu is a cat with nine lives. My Biology teacher taught me that to land safely, every cat must conserve its angular momentum, rotate its body and slow its rate of rotation in such a way that it lands on its feet.

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Every wise cat weighs its odds. Or does it?!

Wole Olaoye is a public relations consultant and veteran journalist. He can be reached on wole.olaoye@gmail.com, Twitter: @wole_olaoye; Instagram: woleola2021.
The Niger Police command has confirmed the abduction of 15 persons by some gunmen in Kulho village of Mashegu Local Government Area of the state.

Police spokesperson in the state, Wasiu Abiodun, confirmed this in a statement in Minna on Sunday.

Mr Abioudun, a deputy superintendent of police, said that on January 14, at about 2 a.m., suspected bandits attacked Kulho village, a remote community via Ibbi in Mashegu and abducted 15 persons.

Mr Abiodun also explained that on the same day at about 1 a.m, suspected bandits/terrorists entered Mashegu village through Jigawa and stole a yet to be ascertained number of cattle.

He said a team of police had been drafted to the area for search and rescue of the abducted victims.

We solicited the support of local residents to volunteer reliable information that could aid in apprehending the miscreants, he said.

Niger State in the North-central part of the country has come under frequent attacks by bandits who abduct people for ransom and kill with reckless abandon.

Against the background of the incessant acts of banditry in the state, President Muhammadu Buhari, on Sunday, approved the deployment of more military operations in the state to contain the bandits.

Apart from Niger State, states like Kaduna and Zamfara also remain a hotbed for bandits who have become almost uncontrollable despite the efforts of the countrys military to tackle them.

(NAN)
Al Yahyai has accrued over thirty years of experience in the media field as he moved between print and television in both the Sultanate of Oman and the United States of America, and specialized in presenting talk shows of a political, intellectual and cultural nature.

"Second Reading" has aired on Arab television since June 2019. The program is based on a conscious and objective dialogue between a group of specialists who provide a different perspective from the prevailing one, and refute the exaggerations and fallacies surrounding concepts and events.

The program's first season began by addressing intellectual issues of a religious nature, to provide a fresh take on controversial issues, such as the stoning penalty in Islam and the concept of the state in Islam. During its first episodes, the program presented historical Islamic figures, including Ibn Taymiyyah.

In its second season, it moved to reading political issues of interest to Arab citizens, including "Islamists and their relationship to democracy." It also sought to present an objective view of concepts like secularism, liberalism and populism.

In its new phase, the program will launch a format combining long-form field and archival reports, as well as discussions between specialists, with a focus on historical and general political issues.

Also, Kuwaiti journalist Dahem Al-Qahtani joins "Alaraby TV." He is the host of the "Khaleej Al Arab" program, which addresses Gulf affairs at various levels through discussions and analyses in an attempt to strengthen the commonalities between the people of the Gulf, as well as raise thorny questions about its reality and the relations of its countries.

"Khaleej Al Arab" was launched on Arab TV over four years ago. It is one of the main political channel programs, and discusses everything that concerns Gulf citizens politically, socially and culturally. Arab citizens also have a general knowledge of the Gulf countries due to their remarkable regional and international influence.

During its previous episodes, the program hosted officials and researchers from various Gulf countries and addressed several issues, including the years of the State of Qatar's siege, which coincided with the program's launch, then the Yemeni war, and the Iranian nuclear issue.

During its next phase, the program aims to address Gulf issues from a cultural and social perspective, as well as political issues, and will devote air time to field visits to Gulf countries, along with cultural, political and social activities.

Al-Qahtani worked as a journalist for the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai Al-Aam (Alrai Media), later known as Al-Rai. He also hosted a talk show with others on the Kuwaiti Alyoum channel. Subsequently, he helped start several media projects, including the electronic "Alaan News," the first electronic newspaper published in Kuwait and the Arabian Gulf, as well as the "Abdullah Al-Salem Center for Supporting Democracy," which he previously managed.

Follow "Alaraby TV" on: NileSat  12646 HD 10971 SD, Es-hailSat 2 11310HD V, HotBird 12520 HD, www.alaraby.com and our social media channels:

Facebook: @alarabytelevision

Instagram: alarabytv

YouTube: AlarabyTV

Twitter: @alarabyTV

"Alaraby TV" is an Arabic news channel broadcasting from the Qatari capital, Doha, London and Beirut. "Alaraby TV" tracks events and their background, then presents the news, analyses, evaluations and investigations. The channel is committed to providing highly credible journalism and objective,professional content, with a focus on the principles of freedom of expression, based on the highest professional standards applicable globally.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1722904/AlAraby_Akhbar.jpg

SOURCE AlAraby: Akhbar
An average film can produce 50 tonnes of CO2, the equivalent of running 11 cars for a year. With its new campaign, TBD Media is embracing its responsibility within the industry to replenish the environment. By developing carbon sinks in these new regions through tree planting, all films produced under this campaign will be completely carbon neutral.

To achieve the offsetting of emissions from the content produced for the opening week of Dubai Expo 2020, TBD is partnering with locally-based Olive Gaea to both plant hundreds of trees in the Emirates and retire carbon credits from certified projects. Through this, TBD Media is able to continue to make films concerning sustainable innovation, without worrying about its own footprint.

Vivek Tripathi, Founder and CEO of Olive Gaea, says: "With the UAE having recently announced their commitment to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, it is paramount for businesses operating in the region to align with the government vision and take a leadership position in the sustainability field. We are therefore proud and excited to partner with TBD Media & Gulf News supporting their sustainability strategy, leading the way for carbon neutral video productions in Dubai."

TBD Media is determined to give back to Dubai and the wider region via a method that supports climate resiliency in the area, having always shown enduring commitment to carbon offsetting, both domestically and internationally. The new campaign builds on this already robust support of ecological awareness, presenting an opportunity to commit to the positive future of the region.

Paolo Zanini, TBD Media Group's CEO, says: "We are excited to provide our filmmaking expertise to companies around Dubai, whilst committing to the longevity and the economic growth of the MENA region."

About TBD Media Group:

TBD Media Group is an international, purpose-driven, media developer that helps companies, organizations and governments tell their brand stories in a human and direct way. Learn more at https://www.tbdmediagroup.com/cnp

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1722936/TDB_Media_Group_Pic1.jpg

Media Contact:

Jenna-Leigh Soobramoney

Head of Marketing

TBD Media Group

[email protected]

SOURCE TBD Media Group
WASHINGTON, Jan. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, condemned today's hostage-taking incident at the Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, and said it is in contact with local community leaders to learn more about the attack and provide any assistance possible.

SEE: Colleyville synagogue held hostage during livestreamed service; police negotiating with man

https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/crime/article257360862.html

In a statement, CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said:

"We strongly condemn the hostage-taking at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas. This latest antisemitic attack at a house of worship is an unacceptable act of evil. We stand in solidarity with the Jewish community, and we pray that law enforcement authorities are able to swiftly and safely free the hostages. No cause can justify or excuse this crime. We are in contact with local community leaders to learn more and provide any assistance that we can."

CAIR's mission is to protect civil rights, enhance understanding of Islam, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.

La mision de CAIR es proteger las libertades civiles, mejorar la comprension del Islam, promover la justicia, y empoderar a los musulmanes en los Estados Unidos.

Become a Fan of CAIR on Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/CAIRNational

Subscribe to CAIR's Email List

https://action.cair.com/a/newsletters

Subscribe to CAIR's Twitter Feed

http://twitter.com/cairnational

Subscribe to CAIR's YouTube Channel

http://www.youtube.com/cairtv

Follow CAIR on Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/cair_national/

Donate to CAIR

https://action.cair.com/a/donate

Do you like reading CAIR press releases and taking part in our action alerts? You can help contribute to CAIR's work of defending civil rights and empowering American Muslims across the country by making a one-time contribution or becoming a monthly donor. Supporters like you make CAIR's advocacy work possible and defeating Islamophobia an achievable goal. Click here to donate to CAIR.

If you would like to join CAIR's media list, please sign up here: https://action.cair.com/a/newsletters  For more information, email: [email protected], CC [email protected]

CONTACT: CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, [email protected]; CAIR-Dallas Executive Director Faizan Syed, [email protected], 469-290-2909, CAIR-Houston Director of Operations William White, [email protected], 713-838-2247; CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw, 202-742-6448, [email protected]; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, [email protected]; CAIR National Communications Coordinator Ismail Allison, 202-770-6280, [email protected]

SOURCE Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Vial announces that in conjunction with the 2022 Winter Clinical Dermatology conference it will host an Advisory Board with leading research sites to discuss the challenges in clinical research with a focus on improving speed and quality of trials in Dermatology.

Launched earlier this year, under the tag line, "The CRO Built for Sponsors," the Vial Dermatology CRO promises higher quality and faster execution of trials powered by the Vial Clinic Network of over 35 Dermatology clinics across the country.

The Vial Dermatology CRO team is led by Betsey Zbyszynski as Head of Clinical Operations, Jason Shuris as Head of Sales, Janet DuBois, M.D. as Medical Director, Justin Withers as Head of Dermatology, and Mamta Hunt as Head of Quality. The CRO executive team joins Vial with over 100+ years of combined dermatology clinical trial experience.

The Vial executive team is attending the 2022 Winter Clinical dermatology conference to engage with sponsors leading the forefront of Dermatology research and top research sites.

The Vial CRO Advisory Board will discuss the the challenges facing Dermatology clinical research today, capture feedback on the Vial Dermatology CRO model, and engage the Dermatology community - sponsors, KOLs and leading sites - on improving trial quality and speed. The Vial executive team will incorporate the Advisory Board feedback from Dermatology research sites into the Vial Dermatology CRO strategy and release a whitepaper on the Vial.com website highlighting the feedback.

About Vial:

Vial's mission is to run clinical trials with faster execution and higher quality in order to bring new therapies to market. Vial has over 70 employees and is based in San Francisco, California. Vial partners with Dermatologists to support their research teams and has created a network of over 35 Dermatology clinics. The Vial network has contributed to over 150 trials for many of the leading sponsors in Dermatology having run trials across common Medical Dermatology indications (Atopic Dermatitis, Psoriasis, Vitiligo, Alopecia Areata, Rosacea, Hidradenitis Suppurativa, Prurigo Nodularis among others) as well as Cosmetic Dermatology indications. The clinic network runs trials from Phase I through Phase IV.

For more information on our Dermatology CRO

SOURCE Vial
NEW YORK, Jan. 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council issued the following statement:

As Muslims and Jews committed to our communities and our country, we stand in partnership to condemn the heinous act of targeted violence at the Beth Israel Synagogue in Colleyville, Texas. Four Jews, including the synagogue's rabbi, were held hostage for ten hours until law enforcement secured their release. In the face of this horrifying episode, we commit to redouble our efforts to combat antisemitism in the United States, regardless of its source, and no matter how it is manifest: whether as hateful attitudes, bigoted rhetoric, or targeted violence.

The Jewish and Islamic traditions both teach that diversity is a sign of the holiness of creation and that our Creator endowed all people with dignity and freedom.

We denounce any ideologywhether religious or politicalthat justifies attacks against people based on who they are or how they choose to worship.

We call on our communities and all people of good will to come together in solidarity. We ask our allies to learn to identify the many sources and manifestations of antisemitism and to show Jewish neighbors and friends solidarity amidst this moment of vulnerability. Likewise, we encourage Jews across the country to maintain pride in their identity and to not shrink from the free expression of their faith for fear of attack.

Together, we commit to use this incident to achieve greater understanding and to work together to combat all forms of hatred, including antisemitism and Islamophobia. We reject any attempt to use the identity of the attacker to stoke hatred against all Muslims.

We are grateful to federal and local law enforcement for their effective response to ensure that all hostages were freed without physical harm. There is a long road of healing ahead for the members of Beth Israel Synagogue, and Muslims and Jews across the country stand with them and ready to help.

The Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council (MJAC) is a network of hundreds of Muslims and Jews across the country that advocates together on domestic issues of common concern to our communities and to all Americans. Since its founding, MJAC has been at the forefront of advocacy for improved public response to hate crimes and domestic terrorism. MJAC has held several virtual workshops with the U.S. Department of Justice to improve protection for places of worship, and currently hosts the Tackle! Upstander training to help improve local prevention frameworks against targeted violence.

Founded in 2016 by American Jewish Committee with Muslim community partners, MJAC established eleven regional councils, including in Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW MJAC) in 2017, to take shared action for the good of both communities and build intercommunal solidarity. Members of DFW MJAC were among those working with law enforcement in Colleyville and on location to offer support to the Beth Israel Synagogue community amidst the crisis.

SOURCE The Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council
Corazon Mining Ltd (ASX:CZN) has kicked off the 2022 exploration program at its wholly-owned Lynn Lake Nickel-Copper-Cobalt Sulphide Project in Manitoba province, Canada with a detailed aerial gravity survey underway.

CZN will translate the results of the survey into new drill targets for the project, hoping to define zones of massive nickel-copper-cobalt sulphide deposits that are typical within the Lynn Lake Mining Centre.

The company is particularly interested in identifying discrete, dense bodies within the eye of the Fraser Lake Complex (FLC), located some 5 kilometres from the Lynn Lake Mining Centre hub.

The Fraser Lake Complex

Exploration undertaken in 2021 identified a mineralised conduit feeding into an area of high-density within the FLC, possibly indicating ultramafic lithologies prospective for massive sulphide deposits in an area so far untested by drilling and only recently identified as prospective.

CZNs focus has been on the Matrix Trend, an induced polarisation (IP) chargeability defined by geophysical surveys in 2016 and 2018.

This trend is interpreted to be an exposed part of a sulphide-rich magma conduit that punched into the older and more fractionated Fraser Lake gabbroic complex.

The intrusive conduit can be traced laterally over 3.5 kilometres, from the 'South Pipe' intrusion to the southwest of the FLC.

Modelling of geophysical datasets indicates the conduit system plunges into the FLC and into an area of higher density, which is indicative of ultramafic lithologies.

Ultramafics (peridotites) have yet to be identified in outcrop or drilling within the FLC but have so far had a very strong spatial and timing association with the massive nickel sulphide orebodies within the Lynn Lake Mining Centre.

The presence of peridotites within the FLC would be extremely encouraging for CZN, enhancing the possibility for the discovery of a Lynn Lake-style mineralised system.

About Corazon Mining

Corazon Mining is focused on the Lynn Lake Nickel-Copper-Cobalt Sulphide Project in Manitoba, Canada, and the Mt Gilmore Cobalt-Copper-Gold Project in NSW, Australia

In Canada, Corazon has consolidated the entire historical Lynn Lake Nickel Copper Cobalt Mining Centre and is the first company to have control of this vast asset since mine closure in 1976.

The company owns an 80% interest in the Mt Gilmore Copper-Cobalt-Gold Sulphide Project in NSW, which is host to the rare, cobalt dominant sulphide Cobalt Ridge deposit  one of Australia's highest-grade cobalt deposits.
New York, Jan 16 : The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has updated its guidance on masks for the general public, saying that people can choose to wear N95 and KN95 masks because they offer the best protection against Covid-19.

However, the agency stopped short of saying that people should opt for certain masks instead of others, noting that the "CDC continues to recommend that you wear the most protective mask you can that fits well and that you will wear consistently." Previously, the US health agency did not recommend that the general population wear N95 masks or KN95s, fearing that a run on those higher-quality masks would impact the supply in healthcare settings. The CDC now says shortages are no longer a concern, according to an NBC News report.

"When worn consistently and properly," the agency wrote on its website, N95 respirators approved by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health "provide the highest level of protection from particles, including the virus that causes Covid-19." Americans will be able to request free rapid coronavirus tests from the federal government beginning on Wednesday, but the tests will take seven to 12 days to arrive, senior Joe Biden administration officials have said.

The administration's website to process the requests, covidtests.gov, was up and running on Friday, the latest sign of its efforts to ramp up access to testing since the fast-spreading Omicron variant sent coronavirus case counts soaring, Xinhua news agency reported.

"But the delay in accepting orders and the lag in shipping mean that people are unlikely to receive the free tests until the end of January at the earliest," reported The New York Times. In some parts of the country, that may be after the peak of the current surge of cases.

US President Joe Biden said in December 2021 that his administration would purchase 500 million rapid at-home coronavirus tests and distribute them to Americans free of charge. On Thursday, he announced plans to buy an additional 500 million tests, bringing the total to one billion.

The nightmare cruises of spring 2020 are back as Omicron sends passenger case rates soaring. Yet the CDC is poised to loosen the industry's Covid-19 leash, saying cruise lines are now positioned to police themselves, reported major US news portal Politico.

On Saturday, despite a 30-fold increase in on-board Covid-19 cases, with cruise ships being turned away at ports and passengers getting sick, the CDC plans to lift all of its Covid-19 restrictions on the cruise industry.

Just two weeks ago, the agency was recommending against cruising even for vaccinated passengers, and the agency's official guidance states "even fully vaccinated travelers may be at risk for getting and spreading Covid-19 variants." "It's the latest in a series of mixed messages from the CDC -- not only about how safe it is to cruise but on a host of other Covid-19 restrictions -- as the agency copes with Omicron's onslaught," said the report.

"It's also a stark example of the thorny decisions the Biden administration and other officials must navigate almost two years into the pandemic, as it tries to balance public health and a still-fragile economy." The past few weeks have been "hellacious," Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian told a Thursday conference call with stock analysts and reporters, adding that 8,000 of his employees have contracted Covid-19 in the last four weeks alone -- about 10 per cent of the carrier's workforce -- a toll that contributed to more than 2,200 cancelled Delta flights since December 24.

Although a precise count of the number of employees who are out sick or quarantining is hard to come by, about 5 million Americans could be isolating due to Covid-19 at the peak of Omicron, Andrew Hunter, senior US economist at Capital Economics, was quoted as saying in a CBS News report. That could reflect about 2 per cent of the nation's workforce forced to stay home due to illness, he added.

Stew Leonard Jr., Chief Executive of supermarket chain Stew Leonard's, said that about 8 per cent of his staff was out sick or quarantining last week. That affects what shoppers find on store shelves.

"That's the highest we've ever had," he was quoted as saying. "What we are doing is the same as every other business -- you have to limit your product line." "A record spike in Covid-19 cases due to the Omicron variant is causing a nationwide worker 'sickout,' disrupting businesses ranging from grocery stores to airlines," reported the national broadcaster, noting that "the latest worker shortages are compounding earlier pandemic problems, including supply-chain disruptions and shortage of some services." The pandemic could start moving into an endemic phase in 2022, though countries will need to stay vigilant as the Omicron variant spreads, according to Moderna Inc. Co-Founder Noubar Afeyan.

"2022 may be the year that the pandemic enters an endemic phase, but it really depends on what happens and the decisions that are made across the world," Afeyan told Bloomberg on Friday.

Although the Omicron variant is highly transmissible, "on the other hand it's having a lesser effect in terms of seriousness of disease," he said, though adding that for now, the world still remains in the pandemic's grasp.

While some countries slowly begin to consider treating Covid-19 as an endemic disease, like the flu, World Health Organisation officials have said it's too early to make that call as cases surge.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Khartoum, Jan 16 : The African Union (AU) has expressed readiness to support consensus among all political parties in Sudan to achieve a political transition in the country.

The AU's position was conveyed to Chairman of Sudan's Sovereign Council, Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan by AU Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security (AU-PAPS), Bankole Adeoye on Saturday during a meeting in Sudan's capital Khartoum, the Council said in a statement.

The envoy stressed the AU's readiness to support Sudan in the political transition, and reaffirmed its commitment to working closely with the government, people and all stakeholders of Sudan toward amicable political solution to the current stalemate, Xinhua news agency reported.

Reiterating the AU's full respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Sudan, he urged concerned parties to avoid any form of violence, and focus on stability, peace and prosperity of Sudan.

He called for "strong efforts by all stakeholders" to seek a solution to the ongoing political crisis in the country.

Sudan has been suffering a political crisis after Al-Burhan, also the General Commander of the Sudanese Armed Forces, declared a state of emergency on October 25, 2021, and dissolved the Sovereign Council and the government.
Tegucigalpa, Jan 16 : A caravan of Honduran migrants left for the US from the northern city of San Pedro Sula.

Dozens of people arrived Friday evening at the Metropolitan Transportation Center in the city and set out at dawn on their way to the border with Guatemala, Xinhua news agency reported.

Local media showed images of hundreds of migrants who began their journey on foot, others on buses or hitchhiking.

This is the first caravan of this year, with the most recent one forming in March 2021, though it was dissolved by Guatemalan authorities.

More Hondurans have been leaving the country over the past year as a result of the progressive lifting of restrictions aimed at containing the spread of Covid-19 pandemic.

Most migrants are fleeing poverty and violence in search of better opportunities.
San Francisco, Jan 16 : Six people were injured after a shooting outside a concert hall in Eugene, US state of Oregon, police said.

Of the six victims that were shot and hospitalised, one was in critical condition, The incident took place on Friday evening.

Eugene Police Chief Chris Skinner said at a news conference early Saturday morning, adding that it's not clear if the shooting was random or targeted, Xinhua news agency reported.

"What we have right now is a single suspect," Skinner said.

"All we know is that he's male and in a hoodie." Police were called to the WOW Hall in downtown Eugene around 9:30 p.m. Friday night after receiving reports of multiple shots fired and multiple victims. The shooting happened in a parking lot behind WOW Hall while a concert was taking place.

According to the Police Chief, witnesses were not cooperative with the officers who first responded to the scene. He called the shooting "one of the highest-profile shootings we've had in the city" and urged witnesses to contact police to offer any information.
Tehran, Jan 16 : The Iranian ambassador to Spain has blasted Europe's inaction in the face of US pullout from the 2015 nuclear deal, saying the European Union (EU), in practice, took no effective measure against Washington's "cruel" sanctions on Tehran after US' unilateral withdrawal.

Hassan Qashqavi made the remarks on Saturday when addressing a gathering of university professors and students of Spain, according to semi-official Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA).

He voiced his regret that the incumbent US. President Joe Biden failed to fulfill its pledge of Washington's immediate return to the deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), saying this is why talks are currently being held in the Austrian capital of Vienna between Iran and the remaining JCPOA signatories, namely Britain, China, France, Russia plus Germany, to revive the deal.

Commenting on US sanctions against Iranians and their adverse impact on Iran's relations with other countries, including Spain, he stressed that "the EU took no effective measure in practice in the face of Washington's cruel sanctions." The ambassador added that Iran has again placed on its agenda negotiations with the remaining JCPOA parties aiming to fully lift the sanctions despite the Western sides' failure to honour their promises, Xinhua news agency reported.

Since April 2021, Iran and the five signatories have been holding talks in Vienna to restore the JCPOA. The US side has been indirectly taking part in the talks.

The 2015 nuclear deal eased the previous US sanctions on Iran in exchange for Tehran's curbing its nuclear program, which the US-led western countries have suspected as an attempt to create nuclear weapons despite Iran's insistence that it is peaceful.
Hyderabad, Jan 16 : Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has stepped up his efforts to foray into national politics by bringing together non-BJP and non-Congress parties for a third alternative at the Centre.

Series of developments over the last one month indicate that the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief is gearing up to play a key role in national politics despite not being successful in his maiden attempt before 2019 elections.

His recent meetings with the top leaderships of the Communist Party of India (CPI), Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), and last month's meeting with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK leader M.K. Stalin shows that he is making a serious bid to take on the BJP.

In what is seen as another attempt to project himself as a national leader, Rao issued a statement earlier this week, urging people to root out the Narendra Modi-led government. His statement comes ahead of the Assembly elections in five states.

KCR, as the 67-year-old is popularly known, slammed the BJP government for what he calls weakening the rural economy and playing havoc with the farm sector. He said the increase in the prices of fertilisers will put the agriculture sector into a crisis and break the backbone of farming in the country.

Expressing anguish at removing subsidies on fertilisers, which were in vogue for several decades, KCR said the situation came to such a pass that the farmers had no option but to take up their ploughs and revolt against the Central government.

The same day he dashed off a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi alleging that the central government has burdened farmers by raising the fertiliser prices, increasing fuel prices and faulty fixation of Minimum Support Prices (MSP).

The TRS chief said that the government of India is not only contributing to the increase in the cost of cultivation to the farmers, but also defaulting on the promise of doubling farmers' income.

These policies, coupled with the threat of proposed reforms in the agriculture electricity distribution sector by fixing power consumption metres, are causing great anxiety to the hard-working farmers of our country, wrote KCR.

The statement and the letter to PM came amid the continuing standoff with the Centre over the latter's refusal to procure paddy from the state during the upcoming Rabi season. TRS has been staging protests over the issue and KCR had personally staged a sit-in along with state ministers, MPs, state legislators and other leaders.

By announcing compensation of Rs 3 lakh each to the families of 700-750 farmers reputedly killed during the nationwide protest against three farm laws and taking up the issues like 0MSP and proposed electricity reforms, KCR has already initiated the efforts to project himself as a national leader.

He has also declared that TRS is ready to lead the national movement of farmers on the burning issues faced by them.

This time, KCR's son, TRS working president and a key cabinet minister K. T. Rama Rao, is also actively involved in the efforts to cobble up an alliance.

KTR was seen participating in the talks with leaders of CPI and CPI-M. Though the top leadership of the Left parties were in Hyderabad to attend their party meetings, KCR used the opportunity to invite them for luncheon meetings and discussed the plans to take on the BJP government.

This was followed by RJD leaders led by Tesjaswi Yadav flying down to Hyderabad to meet KCR. During the meeting the TRS chief also had a telephonic conversation with RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, who reportedly advised KCR to play an active role in national politics.

TRS leaders are also likely to meet Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Akhilesh Yadav soon. KTR has already stated that they see a trend in favour of SP in Uttar Pradesh.

During an interaction with Twitter users on January 13, KTR said that his party will soon take a call on campaigning for SP in UP elections.

On December 15, KCR and KTR met Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin in Chennai. They believed to have discussed the plans for floating a front as an alternative to both BJP and Congress.

This was the first time KCR met Stalin after the DMK president assumed charge as chief minister in May this year.

It also came close on the heels of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee dismissing the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) as a viable opposition to the BJP.

DMK, which is in alliance with the Congress, had opposed the idea of non-BJP and non-Congress front in 2019. However, KCR is making fresh attempts to bring him on board.

The renewed efforts by KCR for a third front come at a time when BJP has gone aggressive against his government. Buoyed by the recent victory in Huzurabad Assembly by-election, BJP is turning the heat on TRS by taking up protest programmes on various issues.

The arrest of BJP's state president Bandi Sanjay early this month during one such protest gave the saffron party an opportunity to launch another salvo against TRS government. BJP's key national leaders made a beeline to the state to intensify attacks on KCR. BJP's national president J. P. Nadda, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma were among the leaders who descended on Hyderabad and made scathing attacks on the TRS supremo.

Bandi Sanjay and some other BJP leaders also kept harping that KCR will be soon sent to jail for corruption. The state BJP alleged that KCR is trying to save himself by making fresh attempts to form a front.

Political analyst Palwai Raghavendra Reddy believes that after eight-plus years in power, KCR is certainly under pressure over promises made to various sections. "Paddy procurement is the latest issue which is troubling the government and KCR needs a way out to ensure the blame entirely does not fall on his government. Raking up the issue of Federal Front is one of the many means KCR is using to take the fight to BJP's doorstep," he said.

"KCR is also looking for the right opportunity to transfer power to KTR, and yet is in no mood to hang his boots. Creation of a Federal Front is probably the most suitable narrative for KCR at this stage," he added.

The analyst recalled that KCR had floated the idea of a front of regional parties before the 2019 Lok Sabha election. He was hoping that BJP will not get a majority and thus the regional parties will have a role in forming the government.

"However, nothing went in favour of regional parties then. Now once again KCR thinks Modi might not get full majority, and is an opportune time to raise voice in favour of a regional alternative to the national parties," he said.
Chennai, Jan 16 : In a year when the Indian space sector is expected to see some revolutionary changes, S.Somanath on Saturday assumed the charge as the Secretary, Department of Science and Chairman, Space Commission.

The space industry players are expecting rocket speed in ushering in policies and programmes for the entry of private sector players and also activating their regulator, finalising the foreign direct investment (FDI) norms and passing of the Space Activities Bill and others.

At the same time, he should also manage the interests of about 17,300 employees in Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) while reorienting its focus towards research and development.

The global space market is about $360 billion and is expected to grow to $1 trillion by 2040.

Further, the country's blue chip space project -- Gaganyaan/human space mission -- has missed its deadlines and the project has to be put back on track.

"The main challenge before Somanath is to reorient ISRO towards the new vision given by the government. The management of Indian space sector is with ISRO. So the entity has to see how space tech can be leveraged to start a new economic activity, as envisaged by the government, including job creation in the private sector. This will also improve the sector's contribution to the country's gross domestic product (GDP)," Rakesh Sasibhushan, Chairman, CII National Committee on Space, told IANS.

He said the country spends about $2 billion on the space sector, but the resultant contribution to the GDP is not much.

"The amount spent on the space programme has not transpired into economic growth. India does not have a robust private sector in space, whereas many other countries that have ventured into this sector have progressed far ahead of India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that 'the government has no business to be in business'. Previously ISRO was hesitant to follow that and continued in the same old manner," Sasibhushan remarked.

For instance, there is a big dearth of satellite transponder capacity and many of the 800 and odd Indian television channels are using transponders of foreign satellites.

India with 17 communication satellites are providing 292.5 transponders and 25 GBPS of high throughput capacity.

The ISRO makes about four/five satellites in a year including communication, remote sensing and others which is grossly inadequate considering the potential.

"Further, commercial satellites were built in a supply driven manner, which hurt the user community," Sasibhushan added.

The Indian space agency ISRO is into commercial activity and its policies and procedures are bureaucratic and monopolistic, preventing the entry of other players.

The Central government had announced the deregulation of the space sector in 2020 and it is now 2022 and nothing much has moved in that regard, officials pointed out.

"Space Activities Bill is fundamental for growing private space activities -- for enabling insurance and global business activities. Also new space policies need to be rolled out immediately along with revised FDI norms," Sasibhushan said.

"The realisation of the uncrewed rocket flight -- part of India's human space mission Gaganyaan -- will be a major boost, a source of inspiration in the hearts of the people. There will be a lot of excitement with two uncrewed rocket launches," Dr Chaitanya Giri, Founder, DAWON Advisory & Intelligence told IANS.

He added that the Rs 9,023 crore Gaganyaan has a lot of strategic importance for the country apart from being a scientific achievement mission.

As a part of the space sector reforms, the NewSpace India Ltd (NSIL) in 2022 should decide on the industry player(s) to make the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) or the PSLV rockets.

The NSIL had called for an Expression of Interest for production of PSLV rockets by an industry consortium.

The government is scouting for a head for NSIL.

On the rocket side, Somanath, a rocket specialist has to see the realisation of the small rocket with a long winding name Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) with a capacity to carry 500 kg satellites.

The ISRO should also make progress in the construction of its second rocket port at Kulasekarapattinam in Tamil Nadu.

With the ISRO shifting focus to research and development (R&D), as part of the reform process, the committee that has been set up to recommend the methodology for right-sizing and optimal utilisation of the existing science and technology (S&T) manpower is expected to submit its report.

For the private sector startups making rockets and satellites too, next year is going to be crucial.

Small rocket makers Skyroot Aerospace Private Ltd and Agnikul Cosmos are hoping to fly their vehicles by the end of 2022 while the satellite maker Syzygy Space Technologies Pvt Ltd, commonly known as Pixxel is expected to fly its satellite sometime next year.

"The year 2022 is an important year as we bring everything together for a launch of Vikram-1 rocket and join the elite of the world in providing launch solutions," Pawan Kumar Chandana, CEO and Chief Technology Officer, Skyroot Aerospace, had told IANS.

As a part of opening up the space sector, the Indian government has constituted the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) as the sectoral regulator for the private players.

The IN-SPACe will also enable usage of ISRO's facilities for them.

There are over 30 requests from private companies for support from IN-SPACe for their space activities which are expected to be decided next year.

Industry officials expect the IN-SPACe and the sectoral regulations to be as agile as the startups.

"Somanath is the apt person to drive this change and I have no doubt that he'll take ISRO to new heights," Sasibhushan concluded.

(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be contacted at v.jagannathan@ians.in)
New Delhi, Jan 16 : As the ban on the physical rallies and road shows was extended for one more week, the BJP has made elaborate plans to hold virtual rallies and meetings in all the Assembly constituencies in the five poll-bound states. The saffron party has made three tier arrangements from the national, state to district level for virtual rallies.

From deploying technical experts in each Assembly constituency, the BJP has made multi-camera set up at district level in Uttar Pradesh to broadcast rallies of senior leaders.

Sources said that for the virtual address of start campaigners a set up is being at national level in the national capital. "An arrangement is being made at national level for virtual addresses of national leaders and star campaigners," sources said.

Similarly, in all poll-bound states arrangements are being made in the state capital for virtual addresses of state leaders and other star campaigners.

In Uttar Pradesh, the biggest state where polls will be held, the BJP has made special and elaborate arrangements at state, zone and district level. "All the necessary infrastructure for virtual rallies or meetings have been placed across Uttar Pradesh. We have divided the set up in three levels in Uttar Pradesh. At the state level, arrangements have been made at the state capital, similar arrangements have been made at zone and district level. As per the plans, star campaigner and senior leaders can use the arrangement at any level to virtually address the voter," a senior Uttar Pradesh BJP functionary said.

The Uttar Pradesh BJP also uses multi camera set up and technology to create a 3-D impact during virtual rallies of star campaigners. "This time setting up a studio using multi cam and technology to create 3-D effect," another Uttar Pradesh BJP leader said.

The BJP has also got software designed as per its requirement and trained workers to use it. Necessary logistics support is also provided to workers at assembly levels to effectively hold the virtual rallies without any glitches.

Punjab BJP president Ashwani Sharma told the IANS that all the arrangements for the virtual rallies of party leaders have been made and technical experts have been deployed at each assembly constituency.

"Our workers are trained to organise virtual rallies and logistics have been arranged. We are also deploying one or two technical experts to help our workers to hold glitch free virtual rallies," Sharma said.

In the hill state of Uttarakhand, the saffron party is also sending experts in each Assembly constituency and setting up a studio in Dehradun to serve as a central link of all virtual rallies and meetings.

"Senior leaders will address the virtual rallies from the studio in Dehradun. Link will send to all the voters of a particular Assembly seat on their mobile phones to join the rally," a Uttarakhand BJP functionary said.

A central BJP leader said that similar arrangements have been made in all the poll-bound states, including Manipur and Goa and all the necessary assistance is provided to the state unit to smoothly hold the virtual rallies.

"We are prepared to hold virtual rallies and meetings. We are fully prepared to follow whatever guidelines issued by the Election Commission," he added.

On Saturday, the ECI extended the ban on the physical rallies and road shows till January 22, however, it has allowed the political parties to do indoor meetings of maximum of 300 persons or 50 per cent of the capacity of the hall or the prescribed limit set by State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA).
Riyadh, Jan 16 : Chief negotiators of Iran and three European countries have temporarily returned to their home countries for consultations as expert talks continue, providing the latest evidence that international talks to salvage the 2015 nuclear deal in Vienna have been moving forward.

The return of chief negotiators to their countries does not mean the eighth round of talks has stopped, according to the website of Iran's Foreign Ministry.

The eighth round of negotiations between Iran and other remaining signatories to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) began on December 27, 2021 with the US indirectly involved after its pullout in 2018 from the landmark pact, reports Xinhua news agency.

"There's a better atmosphere since Christmas," European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters following an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in the French city of Brest.

"Before Christmas, I was very pessimistic," he said, adding that "today I believe reaching an accord is possible", even within the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, there is "real progress" on the restoration of the JCPOA, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

"There is real progress there, there is a real desire, first of all between Iran and the United States, to understand specific concerns, to understand how these concerns can be taken into account in a common package," Lavrov told a press conference.

The Vienna talks are "moving forward on right track", Iran's official IRNA News Agency reported on Saturday.

"The number of issues of difference has decreased and delegations are busy to discuss the way of implementing any potential agreement," the report said, quoting an informed source on condition of anonymity.

Also, Mikhail Ulyanov, head of Russia's delegation to the nuclear negotiations, said that the diplomats in Vienna primarily paid attention to "to (the) implementation of a future deal".

"We need to agree on who will be doing what and when on the way towards full restoration of the nuclear deal," which is not an easy task, he added.

Though in a positive atmosphere, it's reported that a wide range of issues remains unresolved in the nuclear talks, given Iran and the US, the two main parties, indirectly exchanging messages.

"We are discussing difficult issues and considering the ways to prepare the draft of the agreed principles," Iran's Mehr News Agency reported on Saturday, citing a source close to the Vienna talks.

According to the reports, about the removal of the sanctions and nuclear issues, lots of disputes have been resolved, and the negotiators "are increasingly working on the third appendix on how to implement and sequence the possible agreement".

The informed source noted that this phase of negotiation is "one of the most tedious, time-consuming and difficult parts of the negotiation, but it is indispensable to achieve the goal".

While the diplomatic endeavorus are going on, Washington still carries on with its pressure campaign. There are only "a few weeks left to see if we can get back to mutual compliance", US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week, warning his country stands ready to look at "other options" if negotiations fail.

However, Tehran has repeatedly vowed that it will not make hasty concessions under pressure.
Lucknow, Jan 16 : Abdullah Azam, son of senior Samajwadi Party (SP) MP, Mohd Azam Khan, has been released on bail from the Sitapur jail after almost 23 months of imprisonment.

He was released on Saturday evening. Abdullah said that he would definitely contest the upcoming Assembly elections from the Suar Assembly segment and seek people's blessings.

Waving to his supporters waiting outside the gates of Sitapur jail, Abdullah Azam said, "I will only say one thing that oppression will end after March 10 and the oppressor will also be removed from the throne." Abdullah, Azam Khan's younger son, was booked in 43 cases, ranging from theft to extortion and forgery, along with his father.

Abdullah has been granted bail in all of these cases by the lower courts in Rampur.

The release orders following bail were sent to the Sitapur jail by late Saturday afternoon that cleared the way for Abdullah's release, later in the evening.

Azam's wife Tazeen Fatima, who is also a co-accused in many of these cases, was released from the Sitapur jail in December 2020.

Meanwhile, Azam Khan, who has more than 86 cases lodged against him on similar charges, is yet to get bail in all of them.

Abdullah won from theSuar constituency on Samajwadi Party ticket in the 2017 Assembly elections. However, hearing a case against him, the Allahabad High Court in 2019 annulled his election as an Uttar Pradesh MLA on the ground that he was underage and not qualified to fight the poll in 2017.

Trouble for Mohd Azam Khan and his family began in 2017 when the BJP came to power in Uttar Pradesh.

Just a few months after the election, 10 cases were lodged against Azam Khan in the revenue board by the then district magistrate of Rampur for procuring 104 acres of land belonging to people of Schedule Caste "against rules".

In 2019, over 70 cases were lodged against Azam Khan and his family members for forgery, theft, extortion and other crimes within a few months. The majority of the cases pertained to encroachment of land that was usurped in the construction of the Jauhar University, of which Azam Khan is the chairman.

Azam Khan was also accused of stealing old books from a government school and keeping them in his library. Acting on the complaint, police raided Mumtaz library located inside Jauhar Ali University and recovered over 2,000 old books from there. Considering the number of cases against him, the district administration also named him as a land mafia in Rampur.

Khan criticised these cases at first but later succumbed to the mounting pressure and repeated court notices. He also tried to get anticipatory bail in many cases but in vain.

Eventually in February 2020, Azam, his wife and son Abdullah Azam surrendered before an MP-MLA court in Rampur. On the court's order, the three were later shifted to Sitapur jail.
Varanasi, Jan 16 : After Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent 100 pairs of jute slippers for the staff and workers at the Kashi Vishwanath temple, an outlet selling slippers made from handmade Khadi paper has come up in the holy city.

Devotees, as well as the temple workers, can use these slippers, which are nominally priced at Rs 50 per pair.

he main priest of Kashi Vishwanath temple Pandit Shrikant Mishra, who inaugurated the sales outlet, said that the 'use and throw' slippers made of handmade paper will maintain the sanctity of the temple and at the same time will also save devotees from heat and cold during harsh weather conditions.

These slippers are made of 100 per cent eco-friendly material.

It is noteworthy that devotees and workers at several temples, including Kashi Vishwanath Dham, are not allowed to wear footwear, made with leather or rubber, in the temple premises.

These include priests, people performing seva, security guards, sanitation workers and others.
New Delhi, Jan 16 : Congress candidate from Uttar Pradesh's Hastinapur, Archana Gautam, who is a winner of various beauty pageants including Miss Bikini India 2018, has given a befitting reply to the critics who questioned her credential as a politician.

Talking to IANS, Gautam, 26, said: "Those who are commenting on my candidature, I would like to tell them that, I have not committed a crime. I have represented India in various beauty contests. Nor have I hurt anyone's sentiments, so why comment like this on me? "There is also BJP leaders who have been associated with the film industry. Two of them are Smriti Irani and Hema Malini. They have acted in films and have worn short clothes. They never represented India in any contest. But I contested against candidates from 30 countries and attained the first place." After Archana's name was announced as a Congress candidate from Meerut's Hastinapur Assembly seat, her pictures in bikini started flooding on social media.

Archana is a model and has acted in films as well. Because of her career, she lives in Mumbai. She won the title of Miss UP in 2014 and Miss Bikini India in 2018. She has also represented India in Miss Cosmos. Apart from Bollywood films, she has also acted in a couple of south films.

She said: "I am going to start a new life with the people of Hastinapur. But some people are indulging in my character assassination, judging me by my clothes. In today's world, girls are equal with boys every step of the way. No one has the right to judge my character on the basis of my clothes.

"Everyone has seen my 'reel life' not 'real life'. People didn't see how much I struggled, I came from a poor family and achieved this position on my own." Archana joined the Congress in November last year, and two months later she was made a candidate.

She said: "I was born in Nagla Harairu of Mawana, Meerut, so I am the daughter of Hastinapur. Just like a daughter serves the family, I will serve Hastinapur." "There are so many ancient temples in Hastinapur, but they have not been developed as tourist places. This also affects the employment as there is no development in Hastinapur. Traffic problem in the city is huge, there is no railway station and no major bus stand," she told IANS while talking about her priorities if she wins.

"If I win from Hastinapur, I will first fix the traffic issue and will work to develop tourist places in the city. Flood situation every year is a big problem. The BJP government built a dam to prevent this, but the dam collapsed in the first rain. Roads are also of poor quality, no work has been done here," she said further.

The Congress has announced candidates for two out of seven seats in Meerut and both the declared candidates are women.
Seoul, Jan 16 : Lee Jae-myung, the presidential candidate of South Korea's ruling Democratic Party, on Sunday said he will resume tourism to North Korea's Mount Kumgang as soon as possible if he's elected in the March 9 polls.

He announced the pledge during a visit to the border county of Goseong, 466 km northeast of Seoul, referring to a program that was suspended in 2008 following the death of a South Korean tourist at the mountain by a North Korean guard, reports Yonhap News Agency.

"I will reopen the doors of tourism to Mount Kumgang as soon as possible," Lee said at an observatory overlooking the mountain range.

He also pledged to establish a special international tourism zone straddling the border and push for an ecotourism program inside the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas.

Lee also pledged to establish a special international tourism zone straddling the border and push for an ecotourism program inside the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas.

"Starting with exchanges in nonpolitical areas, such as tourism and sports, I will pursue inter-Korean coexistence through practical North Korea policies that benefit both the South and the North," he said.
Seoul, Jan 16 : Forty per cent self-employed people in South Korea are considering closing their businesses due to sluggish sales amid the long-enforced strict social distancing rules due to the Covid-19 pandemic, a survey revealed on Sunday.

According to the survey of 500 people operating restaurants, retail and other service businesses by the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI), a major business lobby group, 40.8 per cent said that they are considering discontinuing their operations, reports Yonhap News Agency.

Of them, 28.2 per cent cited declining sales and profits as a major reason.

Difficulty in securing funds and increasing burdens from loans came next with 17.8 per cent, the survey showed.

Small merchants and self-employed people have been hard hit by the protracted social distancing rules and curbs on business operation hours put in place to fight the pandemic.

The government plans to maintain a 9 p.m. curfew on restaurants and cafes, while raising the limit on the size of private gatherings to six from the current four from Monday through February 6.

Of those surveyed, 30.7 per cent voiced concerns over subdued consumer sentiment as the pandemic continues to affect their spending.

Tight social distancing rules and restricted store operations came next with 22.9 per cent.
Chennai, Jan 16 : The diplomatic relationship between India and Sri Lanka, the two neighbouring countries with several shared cultural ethos and beliefs and economic, social, cultural and business ties is now becoming tense after India complained about its fishermen being attacked by Sri Lankan security forces. The recent concern is the arrest and subsequent judicial remand of 68 Indian fishermen by the Sri Lankan navy.

The Indian fishermen from Tamil Nadu's Pudukottai, Mandapam and Rameswaram were arrested by the Sri Lankan navy for allegedly crossing the International Maritime Border Line and fishing in Sri Lankan waters. However, the Indian fishermen association office-bearers have denied the allegation and said that they had fished in Indian waters in the Palk Straits.

The arrest of fishermen in three batches of 6, 7 and 55 was made in the second week of December 2021 by the Sri Lankan navy alleging that they had transgressed into Sri Lankan waters. The arrested fishermen were remanded to judicial custody. Calls from the Tamil Nadu political leadership for the Indian government to intervene in the matter diplomatically were accepted and the Indian external affairs ministry entered into diplomatic parleys with the Sri Lankan side. The fishermen association leaders were also invited to air their views at the meeting called by the Ministry of External Affairs virtually.

Advocate Antony Jesraj, leader of the Tamil Nadu fish workers association, an umbrella body of fishermen from Tamil Nadu, told IANS that "The MEA had taken up seriously the matter raised by people of Tamil Nadu cutting across political lines regarding the immediate release of Indian fishermen who went to the sea for fishing from Pudukottai, Mandapam and Rameswaram." Subsequently, on January 5 a Sri Lankan court in Mannar released 13 fishermen. The Consulate General of India in the island nation met the fishermen and made efforts to relocate them back to their families in India.

However, as a major reversal to the Indian efforts, a Sri Lankan court in Jaffna extended the judicial custody of the remaining 55 Indian fishermen on January 12 and this has turned into a major concern for the Indian side.

This has led to a major furore in Tamil Nadu with political parties and fishermen associations cutting across political divisions calling upon the government to take up the matter seriously with Sri Lanka. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin in a tweet on Thursday called upon the Centre to immediately intervene and seek the release of the beleaguered fishermen.

Stalin in the tweet said, "Deeply disappointed to note that the remand of our fishermen had been extended. Urge Hon'ble Dr. S. Jaishankar to prevail upon Sri Lanka to secure their immediate release." Both Indian and Sri Lankan fishermen have been fishing in the Palk Bay Straits for several years but the maritime agreements signed between the two sides in 1974 and 1976 led to the demarcation of the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL). The two treaties between the two countries led to the Palk Bay Strait connecting India and Sri Lanka being declared a "two-nation pond" under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea rules.

This led to the ban on fishing in international waters of the two countries. After the end of the civil war between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government in 2009, there has been a demand for a total ban on the Indian fishermen from Tamil Nadu fishing inside Sri Lanka and to arrest those who were fishing in Lankan waters as also to confiscate their boats.

In 2021 more than 221 Indian fishermen, mostly from Tamil Nadu, were arrested by the Sri Lankan navy. The forces of the island nation had resorted to stone pelting and the Indian fishermen had complained that they were being fired upon by the Sri Lankan navy. Five Indian fishermen lost their lives in 2021 and the most recent victim was R. Rajkiran, a fisherman from Kottaipattanam in Pudukottai, Tamil Nadu whose vessel was hit by a Sri Lankan naval vessel on October 20, 2021, leading to his death. There were widespread protests in Kottaipattanam with fishermen setting up roadblocks to ensure justice to the deceased Rajkiran.

The year 2021 also saw more than 100 fishing boats of Tamil fishermen being seized by the Sri Lankan navy. The fishermen say that this would lead to huge financial losses to them as there was no possibility of replacing a vessel as almost all of these boats were bought through loans with a fishing boat costing as much as Rs 60 lakhs.

Other than crossing the IMBL, the major grouse of the Sri Lankan navy was that Indian fishermen were fishing using trawlers which were banned in the island nation.

Marine biologist and an expert in fishing and deep-sea fishing issues, Dr Manonmani. G who heads the Marine Study Research Group based at Kanniyakumari, told IANS that "First and foremost India must use strong diplomatic measures and demand in no uncertain terms the release of our fishermen immediately. Secondly, Indian fishermen must not use the trawlers that are banned in Sri Lankan waters and implement the Blue Resolution leading to modern deep-sea fishing that does not affect the marine wealth of Sri Lankan waters." She said that a Palk Bay Authority (PBA) should be formed with all the stakeholders including marine biologists, fishing experts, government representatives, and other experts.

Marine experts said that if the PBA is constituted and the issue of fishing is ironed out with the Indian side accepting the demands of the Sri Lankan navy and other concerned authorities, Sri Lanka should not resort to shooting and stone pelting at Indian fishermen even if they cross the IMBL.
Moscow, Jan 16 : A Russian court has charged eight people, who are part of the REvil ransomware group that attacked top American companies, as White House officials confirmed that the person behind the ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline last year was also arrested during the raid.

All the eight individuals are suspected of committing a crime stipulated under Part 2 of Article 187 of Russia's Criminal Code (aIllegal Circulation of Payments').

This crime is punishable with up to seven years in prison and a penalty of up to 1 million rubles (about $13,150), Russian news agency TASS reported late on Saturday.

The eight were arrested as part of a larger raid by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia on 25 different locations across Moscow, St Petersburg and Lipetsk on Friday.

REvil hackers were linked to the massive ransomware attack against Colonial Pipeline in the US in May 2021.

REvil was also behind a cyberattack against meat supplier JBS, also in May, which shut down the company's meat processing plants across the US.

According to the US Department of Justice, REvil is also responsible for deploying its ransomware on more than 175,000 computers. The group has allegedly earned $200 million from ransoms.

Russia had arrested at least 14 members of the well-known hacker group called REvil at the request of the US government after it was established that the infamous group was involved in several high-profile attacks on large American companies.

Operational for years, REvil is involved in attacking high-tech companies by introducing malicious software, encrypting information and extorting money for its decryption.

The FSB also seized 426 million rubles ($5.6 million) in a raid against 14 members of the group, along with more than $600,000 worth of cryptocurrency and 20 luxury cars.

The agency, however, said that REvil hackers with Russian citizenship will not be extradited to the US.
Chennai, Jan 16 : The Tamil Nadu Police are on high alert after a number of child trafficking cases have been reported. The police had arrested four members, including the mother of a 10-month-old baby, when they were trying to sell it to a couple in Andhra Pradesh for a huge sum.

Police arrested an agent Thanakam on Friday based on the information provided by the four people who were arrested.

Thankam has four cases of child trafficking against her and is a habitual offender and has national-level networks, according to police.

While there are several processes of adoption in the state with approved legal procedures, the sidestepping of these laws and making children available through the illegal route is getting rampant in the state.

A senior police officer with the Tamil Nadu Police while speaking to IANS said, "The child traffickers are getting the support from some ambulance drivers, testing laboratories and even government hospitals on women who are aborting their pregnancy due to social reasons and in some cases due to physical issues. These women are convinced by the child trafficking network to give birth to the child and the child is then bought for a paltry sum and sold at a higher price. We are in the process of cracking this racket and have got valuable tips. However, we cannot provide more information now." Police said that a special team has been constituted based out of Chennai and this team is tracking people who have previous cases of child trafficking as well as some adoption centres. The state police have also found that the traffickers are getting support from even Primary Health centres in several parts of the state and an effective network is in place.

R. Kumaravelu, a social activist based out of Salem while speaking to IANS said, "Child trafficking cases are taking place in several parts of the state and I was doing a study based on media reports and then followed these links. There is a pattern evolving with several laboratories, even posh and high-end ones, turning into information centres for the traffickers and once the pregnancy of an unwed girl is confirmed, the agents up their ante and try to do a background check of the concerned families." He added, "Once the pregnancy is confirmed, the agents approach poor and lower-middle-class families and try to convince them to deliver the child and assure them money. If the family agrees, the girl is shifted to some other town on the pretext of a job or higher studies and admitted to a good hospital and after the baby is delivered and handed over to the agents, the girl is brought back to the home town. The family is given some money but the child is sold at a huge amount and this racket has roots in village offices, municipalities and corporation offices to get the birth certificate of the child and some adoption centres are also hand in glove with these racketeers." State police have got a few tip-offs and with a special team being constituted, the police are high on its action to crack the child trafficking network.
Lucknow, Jan 16 : Former Kanpur police Commissioner, Aseem Arun on Sunday joined the BJP in Lucknow. He is likely to contest the Kannauj Assembly seat.

A 1994 batch IPS officer, Arun had resigned earlier this month to join politics.

"It was a decision taken within eight days. I was contacted by the party leadership and given the offer of joining politics. I am starting a new chapter in my life though just like my previous job I will be serving people always," he added.

Arun said he would work for the party in whatever role was assigned to him.

Meanwhile, Union Minister Anurag Thakur, who was in Lucknow to welcome Arun to the BJP, said that the latter had seen how the Yogi Adityanath government crush the mafia to restore law and order in the state.

He also said that an increasing number of youths are getting attracted to the BJP and this would ensure the party's return to power with greater numbers.
New Delhi, Jan 16 : As music lovers constantly look for true-wireless earbuds with latest features for an immersive experience on the go, Sony has brought premium earbuds to woo music enthusiasts in the country.

The new earbuds -- WF-1000XM4 -- are available in India at Rs 19,990, and are said to be industry-leading noise cancellation earbuds that offer clearer sound with even less noise.

Along with that, the earbuds come with '360 Reality Audio'.

With this feature, a new immersive audio experience can be enjoyed on the earbuds when combined with any smartphone that has a participating streaming services app installed.

The WF-1000XM4 also comes with many other features mentioned below in the detailed review.

In terms of design, the light-weight earbuds offer a different design as compared to its predecessor -- XM3 -- and that goes for the packaging as well. The tech giant has moved to simple, eco-friendly packaging.

The earbuds feature impressive noise cancellation technology. There is a custom chipset -- V1-- that takes the noise cancellation performance of Sony's acclaimed QN1e chip even higher. It also enhances sound quality and reduces distortion.

A newly-designed 6mm driver unit with a 20 per cent increase in magnet volume also improves the WF-1000XM4's noise-cancelling capabilities.

Overall, these comfortable earbuds offer an impressive noise cancellation system that does a decent job of reducing the low rumbles of bus or plane engines.

The earbuds with precise voice pickup technology offer a comfortable hands-free calling experience.

Combining the technology with microphones and a bone-conduction sensor, the earbuds pick up your voice clearly and accurately for hands-free calls.

Additionally, the new bone-conduction sensor only picks up vibrations from voice -- it doesn't register ambient sound -- enabling even clearer speech when making calls.

The earbuds also have a 'Speak-to-Chat' feature that lets users have short conversations without taking out the earbuds.

As soon as a user speaks to someone, 'Speak-to-Chat' automatically pauses the music and lets in ambient sound so you can conduct a conversation.

The earbuds also feature Adaptive Sound Control, a smart feature that senses where the user is and what he/she is doing - for example, travelling, walking or waiting - then adjusts ambient sound settings for the ideal listening experience.

Users can opt to have Adaptive Sound Control learn to recognise places that they frequently visit, like the office, the gym, or a favourite cafe and tailor sound to suit the situation.

On a full charge, the earbuds offer around 8 hours of power, and the handy charging case provides a further 16 hours to keep you going throughout the day.

Also, a 5-minute quick charge can give users up to 60 minutes of playtime.

Conclusion: If you are looking for great-sounding lightweight earbuds with impressive noise cancellation, voice-calling capabilities and good battery life, the premium offering by Sony has a strong chance of making it to your ears.

(Vivek Singh Chauhan can be contacted at vivek.c@ians.in)
Chennai, Jan 16 : The makers of director Koratala Siva's eagerly-awaited action entertainer 'Acharya', which features Telugu megastar Chiranjeevi and Ram Charan in the lead, on Sunday announced that the film would release on April 1 this year.

The film, which was supposed to originally release on May 13 last year was first postponed to February 4 this year due to the pandemic. However, with the onset of the third wave of Covid, the team had on Saturday announced that they were postponing the release of the film yet again and added that they would announce a fresh release date shortly.

On Sunday, the production house, Konidela Production Company, on its Twitter timeline, announced that the film would release on April 1, 2022.

The film is among the most looked forward films of the year for fans of Telugu cinema as this will be the first time that Chiranjeevi and Ram Charan will be seen together in full-fledged roles.

The movie, which has Kajal Aggarwal and Pooja Hedge playing the love interests of Chiranjeevi and Ram Charan, has music by Mani Sharma and cinematography by S. Thirunavukkarasu.
Chennai, Jan 16 : Director Venkat Prabhu, whose previous film 'Maanaadu' is still having a strong run in theatres even 50 days after its release, has now released the first look of his next film titled 'Manmatha Leelai'.

Like most other Venkat Prabhu films, this one too promises to have a generous dose of humour in it.

The film, which features Ashok Selvan in the lead, will have music by Venkat Prabhu's younger brother Premgi Amaren and cinematography by Tamizh Azhagan.

Taking to Twitter to release the first look of the film, Venkat Prabhu said the film would be a 'fun quirky ride'. The director also dropped enough hints to suggest that this film would be completed swiftly. The Telugu version of the film has been titled 'Manmadaleela'.

Ashok Selvan, who plays the lead in the film, too posted the first look on his timeline.

He said, "From a fanboy to working with Venkat Prabhu anna, a surreal moment for me. Presenting you the first look of 'Manmatha Leeai', a Venkat Prabhu Quickie! Film is a blast!" The film has three heroines - Samyuktha Hegde, Smruthi Venkat and Riya Suman.
New Delhi, Jan 16 : Pakistan defence authorities told the Lahore High Court's Rawalpindi bench that Lieutenant General (retd) Javed Iqbal, who was found involved in espionage activities, had confessed to his "guilt" in his judicial confessional statement before an Islamabad first class magistrate, The Express Tribune reported.

On conclusion of the trial, the court adjudged him "guilty" of all the charges and awarded him the sentence of rigorous imprisonment for 14 years on May 29, 2019.

Moreover, the petitioner confessed his "guilt" in his judicial confessional statement before an Islamabad first class magistrate.

He also appeared before the Field General Court Martial (FGCM) and recorded his statement and was subjected to cross-examination by the private defence counsel of the petitioner, the report said.

Moreover, it was submitted that the interim relief in the form of suspension of the sentence would jeopardise the security and interest of the State.

"The petitioner remained on highly sensitive posts while serving in the Pakistan Army and his suspension of the sentence would endanger the State's security/secrets. Further, the case before this court is an extraordinary sensitive in nature and the petitioner's own life would be at risk as anti-state elements might harm him for their nefarious designs," the report added.

The reply stated that this would also set the wrong precedent to set free the convicts involved in espionage activities.

It is re-emphasised that the petitioner's confinement in jail was not only in the interest of the State but also for his own life.

The defence authorities have denied that convicted military officer was tortured or subjected to any derogatory treatment.
Chennai, Jan 16 : The Opposition AIADMK has exhorted upon party cadres, sympathisers, and the general public to bring back the 'Golden Rule' of the late AIADMK patriarch, M.G. Ramachandran (MGR) and to dispose of the 'corrupt' and inefficient DMK government. The 105th birthday of late MGR is to be celebrated on Monday.

Party leaders and former Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu, O. Panneerselvam and Edappadi K. Palaniswami in a statement on Saturday said that the DMK government of the state led by M.K. Stalin was not practicing what it preaches. The AIADMK leadership said that the party would go all out against the DMK government and its anti-people policies.

The statement said, "We request our party men and sympathisers to take a pledge to bring back the golden rule of Puraitchi Thalaivar MGR and that of Puratchi Thalaivi Amma, J. Jayalalithaa." The leaders called upon the party men to act with the courage and wisdom shown by J. Jayalalithaa and that of the path shown by MGR.

The AIADMK leaders said that the charitable and philanthropic activities of the late Chief Minister MGR were commendable and there was no leader equivalent to him who had donated a fortune he had earned through hard work to the poor people. The AIADMK leaders said that it was MGR who had brought the world-renowned nutritious noon meal scheme to the state.

The leaders said that even though MGR had ruled Tamil Nadu for a decade from 1977 till 1987, his rule will always be considered as the golden rule of Tamil Nadu.

Ousted AIADMK leader, V.K.Sasikala in another statement said that the merger of the AIADMK was imperative to restore the AIADMK rule in the state. She also said that MGR who had formed the AIADMK in 1972 had in its bylaw stated that the cadres should elect the leaders.
New Delhi, Jan 16 : A man has gone on trial in London, accused of plotting to kill a Pakistani blogger living in the Netherlands, the BBC reported.

A court heard that 31-year-old Muhammad Gohir Khan was hired as a "hitman" by figures said to be based in Pakistan.

He was arrested last June and pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to murder.

Lawyers said the intended victim, Ahmad Waqass Goraya, had set up a blog on Facebook making fun of the Pakistani military and detailing alleged human rights violations, the report said.

Kingston Crown Court heard that Goraya, who was living in Rotterdam at the time, "was known for speaking out against the activities of the Pakistani government and appears to have been targeted for that reason", the report added.

The jury was told that Khan, a supermarket worker from East London, was heavily in debt - with the prosecution alleging he reacted "enthusiastically" to a proposal by a man named only as "MudZ" to kill the Pakistani political activist in exchange for 100,000 pounds.

Leading the prosecution, Alison Morgan QC, said in December 2018, Goraya had received information from the FBI that he was on a "kill list" and that he had received threats online and in person, some of which he believed "were being orchestrated by ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence)", Pakistan's intelligence agency.
Lucknow, Jan 16 : The third BJP Minister Dara Singh Chauhan, who had resigned from the Yogi Adityanath government last week, joined the Samajwadi Party on Sunday.

Apna Dal MLA Dr R.K. Varma also joined the party on Sunday.

Both the leaders and their supporters had quit the BJP after Swami Prasad Maurya resigned.

Speaking on the occasion, SP Chief Akhilesh Yadav urged the leaders to ensure that the BJP candidates forfeit their deposits in their constituencies.

He said, "The BJP has been practicing negative politics, promoting hatred and creating divisions. We will pursue the politics of development." Akhilesh also slammed 'fake surveys' being published and added that the ground reality was much different to what was being portrayed.

He also announced that when his party comes to power, he will order caste census without delay.
Los Angeles, Jan 16 : Photos and videos have gone viral on the social media showing empty boxes of major shipping companies like UPS, FedEx and Amazon, littered alongside rail tracks in Los Angeles County, as there has been a spike in freight train thefts, according to a media report.

A CNN report on Saturday said that Union Pacific, one of the country's largest railroad companies, has announced it may avoid operating in Los Angeles County following the spike in thefts, which it blames on lax prosecution of crimes.

The containers and trains are locked, but can be broken into, the report added.

In a letter to the Los Angeles District Attorney sent last month, the Union claimed that it saw a 160 per cent year-over-year increase in theft in the county, the largest in the US.

Meanwhile, the Association of American Railroads has expressed concern about the crime increase.

"In coordination with local law and where necessary federal law enforcement partners, the industry is committed to pursuing all avenues necessary to address this criminal behaviour," an Association spokesman said in a statement.
New York, Jan 16 : A young man in the US has claimed that his penis shrunk by a total of 1.5 inches after contracting Covid-19 last July.

The man in his 30s claimed in a letter written to Slate Magazine's How to Do It podcast, where they answer questions about sex, submitted anonymously by their audience, New York Post reported.

In the latest episode, the person said after being hospitalised in July 2021 for Covid, he experienced erectile dysfunction.

While the condition was resolved after treatment, he found a more permanent change.

"I seem to be left with a lasting problem. My penis has shrunk," he said.

"Before I got sick, I was above average, not huge, but definitely bigger than normal. Now I've lost about an inch and a half and become decidedly less than average." His experience, however, is far from the first reported case of post-Covid erectile dysfunction in men.

A study published in March 2021 in Andrology and supported by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research showed that erectile dysfunction was higher in those who had contracted Covid.

Of the 100 sexually active men in the study, 25 had contracted Covid previously, and 75 had not.

The prevalence of erectile dysfunction (ED), measured with the Sexual Health Inventory for Men, was significantly higher in the Covid positive group, with 28 per cent experiencing it, versus just 9.33 per cent in the Covid negative group, a third as many, Jerusalem Post reported.

"On top of well-described pathophysiological mechanisms, there is preliminary evidence in a real-life population of ED as a risk factor of developing Covid-19 and possibly occurring as a consequence of Covid-19," the study noted.

In additionally, another study published in September 2020, also concluded that "Covid-19 has a uniquely harmful impact on men's health and erectile function through biological, mental health, and healthcare access mechanisms." Speaking to the podcast, urologist Ashley G. Winter explained that the phenomenon of Covid causing shrunken genitalia could be entirely possible.

"You get hard because a whole bunch of blood moves into your penis and stays there," Winter was quoted as saying.

"When those blood vessels are affected, you can get erectile dysfunction,"she added.

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New Delhi, Jan 16 : A gunman identified as Muhammad Siddiqui entered a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, and held the rabbi and three others hostage in an hours-long standoff. His demand was reportedly the release of his sister, imprisoned Pakistani terrorist Aafia Siddiqui.

The standoff ended late Saturday night and the gunman was dead, the Colleyville Police announced on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the focus on Aafia Siddiqui shows just how deep-rooted terrorism in Pakistan has become, Michael Rubin wrote in a website, 1945.

In July 2008, US forces in Afghanistan arrested Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani national who was a US-educated neuroscientist, on charges of terrorism. She was wounded during her interrogation after she allegedly grabbed an unattended rifle, and was subsequently extradited to New York, where she was sentenced to 86 years in prison, Rubin wrote.

"In Pakistan, Siddiqui became a cause celebre. Pakistan's president, prime minister, and foreign minister all brought up her case with their American counterparts, and the Pakistani senate called on the United States to release her." While the news of Siddiqui's arrest passed with little notice in the US, her conviction led to widespread anti-American demonstrations, and to demands that Pakistani authorities suspend the delivery of supplies for the war effort in Afghanistan.

Her incarceration occupied headlines in Pakistan for months, Rubin added.

"With her brother's attack on the Beth Israel synagogue, the prominence of her case will increase. While terror groups like Al Qaeda or the Islamic State are filled with citizens of other countries whose governments denounce them, Aafia Siddiqui is different: Pakistani officials at all levels of government endorse her and treat her like a hero. Inevitably, many on the Pakistani street will now celebrate her brother or, at the very least, excuse his actions.

"Inevitably, the White House will condemn today's actions. They should. But, statements are no longer enough. Pakistan's embrace of Aafia is just the tip of the iceberg. The Pakistani government continues to let those responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks to roam free. Pakistan's intelligence service knowingly provided Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden with safe-haven. And, while the Biden administration discusses the Taliban take over of Afghanistan as if it occurred in a vacuum, the reality is that the Taliban's rampage through Afghanistan this summer was effectively a Pakistani invasion," Rubin added.

He said the Colleyville hostage situation "should also be a wake-up call: To allow diplomatic wishful thinking about Pakistan's orientation trump reality has a very high cost, one increasingly measured in American lives. President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken: Aafia and Muhammad Siddiqui are not outliers but honoured products of Pakistan's state policies".
New Delhi, Jan 16 : A day after the farmer unions gave ultimatum to the government on the issue of MSP, the Congress on Sunday questioned the government over the issue.

Congress spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill said, "Why MSP law is not being passed? Why Minister in Lakhimpur Kheri case not being dismissed? Why farmers union not being called for meeting? Withdrawal of black farm laws turning into mere election stunt. Will 19 Nov 2021 day when farm laws were withdrawn will turn into 'Dhokha Diwas'?" The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) on Saturday had alleged that there is no forward movement on the MSP issue.

"There has been no progress. No committee has been formed on Minimum Support Price (MSP). There is only some action on withdrawing cases against farmers in Haryana, but not much progress on that count in other states, including Delhi. There has been no discussion on our demand in connection with power bills," SKM leader Yudhveer Singh told a media conference SKM, a consortium of 40-odd farmers' organisations, had on December 9 declared to suspend their 15-month-long agitation that had started to protest the three contentious farm laws passed in 2020.

Lakhimpur Kheri was the place where on October 4 half-a-dozen people, including farmers and a journalist, were mowed down by a speeding vehicle, allegedly belonging to the son of Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, Ajay Mishra Teni. The farmers have demanded action against Teni and his son, but no step has been taken yet.

The SKM also declared to extend support to the all-India strike by labour organisations on February 23 and 24 as their demands include MSP and also because the labour organisations had supported the farmers' agitation.
tested Covid-19 positive on Sunday. In view of this development, the shooting of his movie franchise 'CBI 5' directed by K. Madhu has been suspended.

Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 16 (IANS) Malayalam superstar Mammootty tested Covid-19 positive on Sunday. In view of this development, the shooting of his movie franchise 'CBI 5' directed by K. Madhu has been suspended.

Details about the star's health are awaited. 'CBI 5' is the fifth of a series of movies directed by K. Madhu and each of them has been a runaway hit.

Mammootty played the lead role of Sethuraman Iyer in 'CBI 5'. The film has an impressive star cast comprising, among others, Mukesh and Jagathy Sreekumar.

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Mumbai, Jan 16 : Bollywood actress Katrina Kaif, who joined her husband Vicky Kaushal in Indore, recently shared pictures from a hotel room where she can be seen enjoying.

Katrina flew down to Indore from Mumbai, to celebrate Lohri with her husband. Vicky is currently shooting for director Laxman Utekar's next film with Sara Ali Khan.

The actress shared a series of pictures on her Instagram as she wrote in the caption, "Indoors in ????? #sundayselfie" In the pictures, Katrina can be seen wearing an oversized red shirt and smiling for the camera as she enjoys her time off in the safe confines of her hotel room.

On the work front, the actress will be shooting for 'Merry Christmas'. In addition, she will soon start working on the next schedule of 'Tiger 3' opposite Salman Khan.

Meanwhile, Sara too took a day off from shooting as she along with her mom Amrita Singh sought a little divine intervention over the weekend. The two, all masked up, visited Ujjain's famous Mahakaleshwar temple and sought blessings from God.
Chennai, Jan 16 : Director Aashiq Abu's Malayalam film 'Naradan', featuring Tovino Thomas and Anna Ben in the lead, has been cleared for release with a U/A certificate.

However, sadly, the onset of the third Covid wave has forced the makers to postpone the release of their film.

Actor Tovino Thomas took to Instagram to make the announcement. He put out a post that read "Certified U/A". The post went on to say, "We regret to announce that 'Naradan' movie release has been postponed due to the surge of Covid 19 infections and complications caused by the Omicron." The political thriller, which has music by Sekhar Menon, has cinematography by Jaffer Zadique.

The film, which was originally scheduled to be released in April last year, got postponed due to the second wave of Covid. The team had decided to release the film this year on January 27. However, now with Omicron complicating the issue, the release of the film has again been postponed.

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Tripoli, Jan 16 : A top official of the Presidency Council of Libya has stressed the need to support holding the presidential elections in the country.

The council's Deputy President Abdullah Allafi made the remarks during a meeting with the Speaker of the Libyan House of Representatives Aguila Saleh, reports Xinhua news agency quoted an official statement as saying.

"The Deputy President of the Presidency Council of Libya, Abdullah Allafi, confirmed that his meeting with the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aguila Saleh, was fruitful and that they discussed ways to support the political process and the elections in Libya," the statement said.

"Allafi stressed the council's commitment to supporting the elections through a clear roadmap and based on strong legal and constitutional foundations," it added.

He also stressed the Council's support for the efforts of the House of Representatives to issue laws that help bring the Libyans together and achieve stability in the country.

Libya's presidential elections, originally scheduled for December 24, 2021, were postponed indefinitely due to technical and legal issues, according to the country's elections commission.

The elections are part of a roadmap adopted by the UN-sponsored Libyan Political Dialogue Forum, in order to restore stability in Libya following years of political division and insecurity.
New Delhi, Jan 16 : Empowering tribal population in Jammu and Kashmir has been one of the top priorities of the government after August 5, 2019 -- when the Centre announced its decision to abrogate J&K's special status and divided it into two Union Territories.

The new initiatives aimed at empowering the members of Gujjar-Bakerwal and Gaddi-Sippi communities in the Himalayan region seem to have unnerved the Kashmir based politicians. These leaders fear that once these communities are empowered they would lose a major chunk of their vote bank.

The members of tribal communities were shown green pastures by the politicians for the past 70-years. They were promised that they would get all the rights and will be treated at par with others. But politicians failed to fulfill their commitments. However, the change in J&K's status-quo has proven to be the turning point for these deprived communities.

In September 2021, J&K Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha, handed over individual and community rights certificates to the beneficiaries of Gujjar-Bakerwal, Gaddi-Sippi communities under the Forest Rights Act, 2006. These rights were granted to usher a new era of empowerment and prosperity for the deprived tribal population in the Union Territory. In areas where community rights were granted, Rs 10 crore were provided immediately for infrastructure development. The work on roads, power supply, Anganwadi centers has already commenced.

It was for the first time since 1947 that Rs 73 crore were allocated for cluster tribal model village. The government has also initiated the process to set up 1,500 mini sheep farms to make the members of these communities self reliant. The 'Mission Youth' in collaboration with Tribal Department has embarked on the mission to set up 16 milk villages to connect at least 2,000 youngsters to the dairy sector at the cost of Rs 16 crore, besides providing training, branding, marketing and transport facilities.

The tribal communities have also been granted rights over minor forest produce. The government in coordination with the Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India Limited has finalized the process to establish infrastructure for collection, value addition, packaging, and distribution.

The J&K government is also developing transit accommodations at eight places at an estimated cost of Rs 28 crore for accommodating seasonal transitory population, besides provisions for medical camps, animal yards, veterinary care, and adequate security. The government has decided to build Tribal Bhavans in Jammu, Srinagar and Rajouri.

Scholarships worth Rs 30 crore were given to tribal children in 2020. As many as 1,521 seasonal schools for migratory children, two residential schools on the migratory route are coming up across J&K. Seven new hostels which were under construction for the youth of tribal community are almost complete and the UT administration has already proposed to the Centre to build 79 additional hostels. The tribal youth who want to start tourism business are being provided with training and an easy financial assistance of up to Rs 10 lakh. The world has opened up for the members of these communities during the past 2-years and they are grabbing the opportunities.

Delimitation Commission proposes 16 Assembly seats The Delimitation Panel -- assigned with the task to redraw assembly and parliamentary constituencies in J&K -- has proposed reserving 16 seats for the Scheduled Caste (SC) and Schedule Tribe (ST) communities in the Union Territory.

The commission, headed by Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai in its draft report has proposed nine seats for STs and seven for SCs in the new legislative assembly of Jammu and Kashmir.

The Gujjars and Bakerwals have welcomed the proposal of the Delimitation Commission. Once the draft is finalised it will be for the first time in the past seven decades that tribal legislators will represent their communities in J&K's Legislative Assembly.

A large number of people of Gujjar Bakerwal community live in J&K. They had many demands continuously over the years. The governments came and went but no one paid attention to towards the issues raised by them.

Kashmir parties unhappy After the Delimitation Panel presented its draft Kashmiri politicians reacted sharply. They termed the draft as "unacceptable" aimed at dividing the communities in J&K. These parties claimed that the Delimitation Commission had been created simply to serve the BJP's political interests by dividing people along religious and regional lines and the real game plan was to install a government in J&K that would legitimise the "illegal and unconstitutional decisions" of August 5, 2019. On the other hand leaders of tribal communities expressed happiness over the proposed reservation for STs and SCs and termed it as a historic move aimed at ending the decades old discrimination with them.

Recently, National Conference, Peoples Democratic Party and other Kashmir based parties tried their best to give communal colour to the demolition drive carried out by Jammu Development Authority (JDA) in Jammu. National Conference termed the drive as the part of the larger plan of ruling BJP to disenfranchise every segment of the society in J&K. Peoples Democratic Party questioned the demolition of houses of tribal communities and asked the residents to stand up against "such atrocities". CPI (M) said that this is how ST and tribal communities are being treated while the government claims to be empowering them.

The Jammu Development Authority termed the allegations as baseless and asked the politicians how can a government body carry out selective eviction drives? The JDA stated that due process of law was followed while carrying out the drive. The Authority said that 17 pucca and kacha structures raised upon the land were demolished and removed and 41 Kanal Prime land falling under khasra No. 1193 and 1206 was retrieved from the encroachers.

It seems that leaders of National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party have forgotten when they were in power many such demolition drives were carried out across J&K to retrieve the encroached land. It's strange that during their tenures such drives were legal but now these are illegal.

Picking up holes Kashmir based politicians are leaving no chance to pick up holes with whatever present dispensation is doing as they have been left with nothing to do. They have realised that members of tribal communities won't side with them as they fed them with slogans during their tenures. These leaders have foreseen that once the draft of Delimitation Commission is implemented they may end up losing 16 assembly seats. Leaders of tribal communities have on many occasions have stated that they were hoodwinked by the Kashmiri leaders and they won't support any of these regional parties who gave them "lollipops' for the 70-years.

The initiatives taken by the present dispensation have proven beyond doubt that if the erstwhile political regimes wanted they could have done a lot for these communities but tribal men and women were used as vote banks by the politicians. They were dumped soon after the elections ended. The attempts of politicians to give communal colour to the legitimate actions of the government are also not helping their cause as a common man has understood their machinations. The 'Naya J&K' is about including everyone and the actions of the government are speaking louder than its words.
Dubai, Jan 16 : South Korea will speed up cooperation with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in key eco-friendly technologies for the hydrogen economy, visiting President Moon Jae-in said here on Sunday, as Seoul seeks to expand the horizons of energy cooperation with the Persian Gulf nation.

Moon, who is in Dubai for a three-day visit as part of his week-long trip to the Middle East, made the remarks at a business forum attended by Suhail bin Mohammed Al Mazrouei, the nation's Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, and other senior UAE officials, reports Yonhap News Agency.

Since South Korea won a $20 billion contract in 2009 to construct four nuclear reactors in Barakah, UAE, the two nations have been seeking to expand cooperation in other sectors.

"South Korea and the UAE have made many achievements throughout deeper cooperation in traditional energy sectors, including oil and nuclear power plants," he told the forum.

The countries UAE will "expand energy cooperation into the hydrogen sector, a core energy resource in the age of carbon neutrality", the President added.

Also on Sunday, Moon plans to pay a visit to a "Day of Korea" ceremony at the Expo 2020 Dubai and hold a meeting with the country's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

During the talks, Moon and the UAE Prime Minister plan to discuss ways to expand cooperation in infrastructure, efforts to tackle climate change and space.

The two leaders will also discuss South Korea's bid to host the 2030 Expo.

In Dubai, Moon will step up South Korea's campaign to host the Expo in the nation's southeastern port city of Busan.
Lucknow, Jan 16 : With Covid cases continuing to surge, the Uttar Pradesh government has decided to further close all educational institutions -- schools and colleges -- till January 23.

The state government had, on January 5, directed to close schools and colleges till January 16. Meanwhile, the schools can continue online classes for their students.

For the students of Class 11 and Class 12, the UP government said, classes will be held in online mode and schools will organise vaccination camps to vaccinate the students between 15 and 18 age groups. Students will be allowed to visit their schools to get vaccinated against Covid.

For children in Anganwadis, although the classes have been discontinued, the distribution of food and rations will continue.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Patna, Jan 16 : BJP's Bihar unit president Sanjay Jaiswal on Sunday slammed the Nitish Kumar government over the Nalanda liquor tragedy which claimed 11 lives, and accused the senior administrative and police officers of being involved in the liquor trade in the state.

Jaiswal, in a Facebook post said that the senior officers are responsible for it and they should be arrested.

On January 12, JD-U spokesperson Abhishek Jha had said that Sanjay Jaiswal is criticising liquor ban in Bihar.

"I want to ask him whether it is his personal stand or of his party. Sanjay Jaiswal should clarify it," Jha had tweeted.

Responding to Jha's tweet, Jaiswal said, "I had gone there to console families whose members lost their lives after consuming spurious liquor. Is consoling a victim's family a crime?" he asked.

"Will the Nitish Kumar government send family members of victims who lost their lives in Nalanda liquor tragedy to jail?" Jaiswal said.

"If you want to implement a liquor ban in Nalanda, arrest the senior officers who have given wrong statements in public. The victims died due to poisonous liquor and Nalanda district magistrate Shashank Shubhankar and other officers claimed that the victims have other diseases like diabetes, blood pressure and others. Such statements are good enough to establish relationships with officers and liquor mafias and to hide their failures," Jaiswal said.

"The second culprits are police officers. They knew about the liquor operations in their respective jurisdiction. They should be jailed for 10 years as per the provision under liquor prohibition law of Bihar." "Unfortunately, the police officers below Inspector rank officers are getting suspended for 2 months after such incidents and then deployed in other police stations. Due to such an ill practice, they continue their illicit works," Jaiswal said.

"The third culprits are mafias who are involved in liquor operations. Arresting them is very easy if we interrogate police officers in a police style. Liquor manufacturers and consumers should be punished but they are similar to hydra. Every time you cut their arms, it comes out again. If you want to uproot it, you should break the nexus of senior officers, police and liquor mafias," he alleged.
New Delhi, Jan 16 : "Shackle and handcuff me every time I am produced for a hearing," said dreaded jailed gangster Kala Jatheri in a plea to the court, six days after the infamous shootout at the Rohini Court, fearing that he too might be killed on the same lines.

Such is the fear that has emerged between the rival gangs in the national capital.

The Delhi Police's Special Cell had arrested Sandeep Jatheri alias Kala Jatheri from Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh, nearly 200 km away from Delhi on July 30, 2021.

But even being in the police custody, the gangsters fear for their lives. The cause of this fear has been the shootout that occurred on September 24, 2021, in which Delhi's most wanted gangster Jitender Singh Mann alias 'Gogi' was shot dead inside a courtroom by two gangsters from the rival 'Tilu' gang, dressed in lawyers' garb.

The bitter strife between two rival gangs, constantly being escalated by regular bloodbaths, was the prime reason for Gogi's broad daylight murder at a local court.

Delhi has witnessed an unending bloodbath between the two rival gangs -- the Gogi gang and the Tillu Tajpuriya Gang -- in the past decade.

The 'Gogi' gang was once led by Jitender Singh Maan while the 'Tilu' gang is still run by Sunil Mann, currently incarcerated at the high-security Tihar Jail.

Both Tillu and Gogi hail from the same village on the outskirts of Delhi. Sources told IANS that both of them were childhood friends who once used to hang out together.

But how did this childhood friendship turn into a turf war that has claimed the lives of over 25 people in the past 10 years in Delhi and Haryana? It is being said that the gang war between Sunil Maan alias Tillu and Jitender alias Gogi started during the student union elections in the year 2010 at the Sharddhanand college in Alipur, Delhi. It was the same time when both childhood friends turned foes and later on fierce rivals.

Although they themselves did not contest the elections directly yet both provided the support and muscle power to rival candidates which caused bitterness between the two, culminating in the most violent gang war in Delhi.

In one of the fierce clashes between both the gangs on June 18, 2018, in Burari, Delhi, four persons including two members of the Sunil Tillu gang and two passers-by were killed and five others got injured.

But before becoming a gangster, Gogi seemed to have a bright future ahead. He studied in a local government school at Alipur and was a budding volleyball player and an athlete. Gogi often during interrogations told police that he always wished to represent India in the international games. However, destiny had something different written for him -- a death in a witness box.

From small-time college politics and scuffles, the two friend-turned-foes gradually became Delhi's top rival gangsters.

But why was Kala Jatheri fearing for his life? Special Cell sources told IANS that the members of the Gogi gang are being supported by the members of Kala Jathedi, Lawrence Bishnoi, Sampat Nehra, Ashok Pradhan, and Hashim Baba gangs while Sunil Mann alias Tillu's gang is presently being supported by the members of Neeraj Bawana, Sunil Rathi, Naveen alias Baali and Nasir gangs.

After the killing of Jitender alias Gogi in Rohini court, there was imminent apprehension of retaliation by his gang members but fortunately, due to back-to-back arrest of associates of both the Tillu and Gogi groups, it has been avoided so far.

Recently, Rakesh Tajpuriya, a close-aide of Tillu Tajpuriya and the main conspirator in the Rohini Court shootout case, was arrested after a brief exchange of fire.

The accused Rakesh Tajpuriya was the key conspirator and main architect in conspiring and orchestrating the killing of their fierce rival Jitender Singh as per the directions of Tillu from jail.

The Rohini Court shootout was not just an ordinary killing. It was a murder in a broad daylight in front of tens of witnesses. The 'devotion and dedication' of these small-time criminals towards their gang leaders is the main fuel that is keeping these gangs still running in Delhi.

The latest example was found after Delhi Police filed a charge sheet into the Rohini Court shootout case. It was learnt that of the two assailants that killed 'Gogi' on September 24, one was a true 'devotee' of the Tillu Tajpuria gang.

"One of them had engraved a permanent tattoo bearing the name of Tillu Tajpuria," sources told IANS. The tattoo drawn with a permanent ink read, "TILLU" on the forearm of the 23-year-old Jaideep alias Jaggu.

Even though gang culture thrives on the streets of the national capital, the Delhi Police are not leaving any stone unturned to prevent a gangwar or timely catch of the culprits.

(Ujwal Jalali can be reached at ujwal.j@ians.in)
Mumbai, Jan 16 : TV actor Kiran Mane, who plays the character of Vilas Patil in Star Pravah's show 'Mulgi Zali Ho', was recently asked to leave the show.

The actor later alleged that he was removed from the show due to his anti-establishment stance. However, Star Pravah, which is the Marathi portfolio of Disney Star India has clarified that his ousting from the show was triggered because of his unruly behaviour with his co-actors and crew on the show and his offensive behaviour towards female members of the cast.

The channel said in a statement, "We have been given to understand that the allegations leveled by actor Mr Kiran Mane, who portrays the character of Vilas Patil on the show, 'Mulgi Zhali Ho', are baseless and contrived. It is unfortunate that such allegations have been made." "The production house has confirmed that the decision to dismiss Mr Mane from the show was on account of his misconduct with several co-artists on the show, in particular, the female protagonist of the show. Several complaints were made by his co-actors, director, and other unit members of the show against his continuous disrespectful and offensive behaviour towards them," the statement further reads.

Continuing further, the channel said, "Despite numerous warnings given to Mr Mane he continued to behave in the same manner violating the basic decency and decorum on the sets of the show. Given our zero-tolerance policy for any kind of disrespectful behaviour towards women, we support the decision to dismiss him from the show." Further, they stated that they respect individual opinions and views and defined the right to free speech, "As members of the content industry, we respect all views and opinions and consider ourselves defenders of free speech. However, we are equally committed to ensuring a safe and healthy environment for our artistes, in particular, women."
Chandigarh, Jan 16 : Fulfilling one of the key poll promise made by Dushyant Chautala's Jannayak Janta Party (JJP), a coalition partner of the BJP in Haryana, a law that provides 75 per cent reservation in the private sector to job seekers from the state has come into effect.

Elated over the implementation of the legislation, Deputy Chief Minister Chautala on Sunday said: "Today is a historic day for the youth as from now priority for jobs would be given to the youth of Haryana in all private sector companies, institutions, trusts, societies and industries established in the state." The rule regarding 75 per cent job reservation came into effect on January 15.

"With the implementation of this system, new avenues for employment will open for lakhs of youth in the private sector," an official statement quoting Chautala said.

In this regard, a dedicated portal has also been created by the Labour Department along with a helpline number. Companies will now have to reflect their vacancy on the portal which will be continuously monitored by the government.

In November last year, the BJP-JJP government had notified the law to implement 75 per cent job reservations for locals in the private sector. It envisages reservation for local youth in the private sector with an upper limit of gross monthly salary up to Rs 30,000.

The law will be applicable for 10 years. The state government also relaxed the residency requirement from 15 to five years for a person to get a bona fide resident certificate in the state to provide some flexibility to the private companies in hiring.
New Delhi, Jan 16 : A hearing of incarcerated Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM)-linked MNA Ali Wazir's case has been postponed once again in Pakistan, with rights activists raising concerns about absence of due process, Friday Times reported.

While Wazir was recently granted bail in a case pertaining to 'anti-state' speech, he remains behind bars as another case registered against him is still pending.

On Friday, the PTM held a protest in Islamabad calling for the release of Ali Wazir, as well as Hanif Pashteen and Uwais Abdal, among other PTM members. Rights activist Tahira Abdullah and Pakistan People's Party (PPP) leader Farhatullah Babar were among the participants, the report said.

In early January, Ali Wazir's lawyer, Qadir Khan, had his house ransacked in Karachi. Several close to the attorney claimed the raid was the work of the Sindhi Rangers, whom they also alleged harassed the lawyer's family, including his daughter, the report said.

Ali Wazir, a lawmaker from South Waziristan elected in 2018, was arrested in Peshawar in December 2020 on charges of sedition, along with 10 other PTM members. Wazir was granted bail by the Supreme Court in November last year, but remains incarcerated in another case.
Kathmandu, Jan 16 : Nepal on Sunday once again reminded India not to construct any roads in Nepali territory unilaterally.

This reaction comes in a response to a recent statement of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on December 30 in Uttarakhand.

While addressing an election rally, Modi on December 30 announced that his government had built a road to Lipulekh and that there were more plans to extend it further.

Responding the statement of the Indian Prime Minister after it created a huge uproar in Nepal across the political spectrum, Nepal's Minister for Information and Communication Minister Gyanendra Bahadur Karki said on Sunday that Nepal government has been asking India not to extend and construct road via Nepali territory unilaterally.

The Indian government is building a road via Lipulekh to Kailash Mansarovar in the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China.

After the row in Nepal over Modi's statement, the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu on Saturday issued a statement, clarifying that any outstanding boundary issues with Nepal will be settled through established mechanisms and channels.

"The Government of India's position on the India-Nepal boundary is well known, consistent and unambiguous," it said in the statement. "It has been communicated to the Government of Nepal." Almost all political parties in Nepal, including Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba's own Nepali Congress, have been demanding that the government speak up on Modi's statement and make its position clear on Lipulekh.

When India and China agreed to develop a trade and transit route via Lipulekh during Modi's visit to China in 2015, the Nepal government had objected to the decision and protested with both Indian and Chinese governments through the separate diplomatic notes.

While calling Lipulekh an integral part of its territory, Nepal asked both New Delhi and Beijing to scrap the agreement or take prior consent from Nepal if they want to construct anything into the disputed territory. Lipulekh is a trijunction between Nepal, India and China.

Earlier in 2020, Nepal again protested India's decision to extend the road via Lipulekh.

Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had inaugurated the road in the first week of May 2020, creating quite an uproar in Nepal. The Nepal government then on May 20, 2020 unveiled a new map incorporating Kalapani, Limpiyadhura, and Lipulekh within the Nepali territory. The new map was endorsed by Parliament unanimously through a constitutional amendment.

India had taken umbrage at Nepal's move, calling the publication of the new map "cartographic assertions". Nepal-India relations then hit a rock-bottom and came back on track only at the end of last year. But Modi's remarks on Lipulekh once again created a commotion in Nepal.

Addressing a press conference on Sunday, Karki who is also the spokesperson of the Nepal government, stated that the Nepal government is clear that Kalapani, Lipulekh, and Limpiyadhura are the integral part of Nepal.

Besides Lipulekh, Nepal and India also have disputes in Kalapani and Limpiyadhura area. Limpiyadhura is the last border point between Nepal and India which Nepal claims as its own territory. Similarly, near Limpiyadhura, there is another chunk of land called Kalapani where India has been keeping its troops after the 1962 Indo-China war. Nepa has been saying that Kalapani falls inside Nepali territory and India had unilaterally stationed its troops there without prior approval from Nepal.

Given the close and historic relations between Nepal and India and its letter and spirit, Nepal wants to resolve the dispute through the historic treaty and agreement, facts, maps and evidence through the diplomatic channel, said Karki.
Brussels, Jan 16 : The year 2021 was the worst on record for child sexual abuse online, according to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF).

The UK-based IWF investigated 361,000 reports of suspected criminal material in 2021, euronews reported.

Of these, the IWF took action against 252,000 URLs, which contained images or videos of children being raped and suffering sexual abuse.

Further, the organisation also found a three-fold increase in content showing the abuse of children aged between seven and 10 years old, the report said.

This is due to increased reliance on the Internet during the pandemic by younger children makes them more vulnerable, according to child safety experts.

The experts note that the cyber criminals are on the lookout to find and manipulate children into recording their own sexual abuse on camera, and then share the footage on the open Internet.

"Children are being targeted, approached, groomed and abused by criminals on an industrial scale," said Susie Hargreaves, Chief Executive of the IWF.

"So often, this sexual abuse is happening in children's bedrooms in family homes, with parents being wholly unaware of what is being done to their children by strangers with an internet connection," she added.

The watchdog also stated that self-generated child sexual abuse content rose by 168 per cent in 2021 to 182,000 reports.

This content is created using webcams, very often in the child's own room, and then shared online.

In some cases, children are groomed, deceived or extorted into producing and sharing a sexual image or video of themselves. There is no adult physically present in the room.

"Devices can be an open door into your home, and children can be especially vulnerable to being drawn into these predators' traps,'' Hargreaves said.

"We know that if parents have one good conversation with their children it can make all the difference, and could be what stops a lifetime of hurt as a result of this grooming".

The IWF encourages parents to talk to their children about online sexual abuse, agree ground rules about using technology, learn about the platforms children are using and know how to use tools and settings that can help keep them safe online, the report said.
Hobart, Jan 16 : Showing their sheer dominance, fast bowlers helped Australia thrash England by 146 runs in the fifth and final Test on Day 3, to clinch the 2021/22 Ashes series 4-0 and to retain the urn, here on Sunday.

Despite Mark Wood's lion-hearted efforts to keep his side in the contest with his career-best 6 for 39 to bowl Australia out in their second innings for 155 and set England a realistic chase of 271, visitors folded from 0-68 a ball prior to tea to 124 all out just 22.4 overs later.

It was a 17-wicket day -- just the third of such carnage in Tests played in Australia over the past 25 years, and the second since yesterday -- saw Australia complete such a clinical win that off-spinner Nathan Lyon wasn't required to bowl a ball during the match.

The Australia fast bowlers showed their mastery with wickets shared between skipper Pat Cummins (3-42), Scott Boland (3-18), Cameron Green (3-21) and Mitchell Starc (1-30).

Chasing a challenging target of 271 to win, Rory Burns and Zak Crawley logged England's highest opening partnership of the tour in a quick-fire fashion that belied their previous struggles in the series. However, Burns (26) chopped on to Cameron Green at the stroke of tea and his partner Crawley was 32 not out when tea was called.

After the interval, it was Green, who opened the floodgates by picking quick wickets. Dawid Malan wore a bouncer on his head and then chopped a delivery onto his stumps. Crawley, who had moved on to 36 serenely, went searching for a booming drive to a full Green ball that swung away late and nicked off to the keeper.

Joe Root and Ben Stokes joined hands to revive England's chase, but the latter fell to a short ball from Mitchell Starc and England's hopes plummeted.

Scott Boland then got into the act, dismissing Root for the fourth time in the series. The England captain was a tad unlucky to receive one that stayed low and went beneath his bat to crash into the stumps. Sam Billings chipped one to mid-on off Boland soon after and Cummins cleaned up Ollie Pope to leave England at 107/7.

Chris Woakes, Mark Wood and Ollie Robinson were dismissed in the space of six balls as England went from 82/1 to 124 all out, conceding the match by 146 runs.

Earlier, resuming at 37/3, Wood into fourth over of the day's play hit the hard length and got a delivery to climb steeply towards Scott Boland's throat, something the nightwatchman could only glove to the 'keeper. Two overs later, he dismissed first-innings centurion Travis Head, who became the latest in a list of batsmen strangled down the legside in this game.

The short-ball bowling got the biggest reward when Smith got out on the pull at fine-leg. Australia at that stage were reduced to 63/6 with England entertaining the possibility of chasing a target under or close to 200.

However, there was resistance from Aussie batters as Alex Carey and Cameron Green got together to add some important runs with some luck along the way. Carey played on to a Chris Woakes delivery while on 19 only for the third umpires to reveal that the bowler had marginally overstepped. Carey was also adjudged LBW, a decision that he overturned with a review.

The 49-run partnership was eventually ended when Broad had Green ruled out LBW with a review. Wood then returned for another spell and used his patented short ball to have Mitchell Starc caught at short leg. Carey wasn't done, though, and he and Pat Cummins gave Australia more cushion with 30 crucial runs before Carey (49) was caught behind off Stuart Broad's bowling.

Wood's 6-37 was the best Test innings return by a visiting bowler in Australia since Jasprit Bumrah's 6-33 for India at the MCG last summer, and the best by an England bowler in an away Ashes contest since Matthew Hoggard's 7-109 in his team's famous lost cause at Adelaide in 2006.

Brief scores: Australia 303 & 155 (Alex Carey 49; Mark Wood 6-37) beat England 188 & 124 (Zak Crawley 36; Scott Boland 3-18, Pat Cummins 3-42, Cameron Green 3-21) by 146 runs.
Mogadishu, Jan 16 : A Somali government spokesman Mohamed Ibrahim Moalimuu was injured in a suicide car bombing in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, on Sunday, said a police source.

Police spokesman Abdifitah Aden said that a suicide bomber blew himself up at Moalimu's vehicle at a busy Dabka intersection in Mogadishu, Xinhua news agency reported.

"The government spokesman is currently hospitalized in Mogadishu," Aden told journalists and promised to provide more details once the ongoing investigations are completed.

Witnesses said the former journalist escaped with slight injuries and is out of danger.

No group has claimed responsibility for the latest attack in the restive city but the militant group, al-Shabab, frequently stages such attacks in the capital and elsewhere in Somalia.
New Delhi, Jan 16 : The Confederation of All India Traders has requested Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to waive mandatory GST registration for selling products through e-commerce platforms.

GST runs contrary to the vision of "Digital India" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it said in a statement, and it urged the Finance Minister to set things right in consultation with the GST Council.

"Under the GST Act, a seller who wishes to sell products in e-commerce is invariably required to obtain a GST number. Any seller who does not have a GST number is not allowed to sell products on any e-commerce portal. This provision of the Act is barring lakhs of traders across the country from using e-commerce to sell their products," a joint statement by the traders' body's national President B.C. Bhartia and Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said.

"...several ministries and state governments are eager to bring more and more sellers on e-commerce platforms but the provision of not allowing sellers without having a GST number has become a major deterrent and roadblock to embrace digital commerce by lakhs of traders of the Country." The Centre is talking about empowerment of small retailers in the country but since these small retailers are having their annual turnover less than Rs 40 lakh - the threshold for GST registration, they should be exempt from GST registration for digital commerce too.

Instead of GST registration, Aadhar number, bank details or similar other measures may be designated as essential qualification for onboarding on e-commerce portals, the CAIT said, adding that a large number of artisans, craftsmen, cottage and household industries are facing challenges.
New Delhi, Jan 16 : Ahead of the Republic day parade, politics of tableau has heated up after Centre rejected the proposals of Kerala and West Bengal governments with Mamata Banerjee shooting off a letter to the Prime Minister and Congress alleging partisan and vindictiveness in the selection of the states for the Tableau.

Congress leader B.K. Hariprasad has alleged that the BJP is vindictive towards non-NDA ruled states. "BJP is having vindictive attitude towards certain states. The Centre has rejected Kerala government's tableau which was based on Narayana Guru, a philosopher & social reformer." "He fought against caste-ridden society & rejecting his tableau is an insult to the spiritual guru. This smells of #BJP conspiracy." he added.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday too shot off a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and requested him to reconsider the decision of excluding West Bengal's tableau. The tableau was to commemorate Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and his Indian National Army (INA) on his 125th birth anniversary.

"All the people of West Bengal are deeply pained by this attitude of the central government. Bengal was at the forefront of the Indian freedom struggle and has paid the heaviest price for the country's Independence through the partition," Mamata in her letter said.

Earlier, floor leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury had written to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh over the issue and had said that he is disappointed and shocked. "It is an insult to the people of Bengal that the Central Government has rejected the proposal of West Bengal's tableau showcasing its cultural heritage and Netaji's life and contributions in our Freedom Struggle, on Republic Day", he said.
New Delhi, Jan 16 : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has made it clear that it will give ticket to only one person from the family of any party leader. Sources in the BJP said that not more than one person from the same family shall be named as a candidate in the upcoming Assembly elections.

According to party sources, the BJP will not field any of its sitting MPs in the assembly elections. However, it could field its former MPs.

In its first list released for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections on Saturday, the BJP had named several former MPs as candidates.

Sources said that many BJP MPs want assembly tickets for their children, but a decision in this regard will be taken on a case-to-case basis depending on the winning ability of the individual concerned, and the electoral equation of the particular seat.

Meanwhile, a senior party leader said that Aparna Yadav, the daughter-in-law of Mulayam Singh Yadav, may soon join the BJP.

Responding to the question of inclusion of other parties in the NDA alliance in Uttar Pradesh, the senior BJP leader said that currently, the alliance of BJP in the state is with Apna Dal (S) and Nishad Party.

Apart from Swami Prasad Maurya and Dara Singh Chauhan, many leaders of the OBC community have left the BJP and joined the Samajwadi Party.

Reacting to this, the veteran BJP leader said that these leaders might had gotten an impression that the party won't issue them tickets.

However, he also claimed that their departure will not affect the BJP and the party will form the government in Uttar Pradesh by winning more than 300 seats this time.
Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 16 : Leave Marx or dialectical materialism, a leader of Kerala's ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) on Sunday seemed to have adopted an Islamic worldview.

In a public programme at Kozhikode, senior leader and former MP and minister T.K. Hamza said: " Covid-19 is a Satan sent by Allah. This is to correct us and without correcting the world this Satan will not retreat." He also said that people, especially Muslims, must introspect whether they have diverted from the life envisaged by the Holy Quran.

Addressing a meeting of the Wakf Board action council, the former minister said: "The whole world belongs to Allah and he has given us the opportunity to look after his property. Everyone must work wholeheartedly for protecting his property." The statement of Hamza, who has been Chairman of the Wakf Board, seems to indicate how the CPI-M is now trying to woo the Muslim community in the state.

The Samastha Kerala Jamiat-ul-Ulema, a powerful body of Muslim scholars, which was ideologically inclined towards the Muslim League, has recently opposed the party conducting agitations at mosques in the state against the appointments in Wakf boards through the Public Service Commission.

The CPI-M has been trying to somehow woo the Muslim community and the statement of the senior leader of the CPI-M is seen in this context.

Talking to IANS, social activist and journalist Roy Mathew said: "CPI-M has now become a party of political opportunism. In 2006, when CPI-M legislators, M.M. Monayi and Isha Potti had taken oath as legislators in the name of God, then Secretary of CPI-M, Pinarayi Vijayan, who is the present Chief Minister, had done a scathing attack on the duo and had publicly censured the two leaders." "In 2021, Veena George, a minister in Vijayan's cabinet, took oath in the name of God and the CPI-M leadership did not say a word against it."
Panaji, Jan 16 : In a setback to the Trinamool Congress (TMC) ahead of the February 14 polls, former Congress MLA Aleixo Reginaldo, who had resigned as Congress MLA and joined the West Bengal-based outfit last month, on Sunday, resigned from the TMC.

In his resignation letter, Reginaldo said that he was resigning from the party's primary membership.

On December 21, while resigning from the Congress, Reginaldo had said that the party was directionless and that only the TMC was capable of taking on the Bharatiya Janata Party in Goa.

Reginaldo is the second MLA to align with the TMC before joining the Congress, the other legislator being independent MLA Prasad Gaonkar, who joined the Congress earlier this month.

Reacting to Reginaldo's resignation, TMC's Goa in-charge and Lok Sabha MP Mahua Moitra said: "AITC has received a letter from Aleixo Reginaldo resigning from primary membership of the party. We had welcomed him into the party as we have countless others. Now that he wishes to leave, we wish him well".
Srinagar, Jan 16 : A civilian and a policeman were injured in a militant grenade attack in Srinagar city on Sunday evening, police said.

Police said militants hurled a grenade towards a team of security forces in Safa Kadal area of Srinagar.

"Two persons were injured in this explosion, selection grade constable Mehraj and civilian Mushtaq Ahmad.

"Both the injured have been shifted to hospital for treatment. The area has been cordoned off for searches," a police officer said.
New Delhi, Jan 16 : The man who stormed a Texas synagogue on the Sabbath and was holding hostages before he was shot and killed was demanding the release of 'Lady Al Qaeda', who is serving 86 years in a federal prison less than 30 miles from where the hostage standoff took place, Daily Mail reported.

The suspect stormed the Congregation Beth Israel, in Colleyville, for Aafia Siddiqui, a known terrorist who is incarcerated at Carswell Air Force Base near Fort Worth, and he was demanding for her release, according to police sources, the report said.

Siddiqui was arrested in Afghanistan in 2008 by local forces who found her with two kilos of poison sodium cyanide and plans for chemical attacks on New York's Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building.

The Pakistani-born neuroscientist had bragged to her student friends at the age of just 21 that she would be proud to be on the FBI's Most Wanted list, the report added.

She is serving an 86-year sentence at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Fort Worth, about 25 miles from the hostage site at the Texas temple.

During her trial, Aafia demanded that every jury member get DNA tested to see if they were Jewish.

Siddiqui, who was a biology major at MIT, said in 1993 that she wanted to do 'something to help our Muslim brothers and sisters' even if it meant breaking the law, the report added.
Washington, Jan 16 : A citizen scientist has discovered a giant gaseous planet about 379 light-years from Earth, orbiting a star with the same mass as the Sun, NASA has said.

The exoplanet, called TOI-2180 b, was discovered in data from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).

TOI-2180 b is almost three times more massive than Jupiter but has the same diameter, meaning it is more dense than Jupiter. This made scientists wonder whether it formed in a different way than Jupiter.

Further, through computer models the team determined that the new planet may have as much as 105 Earth masses worth of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium.

"That's a lot. That's more than what we suspect is inside Jupiter," said Paul Dalba, astronomer at the University of California, Riverside, and lead author of the study.

The Jupiter-size planet is special for astronomers because its 261-day year is long compared to many known gas giants outside our solar system.

With an average temperature of about 170 degrees Fahrenheit, TOI-2180 b is also warmer than room temperature on Earth, and warmer than the outer planets of our solar system including Jupiter and Saturn.

But compared to the array of transiting giant exoplanets that astronomers have found orbiting other stars, TOI-2180 b is abnormally chilly, NASA said.

The result, published in the Astronomical Journal, also suggests the planet is just a bit farther from its star than Venus is from the Sun.

To track the planet, professional astronomers and citizen scientists engaged in "a global uniting effort".

Using TESS data, scientists looked for changes in brightness of nearby stars, which indicated the presence of orbiting planets.

"Discovering and publishing TOI-2180 b was a great group effort demonstrating that professional astronomers and seasoned citizen scientists can successfully work together," said Tom Jacobs of Bellevue, Washington, a former US naval officer who discovered the exoplanet.

While professional astronomers use algorithms to scan tens of thousands of data points from stars automatically, these citizen scientists use a programme called LcTools, to inspect telescope data by eye.

On February 1, 2020, Jacobs noticed a plot showing starlight from TOI-2180 dim by less than half a percent and then return to its previous brightness level over a 24-hour period, which may be explained by an orbiting planet that is said to acetransit" as it passes in front of the star from our point of view, NASA said.

With 27 hours of observations spread over more than 500 days, the team measured the amount of light that dims as the planet passes. This helped scientists to estimate how big the planet is and its density.

The team wanted to observe the planet's transit when it came back around to confirm the orbit, but they couldn't.

The lack of a clear detection put a boundary on how long the orbit could be, indicating a period of about 261 days.

Using that estimate, they predict TESS will see the planet transit its star again in February 2022, NASA said.
Chennai, Jan 16 : Police in Tamil Nadu's Coimbatore district has issued a lookout notice against a tuition teacher in connection with a 16-year-old girl student missing since July 30, 2021.

The girl, who is studying in Class 11 in a government school in Coimbatore's Saravanampatti, had left home informing her parents that she was going shopping in a nearby mall. However, she did not return home.

Parents of the girl filed a complaint at the Saravanampatti police station and the police registered a case of missing person and commenced an investigation.

A special team was constituted by the Saravanmpatti police and found that tuition teacher, Manimaran (40) was allegedly involved. Police registered a case under Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses (Pocso) Act.

Even after police searched his premises and conducted detailed inquiries, there was no lead about him or the girl.

Police sources told IANS that Manimaran, who is married with a child, was also involved in a missing girl case at Nagercoil.
New Delhi, Jan 16 : Oil major Indian Oil Corporation on Sunday said it will invest over Rs 7,000 crore in setting up city gas distribution networks.

The investment will be done in those cities for which it has secured a licence, and 33 per cent of the demand potential, in the recently-concluded 11th round of CGD bidding by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board.

Those geographical areas include major districts like Jammu, Pathankot, Sikar, Jalgaon, Guntur (Amravati), Tuticorin, Tirunelveli, Kanyakumari, Madurai, Dharmapuri and Haldia (East Mednipore).

"These districts contain high demand customers across the industry-commercial-domestic spectrum for PNG (Piped Natural Gas) and CNG (Compressed Natural Gas). IndianOil plans to invest over Rs 7,000 crore in these new CGD projects, over and above the Rs 20,000 crore already planned for its CGD Vertical," it said in a statement.

After the 11th round of the bidding, Indian Oil, along with its two joint venture companies, is now present in 49 geographical areas and 105 districts spread across 21 states and UTs.

"Gas will play a significant role in India's march towards a low carbon future as part of its Panchamrit pledge during COP-26 summit to reduce total carbon emissions by one billion tonnes from now till 2030," IOC Chairman Shrikant Madhav Vaidya said in the statement.
New Delhi, Jan 16 : Indigenously-designed and built guided missile destroyer, INS Kochi, carried out a passage exercise (PASSEX) with Russian Navy's RFS Admiral Tributs in the Arabian Sea, the Indian Navy said on Sunday.

"The exercise (on Friday) showcased cohesiveness and interoperability between the two navies and included tactical manoeuvres, cross-deck helicopter operations and seamanship activities," the Indian Navy statement said.

These exercises are aimed at enhancing interoperability, improving understanding and imbibing best practices between both the friendly navies, and this will involve advanced surface and anti-submarine warfare exercises, weapon firings, seamanship exercises and helicopter operations, Navy officials said, adding that these exercises are conducted regularly with units of friendly foreign navies, whilst visiting each other's ports or during a rendezvous at sea.

Last year from October 12 to 15, the Indian Navy participated in the second phase of Multilateral Maritime Exercise Malabar along with the Japan Maritime Self Defence Force (JMSDF), the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), and the United States Navy (USN) which was conducted in the Bay of Bengal while first phase of the exercise was conducted in the Philippines Sea from August 26 to 29, 2021.

In this exercise, the Indian Navy participated with INS Ranvijay, INS Satpura, P8I Long Range Maritime Patrol Aircraft and a submarine while the US Navy's Aircraft Carrier USS Carl Vinson participated, along with destroyers, USS Lake Champlain and USS Stockdale. The JMSDF was represented by JS Kaga and JS Murasame whilst the AHMAS Ballarat and HMAS Sirius of Royal Australian Navy participated in this mega naval exercise.
New Delhi, Jan 16 : A Delhi court on Sunday refused to grant bail to Aumkareshwar Thakur, the creator of the derogatory "Sulli Deals" app, saying that the investigation is at a very nascent stage and permitting bail at this juncture will "prejudice a fair investigation".

Thakur, 25, a resident of Newyork City Township, Indore was apprehended by the Delhi Police on January 8.

In its ruling, the court said: "The accused had consciously used Top Browser so that his identity could not be disclosed and various complaints have been received against Sulli Deals App which are pending across India." It further said that the investigation, presently, is a developing investigation and the accused has been arrested after great and time-consuming efforts after following the MLAT process.

As counsel appearing for Thakur argued that the bail cannot be denied merely on the sentiments of the community and "accused has been put to media trial", the court maintained that at this stage, it "cannot ignore the peculiar facts of the case which reflect upon the severity and the gravity of the alleged acts of the accused".

"Further the misuse of the technology and the impact of the alleged acts on the larger section of society cannot be reduced to negligible when being compared to other offences with harsher punishments," it said.

The derogatory mobile app had surfaced in July last year where photos of Muslim women were displayed without their consent for "auction".

The Delhi Police's Cyber Crime Unit had registered an FIR under section 354-A (Sexual harassment and punishment for sexual harassment) of the Indian Penal Code on July 8.

Apart from "Sulli Deals", another shocking incident of harassment and insulting women of the minority community on social media came to light on January 1 after a Delhi-based woman journalist lodged a complaint with the Delhi Police stating that she was being targeted by some unidentified group of people on a mobile application, this time named "Bulli Bai", yet again created on GitHub platform.

"Bulli Bai" had a number of pictures of women, including journalists, social workers, students and famous personalities, accompanied by derogatory content. The app listed hundreds of Muslim women for "auction".

However, its creator, Niraj Bishnoi, was also arrested by the Delhi Police on January 6.

During his interrogation, it emerged that he used to interact with various virtual identities on social media and used to engage in group discussions.

In July 2021, in one of the groups in which Bishnoi was a member, another group member shared the details of the "Sulli Deals". That was the first time Bishnoi or other group members had heard about the Sullideals app on GitHub. The said Twitter handle was backtracked and it was learnt that after the uproar, the Twitter handle and other foot prints were erased from various social media platforms.

Bishnoi disclosed details that the said Twitter handle belonged to a person who stays in Indore. Based on technical analysis, a Twitter handle in the name of accused Thakur was identified and on January 8, a team of IFSO, Special Cell went to Indore.

Thakur was examined and his technical gadgets were subjected to preliminary analysis. During investigation he was subjected to interrogation, in which he confessed that he had created the Sulli Deal app on GitHub. The access of GitHub was with all the members of the group. He had shared the app on his Twitter account where the photos of the Muslim women were uploaded by the group members.
Jaipur, Jan 16 : The Rajasthan government on Sunday has decided to hand over the Alwar deaf and dumb minor girl rape case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

A recommendation in this matter shall be sent to the Central government soon by the state government, the Chief Minister's Office said in a press release.

The decision was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Sunday via video conferencing.

The meeting was attended by senior officials and doctors.

A 14-year-old deaf and dumb girl was found in a bleeding condition in Alwar.

The passers-by informed the police and she rushed by the police personnel to a hospital. Later, considering her serious condition, she was rushed to the JK Lon Hospital in Jaipur.

A team of seven doctors performed surgery for three hours.

Meanwhile, Alwar SP Tejaswini Gautam on Saturday said that the girl was probably not raped. The BJP took objection to the statement and demanded a CBI probe into the matter.

However, on Sunday, the Alwar SP took a U-turn on her statement and said that she gave a statement on medical report basis. "Police are investigating on different grounds and exploring each angle. Nothing has been concluded as of now," she added.
New Delhi, Jan 16 : Displaced families living in a camp in the capital city of Balkh province of Afghanistan have sold their children and their kidneys for funds to survive, Tolo News reported.

The displaced families escaped heavy conflict between the Islamic Emirate and former government forces before the fall of the republican government in the northern provinces of Balkh, Sar-e-Pul, Faryab and Jawzjan.

A charity committee is helping displaced families with food and cash aid in order to dissuade them from selling their children and kidneys.

The price of a child is between 100,000 to 150,000 Afs and the price of one kidney is 150,000 to 220,000 Afs, the report said. The families are living in a camp in Mazar-e-Sharif, the capital of Balkh province.

The families said that they were forced to make such decisions due to poverty, the economic problems in the country as well Covid-19's outbreak.

"We are overwhelmed with problems. No one pays attention to us. We are in deep trouble," said a displaced person. Every family has around two to seven children.

Dilbar is a war-displaced person whose family is struggling with starvation. Dilbar said she had no choice but to sell her kidney to take care of her children.

"I was rescued by my operation. My child was sick. I took her to the hospital for treatment but the doctors told me her treatment would not be done," she said, the report added.

These families were helped by a charity committee to stop them from selling the kids and kidneys.

The charity committee provided cash aid and food for thousands displaced and vulnerable people in Mazar-e-Sharif.

The head of the charity committee, Mohammad Sadiq Hashimi, called on national business people to boost efforts to help the people in need across the country.

"There were some sisters who were ready to sell their kidneys --some of them have already sold their kidneys. I saw some families who were selling their children. We were able to help them," he said.
New Delhi, Jan 16 : The Border Security Force and ther National Investigation Agency, in a joint operation, have arrested a key accused in the spread of fake currency notes from West Bengal's Malda district, officials said on Sunday.

The accused, identified as Aladu alias Mathur Sheikh, a resident of Haruchak village under Kaliachak Police Station in Malda district, was arrested from Mojampur village on Saturday morning.

During preliminary interrogation, the accused disclosed that he received Rs 5,000 commission per Rs 100,000 in fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN) for their onward distribution.

Aladu was handed over to the NIA officials by the BSF for further legal proceedings.

On September 16, 2019, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence sleuths had apprehended Asim Sarkar, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Pilibhit from Station Road Jhaljhaliya, Malda with counterfeit notes with the face value of Rs 1,99,000. During interrogation, Sarkar had identified Aladu as his accomplice in the illegal work and since then, Aladu was included in the wanted list of the NIA.

Expressing satisfaction over the arrest of the FICN racketeer, the officials of the BSF South Bengal Frontier said that this was possible only because of the network maintained by intelligence unit at Farakka and the alertness displayed by the jawans who participated in the joint operation.
New Delhi, Jan 16 : A man, appearing in place of an original candidate during a written examination for recruitment to group C category posts in Delhi courts last year, has been arrested, police said on Sunday.

The accused, identified as Sumit, a resident of Kaithal, was arrested on Saturday.

According to the police, the written examination was held in two shifts at various centres in Delhi on February 28, 2021.

"A tip-off was received on that day at the Crime Branch that unfair means were being used during the exam and subsequently a raid was conducted at the exam centre at Mount Abu School, Sector 18, Rohini Delhi," Additional Commissioner of Police Shibesh Singh said.

During the checking, 11 candidates were found using Bluetooth devices and hearing aids and a case under sections 419, 420, 120B, 419, 468 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code was registered.

The police made the 18th arrest in the case by arresting Sumit.

"He had appeared in the exam in place of a candidate named Sonu, but had run away from the venue after the police team arrived," the official said.

During interrogation, the accused Sumit revealed that as he was an intelligent student, he, along with his friend Pankaj Dhull, started taking money to sit in exams in place of original candidates. They became part of a larger gang that was involved in organised cheating and leakage of exam question papers.

It was further revealed that the gang also used Bluetooth devices and hearing aids as unfair means to crack exams. The main gang members identified so far are Sumit, Manjeet, Gurmel and Sandeep Kohli of Haryana, the official said.

According to police, on February 28, 2021 -- the day of examination, the entire gang was involved in using unfair means. They had taken amounts ranging from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 5 lakh from the candidates. Gurmel was caught at the spot while Sumit had managed to slip away.

The police said the main accused Manjeet and Kohli are still absconding. "Further investigation in the case is in progress," the police added.
New Delhi, Jan 16 : Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, Piyush Goyal has assured leaders of India's top IT companies that the Central government will give full support to the sector to accelerate growth and help India's Services exports soar to $1 trillion in a decade.

Goyal has welcomed the IT industry's proposal to start IT hubs in Tier-2 and Tier-3 towns, which would create numerous jobs and help develop the regions. He said the IT industry should identify the towns, and the Centre would assist them in providing all the necessary infrastructure and facilities.

He said the IT industry can make a big contribution to Services exports by focusing on new technology and products that can make India a bigger global player in the sector.

Goyal said India was on track to achieve its merchandise exports target of $400 billion this year, while Services exports were likely to be about $240 billion to $250 billion, which is much lower, but can grow rapidly and catch up with merchandise exports.

"When I look at the trajectory of these - I personally believe this is going to be a race to the top. We can converge $1 trillion. That should be the ambition, mission. You have a little bit of catching up to do. I'll be delighted if you cross $1 trillion faster than them," the minister told IT industry leaders.

In the virtual meeting over the weekend, the minister told leaders of the IT industry that they should focus on high-tech products. He said the IT industry had grown spectacularly on its own and many of the top companies grew at a time when India did not focus on creating a favourable ecosystem for Startups. Goyal said the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) will provide any assistance needed by the IT industry to help it grow rapidly and contribute to India's export of Services.

IT industry leaders said the sector had seen strong growth last year, and in the past week, strong earnings reported by companies has set a positive tone for the years ahead.
Bengaluru, Jan 16 : Karnataka on Sunday logged 34,047 new Covid cases taking the number of active cases in the state to 1,97,982, while there were fresh 13 deaths in the last 24 hours.

Meanwhile, 5,902 people have recovered and been discharged from the hospitals.

Of the new cases, Bengaluru Urban district alone recorded 21,071.

Positivity rate for the day stood at 19.29 per cent.

The current number of Omicron patients stood at 479 and 2,937 Delta cases have been reported so far in the state. The rising numbers in southern districts - Mysuru (1,872), Tumakuru (1,373), Hassan (1,171), Dakshina Kannada (782), Mandya (709) - have caused worry for state authorities.

Among the new fatalities, four belonged to Bengaluru and were in the age group of 43 to 91 years. They suffered from symptoms of fever, cough, and breathlessness.

As over 100 students tested positive for Covid in Athani of Belagavi district, district authorities have taken measures to contain the pandemic from spreading in government high schools where 15 children and a teacher from Yakkunchi village and 62 students at Banajawad Education Societies Residential Primary, Intermediate, and Pre-University College tested positive.

Due to the high rate of infections, Vijaypura District Commissioner P. Suneel Kumar has announced a one-week holiday for schools where more than five active cases are reported. As many as 150 students between the age group of 0 to 21 years who go to school, college and technical courses have tested positive for Covid.

If more than five cases are reported in a school, it is considered as a cluster and a one week holiday would be declared, he said, adding that after seven days, the school children, who have recovered from symptoms, can attend the schools.

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New Delhi, Jan 16 : Taking cognisance of a complaint, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has raised objections to certain fatwas issued by Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband on its website, terming them "misleading, unlawful and harmful for the children".

"In one of the fatwas, Darul Uloom Deoband states that adopting a child is not unlawful but merely by adopting a child, the ruling of real child shall not be applicable on him, rather it shall be necessary to observe Shariah Purdah from him after he is mature. The adopted child shall get no share in the property and that the child shall not be a heir in any case," the commission in a letter to the District Magistrate, Saharanpur on Saturday.

The commission contended that such fatwas are not only misleading to the law of the land but are also illegal in nature.

"The Constitution of India provides for fundamental rights of children including right to education and right to equality," it added.

The NCPCR would like to state that publishing such statements as advice, contrary to the rights of children on a website, having open access and available in the public domain, are not only misleading and unlawful but also harmful for the children.

"Therefore, it is requested that the website of this organisation may be thoroughly examined, investigated and any such content should be immediately removed," it stated.

Further, access to such websites may be prevented until the removal of such content for avoiding the spread and recurrence of "unlawful statements and consequently preventing incidents of violence, abuse, neglect, harassment, discrimination against children", it said.

The Commission has requested the District Magistrate that an action taken report may be submitted within 10 days.

In response, a Muslim group on Sunday said that the NCPCR's letter "is yet another attempt at targetting Madrasas and their education by cherry-picking some fatwas and sensationalising them".

The Students Islamic Organisation of India (SIO) said: "Fatwas are nothing but personal views of religious scholars on various matters pertaining to personal and social life." In fact, on a given issue, the scholars often have differing opinions and none of them carry any legal sanctity or institutional approval. People are completely free to act according to their own understanding of the religion, it said in a statement.

"It is a settled position of law in India that issues of inheritance, marriage, divorce and other personal matters including adoption are covered by the respective customary laws of different communities and religions.

"The officials at NCPCR must no doubt be aware about this settled position of Indian law, which is protected by the Constitution. Their targetting of the well known Muslim seminary for discussing their position on adoption is a shallow and shameless attempt to defame not just the institution but the entire Muslim community by association," the SIO said.
Gurugram, Jan 16 : The deputy commandant of Border Security Force (BSF) who was arrested by the Gurugram Police has cheated a number of people to the tune of Rs 125 crore, officials said on Sunday.

The police have recovered cash around Rs 14 crore, jewelry worth Rs one crore and seven luxury cars from his house.

The accused Praveen Yadav reportedly suffered loss of Rs 60 lakh in share market. He wanted to repay his debt and for that he started cheating people.

"Yadav allegedly cheated a number of people to the tune of Rs 125 core, on the pretext of providing them tenders, while impersonating himself as an IPS officer, during his posting with NSG at Manesar," said a Gurugram Police officer.

A senior police officer said that so far they have recovered seven luxury cars, jewelry and cash from the house of the accused.

"Praveen Yadav, the deputy commandant of BSF, his wife Mamta Yadav, sister Ritu and one close aide Dinesh were also arrested by the police. When he cheated the innocent persons, he was posted with NSG on deputation. He had transferred whole amount in an account which he opened in the name of NSG. His sister Ritu is manager at Axis Bank. She helped him in opening the account," said a police official.

The police official said that his next posting was in Agartala. But he had collected huge wealth and recently wrote a resignation letter to the concerned department. His resignation has now been accepted.

According to the information, on January 8 one Narayan Das Israni lodged a complaint with the police against Praveen Yadav. In his compliant the victim had alleged that Yadav, who claimed to be an IPS official in NSG office of Manesar, took Rs 65 crore from him on the pretext of providing him different tenders.

The victim was also given fabricated allotment letters of tenders by the accused. The complainant had also mentioned the name of Ritu Yadav in his compliant that she was assisting her brother in the crime.

Seeing the gravity of the matter an SIT was formed by the Gurugram Police to look after the matter. The SIT after conducting a thorough probe arrested the accused and his family members. The police said they have received more complaints against the accused.

"We have taken him on police remand to unearth the whole conspiracy. We have found evidences against him," said the police officer.

Further probe in the matter is underway.
Bhopal, Jan 16 : Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury on Sunday that even during the pandemic, some companies have earned billions of dollars through vaccines.

Inaugurating the 16th state convention of the CPI-M here, Yechury said: "The rich countries of the world are endangering humanity for the sake of their own, and their companies' profits. Even in the times of Covid pandemic, instead of reducing the patent royalties from the vaccine, they are making it so expensive that many poor countries are unable to buy it. As a result, during this pandemic, poverty and unemployment have increased.

"Including in India, there has been a massive increase in the wealth of some of the world's richest individuals." He said that the relief package -- stimulus package -- which the governments are announcing to come out of such a situation, is "also going directly into the vault of these trillionaires".

Due to this, hunger and deaths are increasing on one hand, while on the other, the betting market is flourishing, he said.

He said that the "imperialist" countries led by the US are making conspiracies to take over the post-Covid world.

"Efforts are being made to lay siege to the socialist countries which have protected their people by overcoming this disaster and kept the economy under control. The Indian government led by Narendra Modi has come to be known all over the world as a puppet of the US," the CPI-M leader said.

Referring to the situation in the country, Yechury said since coming back to power again after 2019, the Modi government has attacked and weakened the four identities of the core concept of India -- secular democracy, economic sovereignty, social justice and federal structure linked to center-state relations.

"Illegal arrests and restrictions have increased. Journalists are also being charged with treason. Atrocities on women, Dalits have intensified... tribals are being driven out of their settlements by handing over the land to the corporates... privatisation is being done rapidly. The work of the state government is being interfered with by sending people related to the RSS in the Raj Bhavans," the Left leader said.

Speaking on the almost year-long agitation by the farmers, he said: "The farmers have won by staging a historical agitation for a year." "Our party will take forward these struggles to save the country and its people, by increasing the participation of more people and sections in them. Small industries and businesses are also in trouble, and demands will be raised for them too," Yechury said.

He said that in the coming days, his party will form a front which will have a common opinion in all these matters and "will liberate the people of the country from the corporate Hindutva rule of Modi".

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New Delhi, Jan 16 : Amid speculation that he was likely to rejoin the Congress, Uttarakhand minister Harak Singh Rawat was on Sunday sacked from the government and expelled from the BJP for "anti-party activities".

The development came barely a month before the Assembly election in the hill state, slated for February 14.

Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami took the action against Rawat, who had switched over from the Congress to the BJP before the 2017 Assembly polls. Prior to it, the BJP had expelled him from its party's primary membership for six years for indiscipline.

Rawat, however, was said to be nursing a grouse against the BJP leadership for quite some time, and even expressing his resentment publicly. It is being said that he was seeking ticket for both him and his daughter-in-law for the coming elections, but had been told that the BJP had made it a rule that only member of a family would be fielded.

He had skipped the party meeting to select candidates in Dehradun on Saturday. As he met a senior Congress leader on Sunday and indicated that he would join the party on Monday, the BJP took action against him.
New Delhi, Jan 17 : Even as Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) president Naresh Tikait has announced extending support towards the Samajwadi Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal (SP-RLD) alliance in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, his brother and BKU spokesperson Rakesh Tikait has denied this, saying "there was a misunderstanding".

"We didn't extend any support, people have made a mistake in understanding," Rakesh Tikait said, A video of Naresh Tikait extending support to the SP-RLD has recently emerged. On being asked on this, Rakesh Tikait told IANS: "We have not extended any support yet and we will soon confirm that through our official social media account as well." "If someone comes to our house, we say 'we are with you'. We are not telling anyone whom to vote.

"We have decided that we will not support anyone. Even if we are against the government, everyone (the people) knows what they have to do," he said.

Ahead of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, the SP-RLD alliance, Congress, SP and Bahujan Samaj Party have released the list of their candidates.

The SP-RLD alliance has announced the candidature of Rajpal Baliyan from Budhana in Muzaffarnagar district, Chandan Chauhan from Meerapur and Ashraf Ali from Thana Bhawan in Shamli.

On January 15, the Samyutk Kisan Morcha had decided to start Mission UP from February 1.

The RLD and Samajwadi Party alliance on Saturday announced its second list of seven candidates for the assembly elections.

In this list, all the candidates belong to the RLD. On Thursday, the first list of 29 candidates was released in which the Samajwadi Party has named its 10 candidates while RLD has been given 19 seats.

The RLD candidates have been announced in 26 seats so far.
Agartala, Jan 17 : The Opposition CPI-M led Left Front on Sunday claimed that the public meeting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 4 in Agartala has caused a massive surge in the Covid-19 cases in Tripura.

"The Central and state governments are aware about the Omicron, the new variant of Covid-19 creating havoc across the country. In this situation the PM's public rally has further aggravated the situation in Tripura," Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Tripura state Secretary Jitendra Chaudhury told the media.

Chaudhury, accompanied by CPI leader Ranjit Majumder, Forward Bloc leader Dulal Deb and Revolutionary Socialist Party leader Dipak Deb on Sunday met Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb and suggested several measures to curb the massive spread of the infectious disease.

The Left leaders said that the Tripura government has not yet installed the machines for the genome sequence analysis of the Omicron suspect samples of the people who would the tested positive for the new variant and such lacunae would make the situation and required treatment more critical.

Chaudhury, also a CPI-M central committee member, said that thousands of people are coming to Tripura by train from different parts of the country including Delhi and they deboarded in various stations where there is no testing facilities to detect the passengers infected by the Covid-19.

"However, responding to our demands, the Chief Minister directed the officials to take crtain measures to deal with the situation," he said.

The Left leaders also demanded compensation of at least Rs 10 lakh to the poor families of the Covid-19 victims, and give various assistance including financial support and free food grains to the members of the poor families affected by the disease.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
New Delhi, Jan 17 : The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has said that it has filed a supplimentary chargesheet against four operatives of Lashkar-e-Mustafa (LeM) for allegedly hatching conspiracy to carry out terrorist activities across the nation.

The chargesheet, filed before a special NIA court in Jammu and Kashmir, names Mohammed Arman Ali alias Arman Mansuri, Mohammed Ehsanullah alias Guddu Ansari, Imran Ahmad Hajam and Irfan Ahmad.

A senior NIA official said that the case relates to hatching of conspiracy by the LeM operatives at the behest of proscribed terrorist organization Jaish-e-Mohammed to carry out terrorist activities in Jammu area with an intention to threaten the sovereignty, integrity and security of India.

The investigation of the NIA has revealed that these four accused had conspired, procured and transported weapons from Bihar to Jammu and Kashmir via Punjab and Haryana for LeM terrorist group in order to carry out terror activities in the UT of Jammu and Kashmir especially in Jammu region.

The official said that initially a case was registered at police station Gangyal in Jammu. Later on the NIA took over the investigation and re-registered the case.

After conducting a thorough probe the NIA filed a chargesheet in the case against six accused persons in August 2021. Later they continued probing the matter and filed a supplimentary chargesheet.

The NIA official said that further probe in the matter is on.
Kolkata, Jan 17 : Famous theatre personality and daughter of 'legendary' Sambhu Mitra and Tripti Mitra passed away at her Kolkata residence on Sunday evening. She was 74 when she died and was suffering from age related ailments for long.

The gifted actor, director, and playwright, as per her last wish, like her father, was cremated at Siriti crematorium without much fanfare. She had been suffering from heart-related ailments but had refused to be hospitalised. Subsequently, her condition worsened on Sunday.

Shaoli, who was the recipient of Sangeet Natak Akademi in 2003, Padma Shri in 2009, and Banga Bibhusan in 2012, will be remembered by her fans and critics alike for her solo performances as Draupadi in "Naathvati Anaathbat" (which she also wrote and directed), and as Sita in "Sitakatha" or Bitata Bitangso.

She acted as "Bangabala" in Ritwik Ghatak's avant-garde film "Jukti Takko Aar Gappo" (Reason, Debate, and a Story).

After spending years in "Bahurupi," a famous theatre group founded by Sambhu Mitra and Tripti Mitra, where she had immortalised the character of Amal in Tagore's "Dakghar", Shaoli founded "Pancham Baidik," which established a trailblazer repertoire by introducing widely acclaimed plays on women's emancipation.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who had a very close association with Shaoli said, "I am deeply saddened by the demise of Shaoli Mitra, a prominent personality of Bengali drama and eminent theatre personality".

"Shaoli Mitra was my long-time colleague. She was with me in the Singur-Nandigram movement. He worked closely with me when I was the railway minister. Later, when we formed the government, she became the President of Bangla Academy and did valuable work with responsibility. The Government of Bengal awarded him Bangabibhushan in 2012 and Deenbandhu in 2014," she said.

Banerjee who also got the information of her death after her cremation, as per her last wish, said, "I remember her as a close person and as our long-time colleague and friend, she will always remain in in my heart. I extend my heartfelt condolences to the family and countless admirers of Shaolidia."
Arona Airport, Arona, Papua New Guinea [ AON / ]

If you are planning to travel to Arona or any other city in Papua New Guinea, this airport locator will be a very useful tool. This page gives complete information about the Arona Airport along with the airport location map, Time Zone, lattitude and longitude, Current time and date, hotels near the airport etc... Arona Airport Map showing the location of this airport in Papua New Guinea. Arona Airport IATA Code, ICAO Code, exchange rate etc... is also provided.

Arona Airport Info:

Arona Airport IATA Code: AON Arona Airport ICAO Code: Latitude : -6.25 Longitude : 145.967 City : Arona Country : Papua New Guinea World Area Code : 804 Airport Type : Small Timezone : Pacific/Port_Moresby Arona Airport Timezone : GMT +10:00 hours Current time and date at Arona Airport is 04:51:46 AM (+10) on Wednesday, May 4, 2022

Looking for information on Arona Airport, Arona, Papua New Guinea? Know about Arona Airport in detail. Find out the location of Arona Airport on Papua New Guinea map and also find out airports near to Arona. This airport locator is a very useful tool for travelers to know where is Arona Airport located and also provide information like hotels near Arona Airport, airlines operating to Arona Airport etc... IATA Code and ICAO Code of all airports in Papua New Guinea. Scroll down to know more about Arona Airport or Arona Airport, Papua New Guinea.

Arona Airport Map - Location of Arona Airport Load Map Papua New Guinea - General Information Country Formal Name Independent State of Papua New Guinea Country Code PG Capital Port Moresby Currency Kina (PGK)

 1 PGK = 0.282 USD

 1 USD = 3.552 PGK

 1 PGK = 0.267 EUR

 1 EUR = 3.74 PGK

 More PGK convertion rates Tel Code +675 Top Level Domain .pg

This page provides all the information you need to know about Arona Airport, Papua New Guinea. This page is created with the aim of helping travelers and tourists visiting Papua New Guinea or traveling to Arona Airport. Details about Arona Airport given here include Arona Airport Code - IATA Code (3 letter airport codes) and ICAO Code (4 letter airport codes)

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AON - Arona Airport IATA Code
Boridi Airport, Boridi, Papua New Guinea [ BPB / ]

If you are planning to travel to Boridi or any other city in Papua New Guinea, this airport locator will be a very useful tool. This page gives complete information about the Boridi Airport along with the airport location map, Time Zone, lattitude and longitude, Current time and date, hotels near the airport etc... Boridi Airport Map showing the location of this airport in Papua New Guinea. Boridi Airport IATA Code, ICAO Code, exchange rate etc... is also provided.

Boridi Airport Info:

Boridi Airport IATA Code: BPB Boridi Airport ICAO Code: Latitude : -9.13333 Longitude : 147.533 City : Boridi Country : Papua New Guinea World Area Code : 804 Airport Type : Small Timezone : Pacific/Port_Moresby Boridi Airport Timezone : GMT +10:00 hours Current time and date at Boridi Airport is 04:51:46 AM (+10) on Wednesday, May 4, 2022

Looking for information on Boridi Airport, Boridi, Papua New Guinea? Know about Boridi Airport in detail. Find out the location of Boridi Airport on Papua New Guinea map and also find out airports near to Boridi. This airport locator is a very useful tool for travelers to know where is Boridi Airport located and also provide information like hotels near Boridi Airport, airlines operating to Boridi Airport etc... IATA Code and ICAO Code of all airports in Papua New Guinea. Scroll down to know more about Boridi Airport or Boridi Airport, Papua New Guinea.

Boridi Airport Map - Location of Boridi Airport Load Map Papua New Guinea - General Information Country Formal Name Independent State of Papua New Guinea Country Code PG Capital Port Moresby Currency Kina (PGK)

 1 PGK = 0.282 USD

 1 USD = 3.552 PGK

 1 PGK = 0.267 EUR

 1 EUR = 3.74 PGK

 More PGK convertion rates Tel Code +675 Top Level Domain .pg

This page provides all the information you need to know about Boridi Airport, Papua New Guinea. This page is created with the aim of helping travelers and tourists visiting Papua New Guinea or traveling to Boridi Airport. Details about Boridi Airport given here include Boridi Airport Code - IATA Code (3 letter airport codes) and ICAO Code (4 letter airport codes)

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BPB - Boridi Airport IATA Code
Viral Solutions + DPH Mercedes-Benz Covid Testing SuperSite We are proud to partner with GaDPH to continue to deliver fast and reliable drive-through COVID-19 testing at these three new SuperSitesViral Solutions co-founder and CEO, Ben Lefkove, MD, FACEP

As part of Georgia Governor Brian Kemps initiative to increase the availability and access to efficient COVID-19 PCR testing, Viral Solutions has been chosen by the Georgia Department of Public Health (GaDPH) to spearhead an effort to rapidly open three COVID-19 PCR Testing Center SuperSites throughout the Atlanta Metro area.

Viral Solutions will continue to perform PCR COVID-19 testing with no out-of-pocket cost to insured and non-insured patients. Register for Covid testing here.

We are proud to partner with GaDPH to continue to deliver fast and reliable drive-through COVID-19 testing at these three new SuperSites, says Viral Solutions co-founder and CEO, Ben Lefkove, MD. We are prepared to help Atlanta get through this pandemic, and help the community stay safe so they can live their lives.

The three drive-through COVID-19 PCR Testing SuperSites are located conveniently throughout the Metro Atlanta area, and are appointment-only:



Fulton County at Mercedes-Benz Stadium (Home Depot Backyard Lot, Corner of Northside and Magnolia Drive), 1 Backyard Way, Atlanta, Ga. 30313. Hours: 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Wednesdays-Mondays. Closed Tuesdays.

Cobb County at the Jim R. Miller Park & Event Center, 1265 Al Bishop Drive, Marietta, Ga. 30008. Hours: 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Mondays-Fridays; 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturdays

DeKalb County at Stonecrest, 2994 Turner Hill Road, Stonecrest, Ga. 30038. Hours: 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Mondays-Fridays; 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturdays

"As the largest provider of COVID-19 testing and vaccinations in Georgia, we are thrilled to bring our efficient PCR COVID-19 testing model to these new GaDPH SuperSites," says Viral Solutions co-founder and President, Ron Sanders, PA-C. "We are honored to partner with the Georgia Department of Public Health. It's important initiatives like this that drive us to do even more and get better every day."

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Interviews available upon request.

About Viral Solutions

Viral Solutions was founded by an Atlanta-based emergency physician and physician assistant to help find a way to resolve the current COVID-19 PCR testing crisis in Georgia. Patients are evaluated in real time by a local team of Viral Solutions physicians and physician assistants. Viral Solutions believes every person should have immediate access to the best COVID-19 testing available. No patient should wait to get a COVID-19 test. All patients  including the uninsured  should have easy access to COVID-19 testing, and that's what Viral Solutions provides.
By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 01/15/2022



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[ Spoiler Warning: This report contains spoilers on the current status of Mike and Ximena's relationship and if the couple called it quits or took their romance to the next level].

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So what's the latest on Mike and Ximena's relationship? Is the couple still together now?

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Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.

: Before the 90 Days couple Ximena Morales Cuellar and Mike Berk have reached a crossroads in their relationship now that Mike knows Ximena can't have more children, so did the couple stay together or split up? What do spoilers reveal about if Mike and Ximena are still together now?On Season 5 of : Before the 90 Days, Mike, a 34-year-old IT support technician and volunteer firefighter from Thiells, NY, met Ximena, a 24-year-old from Pereira, Colombia, on a dating app after being single for 20 years or so.In high school, Mike had somewhat of a serious relationship for about a year and that's apparently it."I was always looking for a serious relationship, someone to just settle down with. Since I went 34 years without finding a woman in my local area, I just decided to change my location in the dating app and switched it over to Colombia, and I met someone that made my dreams come true," Mike explained in a confessional.When Mike saw Ximena, he thought she was "the most beautiful woman in the world." The pair went on to communicate for about a year."She's the first person I truly feel like I fell in love with, and we even went as far as talking about getting married and having kids together. We have that connection, both mentally and emotionally," Mike revealed.However, there was a language barrier between them since Mike only spoke a little Spanish and Ximena only spoke Spanish.Regardless, Mike said he couldn't stand to be apart from Ximena any longer and so he had booked a ticket to Colombia and couldn't wait to hold her and be with her in person.Mike planned to propose marriage if everything went according to plan. He trusted Ximena, pointing out how she had never lied to him.Mike dreamt of Ximena and her two sons, Harold and Juan, moving in with him in the United States. (Mike lived with his father and grandfather at the time). He gushed about really wanting to "go for it" and start a family.But Mike's friends were concerned about Mike sending Ximena money for rent and other things such as her refrigerator and washing machine. Mike's pals worried Ximena had "guys all over" sending her money, and they didn't want to see a woman "milking" Mike for his cash."This relationship seems like it's too good to be true, but at the end of the day, I know this is real and it makes me happy. So I'm just going to go with it," Mike acknowledged.Mike then packed his belongings, as well as an engagement ring, for a two-week trip to Colombia to meet Ximena in-person for the first time.Mike had fallen in love with her, and he hoped Ximena was going to be everything she had led him to believe "and then some."Mike's father and grandfather advised Mike to be careful and cautious, but Mike revealed how he wanted to start the K-1 visa process and then move Ximena -- and her three and seven year olds -- to America."I'm 34 years old and I've never been in love, but with Ximena, I've found happiness and I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with her. It's been my fantasy -- seeing her face, her beautiful eyes and her beautiful body," Mike told the cameras.Mike said if he discovered Ximena had been using him the whole time, his heart would be broken.Prior to Mike's arrival, Ximena shared how she lived in Pereira in Colombia with her two boys and being a mother was her joy and main priority."Juan David's dad was a one-night stand, and that was it," Ximena revealed. "And Harold Steven's dad is in jail. He wanted to defend his uncle and acted without thinking, and so that's what he's paying for now."Ximena had met Harold's dad on Facebook and talked to him for four or five months, and she said she loved him very much. Ximena apparently visited this man in jail and got it in her head that she wanted to have a child and so she got pregnant on her second visit to the jail.Since Harold's dad would be locked up for a long time, Ximena said she wanted to find another man who could support her and love her.Ximena was also struggling financially as a manicurist amid COVID-19. Mike had therefore been sending her money for a couch, dining table, refrigerator, stove, blender, coffee maker and more. Mike had also been sending her money for food and rent."I stay afloat with what Mike contributes to me," Ximena said. "But Mike is not the kind of guy I'm usually attracted to because I like big men. My ex-boyfriends have been policemen, tattoo artists, farmers, even drug dealers."Ximena admitted that she didn't find Mike physically attractive but she was attracted to his heart. Ximena didn't have a job but practiced her manicure skills on family and friends.Ximena said her relationship was going to be difficult due to the language barrier, and her family worried Mike wouldn't turn out to be who he said he was. Ximena said Mike would tell her children, "I love you," which meant a lot to her.Ximena told the cameras she had been keeping some secrets from Mike about her past and she was afraid how he'd react."Maybe I'm not what he was expecting to find," Ximena explained.Ximena and Mike had a sweet meeting at the airport in which they hugged and kissed on the lips, and Mike said he was "extremely happy" seeing Ximena for the first time.But Ximena admitted her first kiss with Mike wasn't passionate, adding, "I think there will be more kisses better than that one."Ximena said Mike looked like "a sweetie" with his little glasses but he's also shorter than she thought he'd be.In the cab ride to a restaurant, Ximena grilled Mike on the text messages in his phone, and he just hoped Ximena would learn to trust him. However, he appreciated Ximena acting like he's all hers and didn't seem to mind her being a little jealous.Ximena proceeded to introduce Mike to her family, including her sister, brother, stepmother Derly and father Jamir. Mike also met nine-year-old Juan and three-year-old Harold.Mike was a little overwhelmed and nervous to meet Ximena's entire extended family, and Ximena explained how Mike was tired after a long trip. Mike also turned red because he was so nervous.Mike attempted to communicate with everyone by using a language-translator device, but it didn't work very well.Ximena's dad Jamir wasn't sure Mike would be an adequate match for his daughter, and he pointed out how Mike's technology was useless for communicating. Ximena felt bad because Mike clearly appeared to be uncomfortable, but her boys said they loved Mike after meeting him and would want him to be their stepfather.Mike and Ximena then spent the night together once the boys got settled in their own beds."I've been imagining this night ever since I first met Ximena and said, 'I love you,' online, so it's just all of this build up and anticipation for tonight. It's a really big deal and I just want this to work and be perfect," Mike shared in a confessional.Mike said his first night with Ximena in bed was "the best time" he's ever had with a woman."Ximena knocked it out of the park. We had a great time over and over again," Mike said.But Ximena said the sex was just "normal" for her and "nothing out of this world," even though it seemed to be the best moment of Mike's life.Ximena, however, had yet to tell Mike that she can't have any more kids, and Mike definitely wanted a child of his own."I suffered a lot with my two deliveries because to have a child Caesarean is the worst pain a mother could go through. So I decided to get operated [on] and they cut my tubes and burned them, so that I definitely couldn't have more kids," Ximena revealed in a confessional.Ximena predicted Mike would take the news pretty hard, which she claimed hurt her a lot. She admitted it was a mistake not to warn Mike of this before his trip to Colombia but she wanted to tell him in person."I feel super nervous because I feel like I love him," Ximena said. "So for me it would be fatal if he ended it and left."Ximena ended up sharing this news with Mike, and although he was very disappointed, he took the letdown pretty well.Mike wished he had been told this sooner because he didn't like having secrets between them, but he said other things could be done if they want to have a child together.Ximena asked Mike what he would do if having a kid isn't possible, and he replied, "This is really big news and it's something I really have to think about."Mike admitted he would be "really devastated" if he couldn't have any children of his own and so he didn't know where to go from there with Ximena.Ximena recently posted two videos on her TikTok account -- which have since been deleted -- indicating she and Mike are still together.Not only that, it appears Mike and Ximena got engaged, Soap Dirt reported In the first of two videos Ximena posted that no longer appear on her TikTok account, she showed a picture of Mike holding a ring box as well as her wearing an off-the-shoulder sparkly wedding dress.Since the couple was not together for either picture, Mike may have waited to pop the question once he returned to America after his visit to Colombia."I love you my life. Thank you for so much happiness," Ximena wrote in Spanish, according to Soap Dirt.In the second video, Ximena shared a picture of another wedding dress hanging up as well as a ring box by itself.She simply captioned the post, when translated from Spanish to English, "Marry me!"It's very possible Mike and Ximena also tied the knot, but evidence suggests they got engaged at the very least.Want more spoilers or couples updates? Click here to visit our homepage!
Canadian pop star Celine Dion announced Saturday she is canceling the remaining dates on the North American leg of her latest concert tour.

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Dion, 53, wrote on her website that she was suffering from "severe and persistent muscle spasms," which were preventing her from taking the stage.

"I was really hoping that I'd be good to go by now, but I suppose I just have to be more patient and follow the regimen that my doctors are prescribing," she posted on Instagram.

"There's a lot of organizing and preparation that goes into our shows, and so we have to make decisions today which will affect the plans two months down the road. I'll be so glad to get back to full health, as well as all of us getting past this pandemic, and I can't wait to be back on stage again. Meanwhile, I've been very touched by all the words of encouragement that everyone's been sending to me on social media. I feel your love and support and it means the world to me."
SpaceCast Weekly is a NASA Television broadcast from the Johnson Space Center in Houston featuring stories about NASA's work in human spaceflight.

Storie include the International Space Station and its crews and scientific research activities, and the development of Orion and the Space Launch System, the next generation American spacecraft being built to take humans farther into space than they've ever gone before.

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Poet Bard Terry Wooten has been performing and conducting writing workshops in schools for more than 30 years. He is also the creator of Stone Circle, a triple ring of boulders featuring poetry, storytelling and music on his property north of Elk Rapids. Learn more at www.terry-wooten.com.
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A Texas judge imposed additional sanctions against Infowars host Alex Jones on Friday after Sandy Hook parents complained he was obstructing progress in their civil cases against him, according to reporting from the Austin American-Statesman.

The hearing in an Austin courthouse on Friday was to begin to determine how much Jones must pay after he lost defamation lawsuits brought by parents of children killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting.

The additional sanctions came after parents complained that a deposition that took place in December involving InfoWars producer Daria Karpova amounted to a farce after Karpova failed to adequately prepare for and answer questions, the American-Statesman reported.

Mark Bankston, an Houston-based attorney representing the parents, presented several deposition videos and more than 40 pages of transcripts that showed Karpova unable to answer eight questions. These questions had been submitted well before the deposition took place.

Jones lawyer, Jacquelyn Blott, said Karpova answered those eight questions adequately; state District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble disagreed, the American-Statesman reported.

Gamble ordered Jones to pay all costs incurred during the Karpova deposition and Fridays hearing, and ordered new depositions to be conducted within a month, with the eight questions to be answered fully, the American-Statesman reported.

The questions ranged from asking who provided information used in InfoWars segments on Sandy Hook to details about the companys business structure.

These latest sanctions come months after Jones lost three separate defamation lawsuits against parents of Sandy Hook victims.

Scarlett Lewis, the mother of Jesse Lewis, and Lenny Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa, the parents of Noah Pozner, won their lawsuits on Oct. 1. Jesse Lewis father, Neil Heslin won his suit on Oct. 5.

The parents had sued Jones after he called the school shooting that resulted in the deaths of 26 first-graders and educators at Sandy Hook School in Newtown a giant hoax and completely fake with actors, among other similar sentiments.

Jones argued that he no longer feels this way, but the he has a right to be wrong under the First Amendment.
Iranian authorities confirmed that they have re-incarcerated French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah for breaking house arrest restrictions.

The judiciary news website Mizan.news on January 16 quoted the deputy head of the judiciary, Kazem Gharibabadi, as saying Adelkhah, who had been furloughed with an electronic-monitoring bracelet, violated judicial restrictions dozens of times.

Subscribe To RFE/RL's Watchdog Report RFE/RL's Watchdog report is a curated digest of human rights, media freedom, and democracy developments from our vast broadcast region. It arrives in your in-box every Thursday. Subscribe here.

The official claimed that Adelkhah, 62, violated the limits of her house arrest despite repeated warnings from judicial authorities.

On January 12, the French Foreign Ministry condemned Adelkhah's new imprisonment and demanded her immediate release, saying her case has negative consequences on the relationship between Paris and Tehran.

She holds both Iranian and French passports, but Iran doesnt recognize dual nationality. Iranian officials insist that Adelkhah is an Iranian citizen and have denied French consular staff access to her.

Adelkhah, an expert on Iran and Shia Islam at France's prestigious Paris Institute of Political Studies, was arrested on June 5, 2019, at Tehran airport.

Adelkhah was given a five-year sentence for conspiring against national security. Iranian authorities have not provided any solid evidence to back the charges.

In October 2020, she was allowed to live under house arrest at her sisters home in Tehran, wearing an electronic-monitoring bracelet.

Adelkhah is one of at least a dozen Western nationals believed to be held in Iran. Rights groups accuse Iran of using foreign detainees as bargaining chips for money or influence in negotiations with the West.

Iran denies it, though there have been such prisoner exchanges in the past. In March 2020, Iran released Adelkhah's French colleague and partner, Roland Marchal, in a prisoner exchange with France.

Marchal, who was arrested in June 2019 alongside Adelkhah, was swapped for Iranian engineer Jalal Ruhollahnejad.

Based on reporting by AFP and AP
BISHKEK -- Five men have been handed prison terms in Kyrgyzstan for their role in a deadly bride-kidnapping case that sparked protests in the Central Asian nation in April over the widespread practice of abducting women for marriage.

Aizada Kanatbekova was kidnapped by a group of men on April 5 and found dead two days later in a car along with the body of one of her abductors, Zamirbek Tengizbaev, who killed himself after strangling her with a T-shirt.

The lawyer for Kanatbekova's family, Nurbek Toktakunov, told RFE/RL that the Birinchi Mai district court in Bishkek on September 14 sentenced Syimyk Moldosariev, Ajikabyl Rysbai Uulu, and Oruzbek Nurumbetov to seven years in prison each, while Zamirbek Ramankulov and Kubanych Tokon Uulu were handed 6 1/2 years in prison for taking part in the kidnapping.

The court also ruled that the five must pay 100,000 soms ($1,200) altogether to the victim's family to compensate moral and material damage caused by the death of the 26-year-old woman.

WATCH: Missing Woman And Kidnapper Found Dead, Setting Off Protests In Kyrgyzstan

Tengizbaev will be tried posthumously on charges of murder and rape, as well as for kidnapping Kanatbekova.

The case shocked Kyrgyzstan, where thousands of bride kidnappings occur each year despite the criminalization of the practice in 2013.

It also put a spotlight on law enforcement's reluctance to pursue such crimes.

Police were sharply criticized for their slow response in the kidnapping even though it was recorded on security cameras with the vehicle's make, model, and license plate clearly visible in the videos.

Relatives of Kanatbekova have labeled the police actions as "casually dismissive," while Toktakunov has filed papers with the court over the "unprofessional handling of the case" by police and what he called "police attempts to cover up their misdeeds by forging documentation related to the case."

WATCH: Kyrgyz 'Bride Kidnapping' Turns Deadly

More than 40 police officers, including the Bishkek city police chief, were fired following the tragedy.

Authorities said at the time that Tengizbaev had been convicted in Russia three times for various crimes.

The UN Development Program and rights groups have highlighted the ongoing prevalence in Kyrgyz society of the practice of bride snatching, which they say often leads to marital rape, domestic violence, and other ills.

One of the most-notorious cases involved the stabbing to death in 2018 of 20-year-old university student Burulai Turdaaly Kyzy by a man who was trying to force her into marriage.
The widow of an Islamic State fighter, Olima Kamolova had pleaded with the Tajik government for months to help get her out of Afghanistan, where she was imprisoned as the wife of a foreign militant.

Tajik authorities eventually repatriated Kamolova and her four children last summer, just before the Taliban took power in Kabul.

The 31-year-old housewife, who had left Tajikistan with her husband in 2015, is now serving a 12-year sentence for fighting as a mercenary in a foreign military conflict.

She has rejected the charges and told the court she had merely followed her husband.

But Khairullo Habibullozoda, the judge at the city court in Vahdat -- a small town outside of Dushanbe where Kamolova grew up -- said he wasnt convinced by the defendants argument that she was an innocent bystander. Her relatives said Kamolova lost her final appeal at the Supreme Court on January 7.

Tajikistan has rarely arrested women repatriated from conflict zones like Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq, instead trying to reintegrate them into society. But in recent months, Tajik courts have sentenced at least five women -- the spouses of suspected IS fighters -- to between 12 and 14 years in prison on terrorism-related charges.

Authorities havent released any information about the defendants and their cases. But sources familiar with the matter told RFE/RLs Tajik Service that all five defendants were repatriated from Afghanistan early last year. The circumstances of their repatriations are unknown.

Tajik diplomat Zubaidullo Zubaidzoda, tasked with organizing the repatriation of his countrys citizens from Syria and Iraq, says some women openly say they dont trust the Tajik government and dont want to return.

The news comes as 48 women from Tajikistan are being held in Iraqi prisons after being convicted of belonging to IS.

According to the Women and Family Affairs Committee, four of the women have been sentenced to death by Iraqi judges. Others were given prison terms ranging from 20 years to life in jail.

Hundreds of other Tajik widows of IS fighters and their children remain stranded in refugee camps in Syria, as Dushanbes repatriation efforts have been largely halted by the pandemic and other challenges, Tajik officials say.

'It's Easy To Blame'

Most of the Tajik women who ended up in foreign conflict zones blame their husbands for taking them abroad, often telling them they were going for work.

Kamolova and her defense lawyer claimed she was lied to by her husband, who allegedly said they were going to Iran for medical treatment for one of their children.

As they arrived in Tehran, the husband said that theyll go to Afghanistan for a religious pilgrimage, defense lawyer Shabnam Iskandar said. Kamolova was reluctant to go, but her husband threatened her with divorce. Kamolova then agreed to go to Afghanistan.

Its not possible to verify Kamolovas account of her experience.

One woman in the northern province of Sughd whose close relatives -- a young family -- voluntarily returned from Syria several years ago says that in traditional Tajik families women largely obey their husbands.

In hindsight, its easy to blame those women, but back then in 2015 people were not well-informed, the woman said on condition of anonymity. Its possible that many of the militants wives just trusted their husbands when they said they were going for work or pilgrimage.

The woman said her relatives have been pardoned by the government, resumed their normal lives, and never looked back.

Tajikistan has repeatedly said it was committed to repatriating women and children who remain in foreign conflict zones. But the officials acknowledge that not everyone is willing to return.

Foreign Minister Sirojiddin Muhriddin told reporters last year that many of the Tajik women in Syrian camps want to come back home, but there are also those who dont want to return.

Its possible that many of the militants wives just trusted their husbands when they said they were going for work or pilgrimage.

Tajikistan estimates that some 575 women and children -- family members of Tajik militants -- currently reside in the Syrian Al-Hawl and Al-Roj refugee camps, which are controlled by Kurdish forces. In 2019, the government repatriated 84 Tajik children from Iraq.

Tajik diplomat Zubaidullo Zubaidzoda, who was tasked with organizing the repatriation of his countrys citizens from Syria and Iraq, said some of the women avoid meeting Tajik officials who visit the camps.

Zubaidzoda said some openly say that they dont trust the Tajik government and dont want to return to Tajikistan. Local media reported that out of some 400 Tajik women and children at Al-Hawl, only 260 have applied for repatriation.

Last year, a group of Tajik women in Al-Hawl sent a letter to the government urging Dushanbe to speed up the repatriation efforts.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Tajik woman at Al-Hawl told RFE/RL that her compatriots in the camp are divided into two groups: those who have realized their mistakes and want to go home, and those who have extremist ideas and are still loyal IS ideologues.

RFE/RLs Tajik Service contributed to this report.
Ukraine on January 16 accused Russia of being behind a cyberattack that disabled government websites, adding that Moscow has been waging an increasingly intense hybrid war against its neighbor.

On January 14, the Ukrainian government was targeted in an attack that forced many of its websites offline, included those of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Energy, and the Ministry of Civil Protection.

All evidence indicates that Russia is behind the cyberattack. Moscow continues to wage a hybrid war and is actively building up its forces in the information and cyberspaces, the Ministry of Digital Development said in a statement on January 16.

We've been warning for weeks and months, both publicly and privately, that cyberattacks could be part of a broad-based Russian effort to escalate in Ukraine."

The cyberattack comes as the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine looms after Moscow massed some 100,000 troops near the border with its neighbor and talks to resolve the tense standoff appear stalled.

A message left by the attackers in the January 14 mass web defacement told Ukrainians to be afraid and expect the worst.

U.S. tech giant Microsoft said in a blog post on January 15 that its security experts discovered malware on dozens of government computers in Ukraine that could render them unusable.

Although the malware disguised itself as ransomware, its true purpose was to be able to destroy data on the command of hackers, Microsoft said.

The Kremlin has denied any involvement.

But U.S. national-security adviser Jake Sullivan on January 16 voiced skepticism about Russia's denial, telling CBS, "We've been warning for weeks and months, both publicly and privately, that cyberattacks could be part of a broad-based Russian effort to escalate in Ukraine."

Sullivan added that the United States was working with Ukraine to beef up its cyberdefenses, while also coordinating with U.S. firms like Microsoft on ways to prevent future cyberattacks.

Sullivan added that U.S. experts had yet to positively confirm Russian responsibility for the cyberattack against Ukrainian targets.

However, he added, "It would not surprise me one bit if it ends up being attributed to Russia.

"If it turns out that Russia is pummeling Ukraine with cyberattacks and if that continues over the period ahead, we will work with our allies on the appropriate response," he said.

With reporting by Reuters and AFP
A language law came into force in Ukraine on January 16 that requires all national print media to be published in the countrys official language, Ukrainian, in a bid to push back against the use of the Russian language in the public sphere.

The law, adopted in 2019, does not ban publication in Russian but stipulates that a parallel Ukrainian version of equal scope and circulation must be published, too. Its not considered a profitable option for publishers in the shrinking market for print media.

The transition -- which comes amid an escalation of tensions between Ukraine and Russia -- is based on a controversial language law from 2019 that was passed just after former President Petro Poroshenko was voted out of office.

Poroshenko signed it just before current President Volodymyr Zelenskiy took office and a transitional period has been in place since then.

Supporters of the law say it will strengthen national identity. Critics argue that it could disenfranchise the countrys native Russian speakers.

The law stipulates that, starting in mid-May, news sites registered in Ukraine must at least offer an equivalent Ukrainian-language version of articles. It requires that the Ukrainian version must open first.

The Ukrainian language requirement will apply to regional media starting July 2024. Radio and television have already been under strict Ukrainian language quotas for years.

Ukraines State Language Law, which went into effect on July 16, declares that Ukrainian is "the only official state language" in the country.

Ukrainian is the native language of some 67 percent of Ukraine's almost 43.5 million population, while Russian is the native language of almost 30 percent. Russian is spoken mostly in urban areas. Almost 3 percent of Ukraine's inhabitants are native speakers of other languages.

Based on reporting by dpa, TASS, and RFE/RLs Ukrainian Service
The United States will in the coming days lay out its future steps in the standoff with Russia over the latter's troop buildup near the border with Ukraine, national-security adviser Jake Sullivan said on January 16, following a week of talks that failed to ease concerns of a possible conflict.

Sullivan, in an interview with CBS, said Washington was "ready either way."

"We're in close touch with our allies and partners, including the Ukrainians," Sullivan, who is the top adviser to President Joe Biden, said. "We're coordinating closely on next steps. And we'll have more to share in terms of the next steps into the diplomacy early next week.

"But the key point here is that we're ready either way. If Russia wants to move forward with diplomacy, we are absolutely ready to do that in lockstep with our allies and partners."

The United States says Russia has deployed up to 100,000 soldiers along the border with Ukraine and has accused Moscow of seeking to provoke a "pretext" for a possible offensive.

"If Russia wants to go down the path of invasion and escalation, we're ready for that, too, with a robust response," Sullivan said.

The United States and its NATO allies held talks this week with Russia focusing on the tensions over Ukraine and the European security architecture, but all three rounds of negotiations -- in Geneva, Brussels, and Vienna -- failed to make significant progress.

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on January 13 that Moscow saw no reason to hold a new round of security talks with the West.

On January 16, the Kremlin warned that the West and Russia are on "totally different tracks" despite the week of intense diplomacy.

"There are some understandings between us. But in general, in principle, we can now say that we are staying on different tracks, on totally different tracks. And this is not good. This is disturbing," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with CNN.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued a series of demands for security guarantees in Europe, including NATO not accepting new members like Ukraine and Georgia, and limits on allied deployments in Eastern European NATO members.

Western officials say Russias combative rhetoric and troop buildup near Ukraine is an attempt to pressure the United States and European allies to bend toward the Kremlin's wish list.

Moscow insists its military deployment is a response to what it sees as the growing presence of NATO in its sphere of influence and denies it plans to invade Ukraine.

With reporting by AFP, Reuters, and AP
Richmond, KY (40475)

Today

Windy with scattered thunderstorms. High 81F. Winds SW at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of rain 60%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms early, then cloudy skies after midnight. Potential for severe thunderstorms. Low around 55F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
The Angolan administration of President Joao Lourenco introduced technical regulations for its new diamond marketing policy in 2018 whose objective was to improve the attractiveness and competitiveness of the national diamond industry and grow outside investment into the southern African country.

Lucapa Diamond managing director Stephen Wetherall told Rough&Polisheds Mathew Nyaungwa on the side-lines of the Angola International Diamond Conference held in Saurimo last November that the biggest change was the additional sales channels miners can now use within the new Angolan regulations.

He also said that they are now getting the right price for their product due to the producer preferred buyer channel, tender or auction channel as well as the influx of more international buyers.

Under the previous regime, miners were not able to propose their buyers rather they were allocated an Angolan approved buyer.

Wetherall also, among other things, spoke about Lucapa's kimberlite exploration project in Angola.

Below are excerpts of the interview.

You entered into a diamond polishing deal with an unnamed diamantaire sometime last year. Are you now at liberty to reveal the identity of the company?

We have had a polished partnering agreement with Safdico from the beginning of this year at our Mothae mine where we sell rough into that partnership and the mine then benefits directly in a 50% share of the uplift post rough mine gate. We are now attracting polishing margins back to the Mothae mine. However, the relationship with Safdico didnt start at Mothae. Under the new Angolan marketing regulations, the miners can sell circa 60% of the production to their identified preferred buyers, so within that programme, SML identified Safdico as their preferred buyer for the Lulo production. SML has the very same mechanism of sharing in 50% of the polishing uplift. So, we have been cutting and polishing diamonds for almost two and half years already at SML, but the mechanism in Lesotho started at the beginning of this year.

How many carats have you supplied to Safdico since the start of the partnership?

The total number of carats sold into both the SML and Mothae polishing partnerships is more than 60,000 carats to date. Please note, that entire parcels are not polished, but select high-value diamonds, representing a significant portion of the value of each parcel and where the estimated uplift will be significant, are selected for polishing. Both mines have received significant value over and above the rough usual diamond value.





Lulo plant Image credit: Lucapa Diamond

What has been the impact of the new marketing regulation by the Angolan government on your operations?

I think the biggest change is the additional sales channels we can use within the new Angolan regulations - there is now a producer preferred buyer channel, there is a sight system channel and there is also a tender or auction channel. Better prices are also a product of more international buyers  many more of them who are now able to enter Angola - and who we can now engage with to get the right price for our product. Under the previous regime, we were not able to propose our buyers. We were allocated an Angolan approved buyer and there was only a small handful of them. So the new regulations have helped the Angolan diamond industry tremendously where the miners can now identify and bring those buyers who they believe are best suited to their product to enter and pay fair market prices.

Has this led to improved rough prices?

There has been a remarkable uplift in the rough prices achieved in Angola as a direct result of the regulation change, but the improvement in the market recently has also helped a lot this year. Certainly, our niche product is quite different, and we like to put it into different channels as not all of our product we believe is suitable for a tender. For instance, our preferred buyer channel allows SML to share in additional polished margins beyond the mine gate, so it is nice to have various options across our production.

What has been the response of buyers at the tenders organized by SODIAM?

If you mention the name Lulo across the world, the diamantaires know exactly where those diamonds have come from and how niche and high quality they are. They will usually travel far and wide to get to them. So attendance at the Sodiam tenders has been good. This is our third tender with SODIAM and we have always had the same very favourable feedback on our product. The quality of diamonds coming from Lulo  I do not want to say they are second to none  but they are certainly at the top of both the size and quality trees.





Drilling at L030 Image credit: Lucapa Diamond

How far have you gone with your Lulo kimberlite exploration?

Earlier in the programme here at the Angola International Diamond Conference, Dr Laureano, ENDIAMA Executive Director, said that both God and the devil had been at play in Angola in the diamond industry. God in the sense that there was an abundance of diamonds in Angola and the devil in the sense that the devil had covered most of it up with a cover, masking the sources.

While Lulo does not suffer from any significant cover over our anomalies, as we are much lower down and off the escarpment, God had endowed the Lulo concession with well over 500 anomalies which we are proving to be kimberlites. As a result, we needed to ensure the Lulo kimberlite exploration programmes followed a methodical approach, otherwise one could end up chasing your tail in this significantly well-endowed kimberlite environment.

So, we have done a tremendous amount of work on the ground over the years. From the 500 or so anomalies, we selected 120 of those anomalies, based on several criteria, for a considered drilling programme to identify kimberlite material. We confirmed 107 as kimberlite bodies, sent over 80 samples and drill core away for mineral chemistry analysis in Canada and South Africa and utilised all of those results and geological data, including industry peer review, to select 18 priority targets that we are now systematically bulk sampling as we speak.

Whilst being methodical, we also cannot be rigid in our approach, as we learn each day as more geological work is completed and data becomes available. So additional targets will no doubt be elevated and others will likely drop off as results and interpretation from our bulk sampling programme are completed.

We are at a very exciting stage with our kimberlite exploration, at the narrow end of the funnel if you will, but also in a very interesting and diamondiferous kimberlite area in the Canguige catchment, a tributary to the Cacuilo River. Results in time to come will hopefully lead us to what we are searching for and prove to be the economic source(s) of the magnificent Lulo alluvial diamonds we are recovering in our mining programme.





Camp airstrip, North cluster Image credit: Lucapa Diamond

Are you at liberty to divulge how much you have pumped into this project?

We have invested over $20 million already on the kimberlite exploration programme. It has been the main focus of Lucapas kimberlite effort in recent years. When the diamond industry dipped in 2019 we decided to put our other earlier-stage exploration programmes (Brooking and Orapa) on hold and focus on putting all available cash resources towards the more advanced Lulo kimberlite exploration programme, as we wanted that to continue in earnest.

Pleasingly, the diamond market has recovered materially post then and you would have seen from our recent announcements, we have re-engaged those earlier stage programmes. We have already identified 3 new drill targets at our Brooking exploration programme in Australia.

We too have continued to focus on expanding our production base and with the recent acquisition of a mine development project in Australia, Merlin, we are planning to bring our third diamond mine into production. That will be three diamond mines in 10 years, so you can see we like developing the ground we invest in and also keeping ourselves busy.

Someone said that if you venture into kimberlite mining in Angola, chances are high that you will recover low-quality diamonds. In the work that you are currently doing, are you seeing such indications?

I would think that they are speaking "in general" regarding Catoca and Luaxe type material, however, there is quite a wide array of production in Angola. Angola has several lesser-known kimberlites that have a much higher quality than the global average and have a significant number of alluvial resources with good quality material, the primary sources of which have not been discovered.

We are certainly not worried about such comments. Where we are, what lies above the ground is the best indication of what lies in the ground and what is above the ground on the Lulo concession are many large (heavy), quite exceptional, irregular shaped and jagged-edged diamonds showing no significant signs of transport. When one gets closer to the source, the overall quality is expected to dip only slightly, but not materially as the source will still host the large high-value diamonds as well and the grade will also increase slightly.

You said that you suspended your drilling in Orapa in 2019 following a dip in the diamond industry. Can you provide an update on this Botswana operation?

2019 was not a good year for the industry with downward trending diamond prices. This was hurting sentiment in the industry and investment into it. As such, we paused the Orapa and Brooking programmes. Where we are today, we have applied to extend the period of the Orapa lease and as soon as the lease extensions are received, we will send the drill rigs to the site to commence the drilling campaign. We are hopeful that comes through shortly.

Are you happy with the work that you are doing in Lesotho?

Yes, of course, we are. We built a solid mining operation there. When dealing with higher-value type II resource environments, they are generally much lower grade (carats per tonne) and it is therefore really mainly about increasing volumes. So, we are very happy that we have completed the capacity expansion from 1.1 million tonnes per annum to approximately 1.6 million tonnes per annum at Mothae  circa 45%.

Yes, the ramp-up post-commissioning could have been a little bit better through the year, however, we advised the ASX market that we were experiencing adverse weather conditions, crusher constraints and mass balance issues that slowed down or impacted our operations and ramp-up. So, it could have gone a little better, but that is behind us now and everything is set for a strong start to next year. It has been a really solid first full year back from the pandemic shutdown, which includes an expansion. We always hope and would have loved it to be a great year, but it has been a good year. The great year is coming in 2022!

How optimistic are you of making good progress in Australia?

We are extremely optimistic; Australia is a well-known large mining jurisdiction and is also where we hold our primary stock exchange listing on the ASX. As such, it is home for a large portion of our share register, so having a mining development project on our home turf so to speak is certainly very exciting for our investors. We see significant potential for Merlin, the approach we are going to take in developing it by using an innovative open pit and then vertical pit development. We see very good value and returns from that investment. What we are about to complete is our initial technical and economic assessment, or scoping study, and we will release this to the market soon. We will then complete a feasibility level study in 2022, put the funding solution or structure in place and then start to build. We see a solid mining operation there, and we are very excited about the prospects. When we build the mine, it will be the largest diamond mine in Australia following the closure of Rio Tintos Argyle diamond mine in 2020. We are extremely optimistic indeed.

Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished
Danvers, MA (01923)

Today

Mainly cloudy. A few peeks of sunshine possible. High 54F. Winds ESE at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy skies. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 43F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph.
In suburban North County, many think of Elfin Forest, Harmony Grove and Eden Valley as hidden jewels  country neighborhoods tucked between San Marcos and Escondido.

Though two of the quiet communities are just a few miles from busy business parks, subdivisions and freeways  not to mention Cal State San Marcos and the Sprinter line  residents see them as light years away and have adopted a motto of keepin it rural. This is where families have backyard chicken coops and horse trails, and where trees form a natural canopy over winding two-lane roads.

But development is looming in the green pastures and scrub-covered hills, with more than 1,500 homes planned or under construction. Not surprisingly, many neighbors arent happy about it.

They see these projects going up and are very scared that their way of life is done away with, said J.P Theberge, a member of the Elfin Forest/Harmony Grove Town Council.

Developers say the projects will provide high-quality housing desperately needed in San Diego County, where building restrictions are so tight  and land is so scarce  that many families cant find a place to buy without a grueling commute.

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Rather than build out in Valley Center and Descanso, this project is in the center of the job base, and at the heart of existing infrastructure, said Lance Waite, whose Integral Communities is seeking county approval for a 326-home project called Valiano that would be built on 238 acres in Eden Valley and Harmony Grove. There are very few locations in the county where single-family detached (homes) can be built  especially that close to jobs.

Construction has already begun on nearby Harmony Grove Village, where 742 homes are planned.

A FedEx delivery man arrives Tuesday at one of the new homes in Harmony Grove Village. (Peggy Peattie/San Diego Union-Tribune)

Valiano and another proposed development called Harmony Grove Village South are still mired in the county planning process. Both would require amendments to the county General Plan, because they call for far more homes than current zoning allows.

Neighbors, preparing for a fight, have begun raising money and hired two law firms to stave off the projects, Theberge said. When local residents get home from work, they comb through county documents for information, and  in between posting about flooded roads and pictures of lost roosters  share development updates on the community Facebook page.

Theberge said the community has already accepted Harmony Grove Village, which was designed so that denser homes are closer to the middle of the master-planned neighborhood and larger homes and lots are around the edges. As per the county, 230 building permits have been issued and 30 homes have been OKd for occupancy.

Valiano, however, is another story. The projects draft environmental impact report is out for public review, and the comment period ends Monday.

Waite said he has listened to neighbors, taken part in nearly three dozen meetings and reduced the size of the project from 470 homes to 326. Nearly a third of that land would be set aside as open or agricultural space, and another 70 acres would be preserved elsewhere as mitigation.

We are advocates for housing, Waite said. We take a lot of grief for it.

He noted that the development will provide trails and open space, and that some of the homes will be on parcels large enough to keep horses. The project requires no widening of two-lane Country Club Drive, although there would be improvements to the intersection of Country Club and Auto Park Way.

If all hurdles are cleared, heavy equipment could be on site as soon as spring or summer 2018, and construction would be done in phases over two to four years.

Elfin Forest resident JP Theberge walks in one of the pastoral areas eyed for possible development in Eden Valley. (Peggy Peattie/San Diego Union-Tribune)

Theberge, the town council member, said opponents of the project arent being driven by NIMBYism, but have real concerns about traffic and safety, particularly in an area prone to wildfires.

With no plan to widen the main roads into the area, they fear a big fire could force thousands, instead of hundreds, to evacuate along narrow two-lane access points.

The (2014) Cocos fire was mayhem here, people trying to get horses and animals out, he said. There will be fires, it is inevitable.

The communities knew they would have to accept some sort of development  and did so with Harmony Grove Village. That should be enough, he added.

We are not fighting inevitable development, Theberge said. We dont see it like that.

Harmony Grove Village South calls for 453 single- and multi-family residential units within 229 structures on 111 acres south of Harmony Grove Road near Country Club Drive.

That projects draft environmental impact report should be out in a few months.

Developer David Kovach wasnt available for an interview Friday, but said in an email to the Union-Tribune that the homes would a compelling contribution to the larger market place.

Jon Dummer  who grew up on eight acres in Harmony Grove, and later returned as an adult and built a home for his family  said he is devoted to fighting more subdivisions.

Dummer said hes been watching similar battles in North County, and donated to the fight against Lilac Hills, a massive development planned near Valley Center that was defeated in the November election.

We will all stand or fall as a group, Dummer said. If we can come together and support each other, I think we can pull it off.

County documents on the Valiano and Harmony Grove South projects are available on the countys website.

teri.figueroa@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @TeriFigueroaUT
"You cannot talk about Chinese in America without talking about Seattle."

That's what Al Young, a Chinese American historian in Seattle, says after recounting in brief the broad strokes of the Chinese experience in the U.S.

The Chinese New Year (also called the Lunar New Year) is bringing the world into the year of the monkey, but what of all the years that came before? The Chinese experience in the Northwest, not unlike elsewhere on the West Coast, where many Chinese immigrants wound up after the railroads were built, was a life of hard work, often for less money than any white worker might earn.

And, sometimes, it was an experience of great discrimination.

Most poignant of that discrimination, at least in Seattle, were the Chinese riots of 1886, when many Chinese were literally shipped out of the city.

That experience, the culmination of years of economic depression combined with Chinese workers getting hired to work for less money than white workers, led many of Seattle's Chinese to leave the city -- either by force or for fear of further persecution.

But it was hardly the end of the Chinese in Seattle.

Chinese laborers, most experienced in mining and building railroads, hired on with logging outfits to build rail lines into forests, with local coal companies in need of miners, and with fish packing companies to pack salmon and other fish.

It was Chinese labor that dug the ship canal connecting Lake Washington to Elliott Bay.

Discrimination was ever-present, however, and the Chinese experience, like that of other non-white immigrants, was never easy.

Chun Ching Hok is thought to be the first Chinese immigrant to Seattle, Young says.

He came to the city in 1860, and "had a really good command of the English language," he added.

Chin Gee Hee was also a prominent Chinese labor contractor in the late 19th century, bringing many Chinese laborers to the region and finding them work.

In fact, while many laborers immigrated between the 1850s and 1882, after that, most Chinese people who immigrated were business owners out of necessity to get around the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned almost all Chinese immigration, Young says.

His own grandfather joined with six other Chinese men and formed a company, solely so they could immigrate with their wives in 1894, he says.

And while many Chinese left Seattle in 1886, those who remained kept Chinatown alive and growing until the Exclusion Act was repealed, finally, in 1943.

Today, the International District and Seattle as a whole are home to many Chinese Americans, many -- like Young -- descended from the early immigrants who came to find work and build a better life for their families.

Information for this article came from the Young interview, the Museum of History and Industry and historylink.org.

Daniel DeMay covers Seattle culture, business and transportation for seattlepi.com. He can be reached at 206-448-8362 or danieldemay@seattlepi.com. Follow him on Twitter: @Daniel_DeMay.


Amid growing awareness of inequality and jobs that dont pay enough to cover child care and housing, California legislators are considering a radical proposal: Allow the state to negotiate wages, hours and work conditions for an entire industry.

Proponents in the state Legislature say one solution to inequality is to empower workers to negotiate through unions, but thats not happening in the fast food industry, where frequent turnover, inexperience and intimidation make it too difficult for workers to organize. Only 3% of fast food and counter workers belong to unions nationwide.

In Sacramento, a union-backed Democratic proposal called the Fast Food Accountability and Standards Recovery Act, or Fast Recovery Act, would establish a state-appointed council to enact industry-wide minimum standards for wages, working hours and work conditions. If passed by state lawmakers and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, the proposal would also hold corporate franchisors responsible for compliance, not just the local franchise owners.

California has the opportunity to really pave a path forward in a way that can work for both workers and employers, said David Madland, a senior adviser to the American Worker Project at the Center for American Progress, a liberal Washtington, D.C., think tank.

Legislation to approve the Fast Recovery Act, AB257, fell three votes short of passing the state Assembly last June with eight Democrats voting no and another 13 not voting. Newsom did not take a position.

Ariana Drehsler/CalMatters 2021

With strong support from major state labor groups, the issue is expected to resurface this year, even though the bills author, Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez, unexpectedly resigned from office the first week of January to transition into chief officer of the California Labor Federation, which supports the proposal.

One of the nations largest unions, Service Employees International Union, vowed to continue pushing the bill. It funds the Fight for $15 and a Union campaign, which organizes low-wage workers to advocate for better wages and work conditions, primarily in fast food.

Proponents say the Fast Recovery Act is needed to address low wages and poor conditions for workers. Californias fast food workers  a majority of whom are people of color, Latino and women  made an average $14.73 an hour in 2020, with Californias minimum wage rising to $15 this month for most businesses. Proponents also point out they are more vulnerable to COVID-19 and more likely to encounter injury, wage theft, customer assault and harassment.

A new report from the UCLA Labor Center documents dangerous conditions during the pandemic, with nearly a quarter of surveyed workers having contracted the virus. Less than half said their employers offered paid sick leave  mandated by state and federal law  to workers who got COVID-19.

The idea of negotiating wages and work conditions for an industry has been modeled for many years in Europe and around the world and is known as sectoral bargaining. Multiple studies of sectoral bargaining in other countries have found evidence that it reduces inequality, and tends to swell union ranks  with some notable exceptions. But a number of European studies find that sectoral bargaining can reduce profits or productivity for companies.

Under current American labor law, true sectoral bargaining is rare because multiple employers would have to voluntarily agree to come to the same negotiating table with workers, said Madland, the researcher at the Center for American Progress.

The California proposal would carve a state path by directing an 11-member council  composed of fast food workers, franchisees and franchisors, and state health, safety and labor officials  to do the negotiating. The governor and leaders in the state Senate and Assembly would appoint the members. Its rules would be revisited every three years and, unlike traditional collective bargaining, they would be enforced by state agencies. The laws would apply to every restaurant that belongs to a fast food chain with 30 or more franchises.

Its a highly controversial proposal with opposition from industry, Republicans and a divide among Democrats.

Before the bills failed Assembly vote in June, Assembly Member Ken Cooley, a moderate Democrat from Rancho Cordova, said the power given to an unelected council was an exceedingly problematic precedent that is undermining of the rule of law.

Business groups are also adamant the government stay out of private negotiations. They argue the free market adjusts wages where it is needed, citing the fact that many California fast food restaurants are now raising their wages to $17 or $18 per hour to attract workers amid a labor shortage. Republicans said the bill was an example of government overreach that would destroy minimum wage jobs and small businesses. Meanwhile, the coalition of organizations lobbying against the bill, which include 40 local and ethnic chambers of commerce, launched a website with the slogan Stop the Takeout Takeover.

Industry groups also questioned whether the new model is needed since California is known for the strictest labor standards in the country, such as being first to set the $15 minimum wage and protections against heat illness.

Throwing all of that out to this test case of a panel is absurd, said Matt Sutton, a senior vice president at the California Restaurant Association.

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Ariana Drehsler/CalMatters 2021

Sutton also said the Fast Recovery Acts extension of liability to corporate franchisors could raise costs and potentially drive fast food chains out of the state.

Gonzalez said she also believes her bill is not the best solution. She says the state government shouldnt be in the business of bargaining and she would rather maintain a private-sector approach to reducing income inequality. Unions, Gonzalez added, do a better job responding to workers needs worksite by worksite instead of one-size-fits-all state labor laws, which employers fight and the government enforces unevenly.

But given that businesses continue to fight union drives, Gonzalez said, and the U.S. Congress has stalled on federal labor law reform, the Fast Recovery Act is necessary to help workers and, she hopes, encourage more support for labor unions.

For now, though, Assemblymember Ash Kalra, a San Jose Democrat who chairs the Assembly labor and employment committee, said that where labor organizing campaigns have failed in low-wage industries, the government needs to act.

Imelda Arroyo agrees. A McDonalds worker who helped organize two-week walkouts during the pandemic, with support from Fight for $15, she earns $15.50 per hour at a McDonalds in Oakland. She has little left for her 7-year-old daughter after paying $1,950 for rent.

The single mother feels she deserves better wages, health insurance, paid sick leave, and a place where we can explain our concerns before having to resort to strikes.

Even though fast food workers like me dont have a union, Arroyo said, at least we are hoping to get something like AB257.

Jackie Botts and Jesse Bedayn write for for CalMatters a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.
The California Nurses Association didnt just endorse Gavin Newsom for governor in 2018; the powerful union drove a giant red bus around the state with Newsoms face plastered on the side of it.

Written underneath: Nurses Trust Newsom. He shares our values and fights for our patients.

Now, though, the nurses union is ready to throw Newsom under the bus.

Joe Garofoli / The Chronicle 2018

Six months before Newsom appears on the primary ballot seeking re-election, a top nurses union organizer just called him a flip-flopper. Another top union leader told me that Newsom is at war with their top priority.

Why? Its all about single-payer health care  the nurses foundational issue. A bill creating a single-payer system, AB1400, is moving through the Legislature after getting delayed last year, and so far the governor has been uncharacteristically silent about it.

Thats a change. Newsom earned the unions endorsement largely because he openly and loudly  as only he can  supported single payer. The nurses were thrilled, as not a lot of governors had made such a pledge, let alone one leading the worlds fifth-largest economy. If California were to adopt single payer, the rest of the country will follow, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, its leading national advocate, predicted back in 2017.

Not only did the nurses endorsement bolster Newsoms credibility among California progressives, but his stance set him apart from his top 2018 Democratic rival, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who had accused Newsom of selling snake oil for supporting single payer without identifying a funding source.

Newsom fired back, to the nurses delight.

Im tired of politicians saying they support single payer but that its too soon, too expensive or someone elses problem, Newsom tweeted in September 2017.

But last week, union leaders said Newsom did just that.

When Newsom rolled out his state budget, it included a plan to extend health benefits to low-income undocumented residents of all ages  long a desire of progressives. Newsom touted that California would be the first state in the country to achieve universal access to health coverage.

Universal access to coverage is great, the nurses agreed, and the proposal is expected to fly through the Democratic supermajority in the Legislature. Advocates point out, however, that access to health care is not a single-payer health care system that covers every Californian. A single-payer system would include no co-payments, and no health insurance companies. (But yes, higher taxes.)

What about single payer?

The ideal system is a single-payer system, Newsom responded during his budget rollout. In the meantime, Im doing what I said I was going to do, and thats advance the cause of universal health care.

But thats not what Newsom promised, nurses union organizer Alyssa Kang told single-payer activists on a conference call last week.

So we want to be absolutely clear: This is a flip-flop from a governor who said  Im tired of politicians saying they support single payer but that its too soon, too expensive or someone elses problem, Kang said. This is absolutely unacceptable, and he cannot be allowed to have it both ways.

Stephanie Roberson, the government relations director for the California Nurses Association, told me she cant even put into words the deep disappointment.

This is this is a shot across the bow to single payer, in my opinion, Roberson said. He is at war with single payer.

Roberson emphasized that the union is 200 percent in support of Newsoms proposal to extend health insurance to every Californian. But she also said it helps him politically delay addressing single payer.

It is cover for him to not cash in on his campaign promise, Roberson said. It is an about-face to the movement.

A brief reminder about the nurses union. You dont want to be their adversary. Ask former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and wannabe governor and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman.

When few others would take on the popular movie action star on early in his first term, the nurses union dogged Schwarzenegger with 107 demonstrations within a year, kneecapping his sky-high approval rating. Similarly, they torpedoed Whitmans 2010 gubernatorial campaign. Nurses ridiculed the billionaire by following her around California with a pearl-draped actress dressed as Queen Meg riding in a horse-drawn chariot.

Of course, those two were Republicans, and Democrat Newsom has been a longtime friend and partner of the nurses. Advocates know that the single-payer movement needs Newsoms support to make this transformative change happen, because there is a long, arduous legislative and political slog ahead.

Not only does AB1400 have to make it through the Legislature, but so does a companion piece of legislation, ACA11, which would create the funding mechanism to generate the billions in new taxes to finance the new system  which, as everybody including the advocates know, is what gives voters pause.

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Single-payer opponents are already lining up. The California Chamber of Commerce put single payer on its annual job killer legislation list before January was half over. One GOP consultant told me that loathing of single payer will help Republican House candidates facing tough re-election campaigns this fall get their voters out  even though it is a state issue.

Prepare for many months of single-payer sparring. Assembly Member Ash Kalra, D-San Jose, the bills author, told me that the tax measure to fund single payer probably wouldnt be before voters until November 2024, which Democrats are hoping would be a friendlier electorate in a presidential election year.

Hes ready. Insiders tell me that Kalra gets high marks for patiently playing the long game here.

He spent months courting Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Los Angeles, who drew the nurses ire in 2017 when he tabled a previous attempt at single payer, calling it wholly incomplete. Kalra also spent time with Assembly Member Jim Wood, D-Healdsburg. One early victory: The Wood-chaired Assembly Health Committee passed the measure last week. This week, it goes before the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

Newsoms backing could smooth an arduous legislative path. The challenge for single-payer advocates: What political leverage do they have over a governor who appears likely to coast to re-election? Not only does Newsom not have a big-name Republican opponent yet, he doesnt have a Democrat challenger whom single-payers advocates could rally behind.

Only one thing could get Newsom to announce his support of AB1400: if the Legislature passes it and puts it on his desk.

Ultimately, single-payer health care is going to happen because of a movement, not because of an individual  whether that person is an Assembly member or a governor, Kalra told me. The people are going to have to demand it.

Kalra chooses his words carefully. He knows Newsoms support is essential.

I dont benefit, and the movement and this bill and what Im trying to do doesnt benefit by condemning other people, Kalra said. I believe that if we get legislation through the Legislature, and bring it before the governor, thatll be his moment to look in the mirror and decide why he serves. I do that every day.

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli
As a sushi chef and restaurant owner whos a former cancer researcher, Randy Musterer doesnt take the issue of vaccines lightly. But in the midst of the omicron surge, he said he has to balance health concerns like mandating the shots with having enough people to keep his doors open.

Musterer owns Sushi Confidential restaurants in Campbell and San Jose, and throughout the pandemic he has strongly encouraged his employees to get vaccinated and boosted, but he hasnt made it a requirement to work there.

We havent been forcing it, Musterer said of requiring vaccines and boosters.

Yet, hes already had to flirt with temporarily closing his doors during the omicron surge. Theres also the concern that mandating the shots could make some current employees refuse and decide to work for one of the dozens of short-staffed restaurants and bars that dont require vaccination as part of employment.

Instead of a requirement, Musterer said he handed out bonuses to employees who got the shots the first time around and said he might again hand out $50 or $100 to encourage boosters.

From an operations perspective, $100 would be well spent versus having to close our operations for a couple days, he said.

Like Musterer, more and more employers are asking a variation of the question: To require the boost, or not to require boost? While a third shot of a COVID-19 vaccine offers strong protection against severe illness and death, some business owners are stopping short of mandating boosters, partly out of that fear of losing more employees in an already tight labor market.

Weve been keeping staff 10 or 12 hours to work multiple shifts in order to stay open, Musterer said, underscoring the difficult dynamics of the moment.

But not requiring the shots adds another degree of difficulty for employers as it runs the risk that unvaccinated workers will become sick and be out for long periods of time, as well as potentially spreading the virus at work, said Carolyn Rashby of the law firm Covington & Burling LLP.

The risk of requiring it is then you have to deal with medical accommodation and religious accommodations, along with California wage and hour law that requires paid time off to get and potentially recover from the side effects of the shots, Rashby said.

Concerns over staffing have not roiled the tech industry in the same way, partly because of remote work options, but businesses in that industry are still grappling with the uncertainty that the highly infectious variant has created when it comes to in-person work and where vaccines fit into that.

Foster City cybersecurity company Exabeam had been allowing vaccinated employees to voluntarily return to its offices as part of a pilot program. The company switched course and closed them again for at least the first two weeks of 2022 because of the omicron surge, said Gianna Driver, the companys chief Human resources officer.

We want the dust to settle from the holidays before letting people back into offices, she said of the decision.

Driver said its still uncertain when offices will reopen, but those who want to show up in person again will have to show proof they received a booster in the past six months. She said the policy for the foreseeable future will be to require the shots for in-person work in accordance with government guidance on who is eligible.

The company previously considered alternatives like an on-site testing truck, but decided against it when employees said they werent comfortable with the idea. We realized that could alienate a large portion of our vaccinated population, Driver said.

Meta, which owns Facebook, has, for months, required anyone coming into its U.S. offices to be vaccinated. That requirement will extend to booster shots starting March 28 for anyone who is eligible, spokesperson Tracy Clayton said in an email. And on Saturday, it was reported that Apple will require all employees to provide proof of a COVID-19 booster.

Many other companies in tech and finance announced vaccine requirements months ago, but have yet to implement a booster requirement, according to a survey of more than 3,100 U.S. employees this month. The survey was run by Blind, an app that lets employees talk about their companies anonymously and verifies where people work through their company email accounts.

The survey found that only about a quarter of those who responded said their employer had implemented a booster requirement, counting Bloomberg, Broadcom, Credit Karma and Goldman Sachs among the companies that had instituted the mandates.

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On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Biden administration rule that would have required vaccines or testing for millions of employees at private companies, leaving it mostly up to companies whether to require vaccines and boosters.

Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle

For business owners who are requiring vaccines, that is not the end of the problem, with more headaches raised by breakthrough infections and shifting state and federal rules on quarantine time and testing.

Understanding the rules has forced business owners such as Eric Nielsen, who owns the San Jose cocktail bar 55 South and is a co-owner of SP2 bar and restaurant, to become armchair attorneys and epidemiologists.

You know its bad when you own restaurants and bars and youre reading medical white papers, he said.

Nielsen said hes been requiring employees to get vaccinated for months and most are boosted already. But when employees do get sick, changing CDC rules on quarantine times have meant he has scrambled to understand whether and when he can force people to stay home, especially because the dozens of at-home tests he bought months ago are used up and getting more of them is almost impossible.

Interpreting the frequently changing rules from various authorities has made it feel like there is no end in sight, Nielsen said.

Theres not a significant plan, and if there is they dont speak to it, he said of communication from health authorities. Every week, every month, were wading through this instead of swimming towards shore.

Chase DiFeliciantonio is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: chase.difeliciantonio@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ChaseDiFelice
Kuinini Manumua of San Francisco spent a sleepless night after learning Friday evening that a giant offshore volcanic eruption threatened to send waves of water across Tonga, where her grandparents live. On Saturday she went to lift weights.

I came to the gym to get my mind off it, said the 21-year-old business student at San Francisco State who represented Tonga in the 2021 summer Olympics. Im just really scared. Im just praying for everyone on Tonga right now.

The Bay Area is home to the largest number of expatriate Tongans and Tongan Americans in the state, with roughly 13,000 in San Mateo County.

With internet access and phone service to Tonga still cut off on Saturday evening, many in the community nevertheless remained glued to social media, hoping to learn something. Many watched the terrifying satellite footage that captured the massive volcanic explosion from above, as well as amateur footage in which the sound of the exploding volcanos tremendous boom sent beachgoers running before web connections vanished.

The ensuing silence has left thousands of Bay Area Tongans cut off from their families and friends, worried. Tonga, a Southern Pacific archipelago of 36 islands inhabited by about 104,000 people  and many more islands that are uninhabited  sits closer to New Zealand than to Hawaii.

Its really sad, said Manumuas mother, Manu Manumua, who has many relatives in Tonga, where a tsunami is believed to have hit the main island of Tongatapu. I cannot reach them and see the situation.

Manu Manumua was at home with her husband and three children in San Francisco Friday evening when they learned of the volcano on Facebook. Her mother, 79, and dad, in his 80s, have two adopted children. Her brother and his wife have five children.

But most live on the island of Vavau, not the main island, giving the Manumuas hope that they are OK.

A cousin, Tina Puafisi, and her husband live in Millbrae. They have family on Tongas main island  including Puafisis brother, his family and her daughter  and on the nations Haapai group of islands.

Fighting tears, Puafisi said shed heard that the volcano erupted between the two locations.

Im just so scared, she said.

Puafisi and her husband had been talking with family members by phone shortly before the volcano blew, just chatting about everyday things. Puafisi asked what her family was up to, and they said there had been a tsunami warning and they were packing for higher ground. But they said those warnings happened often, and they werent too worried.

That was the last communication Puafisi had with her family.

How to help A Go Fund Me fundraiser has been set up for Tongan relief by Pita Taufatofua, the flag bearer for Tonga in the 2016 Olympics. Those wishing to donate can contribute here. See More Collapse

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Bishop Nasili Puamau heads a congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Millbrae, where about 100 Tongan Americans regularly worship on Sundays.

Its been devastating, Puamau said of the fear and uncertainty rippling through the community, including in his own house. The bishop also has family in Tonga: in-laws, cousins, aunts and uncles.

He described Tonga as having many areas at sea level, but also a lot of higher ground, and he hopes everyone was able to make it there.

Theres a saying in Tongan: When one person suffers, everyone feels it, said Puamau, who said he has been speaking with other church leaders around the Bay.

We are all praying and having trouble sleeping, he said.

Although everyone Tongan in the Bay Area has connections to the islands, he said, right now, theres no connection. So were all just waiting.

Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov
With Joan Didions death in late December, the world lost a literary giant. Grief poured out across the country and in Northern California over her passing. As a fellow Sacramento-area native hoping to follow in her footsteps, I have been moved by the tributes made to Didion.

But the one place where the remembrance has been noticeably absent is in her own hometown of Sacramento. Without permanent steps, I fear for what will become of this native daughters local legacy.

Growing up in nearby Folsom, Id heard of Didion but never in connection to her  our  hometown. During my senior year of high school, the French fashion house Celine selected her to model a pair of $430 sunglasses. In the ad, with her outsized frames and all-black ensemble, Didion looked like a quintessential New Yorker, the kind of person I was hoping to emulate in college.

The following year, after Id fled east, I read Rock of Ages, a short piece Didion wrote about visiting Alcatraz Island after the prison closed. I was stunned by the raw connection she felt to the land. She wrote about Northern California with such nostalgia, the kind of longing you can only feel after youve left a place.

I was devastated by the last line of the essay, I could tell you that I came back (to Los Angeles, where she was living at the time) because I had promises to keep, but maybe it was because no one asked me to stay.

As I read the rest of Slouching Towards Bethlehem, I realized that Didions cosmopolitan identity could not be divorced from her Sacramento upbringing. While she was waiting to become an icon, Didion had been and still was, in some ways, the girl who went to C.K. McClatchy Senior High, who got ice cream at Vics after school and waited for the State Fair to come back every year.

Perhaps for this reason, Didion chose to include her McClatchy yearbook in her California Hall of Fame display case. The exhibit that highlighted her has since closed, making room for new classes of inductees, including Lucille Ball  who has two statues and an entire museum devoted to her in her hometown of Jamestown, N.Y.

No such fanfare exists for Didion in Sacramento, only an edificial footnote: The Didion is currently on the market for $9.3 million and features 12 lofts and a gluten-free and vegan ice cream and doughnut shop on the bottom floor.

It hardly sums up the legacy of a woman who bemoaned the featureless new buildings that were beginning to fill her Sacramento, which she described as a rich farm town, filled with generations of interlocking families who visited their great-aunts on Sundays.

The Didion building would be blasphemous were it not for the mural by Maren Conrad, depicting Julian Wassers iconic photograph of Didion for Time magazine, between the bakery and the entrance to the residences.

Its fitting that Conrad is also responsible for the citys much larger portrait of Saoirse Ronan in Lady Bird. In the film, a quote from Didion serves as the epigraph: Anybody who talks about California hedonism has never spent a Christmas in Sacramento.

Greta Gerwig, the films Sacramento-born writer and director, has been outspoken about her admiration for Didion, telling Vanity Fair that discovering her writing was as shattering as if Id grown up in Dublin and suddenly read James Joyce.

Gerwig is right to evoke Joyce here, as Didion is to Sacramento what the Irish writer is to Dublin. But, unlike, Sacramento, the city of Dublin has chosen to celebrate Joyce.

There is a statue of Joyce in their bustling city center, a museum devoted to his literary legacy and a celebration every June 16 in honor of his masterpiece, Ulysses. Essentially, Dublin has monetized its Joyce connection, attracting thousands of tourists each year, myself included.

Closer to home, Monterey has integrated John Steinbeck into its landscape with an official Steinbeck Itinerary for visitors, which includes trips to the Steinbeck House in nearby Salinas and sites from his novels.

A Didion Itinerary could include trips to the Sacramento River, which inspired her first novel, and the old Governors Mansion, which Didion called my favorite house in the world. Both Dublin and Monterey could be a model for Sacramento as it goes about finding a meaningfully way to honor her, raising funds for a Didion Center.

This is something I hope will be top of mind for local officials, especially Gov. Gavin Newsom, who released an official statement that reads in part, She was peerless in her capacity to write about life, loss, love and society  easily the best living writer in California. Her ability to put the tapestry of California and the times into words made her a treasure for her generation and generations to come.

As a 24-year-old getting her masters degree in nonfiction writing, I am proof of Didions generational impact. She made me want to become a writer. Didions also the reason I started telling people at my New York college that I was from Sacramento. She makes a girl proud to be from there.

It is too late for us to honor Didion while she is still living. I only hope that, in the wake of her death, the city will finally recognize the roots of this extraordinary woman.

Jamie Jordan is a master of fine arts candidate at Sarah Lawrence College.
If California is ever going to achieve true equity, the state must require parents to give away their children.

Todays Californians often hold up equity  the idea of a just society completely free from bias  as our greatest value. Gov. Gavin Newsom says he makes decisions through an equity lens. Institutions from dance ensembles to tech companies have publicly pledged themselves to equity, along with diversity and inclusion.

But their promises of newly equitable systems are no match for the power of parents.

Fathers and mothers with greater wealth, education or other resources are more likely to transfer these advantages to their children, compounding privilege over generations. As a result, children of less advantaged parents face an uphill struggle, social mobility has stalled and democracy has been corrupted. More Californians are giving up on the dream; a recent Public Policy Institute of California poll found declining belief in the notion that you can get ahead through hard work.

My solution is simple, and while we wait for the legislation to pass, we can act now: The rich should give their children to the poor, and the poor should give their children to the rich. Homeowners might swap children with their homeless neighbors.

Now, I recognize that some naysayers, hopelessly attached to their privilege, will dismiss such a policy as ghastly, even totalitarian. But my proposal is quite modest, a fusion of traditional philosophy and todays most common political obsessions.

In his Republic, Plato adopted Socrates sage advice  that children be possessed in common, so that no parent will know his own offspring or any child his parents  in order to defeat nepotism, prevent the amassing of great fortunes and create citizens loyal not to their sons but to society. To replace parents, Plato offered now-familiar ideas, from compulsory education to  a millennia before Newsoms conception-to-college agenda  health regimes for pregnant women and children age 5 and younger.

Today, universal orphanhood aligns with powerful social trends that point to less interest in family. Californians are slower to marry and are having fewer children  our states birth rate is at an all-time low.

Surveys also suggest many of us are breaking off ties with family members who dont share our politics. But my proposal would be unifying, fitting hand-in-glove with the most cherished policies of progressives and Trumpians alike.

The lefts introduction of anti-racism and gender identity in schools faces a bitter backlash from parents. Ending parenthood would end the backlash, helping dismantle white supremacy and outdated gender norms.

My proposal also would give Democrats the opportunity to build a new pillar of the social democracy they seek  a system for raising children, called Foster Care for All. Under this system, Democrats could stop pretending that they will enact universal preschool or child care, which theyve promised  and failed to deliver  for a generation.

Over on the right, youll see people posing as parent defenders. But Republicans are happy to jettison fathers and mothers to pursue their greatest passions, like violating migrant rights. Once youve gone so far as to separate immigrants from their children and put the kids in border concentration camps, its only a short walk to a wholesale separation of all Americans from their progeny.

Then theres the pro-lifers. The idea of universal orphanhood dovetails nicely with the conservative campaign to end Roe v. Wade and all abortion rights. In fact, a suggestion from Justice Amy Coney Barrett, in a recent Supreme Court hearing on a case that could overturn Roe, inspired me to write this column. She posited that abortion rights are no longer necessary because all 50 states now have safe haven laws that allow women to turn their babies over to a fire or police department after birth.

My proposal would merely make mandatory such handovers of babies to the state.

Perhaps such coercion sounds dystopian. But just imagine the solidarity that universal orphanhood would create. Wouldnt children, raised in one system, find it easier to collaborate on climate change and other global problems?

Now, I dont expect universal support for universal orphanhood. A few contrarians, lost in the empty chasm between American extremes, might object to this rational proposal on emotional grounds. They might argue that pursuing your own conception of family is fundamental to freedom. Or that our differences and biases, for all the damage they can do, also give human life much of its meaning.

They also may suggest that people dont really want to start or finish at the same point in life. They may even say that what we really desire is what the title orphan of the musical Annie insisted upon: I didnt want to be just another orphan, Mr. Warbucks. I wanted to believe I was special.

But you shouldnt pay those critics any mind. Because they just cant see how our relentless pursuit of equity might birth a brave new world.

Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zocalo Public Square.
It was while sitting in a jail cell in Birmingham, Ala., that Martin Luther King Jr. wrote one of the more searing texts of the civil rights era.

What started as scribbles in the margins of a smuggled-in newspaper in response to white clergymen condemning civil rights protests, Kings Letter from Birmingham Jail warned that the great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is the white moderate.

This was true in August 1963. It remains true in January 2022, but with a 21st century twist.

America is a lot more diverse than it was in the 1960s and the makeup of those stumbling, paternalistic moderates King excoriated for being more devoted to order than justice, and for living by the myth of time has expanded beyond just white people.

We see this in San Francisco, where Mayor London Breed recently dusted off antiquated policing tactics in her call for more surveillance and arrests in the Tenderloin.

Her answer to entrenched crises of homelessness, drug addiction and poverty surprised many. As Ive written before, it shouldnt have. Breed is and has always been a moderate. Her brief alignment with the progressive voices who called for down-to-the-studs criminal justice reform in 2020 doesnt change that fact.

Breeds Tenderloin strategy has been welcomed by her fellow moderates, who also embrace a conservative fallacy: that the pandemic-related crime that increased everywhere, especially in Republican-voting counties, is because of criminal justice reform policies and police defunding that never happened.

Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle 2021

This flawed narrative is baked into the Republican and moderate-led recall against a district attorney who refocused his offices prosecutorial resources on serious crimes instead of quality-of-life offenses.

Unlike the Southern moderates to whom King addressed his letter, the jailed minister wrote that he could not commend police for keeping order by trampling the rights and bodies of Birminghams Black residents. (King wrote that Birmingham police had arrested him for parading without a permit.)

He could have been writing about San Francisco, a city where Black people are 5% of the residential population and nearly 50% of the jail population.

Outside of San Francisco, weve seen what one or two moderates can do to undermine progressive efforts.

Lets start with voting rights, an issue King dedicated his life to addressing. His peaceful protests, often met with extreme police violence, were instrumental in getting President Lyndon Johnson to sign into law in 1965 the Voting Rights Act, which abolished literacy tests and poll taxes designed to disenfranchise Black voters.

MPI/Getty Images 1966

Today, the right is coordinating attacks against Kings work, fueled by former President Donald Trumps lies over voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

One-third of the restrictive voting laws passed in America over the past decade were adopted in conservative state legislatures last year, according to a December report by the Brennan Center, a nonprofit law and public policy institute.

Democrats are trying to stem the tide. With the 2022 midterms this fall setting up a possible congressional power shift, Democrats are pushing for sweeping federal changes to voting laws. Which is also why theyre desperately pushing to change a Senate rule on filibusters to try to enact a pair of voting rights bills.

Standing in their way are a couple of moderate Democrats: West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who both refused to support the filibuster changes, which Republicans are also against.

It wasnt only progress around criminal justice and voting rights that King criticized moderates for blocking in his Letter from Birmingham Jail. He also wrote about how their inaction hurts efforts to address economic injustice.

King saw this happen to his Poor Peoples Campaign, a movement to bring political attention to the financial plight of Americas poor through civil disobedience. He was murdered in 1968 while this movement was in its infancy, but vestiges of the campaign show up in Bidens Build Back Better plan.

The 10-year, $2 trillion social spending bill would have helped struggling families make ends meet, including by providing them with paid sick leave, subsidized child care and affordable housing. Kings Poor Peoples Campaign also asked the federal government prioritize the creation of low-income housing.

But when Republicans refused to cross party lines to vote for Bidens plan, the bill was stuck on a 50-50 split in the Senate for months. And the person who ultimately got to decide its fate was Manchin.

Alex Wong/Getty Images 2021

Manchin told news media about his disdain for America moving towards an entitlement mentality in September. Three months later, he made it known he wouldnt support the bills most recent iteration, thus dashing hopes Democrats had of passing it.

America has changed a lot since King wrote his letter in Birmingham, yet the descriptions he applied to moderates still ring true: They preach social change, but hinder radical approaches to attain it. They choose comfort over discomfort, and often uphold racist systems while masquerading behind a facade of good intentions.

King chastised himself for thinking moderates would see the world his way. Maybe I was too optimistic, he wrote.

Almost 60 years later, maybe progressives still are.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Justin Phillips appears Sundays. Email: jphillips@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JustMrPhillips
A cat stolen from a vehicle in San Francisco during the Christmas season was found and safely returned to her owners over the weekend.

Cesar Granados, who owns the 1-year-old tabby with his wife, Karla Cardoso, said a Good Samaritan found the feline on the citys streets and called them Friday evening while they were having dinner at their home in Southern California.

As soon as they confirmed their cats identity, they hit the road and arrived in San Francisco early Saturday for the emotional reunion with their cat.

The moment I received my beloved cat, I was bending over my knees because I could not hold in the emotions, Granados told The Chronicle on Sunday.

Were so grateful, he added.

The couples cat, Minnelusa, was stolen from their car on Dec. 20 in a smash-and-grab burglary, a longtime problem in the city that has escalated in the past few years.

On a trip to San Francisco last month, Granados and Cardoso parked in a city garage in the Cow Hollow neighborhood to buy some refreshments nearby and left their cat in her carrier, covered by a blanket in the back seat.

When they returned to their car, they found a broken window and Minnelusa missing. They filed a police report, placed about 200 laminated missing cat posters around the city, and visited countless animal shelters hoping to find her, they said.

On Friday, Minnelusa was found uninjured and a little bit overweight since they last saw her, Granados said. I think she ate too much, he said.

He said the cats strong personality ... is in full swing right now and theyre back to doing the same activities she always loved, like walks on her leash.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

Granados said he was grateful for all the people who reached out to him in support and helped try to find his cat.

I definitely believe that theres really good people out there, and I remain in love with the city, he said. Were definitely coming back to meet all the good friends we have made throughout the search.

Jessica Flores is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jessica.flores@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jesssmflores
Saturday's tsunami advisory for the West Coast, including coastal California and parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, was no false alarm as high waves hit the coastline after a large underwater volcanic eruption near Tonga on Friday night.

Dave Snider, the tsunami warning coordinator for the National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska, said it was very unusual for a volcanic eruption to affect an entire ocean basin, and the spectacle was both "humbling and scary."

Coastal communities around the Bay Area warned people to stay away from beaches, and the Berkeley Fire Department issued an evacuation order for the citys Marina district that wasn't lifted until nearly 5 p.m.

In San Francisco, the fire department reported three water rescues were needed, including one off Ocean Beach, where waves were so strong a surfer's board broke. With the help of U.S. Coast Guard helicopter, a rescue boat and the fire department's rescue swimmers, the man was brought to safety.

Off San Gregorio State Beach in San Mateo County, two men were reported to be drowning in the ocean. Once on scene, a sheriff's deputy spotted a man waving around the corner of a cliff. The man was knee-deep in the ocean and attempting to pull another man, who was face down and appeared to be unconscious, out of the water. According to a sheriff's department spokesperson, the deputy entered the water and assisted in pulling the man in distress out of the water. He was transported to a local hospital for treatment and evaluation.

Videos show large waves from the tsunami crashing into the Bay Area and surrounding areas. Savannah Peterson watched in shock as the water rose several feet in a matter of minutes in front of her oceanfront house in Pacifica, splashing into her patio and crashing over a walking man in the process.

It came up so fast, and a few minutes after that it was down again. It was nuts to see that happen so quickly, she said. Ive never had water come all the way up to my front door, and today it did.

Meanwhile, more video from Santa Cruz Harbor shows a parking lot has flooded, apparently dislodging several vehicles.

Elsewhere in Santa Cruz, waves are slamming the beachfront, sweeping up debris and garbage cans.

The Marin County Sheriffs Office posted a photo of a severely damaged dock in Richardson Bay.

Videos posted to Twitter by Santa Cruz-based photographer Tim Cattera show a surge of water flooding the Santa Cruz Harbor, as well as some portions of land surrounding the marina.

The harbor issued a statement saying access to the docks has been restricted to the public for safety purposes.

The volcanic eruption cut the internet to Tonga, leaving friends and family members around the world anxiously trying to get in touch to figure out if there were any injuries. Even government websites and other official sources remained without updates on Sunday.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said there had not yet been any official reports of injuries or deaths in Tonga, but cautioned that authorities hadn't yet made contact with some coastal areas and smaller islands. She said there had been significant damage to boats and shops along the Tongan coastline. The capital, Nuku'alofa, was covered in a thick film of volcanic dust, Ardern said, contaminating water supplies and making fresh water a vital need.

Ardern said New Zealand was unable to send a surveillance flight over Tonga on Sunday because the ash cloud was 63,000 feet high but they hoped to try again on Monday, followed by supply planes and navy ships.

The Associated Press and Bay City News contributed to this report.
For the fifth consecutive year, Hawaiis population has decreased, according to the United States Census Bureaus annual population estimates.



From July 2020 to July 2021, Hawaiis population decreased from 1,451,911 residents to 1,441,553 residents. Its a decline in population of 10,358 residents or .7%.

Hawaii ranks fourth in the nation for highest population decline. The top three, including the District of Columbia, were Illinois at .9%, New York at 1.6%, and D.C ranking No. 1 at 2.9%.

The states population decline breaks a long pattern of positive growth. Prior to 2017, the last negative change in population was in 1999, and before that, 1963.

Last year, the Census Bureau also released its 2020 Census population results for Hawaii, which is counted only once per decade. Hawaii showed a 7% population increase from 2010 to 2020, however, the annual growth rate was the slowest the state had ever recorded. It grew at half the rate compared to 2000 and 2010.

Hawaiis high cost of living has historically been a top reason for many residents to move away, but the pandemic increased economic hardship as unemployment rates went up.

In March 2020, Hawaii had an unemployment rate of 2.1% with 13,993 unemployed, but by April of that year, it had skyrocketed to 21.9% with 139,635 unemployed, according to Hawaiis Department of Labor. The unemployment rate has since dropped significantly, but was last recorded at 6.4%, or 41,113 unemployed, in October 2021.

The majority of the residents moving out of state are ages 18 to 34 and have a bachelors degree or more.

It is not the higher wages, per se, that are encouraging people to move to the mainland, but the types of jobs available on the mainland instead, writes the Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism in a new report focused on Hawaii-born residents moving to the continental U.S.

Honolulu County residents on the island of Oahu are more likely to move away than other counties, and its to other states in the U.S., according to a 2019 DBEDT report.

California, Nevada, Texas and Washington were the top destinations.
In many ways, travel in 2021 was more challenging than it was in 2020. While demand for travel returned, sufficient hospitality staffing often did not, leading to long waits at airports, hotel check-in desks and restaurants.

The eye-catching travel deals seen in 2020 mostly faded away, making way for price increases, like soaring rental car prices. Despite social distancing recommendations, travelers often found themselves in bigger crowds than ever. Mobs clamoring around airline customer service counters to rebook canceled flights left people barely six inches apart  let alone six feet.

This year might bring similar challenges for travelers, but heres a good way to skirt most of them: Travel during shoulder season.

The definition of shoulder season varies by destination, but it typically means the period of time between a regions peak season and offseason. This timespan can last months or just weeks. For instance, if a places peak season is summer and its offseason is winter, then the shoulder season would be spring and fall. Alternatively, a place may experience peak travel during a holiday weekend, but demand will drop off the weekend before or after  these times can also be considered shoulder season.

Here are five reasons why shoulder season is the best time to travel, especially during the pandemic.

1. LOWER PRICES THAN PEAK

Airfares averaged 23% cheaper when booked for shoulder season versus peak season travel. Thats according to a NerdWallet analysis conducted in December 2021 of more than 100 airfares taken from the most popular routes in the U.S. across eight major airlines.

The same routes were compared for flights booked for peak versus shoulder season days, where peak season flights were those booked for the Monday before or after a major holiday. In contrast, the shoulder season flights were those taken two weeks before or after that date.

The difference was starkest around Christmas: Flights averaged 50% cheaper when booked for Monday, Jan. 10 versus Monday, Dec. 27.

2. LESS RESERVATION COMPETITION

Those higher flight prices typically stem from supply and demand  which means demand is higher during peak season.

Increased interest leads to more competition across the board, whether for a hotel room at the price point you want or the chance to nab tickets to that concert. And thats only scratching the surface. Restaurants are more likely to get filled, airplanes to fly with fewer empty seats and wait times to get longer, and the likelihood of a complimentary upgrade diminishes.

Book during shoulder season and youll vie with fewer folks for your top experiences.

3. NOT AS MANY CLOSURES

While demand is high during peak season, sometimes demand drops so low during offseason that the places you want to visit arent even open. Boat tour operators might board up for the winter, and charming ski town cafes could close for the summer.

For example, January in Utahs Zion National Park averages about 16% of the number of visitors that come during peak season in July, and most tourists will have a rough go. Ice forces certain trails to close, some roads become inaccessible to drivers, and the museum and services like shuttle buses arent available.

Instead, consider a trip during the September shoulder season, when crowds are at only about 85% of the parks peak but most amenities are available. Plus, youll benefit from mild weather and the emergence of fall colors.

Around the world, hotels often take the offseason to do renovations, so the pool might become off-limits. Airlines typically cut back routes, so youll have less flexibility on what day or time you can fly.

But the shoulder season is less likely to entail such challenges. Travel before summer crowds arrive and you might be pleasantly surprised with a newly renovated hotel room. Head to the mountains just after the winter holidays to take advantage of still-snowy slopes without as many skiers on them.

4. WEATHER IS PRETTY GOOD

The shoulder season likely wont bring the sweltering heat or storms that come with a regions offseason. And in some cases, the weather during shoulder season is actually better than peak season.

Summer at Floridas theme parks is often humid and muggy  and thats before you add in the crowds of out-of-school kids. During shoulder season, you might forgo sunny summer days on the beach, but youll typically get temperate weather, not to mention a less sweaty smile in that photo with your favorite character.

Shoulder season in the Rocky Mountains might not entail the romanticism of white powder snow surrounding a cozy cabin. But, you can pack light and leave the parka at home.

5. UNIQUE, LOCAL EVENTS

Tourist hot spots typically want year-round crowds, so they often host events, concerts and other festivities that dont occur at times when crowds would be large anyway.

Theme park food festivals are among the most common shoulder season delights. Southern California theme park Knotts Berry Farm typically hosts its annual boysenberry festival from March to April. Hawaii comes alive in the fall with festivals spanning multiple islands, including the annual Waikik i Hoolaulea, which is a giant block party on Oahu, and the Kauai Mokihana Festival, a weeklong celebration of Hawaiian culture.
By Trend

The global economy experienced regression and numerous problems during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The dynamics of Azerbaijans economic development has increased as a result of the successful implementation of a correct and purposeful economic strategy in 2021.

The economic growth reached more than five percent, the non-oil economy grew by 7.2 percent, the non-oil industry - by about 20 percent and non-oil export  by more than 40 percent in 2021.

Foreign exchange reserves increased by $2.5 billion, the positive balance of foreign trade turnover exceeded $10 billion.

The stability of the national currency and a favorable investment environment were ensured in the country over the past period. The laying of the foundation of a wind farm with a capacity of 240 MW, which will be built through foreign investors funds, testifies to this.

The biggest state budget in the Azerbaijani history, amounting to 30 billion manat ($17 billion), was also approved.

The economic and structural reforms have played a major role in achieving this success. Tax structures collected about 1.4 billion manat ($823 million) in excess of the forecast in 2021.

The establishment of new, transparent relations and rules in the field of business has greatly accelerated the achievement of success in the economic sphere.

Despite the impact of COVID-19 pandemic, 2021 was a successful year for the Azerbaijani economy, Azerbaijani MP, economist Vugar Bayramov told Trend .

Bayramov added that the economy has grown by more than five percent over the past year and given the introduction of strict measures as part of quarantine regime during the first months, this is characterized as the great economic growth.

At the same time, one of the most important points is the economic growth through the non-oil sector, MP said. Thus, the non-oil sector grew by 7.2 percent.

Bayramov stressed that this is more than one-percent-growth throughout the country and shows that the non-oil sector is becoming the engine of economic growth, which is very important in terms of sustainable economic development.

The forecast for fiscal revenues of the budget increased as a result of the economic growth and reforms in the economy, the MP said.

The transfers from the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan were saved as a result of the growth in revenues transferred from the non-oil sector to the state budget, Bayramov said. As a result, the biggest budget for 2022 was prepared.

Bayramov stressed that the development of the economy, the restoration of economic growth rates also create conditions for optimistic forecasts and estimates for the economy in 2022.

The achievement of the economic growth in the real sector is obvious and the UN predicts the growth of the Azerbaijani economy by four percent as of 2022, the MP said. This shows that after the severe consequences of COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the Azerbaijani economy has been growing sustainably.

Bayramov said that it was possible to achieve bigger economic growth as a result of the reforms on the development of the non-oil sector and liberalization of the economy.
SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)

A 23-year-old Richmond man was sentenced in a San Francisco federal courtroom Thursday to 10 years in prison for his conviction for sex trafficking a 15-year-old girl and for possession of child pornography.

The sentencing and conviction of Kealeon Shakur Dyer-Hogan was announced Thursday in a news release from United States Attorney Stephanie M. Hinds and Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in Charge Craig D. Fair.

A federal jury convicted Dyer-Hogan of possessing child pornography on July 13, and he was allowed to remain out of custody while he awaited further court proceedings.

On July 22, police arrested Dyer-Hogan in Oakland in the company of a 15-year-old girl. He was charged with sex trafficking, to which he pleaded guilty on Oct. 20.

In addition to the prison term, United States District Judge Maxine M. Chesney sentenced Dyer-Hogan to a five-year term of supervision upon his release from prison, ordered him to pay $5,000 in restitution and ordered him to stay away from and have no contact with the victims of his crimes.

Copyright  2022 Bay City News, Inc. All rights reserved. Republication, rebroadcast or redistribution without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Bay City News is a 24/7 news service covering the greater Bay Area.

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Five San Francisco Bay Area food banks have a critical shortage with volunteers and are reaching out to the public for assistance.

The food banks -- Alameda County Community Food Bank, Food Bank of Contra Costa Solano, Redwood Empire Food Bank, San Francisco Marin Food Bank and Second Harvest of Silicon Valley -- serve 12 Northern California counties.

Collectively, Bay Area food banks feed about a million people each month.

Additionally, Second Harvest of Silicon Valley, Alameda County Community Food Bank and San Francisco Marin Food bank are reporting an increase in requests for home delivery of free groceries, as more people are forced to isolate due to exposure or illness related to the omicron variant.

Eight suspects, some armed with handguns, remain on the loose Saturday evening two days after robbing a Palo Alto tobacco store and pistol-shipping an employee.

It happened Thursday evening, when the Palo Alto Police Department's dispatch center received a call from the clerk at Raw Smoke Shop, 265 California Ave., saying he had just been pistol-whipped and robbed by eight suspects. By the time police arrived on scene, the suspects had driven away.

The clerk sustained minor injuries. Surveillance cameras inside the store captured images of all of the suspects.

Two Santa Rosa residents were arrested early Saturday morning in Petaluma on suspicion of display of a deadly weapon and conspiracy, according to police.

Officers responded to a report of a person brandishing a firearm on the 500 block of East Washington Street at 2:35 a.m., police said. The victim told officers that two men had been causing a disturbance at a business.

The men fled before police arrived, waving a firearm inside their vehicle, the victim told police. The victim described the vehicle to the police, who tracked down the two suspects, two 21-year-old Santa Rosa residents, nearby, and the victim identified them, according to police. The suspects were booked into Sonoma County Jail, police said.

The National Tsunami Warning Center has cancelled tsunami advisories for the coastal regions of the Bay Area and Santa Cruz County, it was announced late Saturday evening.

The advisories were issued Saturday morning in response to the underwater volcanic eruption that occurred Friday near the Tonga Islands in the South Pacific.

A Bay Area senator who is the vice chairperson of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus issued a statement Saturday evening about the end of a nearly half-day hostage situation that took place at a Texas synagogue.

The hostage situation, which began before 11 a.m. local time, centered on the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, a city of about 22,000 people located between Dallas and Fort Worth. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted Saturday evening that all hostages have been safely released after being held hostage for nearly 12 hours.

"I'm so relieved that the hostages are safe," State Sen. Scott Weiner (D-San Francisco) told Bay City News Saturday evening following the end of the standoff. "This attack on our community is terrifying and a reminder of how hard we need to work to end anti-Semitic violence and protect our community institutions."

A San Mateo County Sheriff's Department deputy assisted in rescuing a man from the Pacific Ocean off San Gregorio State Beach Saturday afternoon.

At approximately 12:14 p.m., sheriff's deputies from the department's Half Moon Bay Patrol Bureau responded to the beach after receiving a report that two men were drowning in the ocean.

Once on scene, one of the deputies spotted a man waving around the corner of a cliff. The man was knee deep in the ocean and was attempting to pull another man, who was face down and appeared to be unconscious, out of the water.

According to a sheriff's department spokesperson, the deputy entered the water and assisted the man in pulling the man in distress out of the water.

A father and son have pleaded guilty in a fraud case involving their former employer, United States Attorney Stephanie Hinds announced on Friday.

Steven John Montanelli, 63, and Anthony Montanelli, 34, both from San Ramon, each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud.

Prosecutors said the two schemed to divert medical equipment owned by Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Health Plan, Inc. for use in their own firm based in San Jose.

The men worked as biomedical engineers at Kaiser and were responsible for repairing and servicing Kaiser ultrasound systems.

San Pablo police released a video Friday from body cameras worn by officers during a Dec. 15 traffic stop when police shot and killed a man who was brandishing a replica handgun.

The nearly 10-minute video includes footage from body cameras worn by three officers, who repeatedly ordered the suspect -- 45-year-old Sergio Escalera-Valdez -- to show them his hands and get out of his vehicle.

Instead, Escalera-Valdez exited his pickup truck holding a handgun that he pointed at officers before they fired at him multiple times. He died as he was being taken to a local hospital.

The National Weather Service forecast for the San Francisco Bay Area calls for mostly sunny skies Sunday. Daytime highs are expected in the high 50s to low 60s with overnight lows in the low to mid 40s. Look for dry and mild conditions to continue this week.

Copyright  2022 Bay City News, Inc. All rights reserved. Republication, rebroadcast or redistribution without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Bay City News is a 24/7 news service covering the greater Bay Area.

Copyright  2022 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.
SHELTON  Zoning officials are preparing a zone change proposal for the city-owned Mas property and abutting sites that would be part of what Mayor Mark Lauretti envisions as a future manufacturing hub.

Once complete, the city would file the zone change application with the Planning and Zoning Commission for its verdict.

Initial wording, presented as part of a report to the commission Tuesday, calls for the area to fall under the Industrial IA-1 district, replacing the Planned Development District approval granted for the site decades earlier.

Planning and Zoning Administrator Alex Rossetti told the commission that the zone change, if approved, would guarantee no shopping centers, restaurants, gas stations or multi-family housing.

Removal of this PDD zone is necessary to eliminate any perceived threat of multi-family residential development and/or retail shopping centers and to preserve the area for quality industrial and related economic development, the report reads. The IA-1 District is no longer in use anywhere in the city and therefore can be modified and tailored for use on the Mas property as well as related parcels.

Zoning staff and the city are completing a final zone change draft that will be on a meeting agenda for the entire Planning and Zoning Commission. If the commission accepts the final draft  or a slightly modified version after its input  it will then be referred to the appropriate state and regional agencies and a public hearing will be scheduled. That public hearing could be in February.

In December, Lauretti told Hearst Connecticut Media three firms have expressed interest in calling the Mas property home.

A significant part of making this happen is extending Constitution Blvd. West  with bids coming in last month at between $4.5 million and nearly $10 million for that work, according to Lauretti.

Extending the roadway and use of the Mas property has been on the table for years, but Lauretti began the most recent push in April when he presented preliminary plans for creating the road leading into the city-owned land, which would be developed into a manufacturing corporate park.

Lauretti said he expects the cost to be about $5 million for the road work, which would allow for access into the 70-acre, city-owned Mas property. Lauretti said three good sized manufacturers are interested and deals with two could be struck soon.

Shelton state Rep. Jason Perillo helped secure $5 million in funding for the road extension in the states 2021 bond package. The funding will be available once approved by the state Bond Commission, according to Perillo.

The Inland Wetlands Commission, at its meeting in November, approved the citys permit application for extension of the roadway, with street construction occurring within regulated wetlands areas.

The application approved by Inland Wetlands is for phase one roadway construction only, with a portion of Bridgeport Ave. to be widened along with intersection improvements. Portions of Cots Street and Blacks Hill Road will also be reconstructed as part of this project.

This work also calls for the city to purchase 55 and 56 Blacks Hill Road, according to the application submitted to Inland Wetlands.

The property sits near Bridgeport Ave., and the roadway plans include extending Constitution Blvd. to reach Shelton Ave./Route 108. Lauretti said a zone change would be needed, requiring plans to go before the Planning and Zoning Commission at some point.

The Mas property is now vacant. It is mostly wooded with considerable stone ledges and several ponds, including one some 600 feet long and 250 to 300 feet wide, and lies between Bridgeport Aven., Cots Street, Tisi Drive, Sunwood Condos on Nells Rock Road, Regent Drive, Walnut Ave., and Kings Highway. Part of the land abuts the back of the Perry Hill School property.

brian.gioiele@hearstmediact.com
Mining companies are struggling to find workers to fill specialist roles from engineers to train drivers as COVID-19 travel restrictions between states and a collapse in skilled migration exacerbate the industrys labour squeeze.

While mining job numbers have swelled by almost 22,000 in the past 12 months, a shortage of specialist workers has forced companies to lower production targets and now threatens to complicate the sectors expansion just as the clean-energy revolution drives greater demand for a range of Australian metals.

Labour shortages in WA have caused project delays and forced some big miners to downgrade production targets. Credit:Glenn Hunt

In Western Australia, the worlds biggest iron ore and lithium-mining region, ongoing coronavirus-related border restrictions have reduced mobility of fly-in, fly-out staff between states. At the same time, miners are having to compete harder for skilled workers amid a government-backed construction boom on the east coast.

Top Australian miner BHP does not expect the problems to ease this year as continued investment in resources and construction collide with ongoing labour mobility restrictions.
Sarah Bloom Raskins nomination as the Federal Reserves vice chair for supervision puts a final  and decidedly progressive stamp on the Biden administrations Wall Street oversight team.

A Duke University law professor and Washington insider who has previously held high-level jobs at the Treasury and the Fed, Raskin was pushed by liberal Democrats as a champion of tighter regulation for the biggest banks. She is also poised to lead efforts on developing financial regulatory policies for cryptocurrencies and fighting climate change, a top priority of the White House.

Sarah Bloom Raskin faces a tricky road ahead. Credit:AP

Because the Fed is charged with monitoring Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and other massive firms, the vice chair post is seen as the most powerful bank regulator in Washington. In addition to setting rules in arcane areas that go right to lenders bottom lines like balance-sheet liquidity and capital levels, Raskin would oversee closely-watched annual stress tests that review bank safety.

Though Raskin easily won Senate confirmation to serve as Fed governor and then deputy Treasury secretary under President Barack Obama, shell face a more difficult path this year. With the increasing partisan rancour on Capitol Hill and some lawmakers scepticism of Bidens climate agenda, she is likely to win few, if any, Republican votes in the 50-50 split Senate.
Sydney Harbours new River-class ferry fleet was riddled with more than 40 defects after the vessels arrived in NSW from Indonesia.

The government confirmed 43 defects were identified across the 10 vessels, which are undergoing substantial rectification work to their cabins so they can operate after sunset.

As part of the acceptance process for the River-class fleet, 43 defects were raised across the 10 vessels, the government said in answers to supplementary budget estimates questions provided to NSW Parliament.

One of Sydneys new River-class ferries on Sydney Harbour. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

The problem-plagued vessels cannot pass under certain bridges on the Parramatta River if passengers are seated on the top deck, while asbestos was found in the ferries before the government also confirmed they could not operate in the dark due to cabin reflection issues.
NSW residents have been warned to brace themselves for high numbers of COVID-19 deaths in the coming days as the states healthcare workers battle exhaustion in the face of rising hospitalisations.

Health Minister Brad Hazzard hit out at people who have chosen not to get vaccinated, saying they needed to give a damn about someone other than themselves.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet, flanked by Treasurer Matt Kean (left) and Health Minister Brad Hazzard, on Monday announces a support package for major events disrupted by COVID. Credit:Kate Geraghty

Give a damn about your community, your family and most particularly, the health staff across NSW who you expect to be looking after you if and when you end up in our hospital system, he said.

The state recorded 29,504 new COVID-19 cases and 17 deaths in the latest reporting period.
Mathematician Terry Moriarty loved teaching so much that he worked for nearly a decade as a casual and temporary teacher in public high schools in Sydneys west after he retired.

Not now, though. COVID-19 has made it too risky for the former head teacher to return to the classroom. At the moment I dont want to do it, it is too dangerous, said Mr Moriarty, 73 of Greystanes.

As much as he misses the kids and the collegiality of teaching at public schools in Sydneys south-west, the former maths teacher said he wont be joining the army of retired teachers, principals and others that the NSW government wants to deploy to address staffing shortages when school returns.

Terry Moriarty is a retired head maths teacher from public schools in Sydney. If it wasnt for fear of COVID, he would go back to teach in schools if they had a desperate need. At the moment it seems too risky to me, he said. Credit:Edwina Pickles

Premier Dominic Perrottet announced in News Corp on Sunday a plan to use retired teachers and principals, and fast track final-year students and administration staff through accreditation, to give schools a buffer to fill COVID-related staff shortages.
The hospital system in the states least vaccinated region is under intense pressure, with the Health Minister saying workers are run off their feet in northern NSW and expressing frustration over anti-vaccine sentiment.

As NSW recorded more than 20 new deaths and 34,000 cases on Sunday, NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard warned lower vaccination rates in northern NSW were causing serious concerns for local hospital staff.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet and Health Minister Brad Hazzard on Sunday. Credit:Edwina Pickles

Hospital staff are run off their feet and lower vaccination rates in northern parts of NSW are leaving many people vulnerable and people are ending up in hospital unnecessarily, Mr Hazzard told the Herald. If they simply got vaccinated the risks of them coming into hospital or ending up in ICU would be dramatically reduced.

To the disbelievers that we still have in NSW, wake up to yourselves. The world is telling us this virus will keep killing us and keep putting us in hospital unless we get vaccinated. So to them - forget your silly messages and let people just have their vaccines.
Queenslands custom-built quarantine facility at Toowoomba could be used to house COVID-positive members of the public who wish to prevent spreading the virus to the rest of their household or to those with compromised immune systems, the states Chief Health Officer says.

The finishing touches are currently being added to the reception and administration building at the multimillion-dollar Wellcamp facility, west of Brisbane, as Deputy Premier Steven Miles said the government was assessing which cohorts could quarantine there.

The Queensland Regional Accommodation Centre will soon open with 500 beds, which will later expand to 1000.

Built by the Wagner Corporation, the soon-to-open site  now officially called the Queensland Regional Accommodation Centre  will initially house 500 beds before eventually expanding to 1000.

But Mr Miles said the question of who would use those beds was still being assessed.
People desperate for rapid antigen tests are offering as much as $100 to buy them online and relying on friends overseas for supply as Australias consumer watchdog probes more than 1000 reports of price gouging.

People are spending up to $80 for a single rapid test via the Airtasker app, which has become a hotbed for RAT trade after eBay, Facebook and Gumtree banned the sale of the tests, even though the federal government last week announced anti-price gouging measures, including fines of up to $66,600 and prison time.

Gig-economy app AirTasker has hundreds of listings across the country from people desperate to buy rapid antigen tests. Credit:Airtasker

Airtasker hosts hundreds of posts from people across the country looking for rapid tests, in some cases offering more than $100 for a single test.

Bayswater woman Jo Rooney posted a request for some to deliver her a rapid test for $60, as she had no other way to find out if she was positive with COVID-19 while waiting six days for a PCR result last week. When the first offer came in from a man nearby who wanted $80 she took it.
It is easy to dislike Novak Djokovic. At the height of a pandemic that has claimed millions of lives globally, he has consistently refused to reveal his vaccination status, despite freely travelling the world for tennis tournaments, and has been pictured acting irresponsibly on numerous occasions.

For many, he has become the embodiment of the adage that one rule applies for the wealthy and powerful and another for the rest of us.

World No. 1 Novak Djokovic. Credit:Luis Ascui

This has been particularly grating in the Australian context  nowhere more so than Melbourne  where communities have faced incredibly challenging lockdowns and curtailments on freedoms, mass job losses and mandatory vaccination requirements.

Allowing Djokovic to compete in the 2022 Australian open appears to fly in the face of the Australian sense of the fair go and what is left of Australian egalitarianism.
There were echoes of this history in Deborah Snows revealing interview with the current Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, in the Herald at the weekend. Mr Morrison is not much interested in the vision thing. The very idea of leaving a legacy was a preoccupation of the vain, he told Snow. Its just not how I think about things.

In 1996, he lost in a landslide to John Howard, who had assiduously modified or obscured his own harder-edged views on issues such as industrial relations to run a small-target election strategy. He said he wanted Australians to feel relaxed and comfortable.

The vision thing, as then US presidential aspirant George Bush snr put it in 1987, has prompted mixed reactions in Australia. Paul Keating, the most prominent recent proponent of big-picture politics, dared to imagine Australia as part of Asia, a republic constitutionally separated from the Crown and reconciled with Indigenous people. He packaged it all up and sold it with an aggressive, sarcastic political demeanour.

They want to live their lives. They want to own their own home, they want to raise their kids ... save for their retirement and not get too much debt and live their life the way they want to do giving back to their community. These are the great aspirations. That to me  thats a big idea.

And again: Economy strong, Australians safe, Australians together. Thats what Im trying to do. Every single day.

Safety, security, togetherness. It might be a modern-day rendering of Mr Howards infamous slogan  and no doubt Mr Morrison would be delighted to emulate his predecessors electoral success.

We think Mr Morrison is partly right. Most Australians are not interested in the narky to-and-fro of politics, the point-scoring and the opposition for oppositions sake. They are, of course, interested in their family, their security and their community.

But we also think his view vastly underestimates Australians. Many are vitally concerned about what climate change is already doing to our planet and our country, and they look on in horror at the level of bullying and sexual misconduct in Canberra and beyond, at how the government has handled this pandemic, from quarantine to vaccines to Omicron, and the issue of government probity amid a blizzard of pork barrelling. The Australian Republican Movement is working hard to make us care again about our constitutional arrangements, with mixed success. The treatment of First Nations people is an ongoing blight as the Aboriginal Tent Embassy approaches its 50th year of protest, and we are about to have yet another frustrating debate about the place of Australia Day on the national calendar.
Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size Ahead of a federal election that may well see Queensland elect a second Greens senator, the co-parent of the party is worried. And Greens co-founder Drew Hutton has identified an unlikely political figure the party needs to emulate if it is ever to become a mainstream party: firebrand independent Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie. I have been concerned for a long time that the Greens have locked themselves into a middle class, inner-city, tertiary educated, identity politics-driven ghetto that gives them a maximum 12 per cent vote across the country, a couple of lower house seats and no real hold on political power, he wrote in a recent Facebook post. Drew Hutton (front), pictured with Friends of the Earth campaigner Cam Walker in 2013. Credit:Damian White They also dont seem to know how to break out of this. Maybe they could start by electing a bunch of spokespersons who look and sound like Jacqui Lambie. It was a suggestion Lambie had a laugh about, a spokeswoman for the Tasmanian senator says, but she chose not to comment.

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Further commentary was sought from Hutton, who told Brisbane Times: Im afraid I have retired from all political activity except the occasional Facebook post, so Im not available for comment. But Huttons social media post exposes soul-searching within Greens politics in Queensland, even if Lambie is not the type of figure with whom most would feel political kinship. Brisbane councillor Jonathan Sri, the first Green to be elected to a representative chamber in Queensland, acknowledges the party struggles to attract working-class candidates. After all, he says, it is harder to give up work for a six-month campaign without a cashed-up party machine to help pay the bills. There are lots of barriers in life to running as a candidate and engaging actively in electoral politics, Sri says. So unless you have a lot of support, and resorting to offer candidates from more marginalised backgrounds, its very hard for them to commit the time to run. ... Its a hard thing to have to give up your job for a couple of months to go on the campaign trail when theres no guarantee of success.

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And while Lambie plays the part of the outsider  the non-politician everywoman  very well, Sri says she had a leg-up to political life that other would-be outsiders, including Greens, would lack. Jonathan Sri (left, pictured with South Brisbane Greens MP Amy MacMahon on state election day) says it is hard for smaller parties to attract working-class candidates. Credit:Tertius Pickard The blunt reality is that she wouldnt have won her seat in the first place without the financial backing of a coal billionaire like [Clive] Palmer, he says. The nature of the political system is such that its very, very hard for outside political outsiders to pop through into the mainstream political system without some kind of institutional backing. John Mickel served as a minister in the Beattie Labor government, including a stint as Parliamentary Speaker, between 2009 and 2012. After observing Queensland politics for three years from the Speakers chair, he now does the same thing in his capacity as an adjunct professor in politics at the Queensland University of Technology.

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Mickel suggests Huttons wish for a Lambie-like figure will find little traction within Greens ranks. Jacqui Lambie, it seems to me, has an appeal to people who are over politics and maybe feel left behind and thats not where the Greens are, he says. The Greens are a hectoring, lecturing mob  This is what we believe and we dont tolerate anybody who doesnt believe this  a la the Bob Brown convoy. Bob Browns anti-Adani convoy meets with a cold reception from pro-mine locals in Clermont in 2019. Credit:Lucy Stone But Huttons comments ring true for Griffith University political scientist Paul Williams, one of Queenslands most respected political scholars. At least in part. What hes really saying is we need to strike a populist chord and thats not wrong, Williams says.

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That is easier said than done. In fact, Williams says, it defies political logic. By their very nature, the well-educated  a double-degree, triple-degree  inner-city, high-income urban voter rejects populism for its anti-democratic message, he said. And the populist will reject environmentalism because its a post-material value. Populists are driven largely by material values, improving the economic stake of the underclass. Aside from Sri, finding Greens to speak publicly about the partys direction proves a difficult task. I am not the right one to talk, Greens state director Kitty Carra says. Former Greens senator Andrew Bartlett also declined the opportunity to comment, but responded in a comment thread on Huttons post.

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Weve just had so many people coming here to live now, both renting and buying, said Nathan Wilson of Elders Real Estate Crescent Head. Its been crazy. Many of those people have been coming here for their holidays for years or have just discovered it. A lot of them have realised they can work remotely, so they can live here in a beautiful place with eateries and the kind of facilities a small town has. Fortunately for the locals, who often rent for years at a time, property-owners have tended to honour their commitments and havent put their rents up to market prices. BROULEE, NSW: Median rent $750; Annual rise 50.0 per cent On the south coast, between Batemans Bay and Moruya in the Eurobodalla region, 300km from Sydney, this is a favourite spot for those who love outdoor life and a favourite holiday destination for Canberrans. Broulee is a favourite holiday spot for Canberrans. Credit:Getty

Its a really magic area with a beautiful beach and its close to the ACT for visitors, Dr Powell said. With such extreme rates of rental growth, though, you have to ask whether locals will still be able to afford to live there. But then the question has to be asked, how much of this is permanent growth? There have been reports of people in the cities going back to the cities, and it might just be that this growth happens during the period when the pandemic hits the hardest. MOUNT COOLUM, QUEENSLAND: Median rent $750; Annual rise 47.1 per cent A Sunshine Coast favourite, Mount Coolum encompasses many distinct areas, and the staggering rental growth has mostly been driven by a smaller sub-sector, locals say. Its high tide at Mount Coolum when it comes to rental prices.

The exciting part is right on the beach, which the locals call The Boardwalk, and rent growth there is driving increases for the whole area, said James Henley of Richardson & Wrench, Coolum. Weve definitely had so many people moving here from elsewhere in Queensland, and a lot of inter-staters from Melbourne and Sydney, that prices have risen. I think it reminds Sydneysiders of their northern beaches, but with a much more relaxed lifestyle, and its close to Noosa and Maroochydore, but more affordable. SOUTH HEDLAND, WESTERN AUSTRALIA: Median rent $588; Annual rise 47.0 per cent Resources prices are still rising, so people continue to be keen to move to the Pilbaras South Hedland, a suburb of Port Hedland, to work for the iron ore industry. Whether you rent or buy in South Headland, its costly. Credit:

With borders snapping closed for a long time, it means theres no fly-in-fly-out workforce, so everyone has either had to buy properties or rent them. This has in turn put unprecedented pressure on rental prices. Resources areas are generally showing a significant rise in rents as a result of mining doing so well, Dr Powell said. VAUCLUSE, SYDNEY: Median rent $2900; Annual rise 45.0 per cent With the COVID-19 lockdowns making everyone realise how important lifestyle is, there are still some who prefer to stay in Sydney but, if they can afford it, live in some of the most salubrious areas. Vaucluse, in the eastern suburbs, is one of those.

It also has its own little beach, so its a good compromise rather than going to the coast, said Dion Markovics of Raine & Horne Double Bay. Its always a very lovely place to live, and theres been a lot more demand than supply. DOUBLE BAY, SYDNEY: Median rent $2000; Annual rise 42.9 per cent Also in Sydneys east, and also with its own beach, Double Bay is also going through something of a renaissance. Theres been a fair amount of property development taking place and parts of the shopping strip are undergoing renewal as a result. Expect to double pay if you want to live in Double Bay. Credit:Getty

Its also very close to the beaches at Bondi, Coogee and Clovelly. People are really looking for lifestyle and fresh air, Mr Markovics said. The changes in the infrastructure in Double Bay mean its now appealing to a younger demographic too, which is creating a lot of supply for both rental property and homes to buy, pushing up the prices of both. QUEENSTOWN, TASMANIA: Median rent $250; Annual rise 42.9 per cent The largest town in Tasmanias west, Queenstown was once the worlds richest mining town. Now there are studies to see if it might be worth reopening the copper mine, with resource prices soaring so high.

But a strong tourism sector is growing to replace the mining income and, with the recent opening of a number of mountain bike trails, the town is becoming much better known to outsiders looking for a place to escape the cities  and the pandemic. Prices have really continued to rise, with people wanting to go to smaller areas and get away from coronavirus, said Rodney Triffett of Harcourts West Coast. People have had enough of lockdown in the cities and, until our border opened, we were coronavirus-free. Weve had so much demand for properties and very low stock, which has been pushing rents higher and higher. Queenstown is the king of rent rises at the moment. Credit:Getty PORT HEDLAND, WESTERN AUSTRALIA: Median rent $851; Annual rise 41.6 per cent

Port Hedland, like its suburb South Hedland, and the home of the countrys biggest bulk export port servicing the iron ore mines inland, continues to experience rents rising rapidly as a result of surging iron ore prices. The industry has proved pretty impervious to the COVID slump, and rents have risen sharply accordingly. In the previous September quarter, house rents skyrocketed by 45.4 per cent. Loading WEST GLADSTONE, QUEENSLAND (units): Median rent $250; Annual rise 38.9 per cent Often described as the gateway to the Southern Great Barrier Reef  think Heron Island and Lady Musgrave Island among others  West Gladstone is an area with a proud industrial history but also a tourist favourite.

Unit rents have risen sharply with an influx of other Queensland and inter-state renters coming to a place thats a very pleasant escape and offers work. SOUTH HEDLAND, WESTERN AUSTRALIA (units): Median rent $451; Annual rise 38.8 per cent With house rents shooting up by 47 per cent, it was inevitable that unit rents would rise, with many families who cant afford houses having to consider apartment-living instead. Theres also a dire shortage of units in the town, and consistently high demand. BUNDALL, QUEENSLAND: Median rent $895; Annual rise 37.7 per cent A suburb on the Gold Coast, on the Nerang River, just behind Southport, Bundall is considered by many to be a picturesque and relaxed place to live, with a network of canals creating waterfront homes, and the beach, cafes and shops nearby.
The next giant leap for humans may be a trip to Mars, but having enough oxygen-carrying red blood cells for the journey might present a challenge, new research suggests.

Even space tourists lining up for short trips might have to stay at home if they are at risk for anaemia, or red blood cell deficiency, researchers said.

A man dressed as an astronaut steps off a train in Istanbul, Turkey, as part of a campaign to promote a NASA Space Exhibition in December. Credit:AP

Astronauts are known to experience space anaemia but, until now, it was thought to be temporary. One NASA study called it a 15-day ailment.

But in fact, anaemia is a primary effect of going to space, said Dr Guy Trudel of the University of Ottawa, who led a study of 14 astronauts funded by the Canadian Space Agency.
Washington: Hes back. One year after leaving the White House, Donald Trump has set the scene for a fiery midterm election year, holding a campaign rally in Arizona where he revved up his base, revived false claims about electoral fraud and hinted at another run for president in 2024.

An event attendee walks past a statue of Donald Trump before the rally in Arizona on Sunday (AEDT). Credit:AP

In a speech designed to reassert his dominance within the Republican Party, Trump attacked his critics and used the event to prop up loyalists and election deniers who are running for state and federal office this year.

This November we have a chance to do something really spectacular, Trump told the enthusiastic crowd who had gathered for hours in the desert town of Florence, Arizona, to see him.

This is maybe the most important election weve ever had - but I do believe that 2024 will be even more important. This is the year we are going to take back the White House.
It has been a long 24 hours for those with family, friends, and connections in Tonga. The eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haapai volcano on Saturday evening, was followed by a tsunami and then a communications blackout.

As messages started to come through from those who had access to satellite phones, a partial picture emerged of what happened and what now faces the Tongan people in terms of response and recovery.

A major ash fall has contaminated water sources, roads have been chewed up by the tsunami surge, boats have been thrown about in harbours. So far, there have been no reports of casualties, but many parts of the country are still incommunicado. It appears that the undersea telecommunications cable that connects Tonga to the world is out of action.

This was not a Tonga-only event. The sonic boom from the explosion was heard across the region. From Vanuatu, came reports that on Tanna people thought that it was their volcano, Mt Yasur, that they could hear and were astonished to learn that the noise was coming from some 1700 kilometres away. There has been coastal flooding in Vanuatu and Fiji. Tsunami warnings were issued in Australia and New Zealand.
PHILIPSBURG:--- President of the Windward Islands Teachers Union (WITU) Stuart Johnson in an e-mail to all school boards over the weekend reminded the parties to honor last months pact brokered at the University of St. Martin (USM).

I sent an e-mail correspondence to all school boards requesting our agreement be upheld, Johnsons missive said about the joint December 13th, 2021 pact among the school boards and WITU.

Johnson is concerned that the government has scheduled a meeting for early next week with the school boards while sidestepping two WITU correspondences seeking a meeting with the education ministry and finance ministry.

I took note of the apparent scheduling of a meeting on January 18th, 2022 by the Honorable Minister of Education drs. R. Samuel through the respective department within the ministry of ECYS. The WITU is still awaiting formal word from the Honorable Minister of Education in regards to our two written requests for a meeting. I stand behind my word and promise, that we will not have an audience unless you, as school boards are also present, Johnsons email to the Boards counseled.

It is on this note, I trust the agreement made in our meeting of December 13, 2021, at the University of St. Martin will be honored in the best interest of all. May we all find solace in this quote, No matter how much falls on us, we keep plowing ahead. That's the only way to keep the roads clear, the WITU presidents email said.

In an e-mail response of unity with Johnson to her colleague school boards, drs. Peggy Ann Dros-Richardson Chairlady of the National Institute for Professional Advancement (NIPA) promised WITU her bodys solidarity stating, The NIPA stands by its commitment to honor our agreement made during the meeting referenced by you, between parties. We eagerly await the meeting with Minister to discuss the cost-cutting measures and the strain on the executing of quality education. As such, we will not attend the meeting of January 18. We await a response from the Minister.

WITU is calling on all school boards to uphold the agreement as there are some serious challenges which need to be addressed within the education system of St. Maarten and the mutual interest of all must be respected, Johnson reminded.
Somerset, KY (42501)

Today

Partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 81F. Winds SW at 15 to 25 mph..

Tonight

Heavy thunderstorms early, then variable clouds overnight with still a chance of showers. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. Low 56F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
Borussia Dortmund forward Erling Braut Haaland reportedly wants to join either Real Madrid or Barcelona during this summer's transfer window.

Borussia Dortmund forward Erling Braut Haaland is reportedly keen to join either Real Madrid or Barcelona this summer, with the Norwegian not currently interested in a move to the Premier League.

The 21-year-old will have a 63m release clause in his BVB contract this summer, and a number of clubs, including Manchester United, Chelsea, Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and Barcelona, are said to be keen to sign him.

According to Italian journalist Gianluca Di Marzio, the Premier League does not currently appeal to the Norway international, who would rather stay in the Bundesliga or move to one of Spain's biggest two clubs.

"He doesn't like Premier League too much. It is not in his dreams. It is not the perfect league at the moment. He prefers La Liga - he likes Liga a lot. So, I think in his thoughts, La Liga is the perfect tournament, now, to play in. Or Bundesliga, where he is currently playing," Di Marzio told Wettfreunde.

"So it is not sure that he'll leave in the summer. Borussia Dortmund thinks that for his career, another year there should be the right step. I don't know what Mino Raiola thinks about it.

"I think Raiola wants to get him out of Borussia Dortmund because after two years there it is important for him to have another challenge. So I think he will try to find the right solution for him."

Haaland, who has scored 21 goals and registered six assists in 18 appearances at club level this season, has said that Dortmund are currently pressuring him to make a decision on his future.
NEW HAVEN  For years, many thought Fred Parris  one of New Havens greatest cultural gifts to the world  would live forever.

And guess what? He will.

Thats because while Parris, who died this past Thursday at age 85 after a short illness, is now singing soulfully sweet Doo Wop harmony with the angels, his most enduring song  and all his music  remain.

You know the song.

Oh, that song...

Sh-doop, shoo-be-doo; sh-doop, shoo-be-doo; sh-doop, shoo-be-doo-oooo...In The Still Of The Night...

On a winter day, Feb. 19, 1956, New Havens The Five Satins, a group of guys led by Parris who grew up singing on street corners and at dances along Dixwell Avenue, at Hillhouse High School and the Dixwell Community Q House, unleashed something magical and enduring.

It happened in a long-celebrated, locally-revered moment in time in a makeshift studio in the basement of St. Bernadette Catholic Church across town on Townsend Avenue in Morris Cove  and in later life, Parris always said he felt the song was blessed.

And while none of the guys in that room that night  including Parris, who wrote the song about a by-now long-departed girlfriend while he was on guard duty with the U.S. Army in Philadelphia  got the kind of money from it that they believe they should have, all considered it a huge moment in their lives.

They all also said, in conversations for a 2014 story about the band and the then-upcoming 50th Anniversary of song, that they had no idea at the time just what big a deal they were creating.

Not a clue... said Parris, then 77, in a conversation in his Hamden home. Parts of that conversation were captured and preserved on video former New Haven Register collegue Peter Hvizdak. Its essential watching for any lover of American music, New Haven history, or both.

I never expected it to have so much of an impact that people would embrace the song 50 years later, Parris said at the time. I had no idea it was going to be that successful ... I didnt know if they were going to listen to it 15 minutes later, let alone 50 years.

But when we heard it back, we knew we liked it, said Parris. As soon as we got the test record and took it home and listened to it, then we really knew.

Parris wasnt the only one who felt the song was blessed.

Original Satin Jim Freeman, by then living in Cape Coral, Fla., said in 2014 that he doesnt really know what made In The Still Of The Night so enduring  but he gave much of the credit to Parris and the Lord.

God, Ive thought of that many times over the years, Freeman said at the time. Freds got a hell of a voice and hes a heck of a writer. I give all the credit to Fred.

Beyond that, I think the record was blessed because it was recorded in a church, he said.

What would Parris, who grew up on Sperry Street in New Haven and as a teen delivered the New Haven Register, have ended up doing if it hadnt been for In The Still Of The Night?

Working at the Register... he joked in 2014. That song changed my life.

Over the years, The song has been real good to me, Parris said. Extremely good to me  because many other people have recorded it...

Parris and the Satins also may enjoy another distinction: they may well be at leastly partly responsible for the creation of more babies than any other musical artist hailing from New Haven.

Parris wife, Emma, who survives him, said back in 2014 that when Parris performed later in life, people would come up to him all the time to talk about how they first heard the song  and what they were doing at the time.

One lady told us that she conceived all four of her children on In The Still Of The Night, she said.

And Ive heard that many, many times, said Fred Parris. Its usually about romance  what they were doing, who they were with ... Its a gratifying feeling, too. I enjoy it! He thanked all of the Satins fans for supporting them over the years.

Sixty-six years later, the song remains among the greatest, most stirring  and biggest selling  love songs since the dawn of rock-and-roll.

Originally titled In The Still Of The Nite to distinguish it from the Cole Porter song by the same name, its one of the biggest musical hits ever  selling more than 32 million copies as part of the soundtrack of the blockbuster 1987 Dirty Dancing movie alone.

But thats not all:

 The Irishman, Martin Scorseses epic 2019 gangster period piece, was stitched together  up, down and sideways  with In The Still Of The Night. It was the song that led you into The Irishman. It was the song that led you out of it. It even played during a key scene right smack in the middle.

 When Rolling Stone magazine released its list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time a few years back, In The Still Of The Night was right up there at No. 90  in between No. 89 California Dreamin by The Mamas & The Papas and No. 91 Suspicious Minds by Elvis Presley.

 It is the only song ever to have charted on the Billboard Hot 100 three separate times by the same artist, with the same version each time; in 1956, 1960 and 1961.

 It was the number one song in WCBS-FMs annual Labor Day Weekend Top 500 countdown for over a decade.

 It has been covered dozens of times, including by the Beach Boys, Boys II Men, Ronnie Milsap  nominated for a Grammy  Johnny Mathis and Dion & The Belmonts, (who each also recorded the Cole Porter song,) The Tokens, The Fleetwoods, Johnny Maestro & The Crests, Jan & Dean, Sha Na Na, Debbie Gibson, 98 Degrees and an instrumental version by Santo & Johnny that also was a minor hit.

In The Still Of The Night  just one of many wonderful songs Parris penned over the years  was pressed magic, lightning in a bottle. It was one of the greatest hits of that era, up there with The Crests Sixteen Candles, The Penguins Earth Angel, The Platters The Great Pretender, The Drifters Under The Boardwalk and Ben E. Kings Stand By Me.

It endures to this day.

In the still of the night...I held you, held you tight...Cause I love, love you so...Promise Ill never, let you go...In the still of the night...In the still of the night...

But the Satins and their tour de force didnt come together in a vacuum.

They both were products of the booming post-World War II years in New Haven, when the giant Winchester factory adjacent to Dixwell was still cranking out firearms and good jobs, and other city businesses that have long since closed were still active.

The Five Satins were the pinnacle of a rich New Haven Doo Wop tradition  mostly Black  that included The Nutmegs, The Chestnuts, The Four Havenites, The Desires, The Pyramids, Roger and the Travelers, The Van Dykes, Nicky and the Nobles and Parris previous group, The Scarlets, among others.

In The Still Of The Night, written by Parris while he was on guard duty with the U.S. Army in Philadelphia, was recorded in the same session as The Jones Girl while Parris and fellow Satin Al Denby were home on leave.

It shot up the charts even as Parris and Denby served their country thousands of miles away in Germany and Japan. After recording it, they shipped out just days later in Denbys case; weeks later in Parris case.

Those who remained had to recruit a new group to tour to support the release  and the four (yes, four) Five Satins vocalists and four musicians who laid down those tracks never again performed together with exactly that lineup. Over the years before and since, at least a couple of dozen Satins sang with the group.

The four vocalists who performed Doo Wop alchemy that night were Parris, Denby, Jim Freeman and Ed Martin.

They were joined by Bobby Mapp on drums, the late Doug Murray on bass and either Jesse Murphy or Curley Glover on piano  recollections differ, although Murphy says it was him  along with Vinny Mazzetta, the former St. Bernadette altar boy who hooked them up with the church, on sax.

The late producer Marty Kugell of New Havens Standord Records and engineer Tom Sokira did the recording.

The 2019 release of The Irishman and its soundtrack, like the 1987 release of the soundtrack from Dirty Dancing, introduced Parris and the Satins music to a whole new generation of people  and prompted renewed phone calls from media all over the world.

Im surprised  Im just flabbergasted  by everything that happens with the song, Parris, then 83, said at the time, sitting on the living room couch in his home in Hamden. Im very, very, very satisfied.

Parris, as founder of The Five Satins, has been inducted into both the Vocal Group Hall of Fame and the Rhythm & Blues Foundation Hall of Fame, as well as the Grammy Hall of Fame and the Doo Wop Music Hall of Fame, among many other honors.

Editors Note: Longtime New Haven Register reporter Mark Zaretsky interviewed the late Fred Parris a number of times over many years, wrote multiple stories about him and got to know him along the way. Much of the material and recollections contained here first appeared in some of those stories.

mark.zaretsky@hearstmediact.com
With the shell in place for a recreational vehicle dealership, the Newtown propertys new owner has time to figure out one big detail  how to get hundreds of RVs lined up in advance of a target opening by this summer.

In its purchase of Country Camper announced last week, Florida.-based RV Retailer is taking over construction of a new dealership on Route 25 in Newtown. Country Camper has existing locations near Concord, N.H. and Montpelier, Vt.

An RV Retailer executive could not be reached for comment about the Newtown project and overall RV demand the company is seeing nationally. The company has two New York dealerships in Albany and Buffalo, with the Country Camper deal representing its entry to the New England market.

RV shipments have shattered records during the pandemic as families look for alternatives to cruises and resorts to limit exposure to COVID-19. About 600,000 vehicles are expected to be shipped this year, according to manufacturer surveys by the RV Industry Association, up from 577,000 units in 2020.

Just off Interstate-84 in Danbury, the owner of Daves RV Center said manufacturers are falling behind not just on vehicle production, but also accessories. Awnings are taking more than a month to get delivered, according to Dave Simso Sr., who says dealerships like his absorb significant price increases from manufacturers.

In addition to RVs for recreational travel, Simso said the dealership sold some vehicles to health clinics as remote diagnosis and treatment stations for people with COVID symptoms.

Everything I have is sold, Simso said. We cant order any more units until April.

The RV market is dominated by four manufacturers: Forest River, REV Group, Thor Industries and Winnebago Industries. A dozen dealers with varying makes and models are scheduled to attend the Northeast RV & Camping Show scheduled for Jan. 28-30 at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford, with Country Camper among the scheduled exhibitors.

In a December conference call, Winnebago Industries executives noted shipments have increased despite ongoing struggles by manufacturers in sourcing adequate supplies of parts, including semiconductors for onboard electronics. That has cascaded into wholesale prices for vehicles, which are up anywhere from 8 percent to 30 percent.

Were going to be very focused on trying not to over-produce to our detriment or the dealers detriment  everything we make on the product line will either have a retail customers name or a dealers name on it that they want, Winnebago CEO Michael Happe said in mid-December. We will be looking for those canaries in the coal mine that signal that dealers are starting to resist any excess product that they have on order  we do not want to have any open inventory on our lots that forces us to go to the dealers to beg them to take at a discount.

Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; @casoulman
NEWTOWN  After a months-long investigation, a Trumbull man was charged with sexual assault Friday, the Newtown Police Department said.

Shawn Santoro, 33, of Trumbull, is charged with second-degree sexual assault.

Police said the charge came after a five month investigation into a reported sexual assault. The department did not provide any other details about the case Saturday afternoon.

Santoro was later released on a $100,000 bond. He is scheduled to appear in Danbury Superior Court on Feb. 1, police said.

Those who have suffered from sexual assault can speak to specialists for support, information, advice or a referral by calling the free and confidential National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-HOPE (4673). Those who wish to chat online with trained specialists, which is also free and confidential, can also go to www.RAINN.org/Get-Help. Help is available 24/7.

liz.hardaway@hearst.com
photo from the Hartford police department Facebook page

HARTFORD The 13-year-old who overdosed on fentanyl at a Hartford school on Thursday died Saturday, police said.

At approximately 10:45 a.m. on Thursday, Hartford Police were called to the Sport and Medical Sciences Academy at 280 Huyshoppe Ave. on the report of an unconscious male juvenile.
DEAR ABBY: I need some advice regarding my mother-in-law. She has hated me since the first time she met me because I'm not from the country but from "the city." I have given her gifts for birthdays and holidays and invited her on day trips with us, but she always refuses.

She also makes up lies about me. She claims I have STDs, spend all her son's money, etc. She even spread a rumor that I wouldn't allow her at our wedding. She lives 46 miles away and, in the five years we have been married, has never once visited her son. I take him to visit her because he can't get a driver's license because of medical issues.

Our child and I aren't even allowed in her home. We have to sit in the car. She acts like our child doesn't exist, but she has pictures of her other two grandchildren on Facebook and drives to see them almost weekly. My husband sees nothing wrong with her behavior and says he "won't take sides." I don't know what to do.

 PEEVED IN PENNSYLVANIA

DEAR PEEVED: Please accept my sympathy for your situation. While your husband refuses to recognize there is anything wrong with his mother's behavior, it is off the charts. I hope you realize that most men stand up for their wives and children when they are mistreated.

Because you can't change your husband or his witch of a mother, and you made no mention of leaving the marriage, you will simply have to adjust to it. Start by planning an activity you and your child can enjoy while your husband is visiting his mom, rather than sitting for hours in the car. Even better, arrange "other" transportation for your husband.

DEAR ABBY: I'm a 24-year-old woman who has been in a relationship with a man for seven years. "Ken" is 27 years older than I am. (I pursued him.) I love him, but I have always been slightly confused about my relationship with him, and he knows this. Lately, I have been feeling very guilty. My heart knows that my love for Ken isn't enough for what he truly deserves.

He's a good, honest man, and I enjoy our relationship. We get along great, have a lot in common and make a great team. I am comfortable with us and our life. But recently I have realized that I want to be on my own, alone, and not in a relationship. I feel a strong desire to focus on me and only me, so I can grow into the person I envision myself being. Any advice besides the obvious  my leaving the relationship?

DEAR WANTING: You became involved with Ken while you were still very young. It appears you never gave yourself time to fully develop as an individual. You state that you are still "in a relationship" rather than a marriage, which may be a blessing considering your ambivalence.

Many women would be glad to live their life in a relationship that has all the positive qualities that yours has with Ken. I am sure you both will discover this when you move on. However, since you asked my advice, talk this through with a licensed relationship counselor before making any final decision.

Estranged wife reluctantly returns to care for husband

DEAR ABBY: A year and a half ago, I separated from my husband because I was being neglected, not respected, and mistreated emotionally. During the separation, he had to have surgery and needed to be taken care of while he healed. I went back because, as his wife, I felt obligated to do the right thing.

I have tried to move forward and restore my marriage, but I still don't feel loved or appreciated. In the back of my mind, I can't forget the way he treated me in the past. I feel stuck because he isn't working and doesn't plan on working again. He says he's not able to, but I believe he could do something that's not strenuous. How do I find my happiness and still do the right thing?

 CONFLICTED IN THE SOUTH

DEAR CONFLICTED: Have you told your husband how you feel  about everything? If you have and nothing has changed, make an appointment with a lawyer to find out what your obligations may be to a husband who is no longer self-supporting.

If he has no income, you may have to provide for him financially from now on. For some women, this might mean remaining unhappily married but living their own lives to the extent they can, and not relying on their spouse for emotional or any other support.

DEAR ABBY: I have to meet my fiance's adult children. They are not happy he's in a relationship since their mom's death two years ago. I'm very nervous about it, and so is he. What do we do?

 TAKING THE NEXT STEP

DEAR TAKING: You meet them, and do your best to relax and be friendly and open with them. Understand they are still grieving the loss of their beloved mother, and be prepared to do a lot of listening. Refrain from physical displays of affection with your fiance until they get to know you.

If it becomes necessary, their father should be prepared to make clear to them that you two are going to be married and, while they do not have to "love" you, he expects them to treat you with courtesy, respect and kindness.

DEAR ABBY: Is it customary to give a house cleaner or cleaning service lunch or offer them food if they are doing an extensive cleaning job? I ask because my mother-in-law hired a cleaning crew. She watches my infant daughter during the day. She doesn't cook or clean, although I pay her. Well, she gave the crew lunch. Mind you, she didn't ask me if it was OK or if I wanted the leftovers for my own lunch. I wouldn't mind, but I'm wondering if this is typical.

 CLEANING CREW LUNCH

DEAR CLEANING CREW: Let me put it this way: It is intelligent and hospitable to offer lunch if you want a happy, energetic cleaning crew who look forward to coming back. The practice is NOT uncommon.

P.S. If there are leftovers you would like to have for lunch, take them with you before the housekeepers arrive.
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The Minister of Education, Sorin Cimpeanu, on Sunday stated that the salaries of teachers must be motivating and that the dissatisfaction of those who intend to go on strike as a result of the non-application of Law No. 153/2017 is normal, Agerpres reports.

On the other hand, the Minister stated that he relies on the understanding of teachers, expressing his conviction that the vast majority of them will not abandon their pupils, already affected by online education."The Ministry of Education is in constant discussion with the unions. As Minister of Education, I have supported and maintain the view that quality education cannot be done without a motivating and attractive salary. As a result of the discussions we always have with the unions, it is known that we increased salaries by 4.5pct in 2022 - the increases came into force in January. (...) These increases are half of what is stipulated by Law No. 153, so it is somehow normal for them to be dissatisfied with the non-application of Law No. 153. On the other hand, the constraints generated by the need to be included in the budget deficit assumed by Romania have generated this situation, which is serious from the perspective of progress in education," he told Realitatea TV private television broadcaster on Sunday.The Minister reminded that the 8pct salary increases that was meant to happen in 2021 did not happen.On the other hand, he underscored the importance of courses with physical attendance, noting that the online school has led to an increase in socio-emotional disorders and ophthalmic disorders."I am convinced that the vast majority of teachers, although I know that they are right from this perspective, of the salary demands, will not abandon the pupils, given that we have managed to start the second semester with a physical presence in all schools and kindergartens in Romania. This is a very important thing and I rely on the understanding of my fellow teachers," said Ciimpeanu.The Minister also mentioned that, following the applied increases, a teacher who is at the beginning of his/her career has a net salary of 2,597 lei, food allowance included. The net salary of a teacher with a work experience of over 40 years is 4,398 lei. To these salaries can be added increases, such as: 10pct for teacher who are also class masters, 25pct for merit grading, 7-20pct for simultaneous teaching, 15pct for teaching in special education, 3-20pct in rural areas.Education workers, union members, will go on strike on Wednesday, according to the Federation of Free Trade Unions in Education and the Federation of Education Trade Unions "Spiru Haret.""The Federation of Free Trade Unions in Education and the Federation of Education Trade Unions" Spiru Haret "- representative organizations at the level of pre-university education sector - have decided, based on the results of the referendum held between December 17, 2021 - January 14, 2022, to go on a warning strike on Wednesday, January 19, 2022," the same source shows.
The Romanian cryptocurrency, Aether, launched at the end of last year in the Binance Smartchain network, which has a market capitalization of 750,000 US dollars and 5,648 investors, will be launched into space at the beginning of February, with a rocket belonging to ARCA Space, a local aerospace company, informs the company's representatives.

"The innovation of this ambitious project is that it will reach space and at the same time develop satellites that will be used exclusively by other digital currencies. Aether will send useful satellites into space for other cryptocurrencies. Aether will be the first cryptocurrency actually launched into space with a rocket belonging to ARCA Space, a Romanian aerospace company that has already launched two stratospheric rockets and won two government contracts, one with the Romanian Government and another with the European Space Agency. In addition, Aether will develop and send satellites into space for use by other cryptocurrencies that have their own blockchains (technology that secures digital currency storage and transactions) to run nodes (devices participating in the blockchain network, which downloads, stores and constantly updates the entire data) in space, already negotiating the signing of contracts in this regard," notes the same source.According to the press release, another premiere for the Romanian digital currencies is that Aether has already appeared on the famous billboards in Times Square, New York."Cryptocurrencies have started to gain more and more ground due to the fact that there are great chances to get substantial returns from this type of investment, higher than in the case of equities. In addition, many consider the main advantage of digital currencies is that they have nothing to do with a central bank, which only adds to their value in time. When we speak of the minuses of investments in cryptocurrencies, one is related to the significant fluctuation of prices and the fact that nobody can say how their market value will evolve," underscore the creators of the currency.The company claims that Aether has the support of David Gokhshtein, a member of the Forbes Financial Council, editor of the publication, and a well-known analyst in the crypto world, as well as a promotional campaign by Gokhshtein Media.Aether is currently listed on Coinmaketcap and FegEx, and will be listed on other exchanges in the future, such as gate.io.Virtual currency can also be purchased from Pancake Swap, Poocoin or Dextools (decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges) using a Trustwallet or Metamask wallet, priced at $ 0.001 at the moment.
The second semester of the school year 2021-2022 starts on Monday and will be 20 weeks long, Agerpres reports.

The first semester ended on January 14th, and the second semester kicks off on January 17th.Middle and high school students, as well as those in vocational and post-secondary education, started classes after the winter break on January 3rd.Preschoolers and primary school students returned to school a week later, on January 10th.The second semester will end on June 10.The next holiday - the spring holiday (Easter) - will be from Friday, April 15 - until Sunday, May 1.
BRIDGETON  Patrice Johnson held a grand opening for her new bridal shop on Saturday. There were banners, balloons and drinks. Dresses lined the wall. And even with the snow, brides were coming in and trying things on.

Its been a happy day, Johnson said.

It would have been hard for her to imagine two years ago. She launched her business when COVID-19 hit. Thousands of weddings were put on ice.

Then a police officer killed an unarmed Black man in Minneapolis, sending millions into the streets calling for police reform, an end to discrimination and more spending on Black-owned businesses. And Johnson started seeing a lot of new customers.

More than a half-dozen Black business owners, from north St. Louis County to south St. Louis Cherokee Street, offer similar testimony: The movement brought them a wave of new business that helped their shops survive  and in some cases grow  through the pandemic.

A lot of people were elevated, said Sarita Moody, co-founder of the Black-Owned Black Friday event on Cherokee Street and owner of the hand-knit accessories brand Feeling Moody. For some people I know, it was a game-changer.

Unlike similar calls from the Black nationalist Marcus Garvey in the early 20th century and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his final speech, the movement that started in the summer of 2020 mobilized a broad swath of white people as well as Black people, said Marvin Steele, chairman of the board at the Heartland St. Louis Black Chamber of Commerce.

Jason Wilson, owner of Northwest Coffee Roasting Co. in the Central West End, had white people coming in and apologizing for buying into stereotypes and not stopping by before. Jeffrey Blair, co-owner of Black childrens bookstore EyeSeeMe, had Black families seeking childrens books with characters that looked more like them and white customers searching for books on how to fight racism.

All kinds of people were coming in, said Justin Harris, co-owner of the Hop Shop on Cherokee Street.

Blair saw revenue jump four- or five-fold. He hired new employees to handle the rush and turn his University City storefront  closed to in-person shopping by the pandemic  into a fulfillment center for online orders from across the country.

It was crazy, he said. But it was a beautiful thing.

LaCrassia Wilderness skin care products were suddenly hot as well. The number of retailers carrying her Greendale-based brand, Love Butter by LC, went from 13 to 50 by the end of 2020. Last year, she added 30 more customers, including her first store in Canada. Shes also added her first employees.

I dont have to do it by myself anymore, she said.

There have been other signs that at least some of the spur-of-the-moment recognition of two years ago has become long-term appreciation.

Kim Franks, CEO of Liberated Roots Collection, an online store curating products from Black creators, saw it as a vendor at Juneteenth and Taste of Black St. Louis events, both held at the new City Foundry development in Midtown this past year.

The community came out and supported like I have never seen before, she said.

And shop owners on Cherokee Street said there was strong turnout on Black-Owned Black Friday in November, with 30 vendors coming in for the pop-up sale.

Everybody I talked to had a great day, said Moody, co-founder of the event.

Blairs bookstore has since fallen back to earth. Day-to-day business is about the same as it was before the big push, and so is his payroll. But the summer of 2020 lives on in relationships he built with companies, like one that called him Friday to place an order for its employees and the two-book-per-month subscription service rolls that remain bigger than before.

Whats more, Blair noted, his store survived the pandemic when many didnt.

If it wasnt for that, who knows if we would still be here, he said.

Black community leaders say there is more work to be done. Black businesses still lost more revenue and failed at higher rates than their white counterparts through the pandemic, and theyve struggled to get their share of government aid. But the leaders allowed that the success stories are encouraging and mark steps in the right direction.

Now the challenge is to find a way to grow without national headlines, Blair said.

Leaders also want more businesses to share in the success.

Steele, the Black Chamber executive, said his organization and the Urban League are working on it. A program created in November offers Black-owned businesses free office space off North Spring Avenue, as well as heavily discounted legal and accounting help from heavyweight local firms. The entrepreneurs also have access to mentors to help them along their path.

Were on the proper course, Steele said. We just need to keep pushing.

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ST. LOUIS  At 9:45 a.m. on Jan. 16, 1954, the area's new air-raid sirens began wailing for three harrowing minutes. It was the dreaded "red alert," the warning that a Soviet air attack was imminent.

Motorists abandoned cars and ran into buildings. At Union Station, visitors rushed to a below-ground parcel room. Families stumbled to their basements.

At 5100 Vernon Avenue, Mrs. Cal Richmond's family turned off the gas and went downstairs. "The children had received instructions at school on what to do, and they wouldn't let me forget it," she said.

Seventeen minutes later, the sirens blasted the all-clear. People had done their duty because the newspapers were full of instructions all week. One bit of advice in case of a nuclear burst: Stay away from windows.

Fortunately, it was only a drill - the first using the sirens that St. Louis and 17 county municipalities had installed. Col. William Talbot, a national Civil Defense official, called St. Louis' drill "one of the best I have seen."

It was part of the fledgling national effort to protect citizens from nuclear attack. Newspapers ran maps of evacuation routes out of the city, citing Lindbergh Boulevard as the "safety line."

If it seems quaint or hopeless today, it was serious business in the early nerve-racking years of the Cold War, when the Soviet nuclear threat would have arrived by airplane. At schools and businesses, students and workers dutifully practiced by crouching on hallway floors, covering their heads with their hands.

On Dec. 6, 1955, the 658 students at St. Gabriel Catholic School near Francis Park took part in a mock evacuation. A bus and parents' cars took the kids to Eureka. Gen. Francis Hardaway, city Civil Defense chief, called it "done very well."

In 1958, local Civil Defense people got together and pretended an H-bomb exploded over the Eads Bridge. Their verdict: 200,000 dead or injured. On July 18 that year, an air-raid siren in the city's Walnut Park neighborhood accidentally went off at 2:50 a.m. The ensuing panic jammed police switchboards and major streets out of the neighborhood.

Said police Sgt. James Horn, "One woman was crying, 'What will I do with my children?'"

Development of ballistic missiles in the late 1950s rendered evacuation irrelevant. A few people built bomb shelters, including Norman Gavan at 7217 Pennsylvania Avenue. In August 1961 he said, "My family can live down there indefinitely."

On May 15, 1963, students at Washington University made a show of taking down a Civil Defense bomb-shelter sign from a classroom building. "False advertising," their leader said. In 1967, the area began using the sirens for weather warnings.

Read more stories from Tim O'Neil's Look Back series.
Orphanages died in the 1950s, but they are returning in an entirely different shape. As parents expect more of others to take care of their children, the education system expands the meaning of in loco parentis. The system responds by assuming more duties of the parents.

For more than 60 years, I have been associated with the American education system. I am also familiar with orphanages. When I was in a childrens home, the nuns did it all. They fed the orphans, patched up tattered clothing or distributed used clothes, gave a place to sleep, taught just enough, provided social workers and medical care, and recruited volunteers to give attention and affection to the children. The orphanage cared but lacked focus because its responsibility was every aspect of developing children and, at best, the children learned to survive. Now I see an eerie rebirth of the caretaking mentality in the American education system.

Originally the public school systems intent had been to educate through various liberal arts disciplines: to cultivate a childs intelligence, develop morals and social skills, and prepare them to be citizens in a larger community. Young students learned to apply new information and give global perspective, using logic, critical thinking and communication skills. Today parents are fixated on caretaking, high-paying jobs and college entry. And public schools are responding by offering courses such as psychology, cybersecurity and criminal justice (all formerly reserved for college), that give students false hopes of jobs out of high school or improved chances of college entry; yet, these students often lack the communication skills to get the jobs or pass the entry tests.

Todays children arrive at school less equipped with life skills. Schools rightfully focus on their needs before the teachers can teach them. Before the pandemic, school districts were feeding 42% or more (and now 100% under federal coronavirus funding) of the student population, providing clothing and special health and food festivals to needy students and their families, hiring more social workers and nurses, spending millions of dollars on safety, and reinstating summer schools. When students are in trouble, parents frequently respond with frustration, or they blame the school for their childrens behavior. Schools attempt to teach and administer discipline, but parents tend to defend the children and fight the disciplinary measures. Instead, some parents prefer to negotiate  with children  over decisions of parental duty.

The children who are doing well during the pandemic either are driven, self-motivated, and/or have strong parental support. Granted, many parents are struggling as single parents. Some parents priorities are simply not about the children. Others cannot see beyond their personal or familys interests and do not accept the responsibility of living in a community.

Today the school, as opposed to the family, is the childrens primary community. Parents look to school events and activities to fill their childrens day and meet their needs. Children look to loving teachers and administrators, social media and friends for affirmation. Unfortunately, the school has gotten to the point that it cannot be all things to students and parents, and it will evolve into a quasi-orphanage.

It took the American education system decades to get to this point and to make a quantum change seems insurmountable. However, the educational system altered itself in response to the children and parents. Therefore, parents can greatly influence change by taking back their parental duties.

Perhaps a start is to redefine what makes a child successful. Then, the parents may set priorities and cultivate virtuous habits for themselves and their children. Virtues such as discipline, sacrifice and respect  all but gone from everyday vocabulary  are essential to making children successful. Respect is vital to good relationship development. To pursue these virtues will cause discomfort  another disappearing word  but the parents and children must endure for the sake of their future.

Routinely having mandatory, stress-free dinners together is a start in redeveloping the relationship between parents and children. Family dinners without technology is cheaper than psychotherapy; it is an ideal time to listen to the children and give sound direction. Those two fundamental activities help to reestablish the importance of family as the childrens primary community. Schools can then return to their chief role as educators.

Marita Malone, Ph.D., a director of the St. Charles board of education and a former assistant professor at St. Louis University.
In early March 1965, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis and other civil rights leaders organized and led a group of protesters from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in support of civil rights for all Americans. Tragically, many of the marchers were beaten and bludgeoned at the foot of the Edmund Pettus bridge as they tried to leave Selma, an incident that became known as Bloody Sunday.

In the wake of the first Selma march and Bloody Sunday, King reached out to religious leaders around the United States, seeking their support and solidarity by appealing to their own congregations to join other marchers for planned marches to Montgomery later that month.

Roman Catholic Cardinal Joseph Ritter of St. Louis answered the call from King. No stranger to the civil rights movement, Ritter had ordered an end to segregation in the Indianapolis archdiocese in 1938 while he was bishop. Further, in 1947 he ended segregation in the St. Louis archdiocesan school system, fully seven years before the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Given his background in civil rights, it is no surprise that Ritter sprung into action and called key members of the Catholic laity and others in St. Louis to respond to King in his call for support of the Selma marches.

Within the Catholic laity in St. Louis at the time, the Vatterott family stood out as strong supporters of the civil rights movement. Charles F. Vatterott and Greg Vatterott recruited both Catholic lay people and clergy to travel to Alabama and join the marches. The Vatterotts even provided two large charter aircraft to transport marchers from both Kansas City and St. Louis to Selma. During the actual march, Charles Vatterott Jr. even carried a suitcase containing $25,000 in cash to provide bail money if needed.

As it turned out, the Selma marches, aided by St. Louisans and many others from around the country, successfully led to the adoption of the Civil Rights Act of 1965 and other measures designed to promote the cause of civil rights in America.

Fifty-seven years later, at a ceremony led by Congressman Lewis, members of the Vatterott family received the Congressional Gold Medal for their contributions to the Selma marches. The Gold Medal is the highest tribute bestowed by Congress on an American citizen.

While King and Ritter are both long gone, it is not unlikely that they knew each other. As a fierce proponent of desegregation in archdiocesan school systems in Indianapolis and St. Louis, well before others, Ritter provided the kind of leadership that King yearned for as he pushed for civil rights reform during the middle part of the 20th century in America.

As we celebrate the legacy of King this year and strive to do better as a nation in the area of civil rights, let us also pause to remember those St. Louisans who rallied to the support of King and Lewis in Selma.

Joe Schlafly lives in St. Louis.
Of the dozen official national holidays observed in the U.S. each year, the one being celebrated Monday  Martin Luther King Jr. Day  is the most relevant to todays big national conversations. From continuing police reform efforts to the teaching of racial issues in schools to the voting-rights battle currently roiling Congress, reminders abound that Kings dream of an America that is just, fair and tolerant in its treatment of all Americans is still a work in progress.

King set the course for Americas racial evolution in the second half of the last century by highlighting racial injustice while eloquently presenting the case for civil rights to the nation. He won not only sweeping changes in the law  most notably the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which he called a second emancipation  but also in the attitudes of white America. That he spurred these tectonic changes while rejecting violent revolution, embracing instead an ethos of non-violent protest, is further credit to one of the most transformative Americans who has ever lived.

Nowhere is the urgency of Kings unfinished work more clear than in todays debate over school curriculums. Usually referenced under the inaccurate catchall of critical race theory, it has become code for a conservative campaign to scrub discussion of race  and Americas history of slavery and racial discrimination  from the classroom. Some purveyors even quote King in their cause, twisting his famous call to judge people by their character rather than color as being somehow supportive of a gag order on teachers.

The epic fight in the Senate to protect voting rights today has different contours than it did in the Civil Rights Era  the goal of opponents is more partisan than racial, as they attempt to tamp down ballot access of those most likely to vote Democratic  but given the preponderance of Black voters in the party, the result is effectively the same. The GOPs success so far at blocking the legislation has been primarily because of the Senate filibuster, the same tool segregationists like Strom Thurmond of South Carolina used in Kings time to stall civil rights legislation.

Polls show that majorities of white Americans recognize for the first time the systemic racism that has long been evident in policing. But reform has been slow, stymied in part by reluctance of police departments to cooperate with data-gathering efforts. The insulting absurdity of honoring Confederate traitors with statues is more evident than ever to many Americans today than it was even two years ago. But most of those statues still stand.

In these and other current issues are the echoes of Kings mission to push America to live up to its own stated ideals of equality and justice. That mission isnt complete  it may never be  but it remains a vibrant and urgent one.
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Reference is made to the stock exchange release by SeaBird Exploration PLC ("SeaBird" or the "Company") on 13 January 2022 regarding the intention to carry out a private placement (the "Private Placement") of new shares in the Company.

The Company is pleased to announce that the Private Placement has been successfully placed, and that it has allocated subscriptions for 14,000,000 offer shares (the "Offer Shares") at a subscription price per share of NOK 2.25 (the "Offer Price"), raising NOK 30 million in net proceeds. The Private Placement took place through an accelerated bookbuilding process after close of markets today. The Private Placement attracted strong interest from both existing shareholders and new investors and was significantly oversubscribed.

Completion of the Private Placement and the issuance of the new shares in connection with the Offer Shares were resolved by the Company's Board of Directors (the "Board"), pursuant to an authorisation to waive pre-emption rights given at the Company's Annual General Meeting held on 13 August 2021.

Notification of allocation, including settlement instructions are expected to be distributed by the Managers on or about 14 January 2022, with settlement on a delivery versus payment (DVP) basis on or about 18 January 2022.

Delivery versus payment settlement of the Offer Shares will be facilitated by existing and unencumbered shares in the Company that are already listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange. New shares to be issued by the Company will be settled towards investors with shares made available pursuant to a share lending agreement between by Fearnley Securities AS (the "Manager"), the Company and shareholders Anderson Invest AS, Miel Holding AS, Grunnfjellet AS and Storfjell AS. Following registration of the share capital increase pertaining to the Private Placement with the relevant Cyprus authorities, the Company will have 48,276,665 shares issued and outstanding, each with a par value of USD 0.20.

The Offer Shares will be re-delivered to the lenders on a separate ISIN. The Offer Shares will be transferred to the Company's ordinary ISIN and listed upon approval of a listing prospectus, expected in Q1 2022.

The following allocation have been given to primary insiders in the Company at the same terms as other investors:

Executive Chairman of the Board Stale Rodahl, through his wholly owned company Storfjell AS, has been allocated 667,000 shares. Following the transaction, he will own 1,922,475 shares in the Company representing 4.0% of the issued share capital after completion of the Private Placement.

Director ivind Dahl-Stamnes has been allocated 11,000 shares. Following the transaction, he will own 43,200 shares in the Company representing 0.1% of the issued share capital after completion of the Private Placement.

The Board of Directors has resolved to carry out a subsequent offering of up to 3,500,000 shares raising proceeds of up to NOK 7,875,000 million at the Offer Price to its existing shareholders as of close of trading 13 January 2022, as subsequently recorded in the VPS on 17 January 2022, who were not allocated shares in the Private Placement and who are not resident in a jurisdiction where such offering would be unlawful, or would (in jurisdictions other than Norway) require any prospectus filing, registration or similar action. Such shareholders will be granted non-tradable subscription rights to subscribe for, and, upon subscription, be allocated new shares. One subscription right will entitle the holder to subscribe for one share in the subsequent offering. Oversubscription for the relevant shareholders will be allowed. Subscription without subscription rights will not be allowed.

The Board, together with the Company's management and the Manager, has considered various transaction alternatives to secure new financing. Based on an overall assessment, considering inter alia the need for funding, execution risk and possible alternatives, the Board has on the basis of careful considerations decided that the Private Placement is the alternative that best protects the Company's and the shareholders' joint interests. Thus, the waiver of the preferential rights inherent in a share capital increase through issuance of new shares is considered necessary.

Fearnley Securities AS acted as Bookrunner for the Private Placement.

Advokatfirmaet Schjdt AS acts as Norwegian legal counsel to the Company.

For further information, please contact:

Erik von Krogh, CFO

Tel:: + 47 930 38 075

E-mail: [email protected]

This information is considered to be inside information pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation and is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to Section 5-12 the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.

Important information:

The release is not for publication or distribution, in whole or in part directly or indirectly, in or into Australia, Canada, Japan or the United States (including its territories and possessions, any state of the United States and the District of Columbia). This release is an announcement issued pursuant to legal information obligations, and is subject of the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act. It is issued for information purposes only, and does not constitute or form part of any offer or solicitation to purchase or subscribe for securities, in the United States or in any other jurisdiction. The securities mentioned herein have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "US Securities Act"). The securities may not be offered or sold in the United States except pursuant to an exemption from the registration requirements of the US Securities Act. The Company does not intend to register any portion of the offering of the securities in the United States or to conduct a public offering of the securities in the United States. Copies of this announcement are not being made and may not be distributed or sent into Australia, Canada, Japan or the United States.

The issue, subscription or purchase of shares in the Company is subject to specific legal or regulatory restrictions in certain jurisdictions. Neither the Company nor the Manager assume any responsibility in the event there is a violation by any person of such restrictions.

The distribution of this release may in certain jurisdictions be restricted by law. Persons into whose possession this release comes should inform themselves about and observe any such restrictions. Any failure to comply with these restrictions may constitute a violation of the securities laws of any such jurisdiction.

The Manager is acting for the Company and no one else in connection with the Private Placement and will not be responsible to anyone other than the Company providing the protections afforded to their respective clients or for providing advice in relation to the Private Placement and/or any other matter referred to in this release.

Forward-looking statements: This release and any materials distributed in connection with this release may contain certain forward-looking statements. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risk and uncertainty because they reflect the Company's current expectations and assumptions as to future events and circumstances that may not prove accurate. A number of material factors could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements.




NASHVILLE, Tenn., Jan. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- AgriCapture successfully implemented a 4,000-acre cover crop program after harvest in 2021. It is the largest ever cover cropping project of its kind in the Mississippi River Valley region. Cover crops are a key regenerative farming practice used to improve soil health, reduce erosion and sequester carbon from the atmosphere.

The 4,000 acres of cover crops are expected to sequester an estimated 2,440 metric tons of carbon on an annual basis.

A mix of radish and cereal rye cover crops were planted across nine farms and over forty fields in Lee and Phillips County, Arkansas and Coahoma County, Mississippi. The cover crops will remain in the ground until the spring planting season, sequestering carbon throughout the winter months and regenerating soils for the 2022 crop year. AgriCapture plans to scale the program to 20,000 acres in 2022.

The 4,000 acres of cover crops are expected to have a tremendous environmental impact, sequestering an estimated 2,440 metric tons of carbon on an annual basis. This reduction of GHGs is equivalent to offsetting the carbon footprint of 2.7 million pounds of coal per year. The cover cropped acres will also generate carbon offset credits as part of AgriCapture's "Soil Enrichment Project 1" registered with the Climate Action Reserve, a premier carbon registry.

Griffin Farms, which manages over 15,000 acres in the Mississippi River Valley, contributed 2,900 acres to the cover cropping program and will expand their acres in 2022. "Cover crops are important for building healthier soils on our farms, and they allow us to save money and burn less diesel during planting season," says David Griffin. "AgriCapture is collecting data on our land to quantify the positive impact of the cover crops on our soil and the environment."

"Despite their benefits to soil health and carbon sequestration, cover crops can be cost prohibitive to implement at scale," says Sami Osman, President of AgriCapture. "To solve this challenge, AgriCapture is helping farmers apply for USDA payments for cover cropping. The new USDA Cover Crop Initiative funding is vitally important to getting cover crops to scale in the Mid-South."

About AgriCapture AgriCapture is a market-leading technology and data-enabled services firm providing best in class agricultural solutions to climate change. AgriCapture's Soil Enrichment project is the second-ever soil carbon greenhouse gas reduction project registered with Climate Action Reserve, a carbon registry. AgriCapture is quantifying, monitoring, reporting and verifying climate friendly agricultural practices on 51,691 row crop acres in the Mississippi River Valley to generate carbon credits and climate-friendly crop premiums. AgriCapture is committed to expanding climate friendly agriculture programs to combat climate change. AgriCapture is based in Nashville, Tenn. More information is available online at www.agricapture.com.

Contact: Megan Garvey, [email protected]

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/agricapture-completes-largest-ever-cover-cropping-program-in-the-mississippi-river-valley-to-improve-soil-health-and-fight-climate-change-301460653.html

SOURCE AgriCapture
CHARLOTTE, N.C., Jan. 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- A winter storm continues to move through the Carolinas today, cutting power to 67,000 Duke Energy customers so far, with more power outages likely to occur later today and into early Monday.

Power outages in some areas might last several days, depending on conditions.

As of 11:15 a.m. today, 27,000 customers in North Carolina and 40,000 in South Carolina had no power. (Outage map)

Hardest hit counties

So far, North Carolina's hardest hit counties, in terms of power outages, include: Gaston, Jackson, Macon and Swain.

South Carolina's hardest hit counties for power outages so far include: Anderson, Darlington, Florence, Greenville, Greenwood, Kershaw, Oconee, Pickens, Spartanburg and Sumter.

"I thank our customers, in advance, for their patience and understanding during what could be a multi-day power-restoration process, given the expected widespread damage to our electric distribution system across both states," said Jason Hollifield, Duke Energy Carolinas storm director.

"Our crews are ready to begin power restoration as soon as weather conditions safely allow, but ongoing hazardous weather and dangerous road conditions initially will slow our ability to assess damage, make repairs and estimate power restoration times," Hollifield said.

11,000 response workers from multiple states

In advance of the storm, Duke Energy strategically staged more than 11,000 workers  power line technicians, damage assessors and vegetation workers  across the Carolinas.

Those workers include Duke Energy crews normally based in Florida, Indiana and Ohio  and mutual assistance crews from other companies in Canada, Texas, Arizona, Wisconsin, Louisiana, Oklahoma and other states  who traveled to the Carolinas to assist North Carolina- and South Carolina-based Duke Energy workers.

Heavy ice on trees, branches, power lines

Ice buildup on trees and branches that causes them to fall on power lines is usually the main culprit behind power outages during a winter storm. Specifically, ice buildup of a quarter-inch or more is often the threshold amount that causes trees and branches to topple.

The heavy weight of significant ice buildup directly on power lines themselves can sometimes cause the lines to fall or sag, as well. Heavy, wet snow of six inches or more also can cause trees and branches to fall on power lines.

Damage assessment

After the storm, as conditions permit, crews will begin assessing the extent of damage  a process that can take 24 hours or more following storms that cause widespread damage and hazardous driving conditions.

Damage assessments determine the types of crews, equipment and supplies needed to restore power.

Power restoration crews will begin working immediately after the storm as soon as it's safe to do so. Restoration efficiency improves as damage assessment information is available to ensure the right workers and materials are dispatched to each power outage location.

Keeping customers informed

Customers can report power outages by texting "OUT" to 57801, and find the most up to date information on the company's outage map.

Duke Energy will provide estimated power restoration times to impacted customers as soon as the company can accurately determine those estimated times, which likely will be Monday.

The company also will provide regular updates to customers and communities through emails, text messages, outbound phone calls, social media and its website, which includes power outage maps.

Duke Energy is working closely with state officials in both North Carolina and South Carolina. Both states provide emergency information  North Carolina, South Carolina.

Duke Energy serves 4.3 million customers in the Carolinas  3.5 million in North Carolina; 800,000 in South Carolina.

Duke Energy's power restoration process

More information about how crews restore power after a major storm  restoration process.

Important safety information for customers

Ensure an adequate supply of flashlights, batteries, bottled water, non-perishable foods, medicines, etc., as well as the availability of a portable, battery-operated radio, TV or weather radio.

Customers should make alternate shelter arrangements as needed if you will be significantly impacted by a loss of power  especially families who have special medical needs or elderly members.

If a power line falls across a car that you're in, stay in the car. If you MUST get out of the car due to a fire or other immediate life-threatening situation, do your best to jump clear of the car and land on both feet. Be sure that no part of your body is touching the car when your feet touch the ground.

Ice and snow can cause hazardous driving conditions resulting in traffic accidents and downed utility poles and power lines that, in turn, can cause isolated power outages. If you're driving and encounter emergency responders or other roadside work crews, remember to MOVE OVER.

If you use a generator due to a power outage, follow the manufacturer's instructions to ensure safe and proper operation. Operate your generator outside; never operate it inside a building or garage.

Don't use grills or other outdoor appliances or equipment indoors for space heating or cooking, as these devices may emit carbon monoxide.

Stay away from power lines that have fallen or are sagging. Consider all lines energized as well as trees or limbs in contact with lines. Please report downed power lines to Duke Energy or local emergency services.

Be prepared for an emergency by purchasing an emergency preparedness kit from the Red Cross.

More tips on what to do before, during and after a storm can be found at duke-energy.com/safety-and-preparedness/storm-safety. A checklist serves as a helpful guide, but it's critical before, during and after a storm to follow the instructions and warnings of emergency management officials in your area.

Shelter information

If you lose power and need to move to a shelter, North Carolina and South Carolina state websites provide emergency shelter information  North Carolina, South Carolina.

In addition, the Red Cross maintains an update-to-date list of open shelter locations  https://www.redcross.org/get-help/disaster-relief-and-recovery-services/find-an-open-shelter.html.

Follow CDC recommendations for staying safe and healthy in a public disaster shelter during the COVID-19 pandemic.

How to protect refrigerated food during power outages

For customers who lose power and have full refrigerators and freezers, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommends the following:

Keep refrigerator and freezer doors closed as much as possible to maintain the cold temperature.

A refrigerator can keep food cold for about four hours if it is unopened. If the power will be out for more than four hours, use coolers to keep refrigerated food cold.

A full freezer will keep the temperature for approximately 48 hours (24 hours if it is half full) if the door remains closed.

The FDA offers additional tips for proper food handling and storage before, during and after a power outage at www.fda.gov/food/buy-store-serve-safe-food/food-and-water-safety-during-power-outages-and-floods.

Avoid customer scams

Customers should be alert to scammers who might call them  impersonating Duke Energy representatives and threatening to cut off customers' power before or during the storm unless customers make an immediate payment for late bills or other charges.

Duke Energy never makes such calls.

Below are tips for customers to avoid such scams:

If it's a recorded voice, often referred to as a "robocall," be extra cautious.

Do not provide any personal information.

Duke Energy's actual recorded calls to customers are informative only. The company's calls never threaten to cut off power and never request personal information.

If a caller  recorded or live  specifically asks you to pay using a prepaid debit card, that's a red flag. Prepaid debit cards are like cash and the transactions cannot be reversed.

If the caller pressures you to make an immediate payment of any type  or provide personal information of any kind, such as a bank account number or social security number  hang up the phone.

Sign up for outage alerts

Customers can receive the most up-to-date information about power restoration efforts by enrolling in Outage Alerts.

How to report power outages

Customers who experience a power outage can report the outage using Duke Energy's automated outage-reporting systems for their respective utility:

Customers can report an outage by texting "OUT" to 57801, and also report an outage or view current outages on the Duke Energy mobile app or at www.duke-energy.com/outages.

Duke Energy Carolinas: 1.800.POWERON (1.800.769.3766)

Duke Energy Progress: 1.800.419.6356

Duke Energy also will provide updates on its social media channels to keep customers informed if significant outages occur:

Duke Energy on Twitter: twitter.com/DukeEnergy

Duke Energy on Facebook: facebook.com/DukeEnergy

View B-roll of storm preparations and winter storm power restoration efforts

Duke Energy

Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK), a Fortune 150 company headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., is one of America's largest energy holding companies. Its electric utilities serve 7.9 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky, and collectively own 51,000 megawatts of energy capacity. Its natural gas unit serves 1.6 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio and Kentucky. The company employs 27,500 people.

Duke Energy is executing an aggressive clean energy strategy to create a smarter energy future for its customers and communities  with goals of at least a 50% carbon reduction by 2030 and net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The company is a top U.S. renewable energy provider, on track to own or purchase 16,000 megawatts of renewable energy capacity by 2025. The company also is investing in major electric grid upgrades and expanded battery storage, and exploring zero-emitting power generation technologies such as hydrogen and advanced nuclear.

Duke Energy was named to Fortune's 2021 "World's Most Admired Companies" list and Forbes' "America's Best Employers" list. More information is available at duke-energy.com. The Duke Energy News Center contains news releases, fact sheets, photos and videos. Duke Energy's illumination features stories about people, innovations, community topics and environmental issues. Follow Duke Energy on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.

Media contact: 800.559.3853

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SOURCE Duke Energy
Frankfurt, Germany, September 1988: Musician and activist Harry Belafonte is interviewed at the Hotel Frankfurter Hof during an extensive tour of Europe in which he performed in over 20 cities. Belafontes tour was in support of Paradise in Gazankulu, his first album in 15 years, which spotlighted South African music and musicians.
(Tribune News Service)  France on Thursday officially thanked Earl Mills at his farm in Live Oak, Fla., almost 78 years after he parachuted from a U.S. Army plane over Normandy, part of a wave of Allied soldiers determined to liberate the country and the rest of Europe from the threat of the Nazi regime.

Francois Kloc, Frances honorary consul in Jacksonville, made the trip to Suwannee County to the family farm that Mills grandfather homesteaded during the Civil War.

He presented Mills  who turned 100 last spring  with the red-ribboned Chevalier de la Legion dHonneur (Knight of the Legion of Honor), the highest French distinction for military and civil accomplishments.

I thank you, in the name of the French government, Kloc said, handing the medal to Mills, who on this chilly afternoon was seated outside his house, with a blanket over his legs and a green farm field behind him.

The award  created by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802  is meant to honor exceptional service to France. American veterans who risked their lives fighting in France during World War II qualify to apply to be decorated as Knights of the Legion of Honor.

Made the world a better place

Kloc, after the ceremony, said its a symbol of how much his country owes to soldiers such Mills, a paratrooper who saw combat during the D-Day invasion and then again at the Battle of the Bulge.

It means everything, Kloc said. We always say we will never forget. If we are in France, there are villages, people, entire generations, able to be who they are. I was born in France and had the ability to be free and do what I wanted to because of Earl.

Kloc said the decision to honor U.S. soldiers also shows the strong ties between the two countries.

The United States is the oldest ally of France, and vice versa, he said. This is something that will never be broken. That link is there forever because of the sacrifices of people like Earl who have really made this world a better place.

George and Sheila Burnham of Live Oak, friends of Mills who helped with his application for the honor, were there to see it awarded to him. It means a lot to Mills, they said.

Thank God for American freedom, George Burnham said, his voice breaking. Sorry, I get emotional.

Our losses were heavy

On June 5, 1944, Mills was at Greenham Common, an English air base, as Allied Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower addressed the men of the 101st Airborne Division who had gathered before the mission to take back Europe.

Mills was 23.

They told us, There are going to be a lot of you standing here today that wont come back, he said during a 2020 Times-Union interview. I thought I might be one of those guys.

Shortly before midnight on June 5, Mills boarded a C-47 bound for Normandy and early on June 6 he made his jump. Because of the planes evasive moves to avoid German anti-aircraft fire, Mills and his fellow paratroopers were scattered across the countryside. He spent a long night with men from another unit before meeting up with his squadron commander and heading down a deadly path back toward the beach.

He was a heavy-mortar crewman tasked with helping take out gun emplacements that would soon be aimed at the Allied soldiers storming the beach. After four days of fighting, he and fellow soldiers were taken back to England, a chance for rest and to replace all those who had been killed or wounded.

Mills doesnt like to talk much about the particulars of the combat he went through  not in Normandy and not later at the Battle of the Bulge where he huddled in an icy foxhole as German airplane fire ate up the ground around him.

In a memoir, he wrote: We were in many battles where we destroyed and captured many Germans. Our losses were heavy.

He was injured when an overhead artillery burst threw shrapnel into his face. He was sent from Belgium to a hospital in Paris. After recovering, he rejoined his regiment. He was there until the end of the war.

A job we all had to do

After fighting was over, he married Myrtle Hardee, whom he met in a Live Oak donut shop. They were married 68 years until her death in 2016.

He joined the Air Force after leaving the Army, retiring in 1961. After that he came home to a house in the country in Live Oak and an 18-year career as a mail carrier.

In the 2020 interview, he said he doesnt think back on the war that often. But it was clear, he said, what he was fighting for.

I think I thought about our country more than anything else, he said. I figured this was a job we all had to do. If we all got killed, we still had to fight the Germans. My primary thought was for my country, and for my family and friends back home.

2022 The Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville, Fla.

Visit jacksonville.com .
Spark are waiving all charges for calls to Tonga from any Spark landline or mobile for the next week, however Southern Cross Cable Network says it has been unable to reach a network centre in Tonga, even by satellite phone, to find out why communications links to and from the country are down.

Tongas main communications link to the outside work is provided by the 872 kilometre Tonga Cable System.

The subsea fibre-optic cable, which is majority owned by the Tongan government, runs from the Tongan capital of Nuku'alofa to Suva in Fiji, where it connects to the trans-Pacific Southern Cross Cable Network which is part-owned by Spark.

"Our thoughts are with the people of Tonga and our Tongan community in Aotearoa," says a Spark spokesperson.

"We know how important it is to connect with loved ones in a situation like this, and are waiving all charges for calls to Tonga from any Spark landline or mobile from today, until next Sunday January 23.

"Unfortunately communication in Tonga is difficult right now due to the damage caused by weather events, so immediate contact may not be possible, but we want to make it as easy as possible for our customers to connect with their kainga in Tonga when they can, without the additional stress of having to worry about incurring extra costs."

It could take weeks to fully restore phone and internet connections to Tonga, based on past experience, in the event that its subsea communications cable to Fiji was cut by Saturdays volcanic eruption or tsunami.

More rudimentary satellite communications should be much quicker to restore.

Southern Cross Cable Network sales director Craige Sloots said shortly after 11am on Sunday that at that stage it didnt have a lot of information about what had happened.

Our network operations centre can see that the Tonga service is down, and we can see from the cable station that the Tonga cable is single end feeding which means that the power source from the Tonga end is down, he said.

At this stage it is not clear whether this is due to the cable being cut, or a failure of the power feeding equipment in Tonga.

We continue to try and contact the Tonga network operations centre but at this stage remain unable to do so, even via satellite phone. While we understand Tonga also has satellite links, we dont know whether the satellite ground equipment has been affected.

As of shortly after noon on Sunday, Southern Cross attempts to make contact remained unsuccessful.

Though this may simply be due to power failure of the satellite ground equipment, Sloots said.

The Tonga Cable was laid in 2013 and was cut in 2019 in an incident that was attributed to a ships anchor catching the cable and dragging and breaking it.

It took two weeks for a cable repair ship operated by subsea cable company TE Subcom to reach the site and patch it.

The Tongan government subsequently signed a contract with Singaporean company Kacific to upgrade its satellite communications links.

These can provide limited back-up for international phone and internet services and are also used to connect outlying islands to Nuku'alofa.

Kacific has been contacted for information on the status of its ground station infrastructure in Tonga.

Satellite phones are sometime used by the likes of emergency services as they can connect directly to satellites in space without the need for infrastructure on the ground.

More information about the situation in Tonga may come from aerial or satellite imagery.

Californian satellite company Planet Labs, which captured a photograph of the volcano just two hours before it erupted, said it was working to collect images of areas impacted by the tsunami it generated.

Planet operates a fleet of about 200 satellites that circle the globe every 24 hours.

Spokeswoman Anne Pellegrino said it expected to capture new photos later today, New Zealand time, of the volcano after it erupted.
Auckland health officials are working quickly to stop Omicron breaking out into the community following an MIQ worker testing positive for the variant.

The positive case reported on Saturday in an Auckland MIQ worker has now been linked to the border through whole genome sequencing. This has provided confirmation that the worker has the Omicron variant.

In response, we are taking a conservative approach, and our objective is to stamp out and contain any onward transmission, says a Ministry of Health spokesperson.

All of the cases seven household contacts identified have already been contacted, isolated and tested, and returned a negative result.

A further 48 close contacts are in the process of being contacted, asked to isolate and get tested. Fifteen of these contacts have already returned a negative test result, including five contacts in Taupo. Among the close contacts, are 39 people who were on two bus trips with the case. The MIQ worker on the bus trips was wearing their mask throughout both journeys.

At this stage, exposure events have been identified at the MIQ facility, on bus travel to work and a small number of shops.

A number of high-risk locations of interest linked to the case have been published, and we ask anyone who was at any of these locations at the specified time to get tested immediately, self-isolate and then get a further test on day 5 after exposure at the location of interest and then continue to follow any further advice on isolation and testing that will be provided to you by public health officials.

Locations include:

Rail Replacement Bus - Southern Line, Britomart to Takanini, Thursday 13 January 4:50 pm - 6:20 pm

Rail Replacement Bus - Eastern Line - Panmure to Britomart, Friday 14 January 7:15 am - 7:40 am

The Warehouse, 30 Walters Road, Takanini, Wednesday 12 January 6:39 pm - 7:15 pm.

New World Metro, 125 Queen St, Auckland CBD, Thursday 13 January 12.11pm - 12.30pm and Friday 14 January 12.21pm - 12.30 pm.

Morrin Road Bakehouse, 66A Morrin Road, Saint Johns, Friday 14 January 6:30 am - 7:00 am and Monday 10 January 7:10 am - 7:30 am

Gateway Wholesale Meats, 108 Great South Road, Tuesday 11 January 3:42 pm - 4:00 pm

Shosha Takanini, 108 Great South Road, Takanini, Monday 10 January 6:03 pm - 6:15 pm

These locations of interest will be highlighted on the Ministrys website as linked to the Omicron positive case.

The case and one household contact are now isolating in a MIQ facility. The remaining close contacts are isolating at locations in Auckland and Taupo.

On Friday afternoon, the worker returned a positive result for a routine surveillance test taken on Wednesday afternoon.

The worker is fully vaccinated, up to date with regular surveillance testing and has cooperated fully with health authorities in helping manage any risks.

Public Health staff thank them for their assistance, says a Ministry of Health spokesperson.

Auckland health officials are working at pace to identify any further contacts and exposure events.

Whole genome sequencing has linked the MIQ worker to two returnees within the facility who travelled from India who arrived on January 8 and tested positive two days later.

The MIQ worker is deemed to have been infectious from Monday January 10.

Auckland Regional Public Health are working with MIQ staff to look for any possible routes of transmission between the returnees and the MIQ worker. MIQ staff at this facility are in the process of having an additional test arranged.

"New Zealands vaccine rollout remains our key defence against all variants of COVID-19, including Omicron. With 93 per cent of the eligible population now double-dosed, and the booster programme underway, New Zealanders are well protected," says a Ministry of Health spokesperson.

"We want vaccinations to continue to increase and ask everyone who is eligible to get vaccinated. This is also a timely reminder for people over the age of 18 to get their booster shot if it has been four months since their last vaccine dose."

On Monday, the vaccine will be available for 5 to 11-year-olds to get protected against COVID-19. We encourage all parents with children in this age group to take them to get vaccinated. A full list of vaccination centres can be found on the Healthpoint website.

The Ministry asks anyone who lives in Auckland with symptoms  no matter how mild  to get a test, even if youre vaccinated and to please stay at home until you return a negative test result.
The Ministry of Health are reporting that there are 25 new community cases of Covid-19, 43 new cases identified at the border, 22 people are in hospital and two are in ICU. A border worker has been confirmed as an Omicron case.

Fifteen of the new community cases are in Auckland, with one in Northland, two in Waikato, three in Bay of Plenty, two in Lakes, one in Hawkes Bay and one in Wellington.

Of the 22 cases in hospital, five are in North Shore, eight are in Auckland, eight are in Middlemore and one is in Tauranga Hospital.

More than 22,000 booster doses were administered on Saturday.

New Zealands vaccine rollout remains our key defence against all variants of Covid-19, including Omicron, says a Ministry of Health spokesperson.

With 93 per cent of the eligible population now double-dosed, and the booster programme underway, New Zealanders are well protected. We want vaccinations to continue to increase and ask everyone who is eligible to get vaccinated.

This is also a timely reminder for people over the age of 18 to get their booster shot if it has been four months since their last vaccine dose.

On Monday, the vaccine will be available for 5 to 11-year-olds to get protected against Covid-19. We encourage all parents with children in this age group to take them to get vaccinated. A full list of vaccination centres can be found on the Healthpoint website.

Todays cases

The Ministry of Health is reporting new community cases in Northland, Auckland, Bay of Plenty, Lakes, Waikato, Hawkes Bay, and Wellington.

*One of the cases being reported in Hawkes Bay was first announced by the DHB yesterday, and a second case being announced today will be officially included in the numbers tomorrow.

Regional updates

"We are continuing to ask anyone in New Zealand with symptoms  no matter how mild  to get tested, even if youre vaccinated. Please stay at home until you return a negative test result. We are also asking people to regularly check the as these are regularly updated and to follow the advice provided."

Testing and vaccination centre locations nationwide can be found on the Healthpoint website.

Please also continue to check for any updated Locations of Interest and appropriate health advice, updated regularly at Contact tracing locations of interest.

Northland

There is one new case to report in Whangarei today. The case is still under investigation for any links to previously reported cases. There are currently five active cases in Northland.

Auckland

There are 15 cases to report in Auckland today. Health and welfare providers are now supporting 892 people in the region to isolate at home, including 188 cases.

Bay of Plenty

There are three new cases in Western Bay of Plenty to report. Two of these cases are close contacts of previously reported cases and the other remains under investigation for links to previously reported cases.

Lakes

There are two community cases to report in Rotorua today. Investigations are underway to determine any links to previously reported cases.

Waikato

There are two new cases in the Waikato today, one in Hamilton and one in Ngaruawahia. One of these cases has been linked to a previously reported case and one remains under investigation.

In the Waikato, Public Health, primary care and manaaki providers are supporting 24 cases to isolate at home.

Hawkes Bay

There are two new community cases to announce in Hastings today.

One was first announced by the district health board yesterday and is included in todays numbers. The other case was notified after the daily cut-off for reporting and will be officially included in tomorrows number.

The first case is being investigated for links to previously reported cases, and the second case is household contact of the first.

Locations of interest linked to this case have been published on the Ministry of Health website already and people who have spent time in the area are asked to check the website for any new locations, which will be added as they are confirmed.

Both cases are now isolating with public health and welfare support.

Wellington

There is one case to report in Wellington City today. The case is a close contact of a previously reported case in Auckland and was already isolating when they tested positive.

The Wellington region has 12 active cases, including five in Wellington, three in the Hutt Valley and four in Wairarapa.

COVID-19 vaccine update

Vaccines administered to date (percentage of eligible people): 3,988,847 first doses (95%); 3,895,725 second doses (93%); 35,481 third primary doses; 742,123 booster doses

Vaccines administered yesterday: 906 first doses; 1,923 second doses; 256 third primary doses and 22,149 booster doses.

Maori (percentage of eligible people): 506,214 first doses (89%); 475,387 second doses (83%).

Pacific Peoples (percentage of eligible people): 274,363 first doses (96%); 264,945 second doses (92%).

Vaccination rates by DHB with active cases (percentage of eligible people)

Northland DHB: First doses (89%); second doses (86%)

Auckland Metro DHBs: First doses (97%); second doses (95%)

Waikato DHB: First doses (94%); second doses (92%)

Bay of Plenty DHB: First doses (94%); second doses (91%)

Lakes DHB: First doses (92%); second doses (89%)

Hawkes Bay DHB: First doses (95%); second doses (92%)

Wairarapa DHB: First doses (96%); second doses (93%)

Capital and Coast DHB: First doses (98%); second doses (97%)

Hutt Valley DHB: First doses (96%); second doses (94%)

Canterbury DHB: First doses (99%); second doses (97%)

Hospitalisations

Cases in hospital: 22; North Shore: 5; Auckland: 8; Middlemore: 8; Tauranga: 1.

Vaccination status of current hospitalisations (Northern Region wards only): Unvaccinated or not eligible (6 cases / 30%); partially immunised <7 days from second dose or have only received one dose (6 case / 30%); fully vaccinated at least 7 days before being reported as a case (7 cases / 35%); unknown (1 case / 5%).

Average age of current hospitalisations: 51

Cases in ICU or HDU: 2; Middlemore: 1; Tauranga: 1

Cases

Seven day rolling average of community cases: 24

Seven day rolling average of border cases: 32

Number of new community cases: 25

Number of new cases identified at the border: 43

Location of new community cases: Northland (1), Auckland (15), Waikato (2), Bay of Plenty (3), Lakes (2), Hawkes Bay (1)*, Wellington (1)

Number of community cases (total): 11,306 (in current community outbreak)

Cases epidemiologically linked (total): 8587

Number of active cases (total): 554 (cases identified in the past 21 days and not yet classified as recovered)

Confirmed cases (total): 14,694

Contacts

Number of active contacts being managed (total): 4,800

Percentage who has received an outbound call from contact tracers (to confirm testing and isolation requirements): 80%

Percentage who has returned at least one result: 80%

Tests

Number of tests total (last 24 hours): 13,816

Tests rolling average (last 7 days): 15,200

Auckland tests total (last 24 hours): 7655

Wastewater

No unexpected results.

NZ COVID Tracer

Poster scans in the 24 hours to midday yesterday: 2,572,508

Manual diary entries in the 24 hours to midday: 36,867

My Vaccine Pass

My vaccine pass downloads total: 4,796,633

My vaccine pass downloads (last 24 hours): 9,527
Some face masks could be worse than nothing if they lull people into a false sense of security, experts say.

With Omicron knocking at New Zealands door, scientists are urging people to ditch face coverings that dont offer protection and think about filter, fit and consistent proper use.

Those stretchy single layer masks you see around are completely ineffective, says Dr Lucy Telfar Barnard, a senior research fellow in public health from the University of Otago.

Any mask is generally better than no mask, she says, but if using a substandard mask is stopping you get something better, then its counterproductive.

Dr Joel Rindelaub, a research fellow at the University of Auckland, says plastic face shields and mouth shields were effectively worthless.

[They] are essentially not going to do anything to prevent aerosol transmission.

N95 and P2 masks offer the best protection, experts agree, and theyre available at hardware stores and pharmacies. If you cant access or afford one, a surgical mask adjusted to fit well is the next best thing, Telfar Barnard says.

That might mean using a mask bracket that keeps the material off your face, knotting the ties behind your ears and tucking the pleats, or wearing a well-fitting cloth mask over the top. You can also cut down a surgical mask to use as a filter in a cloth mask.

She urged people not to figure-eight the ties on a surgical mask in an attempt to make it fit: It creates tunnels at the cheek where viral particles will flow freely in and out.

The Government started advising mask use in the midst of a global shortage of medical masks. Something is better than nothing, Kiwis were told  use a scarf, bandana or t-shirt, if you must.

Early in the pandemic ... we were just trying to get people to cover up, Rindelaub says.

Surgical masks are second-best to respirators, but they need to fit properly. Photo: Mika Baumeister/Unsplash

But now that things have shifted, we know exactly how this virus transmits through aerosols, we have a better stock of these more high quality facemask.

So it's time to make that transition, especially with Omicron right around the corner.

If everyone in New Zealand wore respirator-type masks all the time, the pandemic would stop immediately because there would be no more transmission, epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker said.

Wearing respirator masks 24/7 isnt a practical way to live, so its a balancing act working out what situations need the highest level of precaution, Baker said.

Don't be complacent. Stop! Scanner time

Scan a nearby Covid-19 QR code to stay safe

If a venue is indoors, crowded, with poor ventilation, a high-quality mask is a must.

New Zealands slow adoption of mask use is partly down to our low case numbers, Baker said. While people in other countries have faced the near-certainty of encountering Covid-19 with every trip out the house, Kiwis hadnt. But Omicron looks set to change things.

Omicron is likely to cause an intense pandemic wave when it arrives, Baker says. Suddenly taking all the precautions you can will seem absolutely essential.

Omicron is better at breaking through vaccination protection, so even if you're vaccinated you still need good mask use, Telfar Barnard says.

Emergency Departments are preparing to see an onslaught of Omicron cases, once the Covid-19 variant starts spreading in the community.

Having a high-quality mask is important at an individual level  to protect you and those around you from the virus  and at a national level, to flatten the curve and stop the healthcare system from being overwhelmed, Baker said.

He wants to see a national mask strategy that would outline exactly when and where masks need to be used, with a focus on equity so everyone can access respirator masks that may otherwise be out of reach for low-income families.

The Ministry of Health has been approached for comment.

Dr Lucy Telfar Barnards tips for mask use:

Your mask needs to be an excellent filter.

It needs to fit you really well.

If you're sharing air (ie indoors or in busy/crowded outdoor areas) outside your bubble, you need to be wearing your mask, and you need to keep it well-fitted over your nose and mouth consistently.

If you find yourself pulling the mask away from your face to talk clearly, or below your nose to prevent glasses, you either need a better mask, or better mask habits.

If your mask has gaps round the edges (down the sides of your nose, in the sides at the cheeks, and under the chin are common gap points), you need a better mask, or you need to find a way to make it fit better.

Josephine Franks/Stuff
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Weather Alert

...The Flood Warning continues for the following rivers in Oklahoma... Illinois River near Tahlequah affecting Cherokee County. ...FLOOD WARNING NOW IN EFFECT FROM LATE TONIGHT TO LATE TOMORROW EVENING... * WHAT...Minor flooding is forecast. * WHERE...Illinois River near Tahlequah. * WHEN...From late tonight to late tomorrow evening. * IMPACTS...At 11.0 feet, minor flooding occurs from near Hanging Rock downstream towards Tahlequah. Floating the river is too hazardous due to strong turbulence. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS... - At 8:30 AM CDT Tuesday the stage was 7.4 feet. - Forecast...The river is expected to rise above flood stage just after midnight tonight to a crest of 11.5 feet tomorrow morning. It will then fall below flood stage tomorrow afternoon. - Flood stage is 11.0 feet. - http://www.weather.gov/safety/flood &&
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Join Date: Sep 2012 Location: Pune Posts: 897 Thanked: 2,484 Times

Re: The Coronavirus Thread Quote:

Many places have a weekend curfew. Is there any record that there is a significant drop in cases due to curfew? Did the previous lockdown slowdown the cases? Is there a formula that says x days of lockdown implies y% fewer patients in hospital? .



There is no formula but I've seen weekly average fall 10-15 days after lockdown were imposed during second wave. A drop in weekly average means more beds vacated by recovered hospitalized patients. I thought we all knew this after fighting 2 waves



Regarding night curfews, one key reason that many miss is that it is done to manage Police manpower better, crimes like petty fights, serious crimes-murders, robbery, violent vandals, road accidents happen more during night time. By reducing occurence of such cases, Police can reduce their burden of work (at the cost of people's freedom) and manage shortage of resources for the next stage which is daytime lockdown if needed. Yes, two of my friends caught covid last weekend, one went to a crowded shopping mall (Big Bazaar) and another went to a Pune's famous Laxmi Road, Yes, I am not making this up! The idea is that slowing active case rise helps in managing medical services better. Luckily this wave is not witnessing much hospitalisations so far, else my friends would have regretted their actions. My mom could not get a hospital bed in time during the 2nd second wave's peak so I know how bad it can get.There is no formula but I've seen weekly average fall 10-15 days after lockdown were imposed during second wave. A drop in weekly average means more beds vacated by recovered hospitalized patients. I thought we all knew this after fighting 2 wavesRegarding night curfews, one key reason that many miss is that it is done to manage Police manpower better, crimes like petty fights, serious crimes-murders, robbery, violent vandals, road accidents happen more during night time. By reducing occurence of such cases, Police can reduce their burden of work (at the cost of people's freedom) and manage shortage of resources for the next stage which is daytime lockdown if needed. Last edited by tsk1979 : 13th January 2022 at 00:53 .
Tehachapi, CA (93561)

Today

Mainly sunny. High 66F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Clear skies. Low 41F. WNW winds shifting to NE at 10 to 15 mph.
The Kern County District Attorneys office said Feb. 3 it will wait for more information before taking a position on any possible relocation o
By Trend

Azerbaijan's self-sufficiency in wheat averages 60 percent, Firdovsi Fikratzade, Director of the Agro Research Center of the Azerbaijani Ministry of Agriculture, told Trend .

Fikratzade stressed that Azerbaijan annually produces an average of two million tons of wheat.

Some 1.3-1.4 million tons of wheat are imported per year, director of the Agro Research Center added. Azerbaijan's self-sufficiency in wheat averages 59-60 percent. The index of wheat import for flour production is just over 40 percent.
San Miguel County Assessor Peggy Kanter, pictured here with her husband, Ron, will retire next month after serving for 44 years. She was not only the longest-serving elected official in the county, but also the longest-serving assessor in the state of Colorado. (Courtesy photo)
Madisonville, KY (42431)

Today

Sunshine and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High near 80F. Winds WSW at 15 to 25 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 52F. Winds NW at 10 to 15 mph.
James Finn writes for The Advocate as a Report For America corps member. Email him at JFinn@theadvocate.com or follow him on Twitter @RJamesFinn.

To learn more about Report for America and to support our journalism, please click here.
Taurus "TJ" Matthews enrolled in barber school soon after graduating from Zachary High School.

A couple years later, he asked FlyBarbers owner Donald Buckles to become his mentor. Buckles agreed, and Matthews started working long hours at the new FlyBarbers location on Sherwood Forest Boulevard.

Matthews, 21, had big dreams and the work ethic to make them happen, friends and colleagues said.

But everything was cut short when he died from gunshot wounds Dec. 29. Police said Matthews and his girlfriend were cooking dinner when her jealous ex-boyfriend entered the Baker apartment, raised a silver handgun and opened fire.

The attack marked the last homicide case of 2021 in East Baton Rouge Parish, capping off the most murderous year on record. As killings rose to an unprecedented height for the second year running, the parish marked 149 lives lost to violence, according to Advocate records.

See the toll: Here are the 149 lives Baton Rouge lost to violence.

The 149th name on a long list of victims: Taurus Matthews. Friends said he was an ambitious young man who planned to open his own barbershop, an only child whose death affirmed what his grieving mother already knew: that her son experienced tremendous love during his time on Earth.

"He was a gentle giant," said Kiawanna Moore, a close friend and coworker at FlyBarbers. She pictures Matthews driving around in his camo-wrapped Dodge Charger, blasting everything from reggae to opera to R&B. The two planned to open a recording studio in her spare bedroom.

"We had so many plans," Moore said.

Authorities are still searching for the suspected shooter, Randy Flot, 20, who faces a second-degree murder count.

The case illustrates a few trends officials have highlighted. Namely, more brazen displays of gun violence  including in broad daylight, with little regard for witnesses  and relatively minor disputes escalating into deadly gunfire, often involving young Black men.

The prevalence of domestic violence also stands out, as does an increase in retaliatory gang shootings.

These patterns took shape in early 2020 and escalated in 2021, in Baton Rouge and elsewhere, as the U.S. faced a rollercoaster of coronavirus cases and fluctuating economic restrictions, continued financial hardship, a backlogged court system, strained community-police relations following the George Floyd murder and an ever-increasing pandemic death toll.

+23 Young father gunned down in Holiday Inn parking lot Monday morning as Baton Rouge gun violence soars A young woman with long dreadlocks slumped against the hood of a white pickup truck in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn on Airline Highway l

'A national issue'

After surging gun violence in 2020, Baton Rouge leaders hoped the killings would subside in 2021 along with the pandemic. But the opposite happened. January alone saw 17 homicides, making it the deadliest month of 2021.

The Advocate tracks intentional and unjustified killings, as defined by FBI crime reporting rules. Those killings are criminal homicides and legally classified as murder and manslaughter. The numbers can change if authorities deem some cases accidental or justified, and vice versa.

Other cities also saw an uptick in 2021, but the Baton Rouge spike was more dramatic than most  roughly 30% higher than the previous year and 84% higher than 2019.

"This isn't just a Baton Rouge issue, it's a national issue," said BRPD Chief Murphy Paul, who has faced criticism for failing to bring down the numbers. "I get the public frustration, but I want people to know there's a lot of work going on behind the scenes."

Paul traveled to Washington in June after the Biden administration selected 15 cities to receive federal assistance in their anti-violence efforts. Much smaller than most of the other cities, Baton Rouge received rare national attention for its rampant bloodshed.

+2 Baton Rouge is one of the smallest cities in Biden's crime plan. Its homicide rate is among the highest When President Joe Biden unveiled a new plan to combat violent crime in 15 American cities and counties, including Baton Rouge, he touted the 

Nationwide, homicides rose about 4% in 2021 after a 30% jump in 2020, according to Richard Rosenfeld, criminologist and professor at the University of Missouri in St. Louis.

While the national average indicates a relatively small increase, Rosenfeld said, there are several outlier cities. For example, Austin and St. Petersburg, Florida saw massive increases, though their homicide totals remained well under 100. St. Louis, meanwhile, saw a significant drop in homicides that remains largely unexplained.

New Orleans saw a 10% increase, with 218 homicides in 2021  the highest annual total since before Hurricane Katrina  compared to 198 in 2020.

New Orleans crime analyst Jeff Asher said he usually expects Baton Rouge to record about half as many homicides, but the 2021 total is closer to three-quarters. "That's not a good gap to be closing," he said.

+3 1 dead in Christmas morning shooting as Baton Rouge gun violence soars: 'Unbelievable' After months and months of soaring gun violence in Baton Rouge, even Christmas morning brought a deadly shooting as residents of a Sherwood Me

It appears Baton Rouge also climbed higher on the list of deadliest American cities, with a homicide rate of 52 per 100,000 residents, compared to roughly 30 per 100,000 in Chicago and 54 per 100,000 in Baltimore.

Jackson, Mississippi, a smaller city that saw 153 homicides in 2021, topped that list with nearly 100 per 100,000, according to local television station WLBT.

But overall, data from more than 20 American cities indicate the nationwide increase is tapering off, Rosenfeld said, which bodes well for 2022  though curveballs could come from added pandemic restrictions or another egregious police brutality case.

"Barring changes on those two fronts, I think we will continue to see a slow decline across the board," he said. "But we have these cities that remain quite worrisome, including Baton Rouge. So we're far from out of the woods."

Retaliatory violence

Of the 149 criminal homicides in 2021, at least 120 occurred within Baton Rouge city limits and were investigated by city police, according to Advocate records. The 70802 and 70805 ZIP codes were hit hardest, neighborhoods plagued with gun violence after decades of poverty and disinvestment.

Paul said about 96% of Baton Rouge homicide victims were Black, including justified and accidental shootings: about 86% Black males and 10% Black females. That also marks an increase from 2020, when the percentage of Black males was about 78%.

Officials said the disparity could reflect a rise in retaliatory gang shootings, many involving disputes over drug markets, gang territories and rap beefs.

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After largely disbanding his narcotics division following a corruption scandal in early 2021, Paul said the remaining detectives are working with federal partners to build bigger cases against drug dealers at the highest levels of violent criminal networks. He believes those partnerships will ultimately tamp down the cycles of retaliatory violence.

Those cases often present special challenges for detectives because witnesses refuse to cooperate, preferring to take justice into their own hands.

For example, Demond Sanders was killed March 27 on North Foster Drive, about 40 minutes after he allegedly shot another man to death. Detectives believe a group of men followed Sanders and shot up his car, but detectives have not identified the suspects.

"Mothers are just crying out to other mothers to get a hold of their kids, be a loving parent and educate them about gun violence," said Liz Robinson, who founded the Baton Rouge anti-violence group CHANGE after her son was shot to death in 2018.

As usually happens when homicides spike, more East Baton Rouge cases went unsolved in 2021 than previous years: almost half. Paul said his detectives are working hard despite the crippling caseloads. Data show the national homicide clearance rate was 51% in 2020.

+6 As murders rise, most go unsolved in Baton Rouge: 'Our detectives are working hard' Jeska Carmouche was asleep when her uncle came into her room in the dark, early morning hours to relay the news: Her brother, the boy she help

Often residents are scared to cooperate with police, said Sateria Alexander, a Baton Rouge Community Street Teams task force member. They worry for their safety and fear working with authorities puts them at higher risk of becoming victims themselves.

Paul promised increased street patrols in the most violent neighborhoods, something law-abiding residents often demand. But he said recruiting more officers into his understaffed department has been challenging.

While Baton Rouge police officers took more than 1,500 guns off the streets in 2021, Paul pointed to research suggesting a massive surge in gun sales during the pandemic could be a contributing factor in the homicide spike.

+2 With BRPD over 100 officers short amid surge in gun violence, chief cites 'morale issues' After years of worsening staffing shortages, the number of sworn officers in the Baton Rouge Police Department has fallen to its lowest point 

Pledging to take a holistic approach to fighting violent crime, East Baton Rouge Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome recently funneled $14.2 million from pandemic relief dollars into anti-violence programs. Her Safe, Hopeful, Healthy initiative, launched in mid-2020, aims to provide robust community support and interrupt cycles of violence.

"We must not operate in fear," she said. "This is a solvable problem."

Broome also called for changes to the local legal system, which remains plagued by backlogs from when the courthouse was closed for months last year: "We have to get repeat offenders off the street. We have to take a harder look at bail bonds for those accused of violence."

East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore III agreed. He said judges have a tough job making bail decisions. Catching up on jury trials is important, he said, because "without court operations, people think they can get away with it."

Surging domestic abuse

In the early weeks of the pandemic, domestic abuse advocates warned lockdown measures would take a toll on victims trapped at home with their abusers.

Their predictions came to pass, both here and across the nation. East Baton Rouge saw 36 domestic violence-related homicides in 2021, including justified killings, according to records kept by the district attorney. That number nearly doubled from 19 in 2020.

Domestic abuse reports have not drastically increased in the same timeframe, according to Melanie Fields, special prosecutor for domestic violence cases in East Baton Rouge. But she noted increasing severity of the violence described in arresting documents, from strangulation to battery of pregnant victims.

Experts point to a multitude of factors likely contributing to the 2021 surge in south Louisiana: fatigue from the pandemic, financial hardship, childcare and education stressors, and Hurricane Ida. Advocates who identified red flags almost two years ago have grown weary watching the same grim situations play out again and again.

Fields said identifying trends in the growing number of domestic violence deaths is difficult. But one factor stands out: in most cases, law enforcement had no prior reports of abuse.

Many of the victims were young women killed by partners.

A Central woman was shot to death by her husband of eight years after an argument while at home with their three children; a man killed the mother of his child after claiming he mistook her for a burglar; a boyfriend shot his girlfriend after she admitted she was unhappy in the relationship.

But men were also victims of domestic violence killings  sometimes as collateral damage, other times as the target. Ex-husbands hunted down and killed current partners of their former wives, while teens shot men twice their age for fighting with their mothers.

There were several murder-suicides. Three children younger than 5 were killed by a parent, each time by blunt force trauma.

"For so long, domestic and dating violence were behind closed doors," Fields said. "There was a stigma. We need to erase that."

'A jungle out there'

Not long after moving his barbershop from Zachary to Sherwood Forest, Buckles saw his own family shattered by gun violence: His older brother was killed Sept. 25 in Scotlandville, their childhood neighborhood.

Cedric Clay, 41, was shot multiple times on a residential street near Greenwood Community Park  placing him among eight people killed that week alone. His case remains unsolved.

Buckles, a father who lives in a relatively new subdivision in the southern half of East Baton Rouge Parish, said he left Scotlandville for a reason. But it pains him to watch the historically Black community devolve into poverty and violence while majority White neighborhoods flourish. Research shows the recent nationwide homicide spike remained largely concentrated in areas where gun violence was already most common.

A few months after his brother was slain, Buckles received the news about Matthews, his star employee killed in the Dec. 29 Baker shooting.

"It's almost like a jungle out there," Buckles said. "You need certain instincts just to stay alive."

Advocate reporter Elyse Carmosino contributed to this report.
Martin Shkreli must return $US64.6 million ($89.7 million) in profits he and his former company reaped from jacking up the price and monopolising the market for a lifesaving drug, a federal judge ruled on Friday while also barring the provocative, imprisoned ex-CEO from the pharmaceutical industry for the rest of his life.

US District Judge Denise Cotes ruling came several weeks after a seven-day bench trial in December that featured recordings of conversations that Cote said showed Shkreli continuing to exert control over the company, Vyera Pharmaceuticals, from behind bars and discussing ways to thwart generic versions of its lucrative drug, Daraprim.

Martin Shkreli is serving a seven-year prison sentence after being found guilty of securities fraud related to two failed hedge funds he ran before getting into the pharmaceutical industry. Credit:AP

Shkreli was no side player in, or a remote, unrelated beneficiary of Vyeras scheme, Cote wrote in a 135-page opinion. He was the mastermind of its illegal conduct and the person principally responsible for it throughout the years.

The Federal Trade Commission and seven states brought the case in 2020 against the man known in the media as Pharma Bro, about two years after he was sentenced to prison in an unrelated securities fraud scheme.
Trying to piece together the creative jigsaw of Nightmare Alley, its hard to start anywhere other than Tod Brownings Freaks, a 1932 film that, when it was first released, was considered so horrific it was cut by 30 minutes in the US and banned entirely in the UK. Like Nightmare Alley it is a grotesque study of human darkness set in the wild world of a carnival sideshow. What made Freaks both unique and, at the time, disturbing, was Brownings use of real sideshow performers. Even now, if you walk into del Toros office, you will find life-sized statues of two of its stars: Johnny Eck, an early-20th century carnival sideshow performer who was born without the bottom half of his body, and was billed in sideshows as Half-Boy, and Koo Koo, another carnival sideshow performer, born Minnie Woolsey, who was born with Virchow-Seckel syndrome, which gave her a very short stature and a small head, who was billed in sideshows as Koo-Koo the Bird Girl. Director Guillermo del Toro, left, on the set with actors Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett during the filming of Nightmare Alley. Credit:Searchlight Pictures But when it came to bringing Nightmare Alley to the screen, del Toro says he consciously tried not to fall into the trap of referencing Freaks too directly. I thought thats what people, by pure muscle reflex, are going to think Im going to do, del Toro says. Instead, he leaned into another, less well-known work of Brownings, Fast Workers, about the life of a high-rise skyscraper builder looking for emotional and financial stability. So, its Tod Browning but not in the way you would expect. Opposite and equal to Coopers Stan, as the film enters its middle and final thirds, is Cate Blanchett in the role of psychiatrist Dr Lilith Ritter, the films femme fatale. It is a dazzling performance, enhanced by Blanchetts clarity of understanding and a set so richly stylised it makes her look like she is doing a slow, careful ballet cambre in the midst of an art deco museum piece.

For me, the salient thing is intelligence, an intelligence that is contained. And I think Cate is one of the most intelligent human beings Ive ever met and brings that to every part, del Toro says. It was almost like a double take where, how come shes never done [a role like this before]? Because she was literally born to play that part. The same is true for Bradley, del Toro adds. I think the gravity and darkness that he brings to Stan, he had never done. And the way he behaves, moves, assumes the period, the intelligence, to make him real. So, those two, I called them jokingly, when I was going to get Cate Blanchett, I called Bradley and I said, hey, King Kong, Im about to meet with your Godzilla. And I said, together you will destroy blocks and blocks of the city. One of the most interesting aspects of Nightmare Alley is that, for a filmmaker who mostly makes original work, this brought to del Toros desk a work that not only existed as a novel but also as a 1947 film, which starred iconic film actor Tyrone Power as Stan. (Reflecting on William Lindsay Greshams original work in 2010, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Michael Dirda said that as a portrait of the human condition, Nightmare Alley is a creepy, all-too-harrowing masterpiece.) Edmund Goulding, the director of the 1947 film, was directed by then-20th Century Fox studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck to make some changes to the books story, in the service of lightening the films tone and delivering a slightly different ending. When he sat down to write a new screenplay adaptation, del Toro says there was never any doubt in his mind that he wanted to remain faithful to Greshams original ending.

The way Bradley, Kim [Morgan, the films co-writer, and del Toros wife] and I discussed it, we always talked about our reckoning, del Toro says. We always said, the whole movie is prologue to the last two minutes. And you dont have [someone like] Zanuck because when you come to the studio, and you come to the actor, you say, look, the ending is a dealbreaker. Even if we test it and people want to burn the theatre, this is the ending. Its not a whim to be edgy, its not a whim to be dark, it is a movie that resonates with the anxieties of today, truth, lies, belief, perception, closed systems of reconfirmation of bias, hucksterism that rises and rises in a populist way. What are you going to end in but the truth? del Toro adds. You show a man the truth of his life, not changing, he just gets worse. And then in the last two minutes, all the masks fall off, and you have an incredible moment. There is one curious point of divergence. In the book, as Stan develops his mentalism act, he transforms himself professionally into Reverend Carlisle. And it seems that Gresham, in the book, was consciously wanting to say something about the idea of the way fear is used as a tool in the commercialisation of faith. But in del Toros adaptation, Stan takes the stage name The Great Stanton, which seems to cast him as magician more than false prophet. Thats what I called the Elmer Gantry portion of the novel and I think it has been done to perfection a few times already, del Toro says, referring to the 1960 film Elmer Gantry, based on Sinclair Lewiss novel, about a confidence trickster and a female evangelist selling religion to a small town in America. (The film earned its writer/director Richard Brooks an Oscar in 1961 for best adapted screenplay.) What I had not seen is a guy being a predator of people who are seeking specific solace, del Toro adds. And its a topic he feels like he knows well. In 1997, his father, Federico del Toro Torres, was kidnapped in Guadalajara and held for 72 days until a ransom was paid for his release.

Loading Very early on, some psychics show up to talk to my mother, and they said, we know where your husband is, we can take you there if you believe in us, del Toro recalls. And I remember saying, please get away, leave the house. But I saw my mother hold on to that hope. So, Ive seen this effect firsthand. And for me, its not a discourse. When his father died in 2018, del Toro adds, he left him a watch. Which I tried, and I realised for the first time in my life that Dad had smaller wrists than me, del Toro says. I dont know how or why this is important as a moment, but its there in this movie, he adds. And as a storyteller, I remind myself that I have to speak of things that I believe or feel are true. Because I think when you put out a story, it resonates with people in the ether, and they find themselves in it and are provoked by it. And if its true to you, it resonates beautifully, even if its antagonistic. A NIGHTMARE ALLEY PRIMER
Come to my home, and you can set your clock to it. Just before dinner, as Im laying down cheap cutlery in the blissful haze of a Gin Blossoms super-mix (my cooking music of choice), my five-year-old comes to the table, commandeers my phone and Spotify account, and the refrain hits again.

Seven-foot frame, rats along his back! he belts dramatically, circling the table with a rockers sneer across his face.

Mirabel, voiced by Stephanie Beatriz, and Bruno, voiced by John Leguizamo, in a scene from Encanto. Credit:Disney

Anyone with a young child at home, and even some without, will be familiar with the line, burned into our brains after endless replays over the past month or so. Its from We Dont Talk About Bruno, the breakout tune from Disneys Encanto, about the magical Madrigal familys outcast uncle (John Leguizamo) whos shunned due to his inconvenient prophecies.

Theres something comforting, amusing even, in knowing this isnt just happening to me.
Labor Senator Kristina Keneally, the shadow minister for home affairs, immigration and citizenship, said the handling of the Novak Djokovic case was another example of mismanagement by the federal government during the pandemic.

Senator Keneally said the world number one tennis player should not have been granted a visa to enter Australia in the first place.

Kristina Keneally. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

This is a series of errors on [Prime Minister Scott] Morrisons part, and it is a matter of international embarrassment, thanks to him, she told ABC News 24.

Later today, Senator Keneally told 774 ABC Melbourne radio the federal government failed to put into place a visa approval process for the Australian Open that took into account the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

I think we all know the Australian Open is no secret; its a big public event. We all knew that people like Novak Djokovic wanted to come to the Australian Open.

Why didnt the government put together some kind of intergovernmental taskforce, [with government agencies covering] home affairs, health, sport, working with Tennis Australia to put in place a clear process for determining which players and officials met the vaccination and visa eligibility to come into Australia?

Senator Keneally said that as the Prime Minister himself said, rules are rules. One of the eligibility requirements to come into Australia is youve got to be vaccinated or have an exemption, and the Morison government didnt change the reason ... They seem to have been disinterested in the Australian Open.

Asked whether Djokovic should be barred from entering the country for the next three years after being deported from the country, Senator Keneally said the relevant factors for consideration would include whether he was vaccinated in the intervening period and whether medical advice changed in that time.

Under immigration law, Djokovic cannot be granted another visa for three years unless it is accepted there are compelling or compassionate reasons.

The tennis star was deported after the Federal Court yesterday rejected his urgent legal challenge to a decision by Immigration Minister Alex Hawke to cancel his visa.
Djokovic heading to Federal Court hearing to appeal visa cancellation

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In late 2014 and early 2015, a series of eruptions in the area, about 60 kilometres north of the capital, created a small island and disrupted international air travel to the Pacific archipelago for several days. On Sunday, the Bureau of Meteorology issued renewed tsunami alerts and marine threat warnings for all of Australias east coast, with lifesavers closing all beaches affected by the warning. NSW beaches remained closed on Sunday evening. An undersea volcano eruption of the Pacific nation of Tonga Saturday, January 15, 2022. Credit:NICT Meteorologist Sarah Scully said warnings were expected to be cancelled into Sunday evening, with the highest wave recorded at 1.27 metres on Norfolk Island. So an enormous amount of energy was released by the volcanic eruption, and that was trapped by the oceans, she said, noting a 0.82-metre wave was recorded on the Gold Coast and a 0.77-metre wave at Twofold Bay.

For a tsunami warning to be cancelled, an area would need to have no significant wave height for six hours, Ms Scully said. The eruption generated large waves in several South Pacific islands and triggered multiple global tsunami warnings, from New Zealand to the west coasts of the United States and South America. Reverberations were felt in Mount Hood in Oregon in the US. An evacuation order was issued for Californian beaches and surge waves hit the Santa Cruz harbour, submerging boats and swamping parking lots. Bondi Beach was open on Sunday morning and then closed again due to a tsunami warning. Credit:Edwina Pickles From Bondi to Newport, many surfers chose to remain in the water, but Bondis ironman series was called off. University of Newcastle coastal scientist Hannah Power said geological evidence from massive eruptions shows the events are not usually one-off and often come in multiples.

Tsunami waves come in clusters, Associate Professor Power said. We might see another eruption in days, weeks or even years. Often the first wave is not the biggest, so people can become complacent. The ironman and ironwoman series held at Bondi Beach were cancelled. Credit:Getty The last time we saw tsunami waves this big hit Australias east coast was in 1960. The tsunami waves that weve seen here have been about a metre high, and everyone thinks well I surf or swim in that. But waves we see every day on our coastline arrive every 10 seconds. Tsunamis are different in that they arrive every 10 to 30 minutes. Dr Power said forceful and unusual currents of water were being pushed upstream in estuaries, and then pulled back downstream as the tsunami waves propagate into and out the estuary system.

Even as far as 8000 kilometres away, on the west coast of the United States, we are seeing significant damage from this event, said Dr Power, noting Tonga sits on the Ring of Fire in the Pacific, which is rimmed in tectonic plate boundaries, where more than 90 per cent of the worlds earthquake activity occurs. The Tonga-Kermadec trench, in the western Pacific Ocean, is a really active part of the world where two tectonic plates meet. It is an area that is prone to volcanoes and earthquakes and one event could mean months or years of more activity to come. An undersea volcano eruption, right, at the Pacific nation of Tonga on Saturday. Credit:NICT New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Sunday that while there were no official reports of death or injury, further volcanic activity could not be ruled out, and the ash plumes from the eruption had contaminated Tongas water supply. We have ... aircraft ready to deploy and are looking at the deployment of a Navy vessel should it be required, she said.

The clear view is that we want to be in Tonga on the ground as soon as we can. For flights that looks like tomorrow. [By sea], were already preparing to take those steps as we speak, Ms Ardern said, noting the satellite images brought home the severity of the eruption and potential damage for the closest islands. Were able to deploy within eight hours, but we need to know from Tongan authorities what it is they need to make sure we are providing. Australias International Development Minister Zed Seselja said Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Ms Ardern had spoken earlier on Sunday and agreed it was important Australia and New Zealand co-ordinate very closely in any responses. The explosion on Saturday off Tonga, with lightening seen nearby. Credit:Nine The Tongan government has agreed to an offer for assistance from the Australian government of a P8 surveillance flight, which we hope will be able to deploy [Monday] morning, Mr Seselja said. Pending ash and weather, the flight will assess damage to critical infrastructure such as roads, ports and powerlines, which will determine the next phase of the response.

University of Auckland Professor Shane Cronin, a vulcanologist, told New Zealands RNZ radio the umbrella ash cloud from the explosion was 300 kilometres wide at some point. The cloud covered the [nearest] island, thats why it went completely dark. The ash doesnt let any light through, he said. The eruption of an underwater volcano off Tonga, which triggered a tsunami warning for several South Pacific island nations Saturday. Credit: Professor Cronin said there would almost certainly be more eruptions in the next few days and weeks. ANUs earthquake and tsunami scientist Professor Phil Cummins said while Australias east coast had historically avoided large tsunamis, the number of southern volcanoes along the Tonga-Kermadec trench do pose risks.
The decision of Victorias oldest continuing secondary school, Scotch College, to withdraw the appointment of its new principal just months from his commencement raises important questions of governance and probity relevant to the entire independent school sector.

How could such a thing happen?

Scotch College terminated the employment of Matthew Leeds, who was set to start at the Hawthorn private school this year. Credit:Joe Armao

Not a single party to the appointment, including Scotch College itself, can escape criticism in what is, at best, a highly embarrassing set of circumstances involving three of the countrys most exclusive private schools.

Matthew Leeds, selected by the 17-member Scotch College Council to be its next principal, was advised late last week that his prestigious appointment would not proceed following revelations of alleged misconduct in a previous role at Geelong Grammar School in 2018.
The first 3 million of Victorias rapid antigen tests have arrived, as the state records 28,128 new COVID-19 cases and 13 deaths.

But Premier Daniel Andrews said the first delivery would go directly to essential workers in critical industries including health, emergency services, disability and aged care. People with pre-existing conditions that make them vulnerable to severe illness will also be prioritised.

Some of the newly arrived three million rapid antigen tests, pictured in a Melbourne warehouse. Credit:Nine News

The batch is the first of 44 million of the tests the state government has ordered in a bid to address the serious shortage of the tests that is hampering peoples movement and return to work.

Speaking at a COVID-19 press conference on Sunday, Mr Andrews said
The vision thing, as then US presidential aspirant George Bush snr put it in 1987, has prompted mixed reactions in Australia. Paul Keating, the most prominent recent proponent of big-picture politics, dared to imagine Australia as part of Asia, a republic constitutionally separated from the Crown and reconciled with Indigenous people. He packaged it all up and sold it with an aggressive, sarcastic political demeanour.

In 1996, he lost in a landslide to John Howard, who had assiduously modified or obscured his own harder-edged views on issues such as industrial relations to run a small-target election strategy. He said he wanted Australians to feel relaxed and comfortable.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison: Economy strong, Australians safe, Australians together. Thats what Im trying to do. Credit:James Brickwood

There were echoes of this history in Deborah Snows revealing interview with current Prime Minister Scott Morrison in The Age at the weekend. Mr Morrison is not much interested in the vision thing. The very idea of leaving a legacy was a preoccupation of the vain, he told Snow. Its just not how I think about things.

As for Australians generally, they dont want to spend every afternoon talking about politics. They want to live their lives  They want to own their own home, they want to raise their kids ... save for their retirement and not get too much debt and live their life the way they want to do giving back to their community. These are the great aspirations. That to me  thats a big idea. And again: Economy strong, Australians safe, Australians together. Thats what Im trying to do. Every single day.
They comprise of a crew in the ship, that is not of Spanish flag. The Spanish embassy in Ghana is to the front of the actions on the kidnapping. Also, Secretary of State Jimnez the Trinidad, is pending. Several Spanish citizens, apparently five, comprise of the crew of a boat kidnapped to 60 miles of the coasts of Togo, have informed to sources of the ministry of Outer Subjects. The boat is not of Spanish flag, have needed the sources, that they have not been able to determine the pavilion at the moment, the type of boat nor when exactly it was kidnapped or by whom. The embassy of Spain in the Republic of Ghana is to the front of all the actions on this kidnapping, have said the sources.



These added that the minister of Outer Subjects, Jimnez Trinidad, is slope of the kidnapping, that knew after its appearance in the Congress to stop to inform into the last activities of the Executive in relation to the crisis in Libya. The past May two sailors were released Spaniards who remained kidnapped during 137 days by pirates somals who assaulted the boat " Fertile valley 5" , of flag mozambiquea, to the southwest of the Comoros Islands, against the coasts of Mozambique. ls the past May were released two Spanish sailors who remained kidnapped during 137 days by somales pirates who assaulted the boat Fertile valley 5, of flag mozambiquea, to the southwest of the Comoros Islands, against the coasts of Mozambique. Source of the news: Five Spanish crew are kidnapped in a boat against the coasts of Togo
Law enforcement process the scene in front of the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue, Sunday, Jan. 16, 2022, in Colleyville, Texas. A man held hostages for more than 10 hours Saturday inside the temple. The hostages were able to escape and the hostage taker was killed. FBI Special Agent in Charge Matt DeSarno said a team would investigate "the shooting incident."
Every so often, I tell Rick, I have an idea. According to my husband, these simple words give him cold chills. You see, Rick is a man who loves his daily routine. He enjoys knowing what to expect and changes are not, shall we say, welcomed with open arms. Am I about to tell him that I want to host an event in our home, go visit my mother, or move the furniture around? He doesnt know whats coming, but he is always confident that his routine is about to be rocked in one way or another. Read more
Clarion, PA (16214)

Today

A steady rain. The rain will be heavy at times. High 66F. Winds SE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Cloudy with periods of rain. Low 59F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall near a half an inch.
11:37 | Urubamba (Cusco region), Jan. 8.





Created on January 8, 1981, the Historic Sanctuary is located in the Machu Picchu district of Urubamba Province (Cusco region). It covers an area of 32,592 ha.

The place is internationally recognized for its impressive Inca archaeological complexes, as well as the archaeological sites and monuments of high historical-cultural value.









Moreover, the sanctuary has an important environmental value, including wooded areas, steep mountains, and snow-capped peaks.





The area lies in a transition zone between the Andean and Amazonian regions and is part of a narrow strip of transition between both ecosystems. In addition, a terrain of abrupt relief and steep slopes predominates.





The Historic Sanctuary is situated in an area of exceptional geographical characteristics ranging from snowy peaks above 6,000 m.a.s.l. to the most humid and hottest area of Urubamba River, which divides the sanctuary in two by forming the Torontoy Canyon under 2,000 m.a.s.l.





In addition to this exceptional natural setting, one can find the one-of-a-kind archaeological jewel of Machu Picchu, which was declared a Mixed World Heritage site (which means both a natural and cultural site) by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on December 9, 1983.





Machu Picchu is Peru's most popular tourist attraction, a World Heritage site, and one of the New Seven Wonders of the World.









(END) LZD/RMB/MVB

The Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu, declared a world heritage site by UNESCO and which houses the formidable Inca citadel that is one of the New Seven Wonders of the World , today celebrates 41 years as a natural area protected by the Peruvian State.Published: 1/8/2022
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News

Maryville College President Bryan Coker encourages Blount County leaders to learn from diversity at MLK luncheon

Scott Keller | The Daily Times MLK Celebration Planning Committees Adriel McCord (left) presents guest speaker Bryan Coker, Maryville College president, with a gift of appreciation following his address on Friday at the MLK Business Luncheon. Scott Keller | The Daily Times Maryville College President Bryan Coker tells business and civic leaders at the MLK Business Luncheon on Friday at the Airport Hilton why diversity, equity and inclusion are important to him. Scott Keller | The Daily Times MLK Celebration Planning Committees Belinda Kenny gives closing remarks at the MLK Business Luncheon on Friday at the Airport Hilton.

Maryville College President Bryan Coker challenged Blount Countys business and civic leaders Friday to learn by spending time with diverse people.

Speaking at the MLK Business Luncheon at the Airport Hilton, Coker noted that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whose legacy they were celebrating, was considered radical and even dangerous in his day.

Since becoming president of the private liberal arts college nearly two years ago, Coker noted, he has spoken frequently of diversity, equity and inclusion, talking about race and issues facing the LGBTQ community, international students and noncitizens in this country.

Diversity, equity and inclusion are very much in the colleges DNA, Coker said, noting its history of welcoming all students from its founding in 1819 until state law forced it to segregate for a while in the 20th century.

Today, he said, the college is being more intentional about its efforts to build and support a diverse college community.

Powerful learning

Turning to his personal beliefs, Coker said, I see beauty in difference, how people look, where they come from and what they believe. Diversity makes the life richer, he said, and makes the world a lot less boring.

Coker said he also believes that people learn best when exposed to different ideas, and we have a responsibility to prepare future leaders for an increasingly diverse world.

I want our students at Maryville College to learn amongst those who have different life experience ... I believe thats when the most powerful learning is truly going to take place, he said.

Coker also explained that a recent Gallup survey found the most essential skill employers said they needed in employees is the ability to work in groups with people different from themselves.

The nation and world are becoming more diverse, Coker said, and he wants his own children and Maryville College students to be prepared for that so they can thrive and be successful.

He asked the business and civic leaders how willing they are to put themselves in situations where they are exposed to different ideas and whether they are putting their workers or volunteers into those types of environments.

As a society were not too good at doing that, are we, he said, referring to the echo chamber of social media feeds.

Teacher as student

Coker said one of the best decisions of his career, perhaps his life, was teaching part time at historically black Morgan State University for three years while he was a dean at Goucher College in Maryland. I learned so much from every student I taught, he said.

While at Goucher he also also screened inmates at the mens and womens state prisons in Jessup, Maryland, for admission to the colleges program there.

During interviews he learned about the inmates lives and goals. Those conversations changed my life, and they challenged so many of the things that I had always accepted as true, Coker said.

More than anything, those conversations in the prison taught me that in our nation there are, indeed, some people who are born into cycles of poverty, crime, drugs and violence, and those cycles are not easily escaped or broken, he said. For many, the chance at a college education was their first chance to break out of those cycles, Coker said.

I still remember one applicant saying to me, This is the first window that Ive ever seen. Its the first time that Ive ever had a possible way out, he recalled. The man was admitted to the program.

Grateful for discomfort

Coker noted that King made people uncomfortable and was considered a radical in his time.

He exposed people to new, different and controversial ideas for that time, but by doing this he made people learn. His words and his actions caused immense learning and growth for our nation and world, Coker said. We should all be grateful for the discomfort and the consequent learning that Dr. King caused. Our nation and are world are certainly, certainly much better because of it.

Today, Coker said, we are still a work in progress.

May Dr. Kings legacy inspire us to continue growing. May it inspire us to be uncomfortable at times, and may it inspire us to never, never stop learning, Coker said, because the dream still depends on it.

When Coker began his remarks, he said it has been wrongly suggested that he is just jumping on a liberal bandwagon or he has some radical or woke agenda, whatever that means.

My wife would say I probably wouldnt be organized enough to have such an agenda, Coker said.
An Aztec dancer participates in a march in Los Angeles, on May 1, 2019. David McNew/Getty Images

Parents Sued California After It Required Aztec Prayer in Public Schools: State Now Agrees to Settlement

State entities to publish public notice to all school districts about the changed policy; state to pay 100K in attorney fees

California education authorities have agreed to drop a policy encouraging public school students to pray to Aztec gods in response to a lawsuit filed months ago by angry parents.

Among Aztec religious practices were the cutting out of human hearts and the flaying of victims and the wearing of their skin.

Paul Jonna, partner at LiMandri & Jonna LLP and special counsel for the Thomas More Society, a national public interest law firm, said the Aztec prayers at issuewhich seek blessings from and the intercession of these demonic forceswere not being taught as poetry or history.

Rather, the California State Board of Educations nearly 900-page Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC) instructed students to chant the prayers for emotional nourishment after a lesson that may be emotionally taxing or even when student engagement may appear to be low. The idea was to use them as prayers, said Jonna, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs.

The launch of the ESMC made California the first state in the nation to offer a statewide ethnic studies model for educators, the board boasted on March 18, 2021, when the curriculum was adopted.

Californias students have been telling us for years that they need to see themselves and their stories represented in the classroom, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said at the time. Todays historic action gives schools the opportunity to uplift the histories and voices of marginalized communities in ways that help our state and nation achieve racial justice and create lasting change.

The ESMC contained a section on Affirmation, Chants, and Energizers. Among these was the In Lak Ech Affirmation, which calls upon five Aztec deitiesTezkatlipoka (God of the Night Sky), Quetzalcoatl (God of the Morning and Evening Star), Huitzilopochtli (God of Sun and War), Xipe Totek (God of Spring), and Hunab Ku (God of the Universe). The pagan prayers address the deities both by name and traditional titles, recognize them as sources of power and knowledge, invoke their assistance, and offer thanks.

According to the plaintiffs lawyers, even after the settlement, the ESMC is still deeply rooted in Critical Race Theory (CRT) and critical pedagogy, with a race-based lens and an oppressor-victim dichotomy. The Aztec chant component demonstrated the politicized championing of critical consciousness, social justice, transformative resistance, liberation and anti-colonial movements in the state-sanctioned teachings of ethnic studies.

But Frank Xu, president of Californians for Equal Rights Foundation (CERF), a nonprofit organization that is one of the plaintiffs, said the settlement gives him hope.

We are encouraged by this important, hard-fought victory, Xu said in a statement.

Our state has simply gone too far in attempts to promote fringe ideologies and racial grievance policies, even those that disregard established constitutional principles. Endorsing religious chants in the state curriculum is one glaring example, he said.

To improve California public education, we need more people to stand up against preferential treatment programs and racial spoils. At both the state and local levels, we must work together to re-focus on true education!

The lawsuit was filed Sept. 3 in the Superior Court of California, County of San Diego, by the Thomas More Society, as previously reported. The plaintiffs argued that the ESMC constituted an impermissible governmental endorsement of the Aztec religion.

According to the legal complaint, the State Board of Education appointed R. Tolteka Cuauhtin, a co-author of the 2019 book Rethinking Ethnic Studies, to chair a panel to develop the ESMC. In his book, Cuauhtin demonstrates an animus towards Christianity and Catholicismclaiming that Christians committed theocide (i.e., killing gods) against indigenous tribes.

Sociocultural anthropologist Alan Sandstrom, an expert in the culture, religion, and rituals of Mesoamerican peoples, told the court the In Lak Ech Affirmation is a modern creation that borrows elements of the Aztec religion. It would be of no real value in learning about the Aztec people or culture of the past or today.

In the settlement agreement, the California authorities didnt admit wrongdoing but agreed to remove the In Lak Ech Affirmation and the Ashe Affirmation from the Yoruba religion from the ESMC.

Yoruba is an ancient philosophical concept that is the root of many pagan religions, including Santeria and Haitian vodou or voodoo, according to the Thomas More Society. It reportedly has 100 million believers worldwide in West Africa, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guyana, and in Caribbean nations.

The settlement provides that the California Department of Education and the board will pay the plaintiffs lawyers $100,000, representing a payment toward Plaintiffs attorneys fees incurred in connection with the Action.

The two state entities will also issue a public notice to all California school districts, charter schools, and county offices of education about the changed policy, and they agreed not to encourage the use of the two challenged chants in California public schools.

Jonna told The Epoch Times via email that this is a major victory in the fight to restore sanity in Californias public schools.

There is still much work to doand our team will continue to monitor developments and be prepared to file new lawsuits when necessary.

The Epoch Times reached out for comment on the settlement to Californias Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, California Attorney General Rob Bonta, the California Department of Education, and the California State Board of Education but didnt receive a reply from any of them as of press time.
A Russian tank rolls during military drills at Molkino training ground in the Krasnodar region, Russia, on Dec. 14, 2021. (AP)

Canada Advises Against Non Essential Travel to Ukraine, Cites Russian Aggression

OTTAWACanada is advising residents against taking non-essential trips to Ukraine because of the buildup of Russian troops near the countrys border.

The change in risk level comes amid fears of a Russian invasion.

Ottawa says Russias military presence has been increasing since last fall and advises Canadians who are there for non-essential purposes to consider leaving because the security situation could deteriorate.

Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly is set to depart for Kyiv Sunday to speak with Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishyna.

Shes also set to meet with around 200 Canadian troops stationed in Ukraine to help train the countrys security forces.

Jolys office says her trip is to underscore Canadas support for Ukraines sovereignty in the face of Russian aggression.
In this file photo, a cruise ship sits anchored in the Port of Long Beach, Calif., on Oct. 27, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

CDC Drops Mandatory COVID-19 Protocols for Cruise Lines, Shifts to Voluntary Program

Cruise ships are no longer required to abide by a series of COVID-19 safety restrictions issued in 2021 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that expired on Jan. 15, allowing cruise lines discretion in applying such protocols.

The CDC has announced the expiration of its Temporary Extension and Modification of Framework for Conditional Sailing Order (CSO), a set of mandatory rules for foreign-flagged cruise ships operating in U.S. waters, including strict protocols on COVID-19 vaccination and testing, as well as mask-wearing.

After the expiration of the Temporary Extension & Modification of the CSO, CDC intends to transition to a voluntary program, in coordination with cruise ship operators and other stakeholders, to assist the cruise ship industry to detect, mitigate, and control the spread of COVID-19 onboard cruise ships, the CDC said in a statement.

While the CDC made clear that the new program is voluntary, it recommended that cruise lines continue to follow its COVID-19 mitigation guidelines.

Cruise lines are encouraged to continue to follow all CDC public health measures, including reporting, testing, and infection prevention and control, the CDC stated, noting that it would release the details of its voluntary COVID-19 Program for Cruise Ships at a later date.

COVID-19 is the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, also known as SARS-CoV-2.

A number of cruise ship operators are expected to opt into the discretionary program. Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings said in a statement ahead of the CSO expiry that it would continue to apply the protocols on a voluntary basis.

Furthering our commitment to health and safety, with the expiration of the CDCs Conditional Sail Order, our three brands have opted into the CDCs voluntary Program, which provides the cruise industry with a set of operating provisions to protect the health and safety of guests and crew, said Frank Del Rio, president and CEO of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings.

Tom McAlpin, president and CEO of Virgin Voyages, told Good Morning America in a Jan. 15 interview that of course, were going to opt in to the program, noting that the protocols outlined in the CSO are working.

The CDCs move was hailed by the Cruise Lines International Association, an industry group.

The transition of the Conditional Sailing Order (CSO) to a voluntary program  recognizes the cruise industrys unwavering commitment to providing some of the highest levels of COVID-19 mitigation found in any industry, the group said in a statement.

Some have criticized the CDCs decision to shift to a voluntary system. Several congressional Democrats penned a letter to CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, urging the agency to maintain the mitigation measures as mandatory.

While the world battles the highest surge in COVID-19 cases to date, prioritizing and strongly enforcing measures that maximize the safety of all those on board cruise ships is critical, Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) wrote in the letter (pdf).

The pair wrote that prematurely shifting to a voluntary program could allow cruise operators to sidestep public health measures, making conditions ripe for the continued spread of infections, jeopardizing our efforts against this pandemic, further imperiling passenger and crew safety, and threatening the operations of an industry hard-hit by the pandemic.

Walensky recently told a Senate health committee that the spread of the highly contagious, but far less virulent Omicron coronavirus variant had led to a thirtyfold increase in cases on ships over the prior two weeks.
Passengers wearing facemasks check their health code with a sheet held by an aiport staff (R) before the counter area following preventive procedures against the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus in Pudong International Airport in Shanghai, on June 11, 2020. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)

Travel Restrictions Imposed by China Prevent US Citizens From Leaving

News Analysis

China is restricting people from leaving the country, and even U.S. permanent residents or U.S. citizens have been caught by this campaign.

Over the course of 2021, many Chinese netizens shared on social media their difficulties when applying for passports. For those who had the travel documents, during the exit inspections at the airports, officials asked them difficult questions and carefully checked their passports and visas, some netizens recounted. One even said that their passport was torn by the inspector on the spot.

Chinas National Immigration Administration (NIA) in July confirmed that the regime was tightening rules around people leaving the country.

At a press conference on July 30, 2021, the NIA, also known as the Exit and Entry Administration said, in an effort to block the coronavirus from overseas, it had implemented a series of strict measures to limit people going abroad: suspend issuing ordinary passports for non-essential, non-urgent affairs; and advising applicants to cancel or postpone travel plans if they are not essential nor urgent.

According to the statistics reported at the conference, the number of ordinary passports issued in the first half of 2021 was only 2 percent of that in the first half of 2019. Most of the passports were issued for purposes of studying, working, and engaging in business activities.

The sudden tightening of the policy disrupted many peoples plans, including Chinese citizens who had settled in America and returned to visit relatives. Netizens on social media said that passport renewal applications submitted six months earlier were not approved, thus making their departures unlikely.

A Chinese businessman living in America, Zhang Shengqi, told Radio Free Asia in August the predicament of his friend. According to Zhang, his friend, who worked at an American college, was stuck in China for a long time. The college employer submitted his application for passport renewal six months earlier but was still waiting for the result. When he left America, his newborn baby was less than a month old, now the baby was nearly half-a-year old. His wife had to take care of the baby all by herself.

Zhang added that even though the friend used his connections, the situation did not improve. He was uncertain when he would reunite with his family.

Towards the end of 2021, as China was battling multiple outbreaks of the Delta variant, the exit restrictions continued and went even further. A Chinese woman, who was a permanent resident of the United States, complained online in December about what happened to her at the airport when she was taking her children to America.

The exit inspector asked her how she obtained permanent resident status in the United States. She answered that she got it through asylum. The inspector pressed her for the reason for seeking asylum, leaving her unnerved and speechless. The inspector then cut her passport making it invalid, and only allowed her kids to board the plane, the woman wrote in a social media post.

Her experience prompted much discussion online. One netizen wrote: Should people be questioned and must have a good reason when leaving a country, like when entering one?

It also alarmed some in the Chinese diaspora in America, as many Chinese nationals hold permanent residency in the United States and are used to traveling back to China at will.

Exit Bans

Even U.S. citizens in China could be forced to remain in the country if the communist regime deems it necessary. Under its law, the CCP authorities have broad discretion to block foreign nationals from leaving the country.

The U.S. government has repeatedly warned American citizens considering traveling to China about Beijings exit bans. In January 2021, the Trump administration issued a China Travel Advisory, stating that Chinese authorities may use arbitrary detention and exit bans to compel U.S. citizens to participate in its investigations, pressure their family members to return to China from abroad, and gain bargaining leverage over foreign governments.

Beijing does not recognize dual nationality, so the advisory gives special warnings to Chinese Americans. US-China citizens and US citizens of Chinese heritage may be subject to additional harassment, it said. Meanwhile, the Chinese government may prevent the U.S. Embassy from providing consular services, it added.

Daniel Hsus case is illustrative. The U.S. citizen had been barred from leaving China for four years until November 2021. The Chinese regime held him as a hostage in an attempt to coerce his father to return to China and face justice for allegedly embezzling about $63,000 more than two decades before.

Four days before President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met online last month, his long-running exit ban suddenly was lifted and he was told to go back to America within 48 hours.

In another case, two American siblings had been blocked from leaving China for more than three years before coming back to America in September 2021.

Victor Liu, a college student, and Cynthia Liu, a consultant, went to China in June 2018. The Chinese authorities blocked the siblings from leaving the country and detained their mother, also a U.S. citizen, to compel their U.S.-based father, who was wanted by the Chinese police for his role in a fraud case, to return to China and turn himself in.

Their release came right after the U.S. Justice Department allowed Meng Wanzhou, the CFO of Chinas telecom giant Huawei who was in Canada fighting extradition to the United States for a federal fraud case, to go back to China.
Bags of heroin, some laced with fentanyl, are displayed at the office of the New York Attorney General in New York City on Sept. 23, 2016. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

China Moves Crime Money to Fuel Fentanyl Crisis in the West, Investigative Reporter Says

Beijing is fueling the fentanyl crisis in Canada and the United States through a sophisticated web involving drug cartels, loan sharks, and foreign casinos, investigative journalist and author Sam Cooper said.

How Chinese money was funneled through such a web was described by Cooper as the Vancouver model in his book Wilful Blindness: How a Network of Narcos, Tycoons and CCP Agents Infiltrated the West, based on his investigations into crime networks in cities including Toronto and Vancouver.

Cooper said in a recent interview with EpochTVs Crossroads program that Chinese organized crime figures have become the major movers of financial crime money around the world, as the model can be found in major U.S. cities.

We can say that in cities like Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York City, San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, and others, I can see the very same underground banking, Vancouver-model activity, Cooper said, where drug money was moved around on secret ledgers without the need for wire transfers across borders.

That model has surfaced because of Chinas capital control, Cooper said, because each citizen in communist China has a foreign exchange limit of $50,000 per year. As a result, in order to move large sums overseas for activities such as buying a condo in a foreign city, wealthy Chinese would, for example, need to seek out underground banking channels.

Cooper explained how the Vancouver model works: Gang members from Vancouver travel to casinos in Macau, targeting wealthy Chinese gamblers, including Chinese officials who wish to get their money out of China. The two sides strike a deal, and Chinese gamblers travel to Vancouver, using cash supplied by local loan sharks who get the money from drug dealers.

Chinese gamblers use the money to buy casino chips, play them, cash them, and walk out with cleaned or laundered money. Then they transfer money from their bank accounts in China to the gangsters accounts in China to pay back the debt.

The proceeds, of course, fund more fentanyl precursor production [in China]  which sends more drugs into the United States or Canada, produces more drug cash, and the cycle repeats, Cooper said, adding that the gangsters would loan out the cash again to fund the gambling of more wealthy Chinese in Canada.

Coopers book illustrates cases in which state actors from the communist regime directed drug trafficking organizations in Vancouver and intervened in gang conflicts in the city.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more powerful than heroin.

More than 100,000 people in the United States died of drug overdoses from April 2020 to April 2021, a record number during a 12-month period, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Fentanyl was involved in nearly two-thirds of those deaths.

U.S. officials have been trying to stop the influx of fentanyl into the country.

Earlier this month, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported that it seized 87,652 pounds of narcotics in south Texas ports between Oct. 1, 2020, and Sept. 30, 2021. Among the seized drugs, 588 pounds were fentanyl, up 1,066 percent from the year prior.

In April 2021, a Chinese national was sentenced to 14 years for laundering tens of millions of dollars of drug money for Latin American cartels. Less than six months later, another Chinese national was given a seven-year sentence for running a money-laundering network spanning several countries.

Frank Fang journalist Follow Frank Fang is a Taiwan-based journalist. He covers news in China and Taiwan. He holds a master's degree in materials science from Tsinghua University in Taiwan.
Former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith talks in the House of Commons in London on Nov. 4, 2020. (Parliament TV)

Chinese Spy Operating in UK Parliament Is Tip of the Iceberg: Senior Conservative

Recent revelations of a Chinese communist spy operating in the UK Parliament are just the tip of the iceberg, according to a senior Conservative lawmaker.

The UKs MI5 security agency took the unusual step of sending an alert to Parliament on Jan. 12 warning that an individual named Christine Ching Kui Lee has been knowingly engaged in political interference activities on behalf of the United Front Work Department (UFWD) of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The alert states that Lee had been facilitating financial donations to UK political parties and politicians and that anyone contacted by her should be mindful of her affiliation with the Chinese state and remit to advance the CCPs agenda in UK politics.

Detail of an MI5 Security Service Interference Alert (SSIA) identifying Christine Ching Kui Lee as an agent of the Chinese government operating in the UK Parliament issued by the Office of the Speaker of the House of Commons on Jan. 12, 2022. (House of Commons/PA)

Sir Iain Duncan Smith, former leader of the UKs ruling Conservative Party who made the MI5 alert public in the House of Commons, said the fact that the CCP is trying to persuade and infiltrate and subvert people within our political system is nothing new at all.

But Duncan Smith said that too many governments seem too cautious about calling it out.

We seem to want to kowtow to them too often and thats dangerous, and you have seen the results of that and this is just the tip of the iceberg, I can promise you, he told Trevor Phillips On Sunday on Jan. 16, also describing the CCP as a brutal, disgusting regime.

What they are after is making sure there can be no criticism of them so they can break every rule that they wish.

He also noted that the Chinese regime also is partly to blame for the COVID-19 pandemic.

Whether the virus came from a laboratory, Beijing refused to let the world know of the scale of the problem they had until very late on, causing it to spread around the world, according to Duncan Smith.

We cant just treat the Chinese government as any other government, he said. So when they start infiltrating, when they start subverting Parliament, and when they start paying people off, we have got to be much, much more brutal about it.

Duncan Smith said Australia has shown the way to do this, which is to ban involvement with the Chinese authorities and China in critical circumstances.

Commenting on the MI5 alert on Jan. 13, Home Secretary Priti Patel said the UK needs to strengthen its laws to prosecute foreign agents that are engaged in political interference activities. She said the government is working to look at what measures we can take to strengthen our laws, our legislations, to effectively lead to the type of prosecutions that we currently cannot deliver.

Duncan Smith has been a leading voice in the UK Parliament, calling for a tougher diplomatic posture toward the Chinese regime. He founded the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) in June 2020.

He was one of seven UK lawmakers sanctioned by the Chinese regime in March 2021 over their critical stance on the regimes abuse of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, China.

PA Media contributed to this report.
A home burns after a fast-moving wildfire swept through the area in the Centennial Heights neighborhood of Louisville, Colo. on Dec. 30, 2021. (Marc Piscotty/Getty Images)

The Apocalyptic Aftermath of the Colorado Wildfires

Wildfire victims struggle to rebuild homes, lives

LOUISVILLE, Colo.Of the hundreds of homes destroyed or damaged in the Marshall fire in Colorado in December 2021, nothing appears to have been left intact, save for the plug-in outdoor nativity scene that miraculously survived the intense heat and flames.

Whether by good fortune or divine intervention, the ornaments resilience in the face of a sudden tragedy sits in stark contrast to the burned-out cars and the piles of rubble, ash, and twisted metal where houses once stood in the now ruined Centennial Heights neighborhood in Louisville, Colorado.

It looks apocalypticespecially with the melted cars in front of the melted-down houses and settlements that have concrete and brick, said Tara Dunn of Wheat Ridge, Colorado.

Colorado natives kind of have a sense about a wildfire when it starts based on what color the sun is outside, according to Dunn.

While having lunch with co-workers in Louisville on Dec. 31, 2021, Dunn became concerned when they saw smoke gathering outside the restaurant, so they checked their smartphones for emergency information.

By the time our food was ready, it had gotten so bad outside, there was ash covering the tables, she said. We could draw pictures on the tables because there was so much ash from when people would open the door. We were eating inside the restaurant, and the wind was blowing so badly, it would just rush in.

By the time we got to our office building, it was like, You guys need to leave. Everybody was evacuating.

More than a week after the Marshall fire had swept through the town of Superior, Colorado, and the adjacent city of Louisville, Dunn said she still couldnt believe the magnitude of the devastation left behind in its wake.

As I drove to work and started seeing all of the stuff that used to be there, it was extremely heavy, very sad, she told The Epoch Times.

Dunn and her friend Callie Paul said they both wanted to see the aftermath up close for themselves and kind of process things.

I did some [Hurricane] Katrina relief during my undergrad [studies]. This is the only thing I can compare it tocomplete, total devastation and loss of everything, and just seeing remnants of peoples lives completely gone, said Paul, also of Wheat Ridge.

Described as one of the worst wildfires in Colorado history, nearly everything within the fires 6,000-acre path of destruction is gone. Officials say the next phase will involve sifting through the ashes and debris for anything of personal value to return to homeowners, including the remains of pets that perished in the fire.

Tara Dunn, right, and Callie Paul survey the remains of a subdivision that was destroyed by a fast-moving wildfire in East Boulder County, Colo., on Dec. 30, 2021. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

However, one county sheriffs deputy labeled the destroyed subdivision in Superior as a crime scene as workers dressed in full-body hazmat suits sifted through the debris. At least two people are reported to have died in the blaze.

Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle declined a request for comment.

Driven by hurricane-force winds that exceeded 110 miles per hour, the Marshall fire destroyed an estimated 1,084 homes and damaged a nearby shopping mall on Dec. 30, 2021. The fire displaced tens of thousands of people who are now desperately seeking temporary shelter.

Two municipal workers who witnessed the fire said it came without warning and spread quickly.

An electric nativity scene was the only thing left untouched by the Marshall Fire that destroyed an entire subdivision in Louisville, Colo., on Dec. 30, 2021. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

It was sudden. We saw just a little bit of smoke and thought it was fog and that a storm was moving in early. Within 20 minutes, the sky was red and orange, and we realized it was not just a little something. It was getting dire, said one of the workers, who asked to remain anonymous.

The worker referred to the high-velocity winds that drove the flames westward from the unincorporated community of Marshall as chinooks.

Its the downward slopes where that high wind comes and then ramps up, he said.

A second worker, who also asked to remain anonymous, said he thought the fire was moving south and east of Louisville, because you could see it just straight to the west.

We thought we were going to be spared. The wind shifted. The power went out. Next thing you know, there were fire departments at our door telling us we got to leave, he said.

In the grim aftermath, a temporary disaster relief center has been set up at the Boulder County Southeast Hub, where 37 different organizations are pooling resources to help those affected by the disaster.

Boulder County Disaster Recovery Manager Garry Sanfacon displays on Jan. 11, 2022, the hundreds of bottles of water that were donated for the victims of the Marshall fire that ripped through East Boulder County, Colo., on Dec. 30, 2021. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

Probably the two biggest issues are housing and trying to find temporary short-term housing and questions around debris removal and how thats going to be managed, Boulder County Disaster Recovery Manager Garry Sanfacon said. People have been really patient and understanding. Its only been a little over a week since the event. Were still in that immediate needs phase. Were starting to transition to a long-term recovery, which will take years.

On Jan. 11, the relief center was abuzz with activity as dozens of volunteers sat behind laptop computers helping stricken homeowners with financial assistance, counseling, and acquiring other vital resources and guidance to survive.

Sanfacon said the Community Foundation of Boulder County had received more than $18 million in donations and earmarked $5 million for the Marshall Fire Disaster Assistance Center in Louisville. Thus far, the relief center has disbursed $4 million in aid to almost 1,700 households, he said.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is operating its own disaster recovery center in the county hub building and has registered more than 2,200 households. The Colorado Small Business Administration has given out 70 loans worth $12.7 million, Sanfacon told The Epoch Times.

Numerous parked cars and trucks were gutted in the intense heat of the Marshall fire in Louisville, Colo., and Superior, Colo., on Dec. 30, 2021. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

The county relief center will remain in operation for the next week or two, he said.

Outside the center, the parking lot was crammed with major insurance company trucks manned by staff to help those who needed assistance processing their home insurance claims.

A woman helping an elderly woman to her car declined to comment, except to say, Shes got no place to live.

Louisville Assistant City Manager Emily Hogan said emotions have been running high since the tragedy.

The outpouring of support is really overwhelming, she told The Epoch Times. Weve had dozens of people reach out to the city for what they can do.

Its really a close-knit community. We witnessed that throughout the pandemic. Were seeing that again in the aftermath of the fire. Its really a terrible tragedy. We have many residents who have experienced such extreme loss. We just want them to know that the city is here for them. We will be here for you until youre back home.

On social media, offers of life essentials for the Marshall fire victims continue to pour in.

Brighton, Colorado, insurance company owner Melissa Rippy said she purchased a bookstore in October 2021 and converted it to a mobile free library to distribute books to low-income families. Now shes distributing them to victims of the Marshall fire through a chartered service called Elsie.

All of our books are free, and we collect them for the whole family. We are hoping to get Elsie to those who have been affected by the Marshall fire so they can pick out some books through this difficult time, Rippy told The Epoch Times. It wont bring their home back, but it may take their mind off of things for a while.

An insurance adjuster assesses damage to a house located in the Westminster Heights neighborhood of Louisville, Colo., where a fast-moving fire destroyed more than 1,000 homes and damaged a nearby shopping complex. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

After the recent death of her mother, Maureen Todd, who lives near Superior, said she decided to donate all of the contents of her mothers home to any affected family that needs boxes of household items to start over with.

Todd even set up an email account just for this purpose: dogaholicmom@gmail.com.

Im just kind of wanting for a family to have everythingthe towels, all the furniture, all the goods, a whole kitchen of pots, pans, plates, basic tools. This can start somebody off, and then they can say, I can buy a new set of dishes,' she told The Epoch Times. I am fortunate I didnt have this happen to me. I want to make their life easy. The whole purpose of this is so one family has everything.

Todd said the massive wildfire could be seen burning two miles away from her home, and it was like nothing shed ever seen before.

You felt the pain even if you were 100 miles away, she said. Its horrible. You wouldnt think this could happen to a whole city.

Andrew Clark, owner of the Moxie Bread Co. in Louisville, Colo., said on Jan. 11, 2022, that the damage from the Marshall fire was the worst hes seen yet. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

Andy Clark, owner of Moxie Bread Co. in downtown Louisville, said the Marshall fire was the fastest moving fire hed ever heard of.

I was actually in California with my son, and my wife was here, and the bakery called saying theres a brush fire, he told The Epoch Times. A half-hour later, they called back and said things were like upside down, so they evacuated.

My wife said, My gosh this is crazy. We all need to leave the house. It all just happened so fast. Then I got home and half the town was gone.

Clark said hes doing what he can for his employees and friends who were displaced by the fire.

We have a baker here who lost her place, and a bunch of friends who lost their place as well. Everybody is scrambling to find a place to live, he said. Ive been offering to find our folks a place, and a lot of people have generously offered their bedrooms and B&Bs. The generosity has been really stunning.

The problem is that the quantity of local housing stock has been minimal for a decade and is in very high demand, according to Clark.

It will be years to rebuild, he said. A lot of the folks who were able to keep their house are in areas that are obliterated, like a war zone. Yes, they can go back to the house at some point, but its a strange place to live. The saddest thing I saw yesterday was some sifting service. Oh boy, youre sifting through where your house used to be.

Dozens of dogs and cats are believed to have perished in the Marshall fire that destroyed more than 1,000 homes in two communities outside of Denver on Dec. 30. Here, a Louisville woman desperately searches for her beloved orange tabby, Ted. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

Near the Louisville fire station, a woman had placed a notice asking anyone to call her who knows the whereabouts of her beloved orange tabby, Ted.

Officials said when the task of sifting through the rubble begins, it will involve uncovering the remains of the many dogs and cats that perished in the fire.

Jennifer Fine, marketing and communications manager for the Humane Society of Boulder County, said the organization has received about 50 animals affected by the fire. Roughly 40 of them have been reunited with their families, while 10 remain in pet boarding facilities while their families determine new living arrangements, she said.

We continue to receive lost and found reports via our website and phone calls to our facility, Fine said. We are still actively accepting evacuated pets and will continue to support our community any way we can.

A burned truck tilts precariously on Jan. 12, 2022, in the Sagamore subdivision in Superior, Colo., which suffered much of the damage caused by the Marshall fire. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

At the county disaster relief center, Brittany Smith, head volunteer for the Colorado Pet Pantry, said that as of Jan. 11, the organization had received more than 1,000 pounds in donated pet food. People have also been donating other items, such as pet beds and toys.

There have been a lot of private donations. We love our animals, and there has been such an outpouring of support for people to find their pets, Smith said.

On Jan. 12, the former Nordstrom department store at the Flatiron Crossing mall in Louisville continued serving as a major drop-off point for private donations of food, clothing, toys, and other household goods for the displaced victims of the fire.

Pam White, a team leader with Adventist Community Services Disaster Response, helped coordinate volunteer efforts in sorting and tagging items to place on store shelves and racks.

Were definitely going to be here for three months, White said, acknowledging the trauma many fire victims have sustained in losing their homes.

What happens is, when they first come in, theyre afraid to talk to us. They are just so affected by this fire and what its done to them. Later, as it goes on, their heads are up and theyre talking to us and getting joy out of rebuilding their household inventory, she said.

Once a lush hillside of landscaping is now only charred remains after the Marshall fire ripped through two towns in Colorado on Dec. 30, 2021. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

Pictured on Jan. 11, 2022, these stone steps led to what used to be a thriving subdivision in Louisville, Colo., before a fast-moving wildfire on Dec. 30, 2021, reduced the entire parcel to rubble and ashes. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

And the generosity from the community continues nonstop.

Weve had semi-trucks [arrive] full of new clothespeople with their own trucks that they collected from their own neighborhoods, church organizations, White said. It takes a village to really get this done. We started this on Sunday [Jan. 9], and it was an empty, messy store. We had to organize tables to get it working. I imagine weve had 40 to 50 clients today, and each one takes a cart filled with household goods.

One resident who lost her home in the fire appeared on the verge of tears as she loaded essentials into the back of her vehicle.

Im obviously not in a good place to talk about it at the moment, she said.
Ashli Babbitt on what would be her final birthday, before being shot and killed at the U.S. Capitol. (CapitolPunishmentTheMovie.com/Bark at the Hole Productions)

Cop Who Killed Ashli Babbitt Was Cleared of Criminal Wrongdoing Without Interview

When U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd went on NBC Nightly News to tell his side of shooting and killing unarmed Jan. 6 rioter Ashli Babbitt, he made a point to note hed been investigated by several agencies and exonerated for his actions that day.

Theres an investigative process [and] I was cleared by the DOJ [Department of Justice], and FBI and [the D.C.] Metropolitan Police, he told NBC News anchor Lester Holt in August, adding that the Capitol Police also cleared him of wrongdoing and decided not to discipline or demote him for the shooting.

In fact, investigators cleared Byrd of wrongdoing in the shooting without actually interviewing him about the shooting or threatening him with punishment if he did not cooperate with their criminal investigation.

He didnt provide any statement to [criminal] investigators and they didnt push him to make a statement, Babbitt family attorney Terry Roberts said in an RCI interview. Its astonishing how skimpy his investigative file is.

Roberts, who has spoken with the D.C. MPD detective assigned to the case, said the kid-glove treatment of Byrd raises suspicions the investigation was a whitewash.

The lawyers account appears to be backed up by a January 2021 internal affairs report, which notes Byrd declined to provide a statement, D.C. MPD documents show.

Asked about it, a D.C. MPD spokeswoman confirmed that Byrd did not cooperate with internal affairs agents or FBI agents, who jointly investigated what was one of the most high-profile officer-involved shooting cases in U.S. history.

MPD did not formally interview Lt. Byrd, deputy D.C. MPD communications director Kristen Metzger said. And, He didnt give a statement while under the U.S. Attorneys Office investigation.

Still, USCP concluded in August that the officers conduct was lawful and within department policy. The agency launched its administrative investigation after the criminal investigation was closed.

In April, within four months of the shooting, Byrd was cleared of criminal wrongdoing by the Justice Department, which declined to impanel a grand jury to hear evidence in a departure from other lethal police-shooting cases involving unarmed citizens.

Justice ruled there was not enough evidence to conclude Byrd violated Babbitts civil rights or willfully acted recklessly in shooting her.

Byrd remains the commander in charge of security for the House of Representatives.

Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department would comment on whether they pressed Byrd after he insisted on remaining silent. The D.C. police force, which shares some jurisdiction with the Capitol Police, takes the lead in internal affairs probes like this one.

Roberts questioned how investigators could find that Byrd acted in self-defense and properly followed his training procedures, including issuing warnings before shooting Babbitt, since he refused to talk about it while the investigation was openand his statements, unlike those made to NBC, would have been taken under penalty of perjury. How would they know if they never interviewed him? he said, adding that its not enough to say an officer did nothing wrong without showing how it reached such a finding.

Troy Nehls, Texas Republican and former sheriff: Many officers in the USCP I have spoken to believe the investigations of Lt. Boyd were dropped because of his position and other political considerations.

By avoiding an interrogation, he said Byrd avoided saying anything that could have been used to incriminate him, including making false statements to federal agents, which would be a felony. Remarkably, he did not formally invoke his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent, according to people familiar with his case, which makes the reluctance of authorities to lean on him or sanction him for not cooperating all the more puzzling. By law, federal agencies can use leverage short of termination, such as an unwelcome duty reassignment, to persuade employees to cooperate with investigators. Byrd was put on paid administrative leave during the investigative process.

Byrd waited to speak publicly until after his statements could no longer be used against him in a criminal probe. The heavily promoted NBC exclusive told only his account of what happened with no opposing viewpoints. I believe I showed the utmost courage on Jan. 6, Byrd said.

In defending his actions, Byrd told Holt things he evidently wouldnt tell investigators, including his claim that he shot as a last resort and only after warning Babbitt to stop.

However, documents uncovered by Judicial Watch reveal that eyewitnessesincluding three police officers at the scenetold investigators they did not hear Byrd give Babbitt any verbal warnings prior to firing, contradicting what Byrd told NBC.

The Babbitt family has maintained that the rushed investigation amounted to a coverup of misconduct by the officer. It says the federal probe was conducted under political pressure, arguing that Byrd was not put through the normal rigors of a police shooting investigation to avoid making a martyr of Babbitt, an avid Donald Trump supporter. An Air Force veteran from California, Babbitt died while wearing a Trump flag as a cape. The former president has demanded the Justice Department reinvestigate her death.

Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas, a former sheriff, argued Babbitts shooting should have been presented to a federal grand jury. This case was mishandled from the very beginning, the Republican lawmaker told the U.S. attorney who led the probe for the Justice Department in a recent letter. In a separate letter to the Capitol Police chief, Nehls wrote: Many officers in the USCP I have spoken to believe the investigations of Lt. Boyd were dropped because of his position and other political considerations.

Use-of-Force Experts Skeptical

Some use-of-force experts are skeptical Byrd did the right thing, even after watching his largely sympathetic NBC interview.

The limited public information that exists raises serious questions about the propriety of Byrds decision to shoot, especially with regard to the assessment that Babbitt was an imminent threat, said police consultants and criminologists Geoffrey Alpert, Jeff Noble and Seth Stoughton in a recent Lawfare article.

We have serious reservations about the propriety of the shooting, they wrote.

They said they doubted Byrds claims that he reasonably believed Babbitt was posing a threat and had the ability and intention to kill or seriously injure Byrd or other officers or lawmakers and therefore had to be stopped with lethal force. They noted that he admitted to Holt that he never actually saw Babbitt, who stood 5-foot-2 and weighed 110 pounds, brandish a weapon.

Babbitt was shot by Byrd a year ago when she and other pro-Trump rioters breached the Capitol amid efforts to stop Congress from certifying the state results of the 2020 election of Joe Biden. They sought to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject electors from Arizona and other states, where narrow results were challenged by Trump and his lawyers over allegations of voter fraud and other election irregularities.

Roberts and the Babbitt family are preparing to sue Byrd and the Capitol Police in a wrongful-death claim seeking at least $10 million in damages. Asked why his client chose not to go on the record and cooperate with investigators, Byrds attorney, Mark Schamel, declined comment. In an earlier interview, Schamel maintained the shooting was justified and that there is no basis for a civil case against his client.

The federal investigation of the lethal shooting was marked by secrecy and other irregularities. Unlike other officers involved in fatal shootings of unarmed civilians, Byrd was long shielded from public scrutiny after shooting Babbitt as she tried to climb through a broken window of a barricaded door at the Capitol. For eight months D.C. police officials withheld Byrds identity, first revealed by RealClearInvestigations, and they have not released a formal review of the shooting, or the 28-year veterans disciplinary records. Nor did the Capitol Police hold a briefing on Babbitts death. Records uncovered by Judicial Watch reveal authorities ordered her body cremated two days after the shooting, without her husbands permission.

Meanwhile, the feds have thrown the book at suspected Jan. 6 rioterspublicly identifying them on a Justice Department websiteand are still engaged in a national manhunt for suspects. More than 725 defendants have been charged mostly for relatively minor offenses ranging from trespassing to disorderly conduct.

So far, the select House committee set up to investigate the Jan. 6 siege at the Capitol has not explored the most lethal violence that occurred that day. Byrd was responsible for the only shot fired during the riotall other armed officers showed restraint, including 140 who were injured confronting riotersand Babbitt was the only person directly killed on that day. Like the other rioters, she carried no firearmno guns were recovered from the Capitol.

Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., has pledged to investigate fully the facts and circumstances of these events. Asked if the police shooting is on the agenda for public hearings planned for this winter, or whether it will be addressed in a final report scheduled for release before Novembers congressional elections, a committee spokesman declined comment. Trump and GOP leaders have accused the panel, which is composed of seven Democrats and two Republicans, of trying to damage pro-Trump Republicans ahead of the midterms by claiming they helped orchestrate an insurrection and continue to pose a threat to democracy.

Point-Blank Range

Unlike in a criminal investigation, there is no right to remain silent in a civil case. Wrongful-death litigation claiming negligence may hinge on whether Byrd warned Babbitt before opening fire on her.

Roberts said Babbitt, a former military police officer who served tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan, would have complied with commands to stop and peacefully surrendered had Byrd or other Capitol officers attempted to arrest her. But he said additional eyewitnesses hes interviewed say Byrd never gave her such verbal commands. He said Babbitt wasnt even aware that the officer was nearby because he was positioned in a doorway of a room off to the side of the Speakers Lobby doors. Byrd, whose mouth was covered with a surgical mask, took aim outside her field of vision and fired as her head emerged through the window. Roberts compared her shooting to an execution.

Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd advances just before firing on unarmed Ashli Babbitt. John Sullivan captured the shooting on video. (Screen Capture/Jayden X)

Killing her by shooting her at point-blank range was completely unnecessary, he said. This alone renders the shooting legally unjustified.

Roberts pointed out that Byrd had mishandled his firearm in the past. He was the subject of a previous internal investigation for leaving his loaded service pistol in a Capitol restroom. Its not clear if he was disciplined. At the time, the lieutenant reportedly told officers he would not be punished due to his high rank, which he kept despite the incident. But in the NBC interview, he said he was penalized for the 2019 misstep, without elaborating. A USCP spokeswoman declined to respond to repeated requests for information about any discipline administered for his misconduct.

Byrd could not be reached for comment, but in the NBC interview he denied receiving special treatment. Of course not, he said. No way.

Before filing a lawsuit naming a federal agency, Roberts has to send a formal complaint for a claim for damage, injury or deathknown as a federal form SF-95to USCP and wait for a response. He sent the notice in May and is still waiting for the Capitol Police to reply.

We have received the SF-95 from Ms. Babbitts family attorney, USCP General Counsel Tad DiBiase confirmed to RCI in an email. He declined to say how the department plans to respond: I cannot comment on that.

In the meantime, Roberts said he is interviewing witnesses and also building a case from documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act.

I am still reviewing records obtained in FOIA action and there are more coming, he said. I am in no rush.

This article was written by Paul Sperry for RealClearInvestigations.
Jan. 9 was our 60th anniversary! We celebrated quietly  a far cry from our 50th, when we renewed our vows and had a wonderful reception and a fantastic cruise to Hawaii. As we were pondering the love, stubbornness, elasticity, perseverance and tenacity that have graced our lives together, we gave thanks for the loving folks around us who have celebrated, comforted and upheld us. Our friends and family, neighbors and colleagues all have added to this adventure called life. Our trust in God and the sacred beauty of a mutual relationship does deserve celebration!

With the help of my sisters, we researched the long marriages in our family history. Married also on Jan. 9 were my great-grandparents Gideon Thomas Halcrow and Margaret McLeod Halcrow; they celebrated 47 years of marriage before Gideons death. My great-great-grandparents William and Mary Lang celebrated their 50th in Cortland. The write-up in The Cortland Democrat on Nov. 15, 1918:

GOLDEN WEDDING: Mr. and Mrs. William Lang Celebrate 50 Years Married Life

One of those events that few are permitted to enjoy  fifty years of wedded life  was participated in by a large company of the friends of Mr. and Mrs. William Lang, who recently came to Cortland to reside, from their home of many years in Virgil. The golden wedding festivities were at the home of their daughter, Mrs. Chauncey E. Calkins. 56 Owego St. on Friday 'last, Nov. 8. At noon, dinner was served for twenty-five members of the immediate families. The dining room being decorated in a scheme of gold and white, with yellow and white chrysanthemums and Christmas roses for table flowers, the guests were served by Mrs. Chas. Lord, Mrs. Edwin Fogarty, Mrs. Louis Lang and Mrs. Andrew Vormwald and music was furnished by Howard Calkins, violin and Miss Arlene Lang. piano. In the evening a reception was given for Mr. and Mrs. Lang at which nearly 100 guests called to offer congratulations at the same time presenting a purse of gold and many other valuable gifts. The punch bowl was presided over by Mrs. Andrew Vormwald, Mrs. Earl Phillips and Miss Wava McGrath and music was furnished as at the dinner by Mr. Calkins and Miss Lang.

William Lang of Virgil and Mary L. Spenser were married in the rectory of Calvary Episcopal church in Homer on November 8, 1868 by the Rev. A.W. Cornell/ Their married life has all been spent in Cortland County mostly on farms in Harford and Virgil. Mr. Lang is 79 years of and age and his wife Is 67. They have three children. Eugene Lang of Harford, Louis Lang and Mrs. Chauncey Calkins of Cortland and all three were able to be present at the celebration.

My great-grandparents Chauncey and Minnie Calkins celebrated 55 years together in Cortland. My grandparents William C. and Lillian Viola Pilgrim were married for 54 years, and Andrew and Myrtie Vormwald for 52 years.

We didnt know Halcrows or Langs, but I knew Calkins, and Dewey and I both witnessed the love, dedication and strength of the Pilgrim and Vormwald marriages. Were they perfect? I dont think so, but they loved and cared for each other through wars, the Depression, family turmoil and illnesses.

I have been reading (on my second time around) Hewitts The Happiest Life, Seven Gifts, Seven Givers and the Secret to Genuine Success." I agree with Hugh Hewitts affirmation of the importance of faith, family, community and fulfilling work. All of my ancestors and my husbands ancestors observed these qualities. The ancestors and forbearers that established and maintained our town certainly did also.

As we continue to gather to write the comprehensive plan for the town of Conquest, we see the importance of these four affirmations throughout our deliberations  particularly community. Our Cayuga County planning advisers recently said they had never seen such fun and enthusiasm at a town planning gathering! For many of us, that recalled the cohesive community that planned and executed the Conquest sesquicentennial and Conquest Rural Fair. As we continue to gather input for our deliberations (reminder: please return yours by this weekend!) we are pretty sure we will see concern about keeping our treasured rural community safe and beautiful while providing services to enhance our rural heritage.

Keep pandemic journaling, dear readers. Stay safe.

Joni Lincoln is the historian of the town of Conquest.

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Police officers stand guard outside the fire damaged entrance to Old Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, on Dec. 30, 2021. (AAP Image/Lukas Coch)

Cops on Alert Outside Old Parliament House as Protesters Fail to Show Up

A large number of police officers remain stationed outside Canberras Old Parliament House on Saturday despite people failing to show for a planned protest.

A day earlier, at least 200 officers moved to clear a camp from the parkland in front of the Parliament-turned-museum set up by the protesters who have been protesting on front of the building for two weeks, saying that the group was in breach of Commonwealth law for illegally camping on Commonwealth land.

Officers, including search and rescue staff with power tools, dismantled tents, removed personal belongings and fixed structures from the site, bundling them into trucks.

Some protesters followed the polices request to move on, dismantling their own tents.

But elsewhere, tense confrontations took place between some officers and protesters as items were removed, with demonstrators seen yelling shame on you at the evicting officers.

After the tents were removed, demonstrators continued to surround the nearby Aboriginal Tent Embassy and said that the embassy members were sellouts.

Tent embassy staff were then seen shouting back at the protesters.

An ACT Police spokesman confirmed in a media statement that two people were arrested at the sceneone for breach of bail and one for obstructing a public official.

Todays actions dont prohibit any person peacefully protesting if they wish. However, without the approval of the National Capital Authority, no persons will be allowed to camp or park on the grounds in front and surrounding Old Parliament House, the statement read.

While the operation is ongoing, ACT Policing is asking the ACT community to avoid the area if possible. Further information will be provided once the operation is complete.

The Lore Not Law group, with lore referring to Indigenous law typically passed by word of mouth, has participated in ongoing protests since Dec. 29, issuing the federal government eviction notices at Canberra landmarks including Old Parliament House and The Lodge.

The group has been demanding sovereignty as well as refusing to recognise Australian law, with some opposing COVID-19 vaccinations.

Aboriginal Tent Embassy representatives have rejected links to the group, accusing the protesters of breeding a cult-like mentality.

Members of the protest group have been linked to a fire at Old Parliament House on Dec. 30, 2021, which captured the nations attention.

Read More Police Charge Victorian Man Over Old Parliament House Fire

Police officers arrested Bruce Shillingsworth Jr. and Dylan Wilson on Thursday for their alleged involvement in the fire. Both men denied the charges and were later granted bail.

Appearing in court on Friday, Shillingsworthwho was named the ringleader by the magistratesaid he was trying to diffuse the situation, persuading the protesters not to go ahead.

Shillingsworth told the magistrate his first night in prison, following his arrest on Thursday and bail on Friday, gave him time to reflect on the situation.
Scene from The Simpsons episode Goo Goo Gai Pan. (Disney+)

If an episode of South Park that satirizes the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was conspicuously excluded from an American streamers Hong Kong site, Trey Parker and Matt Stone would skewer them for it. However, Disney+ did exactly that when it censored for its HK customers the episode of The Simpsons wherein Homer Simpson visits Beijing.

If you live in Hong Kong, you cant watch Goo Goo Gai Pan (S16 E12), but the rest of us still canfor now. According to Google, there has been no response from Matt Groening yet.

Homer has an awkward relationship with his sister-in-law Selma Bouvier, but when she enters menopause, he agrees to pretend to be her husband, to facilitate her Chinese adoption. Naturally, their romantic chemistry is a bit dubious, attracting the suspicions of Madame Wu, the chief adoption bureaucrat (played by Lucy Liu).

This being The Simpsons, there are plenty of slams on America (mostly easy groaners). However, writer Dana Gould also aimed a number of clever barbs at the CCP. The one most likely to offend the CCP would be the briefly seen Tiananmen Square Monument reading: On this site, in 1989, nothing happened.

So, Disney+ is literally self-censoring a joke about the Communist Party censoring history. How sad is that? Especially since it shortly preceded the removal of Tiananmen Square memorials across Hong Kong, including the notorious dismantling of the Pillar of Shame statue at the University of Hong Kong.

There is more to annoy a state censor (and to make corporate toadies go squeamish). Homer actually refers to Mao as a mass murderer, in a very Homer kind of way. However, the real source of Disneys anxiety might have been Madame Wus condescending line to Lisa: Tibet was considered pretty independent. How did that work out?

Gould wrote some funny China-specific jokes as well as a number highly Simpsons-esque gags, like a menopause PSA video hosted by Robert Wagner (providing his own voice). It has everything franchise fans enjoy and expect, but it also captures the utter arrogance of the CCP officials.

That is why it is such a shame Groening has yet to speak out on behalf of Goo Goo Gai Pan and to generally protest censorship in Hong Kong (especially gutless self-censorship). If you want to watch a Simpsons episode, watch this one while you can. It streams on American Disney+, at least for now.

The Simpsons Episode: Goo Goo Gai Pan

Director: Lance Kramer

Starring: Dan Castellaneta, Lucy Liu, Robert Wagner

MPAA Rated: PG

Running Time: 30 minutes

Release Date: Nov. 16, 2021

Rated: 3.5 stars out of 5

Joe Bendel writes about independent film and lives in New York. To read his most recent articles, visit JBSpins.blogspot.com
The Interpol logo during the 89th Interpol General Assembly in Istanbul on Nov. 23, 2021. The delegates elected Ahmed Nasser Al-Raisi of the United Arab Emirates as the organizations new president on Nov. 25, 2021. (Ozan Kose/AFP via Getty Images)

Exiled Hongkongers Seek Help From an Unlikely PlaceInterpol

Pro-democracy activists seek protection from Hong Kong authorities and Beijing's draconian National Security Law

Commentary

Several high-profile Hongkongersall former lawmakers and pro-democracy leadersare now living in exile and seeking help from an unlikely place: Interpol.

Why do I say unlikely place? Because Interpol has been accused of allowing dictatorships to abuse its system, without taking any real measures to punish them for doing so.

These Hongkongers are placing considerable faith in the organization, given that it has failed to protect Idris Hasan, an ethnic Uyghur whos now facing extradition from Morocco to China and life in prison. Interpol failed to properly vet a red notice request from China, and approved it. Only later, when Safeguard Defenders managed to create a media storm around Hasans case, did Interpol revisit the red notice and realized that it had violated its own rules, and subsequently cancelled the notice. For Hasan, of course, it was too late as he had already been detained, and Interpol refused to assist his legal team in using the cancellation to show Morocco why extraditing him back to China would be wrong.

In seeking aid, Hongkongers are also helping Interpol to protect itself from further abuse, which, if found, could severely undermine its credibility.

Safeguard Defenders revealed in a new report that Hongkongers are in desperate need of protection from the authorities and the National Security Law (NSL), which Beijing implemented in Hong Kong in June 2020. Throughout 2021, the Hong Kong police, the security ministry, and high-level officials have used increasingly hostile language.

For example, theyve said how these dissidents are wanted for crimes under the NSL and, as former security minister John Lee said, will be pursued for life.

To make matters worse, the government is now threatening to try to use Interpol to chase them down from their hideouts in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and, most prominently, the United States.

The Hong Kong government, police and courts can work together to take various measures to recapture absconders, Kennedy Wong, a member of Hong Kongs Legislative Council (LegCo), told Chinas state-run media Global Times on May 20, 2021. He continued, The Hong Kong police can make an offer of arrest to INTERPOL.

Wong is not alone. Regina Ip, a pro-Beijing lawmaker and former security minister, brought up the use of Interpol even for countries that have now suspended extradition treaties with Hong Kong.

Other pro-Beijing lawmakers in the Hong Kong government have also made such calls, as reported here.

A man is detained by riot police during a demonstration in a shopping mall at Sheung Shui district in Hong Kong, China, on Dec. 28, 2019. (Anthony Kwan/Getty Images)

And they are not empty threats. For example, Danish media revealed that both China and Hong Kongs Interpol bureaus had used the organizations channels to get the Danish police to cooperate in the investigation of two Danish members of parliament, who were accused of assisting pro-democracy leader Ted Hui in fleeing Hong Kong. Hui is a former member of the the LegCo and he played a major role in the anti-extradition protests that rocked the city in 20192020. Chinese and Hong Kong authorities used a mutual legal assistance treaty to seek Danish cooperation, which is another tool that the Hong Kong government has repeatedly threatened to use against these exiles.

The danger here is spread between those targeted by Hong Kongs police and Interpol itself. The threat to these brave politicians and pro-democracy protest leaders is very real, as many countriessuch as Portugal, the Czech Republic, India, and Malaysiastill maintain extradition treaties with Hong Kong; and even if other countries choose not to act on any Interpol notice to arrest them, it could still cause significant hassles in their lives, especially for traveling.

For example, one high-profile Hong Kong activist had to seek assurances from the Czech foreign ministry to be able to travel, after being invited, to attend seminars there. No such assurances could be given, but he was brave enough to go anyway. And this happened in the Czech Republic, despite its history of standing up for democracy and freedom of speech. The country of Vaclav Havelthe first democratic leader and co-founder of the pro-democratic Charter 77 movement. However, dissidents are not safe in the country, as the government has failed to suspend its extradition treaty with Hong Kong.

Yet, due to the very clear charter of Interpol, should it be found to have approved any red notice (or diffusion, a similar but less well-known tool that essentially achieves the same thing), it would be a tremendous blow to the organizations legitimacy. Interpol has already taken a hit due to the Idris Hasan case and its failure to penalize China, and others, for using red notices in violation of its charter rules.

Safeguard Defenders and other prominent Hong Kong rights activists, including Nathan Law and Ted Hui, sent an open letter to Interpol on Jan. 13. It should serve as a wake-up call for Interpol that each time it allows countries (particularly totalitarian states) to misuse its system, it damages its own legitimacy and future. The letter also encourages Western governments to create a more comprehensive policy for creating safe havens for targeted activists, so they can start new lives.

Protecting innocent people from the misuse of Interpols red notice is an essential first step. Moreover, democratic nationssuch as Portugal, the Czech Republic, and Indiashould suspend their extraditions treaties with Hong Kong. Another important step is for Interpol to examine just what value there is in maintaining mutual legal assistance treaties if countries see any attempt at abusing human rights through these agreements.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
A Dreamliner 787-10 arriving from Los Angeles pulls up to a gate at Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, N.J., on Jan. 7, 2019. (Seth Wenig/AP Photo)

FAA Sets Rules for Some Boeing 787 Landings Near 5G Service

Federal safety officials are directing operators of some Boeing planes to adopt extra procedures when landing on wet or snowy runways near impending 5G service because, they say, interference from the wireless networks could mean that the planes need more room to land.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said Friday that interference could delay systems like thrust reversers on Boeing 787s from kicking in, leaving only the brakes to slow the plane.

That could prevent an aircraft from stopping on the runway, the FAA said.

Similar orders could be issued in the coming days for other planes. The FAA has asked Boeing and Airbus for information about many models. Boeing said it is working with its suppliers, airlines, telecom companies, and regulators to ensure that every commercial airplane model can safely and confidently operate when 5G is implemented in the United States.

The order for the Boeing jets comes a day after the FAA began issuing restrictions that airlines and other aircraft operators will face at many airports when AT&T and Verizon launch new, faster 5G wireless service Wednesday.

The agency is still studying whether those wireless networks will interfere with altimeters, which measure an aircrafts height above the ground. Data from altimeters is used to help pilots land when visibility is poor.

The devices operate on a portion of the radio spectrum that is close to the range used by the new 5G service, called C-Band.

This weeks FAA actions are part of a larger fight between the aviation regulator and the telecom industry. The telecom companies and the Federal Communications Commission say 5G networks do not pose a threat to aviation. The FAA says more study is needed.

The FAA is conducting tests to learn how many commercial planes have altimeters that might be vulnerable to spectrum interference. The agency said this week it expects to estimate the percentage of those planes soon, but didnt put a date on it.

Aircraft with untested altimeters or that need retrofitting or replacement will be unable to perform low-visibility landings where 5G is deployed, the agency said in a statement.

The order regarding Boeing 787s covers 137 planes in the United States and 1,010 worldwide. The 787 is a two-aisle plane that is popular on longer routes, including many international flights.

The FAA said that based on information from Boeing, the 787s might not shift properly from flying to landing mode if there is interference, which could delay the activation of systems that help slow the plane.

AT&T and Verizon have twice agreed to postpone activating their new networks because of concerns raised by aviation groups and the FAA, most recently after the FAA and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg weighed in on the aviation industrys side. Buttigieg and FAA Administrator Stephen Dickson warned that flights could be canceled or diverted to avoid potential safety risks.

Under an agreement with the telecom companies, the FAA designated 50 airports that will have buffer zones in which the companies will turn off 5G transmitters or make other changes to limit potential interference through early July.

The 50 include the three major airports in the New York City areaLaGuardia, JFK, and Newark LibertyOHare and Midway in Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth International, Bush Intercontinental in Houston, Los Angeles International, and San Francisco.

That concession by the telecoms was modeled after an approach used in France, although the FAA said last week that France requires more dramatic reductions in cell tower reach around airports.

By David Koenig
Law enforcement officials gather at Colleyville Elementary School near the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, on Jan. 15, 2022. (Tony Gutierrez/AP Photo)

Hostage Situation at Texas Synagogue Averted After Standoff, Suspect Dead

Hostages were rescued from inside a Texas synagogue following a standoff that lasted nearly 12 hours, Gov. Greg Abbott announced late Saturday.

Prayers answered. All hostages are out alive and safe, the governor announced on Twitter.

Abbotts post came moments after a loud bang and what sounded like gunfire was heard coming from the synagogueCongregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, which is about 15 miles northeast of Fort Worth.

Colleyville Police Chief Michael Miller confirmed at a press conference late Saturday that the suspect was dead. Around 9 p.m., the [hostage rescue team] breached the synagogue, they rescued the three hostages, the suspect is deceased.

FBI crisis negotiators were trying to negotiate with the suspect, according to the local police department in Colleyville in a statement.

Later in the night, the department announced on Twitter, Update at 9:55pm: The SWAT situation in Colleyville is resolved and all hostages are safe. We continue to work in partnership with the FBI to finalize all details.

The situation started around 10:40 a.m. when the Colleyville Police Department received a call for service in the 6100 block of Pleasant Run Roadthe address of the synagogue. Officers arrived on scene and observed an emergency situation that warranted evacuation of the surrounding areas and an external perimeter was established, the department said.

Shortly after 5 p.m. local time, a male hostage was released uninjured from the major incident, it added said. This man will be reunited with his family as soon as possible and he does not require medical attention. FBI Crisis Negotiators continue contact with the subject.

On the Facebook livestream of Saturdays service at the synagogue, a man could be heard ranting and talking about religion at times, reported the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The video did not show what was happening in the building.

Shortly before 2 p.m., the man said, You got to do something. I dont want to see this guy dead. Moments later, the feed cut out. A Meta company spokesperson later confirmed that Facebook had removed the video, reported The Associated Press.

The Colleyville Police Department was on the scene with FBIs Dallas Field Office, the Texas Department of Public Safety, North Tarrant Regional SWAT Team, and other neighboring agencies.

In a statement on Twitter, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he was monitoring the situation through the Texas Department of Public Safety. He described it as a tense situation and that the Texas DPS is working with local and federal teams to achieve the best and safest outcome.

White House Press Secretary said on Twitter that President Joe Biden had been briefed about the situation. The Justice Department also said Attorney General Merrick Garland was closely following the situation.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said he was monitoring the situation closely. We pray for the safety of the hostages and rescuers, he wrote on Twitter.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Law enforcement officials gather at a local school near the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, on Jan. 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Gareth Patterson)

FBI Identifies Texas Synagogue Hostage-Taker as British National Malik Faisal Akram

The FBI has identified the hostage-taker who was killed by police after a lengthy standoff at a Texas synagogue on Jan. 15 as a British national named Malik Faisal Akram.

Akram, 44, was shot and killed when an FBI SWAT team stormed the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, near Fort Worth, at around 9 p.m. local time, following a 10-hour standoff in which four people were taken hostage.

Colleyville Police Chief Michael Miller confirmed at a press conference late on Jan. 15 that the suspect had been killed.

All the hostages were rescued unharmed, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced.

Prayers answered. All hostages are out alive and safe, Abbott said in a Jan. 15 post on Twitter.

An aerial view of police standing in front of the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue, in Colleyville, Texas, on Jan. 16, 2022. (Brandon Wade/AP Photo)

While its not clear why Akram targeted the synagogue, he was heard ranting on a Facebook livestream of the services and demanding the release of Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui, who was convicted of trying to kill U.S. Army officers in Afghanistan. Convicted in 2010 by a New York federal court, Siddiqui is serving an 86-year sentence at Carswell Air Force Base near Fort Worth, about 15 miles away from Colleyville, the location of the synagogue.

Texas resident Victoria Francis told The Associated Press that she watched about an hour of the livestream before it cut out, adding that she heard the man rant against America and claim he had a bomb.

He was just all over the map. He was pretty irritated and the more irritated he got, hed make more threats, like, Im the guy with the bomb. If you make a mistake, this is all on you. And hed laugh at that, she said. He was clearly in extreme distress.

Law enforcement officials gather at Colleyville Elementary School near the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, on Jan. 15, 2022. (Tony Gutierrez/AP Photo)

FBI special agent in charge Matthew DeSarno said on Jan. 16 that there was no indication other individuals besides Akram were involved.

UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss condemned the assailants actions in a tweet.

My thoughts are with the Jewish community and all those affected by the appalling act in Texas. We condemn this act of terrorism and anti-semitism, she wrote.

We stand with US in defending the rights and freedoms of our citizens against those who spread hate.

Karen Pierce, British ambassador to the United States, in a series of tweets thanked U.S. law enforcement for their brave efforts in securing the safe release of those held while condemning the incident as a shocking act on people practicing their faith.

The UK & US stand shoulder to shoulder in defiance of terrorism and in defence of the fundamental rights and freedoms of our citizens, Pierce added.

President Joe Biden said in a statement that the coming days would likely bring more clarity around the motivations of the hostage-taker, and he vowed to stand against anti-Semitism.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CBS News on Jan. 16 that the hostage situation was an act of terrorism and anti-Semitism.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Former Federal and Nova Scotian NDP leader, Alexa McDonough, gives a speech in Halifax, N.S., on August 14, 2009. (The Canadian Press/Tim Krochak)

Former Federal NDP Leader Alexa McDonough Dies at 77

HALIFAXFormer federal NDP leader Alexa McDonough, a political trailblazer who paved the way for women in politics, died Saturday in Halifax at the age of 77.

Her family confirmed McDonoughs death after a lengthy struggle with Alzheimers disease.

McDonough became the first woman to head up a major political party in Canada when she was elected leader of the Nova Scotia New Democrats in 1980. She became leader of the federal NDP in 1995 and served in the partys top post until 2002.

But in an interview Saturday, Justin McDonough said his mother was a consensus builder who earned respect beyond partisan political lines.

I think the one thing that I really learned from her is that you can have courageous conversations and you can disagree with someone, but it doesnt mean that you arent going to be respectful and youre not going to appreciate their opinion, he said. Her political life resonated in that regard.

Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston paid tribute in a statement calling McDonough an historic figure in provincial and federal politics.

The hallmark of Ms. McDonoughs long career was her respect for the people she represented, Houston said. She was a public servant in the truest sense and she will be sorely missed by people across Canada.

Known affectionately to many across the country as simply Alexa, McDonough was a former social worker who cut her political teeth in the Nova Scotia Liberal Party before switching to the provincial NDP in 1974.

After capturing the partys leadership, she became the first New Democrat from mainland Nova Scotia to sit in the provincial legislature when she was elected in a Halifax area riding in 1981. She was the partys lone voice in the legislature over the next three years.

These are accomplishments of real historic stature, said Gary Burrill, the current leader of the Nova Scotia NDP. She is a big person on the landscape in the history of the province.

Burrill said Nova Scotia New Democrats have suffered a significant loss and are a party in mourning.

McDonough resigned as provincial leader in 1994 and later made the jump to federal politics, where she mounted a challenge for the national partys top job in 1995. She won the federal NDP leadership in an upset over perceived front-runners Svend Robinson and Lorne Nystrom.

She was elected to the House of Commons for the first time during the 1997 federal election, while her partys seat count went from nine to 21. That total included a breakthrough in Atlantic Canada, where the New Democrats took six of Nova Scotias 11 seats.

That was a moment that broke the mould of Nova Scotia politics which had been in place for over a century, Burrill said.

McDonough made her mark federally as a champion of strong social programs and gender equality. She retired from politics in 2008.

Born Alexa Ann Shaw in Ottawa on Aug. 11, 1944, she adopted the name known across the country when she married Peter McDonough in Halifax in 1966.

McDonough was an Officer of the Order of Canada and a member of the Order of Nova Scotia and is a past president of Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax.

She is survived by her sons, Justin and Travis, along with seven grandchildren.

By Keith Ducette
While scouring the glacial till that comprises Englands eastern coastal cliffs, a pair of Yorkshire fossil hunters made a colossal discovery some 180 million years in the making.

Late last summer, Mark Kemp, 34, a self-taught, professional fossil finder and preparator, and a friend who shares the pastime were exploring the rugged cliffline of Holderness, northwest of Hull, between the towns of Mappleton and Cowden.

This rugged section of coast, comprised of unsorted sedimentary deposit from long-melted, once-massive glaciers, is known to yield the bones of dinosaurs and other prehistoric reptiles. Kemps companion that day stumbled on a glacial erratica hunk of exotic rock deposited from elsewherewith a fossil that looked particularly promising.

(Top-Left) Mark Kemp; (Bottom-Left) A glacial erratic containing the fossilized partial jaw section of a temnodontosaurus; (Right) A section of cliffline in Holderness, Yorkshire. (Courtesy of Mark Kemp)

My friend shouts me over asking for my opinion on something, as soon as I saw the rock in question, I knew it was something special, Kemp told The Epoch Times. I immediately knew there was bone and teeth inside and we both agreed the block should be taken by me and prepped immediately.

In his workshop in Hull, Kemp painstakingly etched away the rock millimeter by millimeter to reveal enormous conical teeth and what he learned was the partial jaw section of a temnodontosaurusa marine reptile of the Jurassic Period, predating even the dinosaurs.

In addition to its massive teeth, this apex predatory reptile of the sea possessed a robust, elongated snout; extraordinarily large eyes for hunting; forefins and hindfins of about equal size, for steering; and a triangular dorsal fin. Its vertically aligned tail was its main propulsion.

A section of fossilized jawbone and teeth of an adult temnodontosaurus. (Courtesy of Mark Kemp)

Illustration of a temnodontosaurus species known as an ichthyosaur, dating back to the Jurassic Period some 180 million years ago. (Illustration  Dotted Yeti/Shutterstock)

These were extremely large creatures which could have easily grown up to 40 feet, Kemp told the newspaper, having consulted Dr. Dean Lomax, a leading marine reptile paleontologist. They had enormous strength in their jaws which have a crushing power more than modern day saltwater crocodile. They roamed the seas around 180 million years ago and were even about before the dinosaurs.

This particular temnodontosaurus specimen belongs to a species known as the ichthyosaur, Kemp learned, and is one of the best examples of this species to come from Yorkshire.

The name temnodontosaurus itself from Greek translates to cutting-tooth lizard. And based on this specimens teeth and jaw size, it was estimated to have had a skull two meters long and would have been a full-sized adult.

Various stages of fossil preparation by Mark Kemp. (Courtesy of Mark Kemp)

As for Kemp, his decade-long fossil hobby has become a professionrunning a workshop from his home in Bransholme, where he prepares fossils, improves their appearance, and preserves them for a paying clientele.

Fossil hunting opens up your mind to what life was like all them years ago, said Kemp. If you split a rock open and discover a fossil, you know youre the only human being alive to have ever seen that fossil.

My dream is to go fossil collecting in the far corners of the world and to discover what lies locked in time.

Over the years, hes found some remarkable remains, including dinosaur footprints, woolly mammoth bones, cave bear jaws, bison vertebrae, anemones, shells, corals, and spongesall recorded in rock from eons ago.

Kemp jokingly added, My collection has grown in the past three years at a rate which is a little scary and soon I am going to be in a situation where I need a bigger garage.

A few more examples of Kemps fossil preparator work:

More of Kemps fossil preparator work can be seen on his Instagram page here.

Share your stories with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.com, and continue to get your daily dose of inspiration by signing up for the Epoch Inspired newsletter at TheEpochTimes.com/newsletter
People practice the exercises of Falun Dafa at a park in Sydney, Australia, on June 26, 2017. (Emma Morley)

Free Online Falun Gong Tutorial Sessions Aim to Help People Relieve Stress During Pandemic: Organizer

During the COVID-19 pandemic, free Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong) online meditation exercise classes based in North America have attracted thousands of people globally, helping to heal illnesses, keep fit, and improve morality.

Since October 2020, nearly 5,000 people from more than 54 countries around the world have participated in the free online Falun Gong tutorial sessions. At present, due to the ever-increasing demand, the online classes have been expanded to 14 different languages, with the number still increasing.

Falun Gong is a spiritual practice composed of meditative exercises and moral teachings centered around the principles, truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance.

Canadian Falun Gong practitioner and coordinator of the free sessions, Dr. Lei Shizhong, told the Chinese edition of The Epoch Times that so far, people of different races, occupations, and ages from all over the world have participated in the online classes.

He said that due to the huge increase in global demand, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, multi-lingual classes have been opened to provide people around the world with the knowledge to learn Falun Dafa, which has benefited hundreds of millions of people physically and mentally.

Lei said that the free exercise tutorial sessions are being conducted in 14 languages including English, Chinese, German, Spanish, Indonesian, Japanese, Vietnamese, Russian, Swedish, Dutch, Turkish, Persian, and Korean. Classes are held in different languages at different times of the day. More language classes are in the pipeline, he added.

So far, more than 5,000 people have participated in the online classes in English, French, and Chinese.

Practitioners of Falun Gong (Falun Dafa) practice the exercise of the spiritual discipline in Central Park in Manhattan, on May 10, 2014. (Dai Bing/Epoch Times)

Many people who participated in the study said that it helped to enhance their immunity and relieved anxiety and stress.

Lanakila W. was a stage 4 rectal cancer patient. He started practicing Falun Gong in July last year. After practicing Falun Gong for 3 months, he went to a hospital for examination. The visit revealed that no polyps are there and even the scars from the surgeries are all cleared up! he said.

Tranika T., another participant, said I definitely feel very blessed to have found it [Falun Dafa], and many religions even teach Truth, Compassion, and Forbearance.

Laurel G. said a beautiful sense of calm within. Much gratitude.

French classes started in April 2021. So far, 600 people from 10 countries have attended the French classes which are held twice a week.

Melanie B. from French class said I felt a warmth, a vibration in my hands, a wonderful feeling of well-being.

In addition to overseas learners, there are also Chinese in mainland China who have broken through the Chinese regimes internet firewall and participated in the online sessions.

A practitioner surnamed Tang said that he learned about Falun Dafa in November last year. He had been looking for information about the spiritual practice many times and found leaflets and self-study materials online. After learning the meditation exercises from the online classes, I felt very hot all over my body, he said. He said that Falun Gong makes him see things more clearly, and since the atmosphere of the class is very good he is reluctant to see it finish. Since Dec. 4 last year, he has taken the classes four times in a row.

According to the Falun Dafa website, Falun Dafa, also known as Falun Gong, is a spiritual practice that millions around the world have made a part of their lives. Rooted in Buddhist tradition, it consists of two main components: self-improvement through the study of teachings, and gentle exercises and meditation.

After it was made public in China in May 1992, in just a few years Falun Gong spread all over the country. Outside mainland China, Falun Dafa has been introduced to more than 100 countries and regions around the world and has benefited hundreds of millions of people physically and mentally.

Liang Yao contributed to the report.
DETROITRobert Christie, owner of A & G Central Music, said that people express themselves through art. Shen Yun Performing Arts performance at the Detroit Opera House on Saturday, Jan. 15, reminded him that not everyone has the freedom to express themselves the way we do here, and that we shouldnt take it for granted.

Shen Yun, based in New York, brings five millennia of Chinese culture to the world through the media of traditional music and dance. And whereas this performance can be experienced around the globe, it cannot be seen in China itself, due to the Communist regimes decades-long dismantling of traditional culture and beliefs.

Mr. Christie helps to facilitate music programs for children. As individuals, he believes, people have the right to think for themselves and if youre not given the freedom to share your personal feelings, opinions, thoughts, and we get homogenized, theres no humanity to it.

As a musician, Mr. Christie appreciated the harmony of the performance in many ways. What struck me was that the harmony of the music was also reflected in concert with the dance.

He also noted the harmony expressed in the orchestra. Obviously the Western instruments are not traditional as some of the dances, some of the ethnic dances that we saw. Yet introducing those instruments in with the more traditional Chinese instruments created a harmony thats different, that we havent seen beforeso it was beautiful.

Mr. Christie encourages people to come see Shen Yun.

Retired Physical Therapist Says Shen Yun Will Wake Up Young People

Sheila York, a retired physical therapist, came to see Shen Yun at the Detroit Opera House with two daughters, one teaches high school algebra and the other works in a book depository.

Ms. York had wanted to see Shen Yun since 2006 and found a lot to appreciate. She loved the dances that presented events from modern China. I thought it was very appropriate. I liked the spirituality of it, too.

Sheila York at Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Detroit Opera House, on Jan. 15, 2022. (Nancy Ma/The Epoch Times)

As for people coming to Shen Yun during the pandemic, Sheila said, after covering all the requirements, sometimes you just have to let go and let God take care of things. If you let go and you have faith, its going to be okay.

When listening to the music and feeling its healing effect, Ms. York said she felt joy and peace.

She noticed that people came in tired and weary but when it was over its just wonderful. It just makes you glow inside and feel like the worlds going to be okay no matter what.

Its going to be okay because people can get together and be safe and learn a little bit about Chinese history.  Sheila York

With the restrictions of the pandemic, Shen Yun provided a welcome relief. Especially with COVID now, I think its going to be okay. Its going to be okay because people can get together and be safe and learn a little bit about Chinese history.

Ms. York had special words for the young. For the young people that were here today, I think it wakes them up to some new ideas and new things that are happening in the world.

She believes people should come with an open mind. I want to go home and tell my granddaughter she should have come.

She said she will bring her grandchildren next year to experience the energy in the performance.

When you spend a couple of hours here and see the joy and happiness and the explosion of excitement, you cant be negative. You see the good.

Reporting by Nancy Ma, NTD, and Yvonne Marcotte.

The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts. We have covered audience reactions since Shen Yuns inception in 2006.
For U.S. Rep. John Katko, the beginning of the end was on Jan. 13, 2021.

On that day, the House of Representatives voted to impeach President Donald Trump for inciting an insurrection. Katko, R-Camillus, was one of 10 Republicans who joined with Democrats to impeach the president.

Katko, a former federal prosecutor, felt he could not ignore Trump's conduct after the 2020 presidential election and on Jan. 6, 2021  the day a mob of the president's supporters attacked the Capitol to disrupt the certification of the election results. But he also predicted that he would face a backlash for the vote.

"This wasn't a political calculus. If it was, obviously, I would've done something differently. But it wasn't to me," Katko told The Citizen after the impeachment vote. "I take my oath to uphold the Constitution very seriously and I've had a lot of experience doing so over the years. To me, I had to put the blinders on, as tough as it could be, I had to put the blinders on knowing I was probably going to take a very serious hit because of this. But that's what leadership is in my mind. You gotta sometimes do not what is comfortable, but what is right."

One year and a day after he cast his vote to impeach Trump, Katko announced he will not seek reelection this year.

There are other factors that may have affected Katko's decision. With congressional district maps being redrawn this year, the Syracuse area could be in an even bluer district than it is now. While Katko has been successful in a district with a Democratic enrollment advantage, increasing that edge would hurt his reelection chances.

But there was a strong possibility Katko wouldn't make it to the general election, and that stems from his impeachment vote. A few primary challengers emerged in the last several months and, in one redistricting scenario, Katko would wind up in the same district as U.S. Rep. Claudia Tenney, a conservative Republican with Trump's support.

Katko maintained some support among Republicans, but he lost the backing of the Conservative Party  a minor party that typically endorses GOP candidates in congressional races. Katko had the Conservatives' endorsement in each of his four runs for Congress, but the party's leadership made it clear he would not have their support in 2022.

In the days after the impeachment vote, Katko attempted to position himself as someone that Republicans and Conservatives could support, even though they were unhappy with his decision. He criticized President Joe Biden's immigration stance and handling of an influx of migrants at the southern border. He repeatedly criticized "far-left" Democrats for their push to defund police departments. He made several appearances on Fox News  something he rarely, if ever, did in his first three terms in Congress.

Katko hoped that those efforts and others would be enough for GOP and Conservative leaders to look past his impeachment vote.

"If I'm being judged on this one vote, I understand that people are going to be upset," he told The Citizen in January 2021. "But if they judge me on the total mix over the next two years, they might feel differently. Time will tell."

Unfortunately for Katko, time did not heal any of those wounds. His standing did not change and it became apparent that national Republicans weren't in a position to provide him cover. House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, who could become speaker if Republicans regain the majority this year, is allied with Trump. It wasn't a secret that Trump wanted to oust Katko. He pledged to support a primary challenge and urged House Republicans to stop providing financial support to Katko.

Ultimately, Katko could not overcome Trump's stranglehold on the GOP. After the Jan. 6 attack and before the impeachment vote, Katko was asked if he would support Trump if the former president ran again in 2024. He said he would not endorse him.

"He cannot be the standard-bearer of our party going forward," Katko said. "I think that people are recognizing that and I think he needs to recognize that as well."

But that was a miscalculation. If anything, Trump has more power, especially now that Republicans want his help to win back the House and Senate. After Katko announced he will not run for reelection, Trump released a statement.

"Great news, another one bites the dust," he said. "Katko, from Upstate New York, is gone!"

The reaction to one vote overshadows Katko's work throughout his four terms in Congress  he was widely recognized as one of the most effective lawmakers and respected by members of both parties  and his political successes. A Republican in a Democratic district, he defeated an incumbent Democrat by 20 points in 2014 and won reelection three times, including a 10-point win in 2020. That year, he outperformed Trump by nine points in NY-24.

When Katko announced his retirement from Congress on Friday, he called representing central New York in Congress "the honor and privilege of a lifetime."

"My conscience, principles and commitment to do what's right have guided every decision I've made as a member of Congress, and they guide my decision today," he said. "It is how I've been able to unite people to solve problems, and how I was rewarded with resounding victories in every single campaign for Congress."

Online producer Robert Harding can be reached at (315) 282-2220 or robert.harding@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @robertharding.

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Handout photo of an Irish Defence Forces guard of honour during a ceremony to mark 100 years since the handover of Dublin Castle, on Jan. 16, 2022. (PA)

Ireland Marks 100 Years Since British Handover of Power at Dublin Castle

Ireland on Sunday marked 100 years since the handover of Dublin Castle by British forces, in a ceremony attended by Irish and UK dignitaries.

At a ceremony in Dublin Castle, in the center of the capital, the Republic of Ireland marked the centenary of the deeply symbolic event.

The transfer of power in Dublin Castle, the seat of British power in Ireland for centuries, came following the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921.

The actual handover of power to the Irish Provisional Government 100 years ago was a low-key, hurried affair that was the culmination of years of war and revolution in Ireland.

It also came following the partition of the island and the creation of Northern Ireland in 1921.

President Michael D Higgins and Taoiseach Micheal Martin, as well as Tanaiste Leo Varadkar, were among those in attendance on Sunday.

President Higgins was greeted by a Defence Forces guard of honour as he arrived.

The event, which was held at the same time as the events of 100 years ago, was also attended by UK Ambassador in Ireland Paul Johnston.

Ireland is coming towards of the end of a so-called decade of centenaries, which have seen the events leading up to Irish independence remembered and publicly discussed.

In the months to come, Ireland will also remember the civil war, which was sparked by divisions over the contents of the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

Former Irish premiers Bertie Ahern and Enda Kenny attended on Sunday, as well as former presidents Mary McAleese and Mary Robinson.

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald also attended the ceremonial event, which was broadcast live on national broadcaster RTE.

The event saw a narrated account of the transfer of power read by actor Phelim Drew.

As part of the ceremony, President Higgins unveiled a plaque to mark the occasion in 1922.

On Sunday, in a short address shortly before the Irish tricolour was hoisted in Dublin Castle, Mr Martin said: As we honour the achievements of the revolutionary generation, we do so with pride that the state they helped to create is entering its second century of independent, democratic government.

By Dominic McGrath
Israeli Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman speaks to the media during the weekly cabinet meeting at the prime minister's office in Jerusalem on Aug. 1, 2021. (Abir Sultan/Pool via Reuters)

Israeli Finance Minister Tests Positive for Coronavirus

JERUSALEMIsraeli Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Saturday that he had tested positive for COVID-19 and would self-isolate but continue working from home.

I feel good and will isolate in the next few days, Lieberman said on Twitter. Foreign Minister Yair Lapid tested positive on Monday.

On Jan. 10, Lieberman posted a photo of himself receiving a fourth COVID-19 vaccination dose. Israel began administering a second round of boosters to immune-compromised people in late December, expanding the campaign to its over-60-year-olds and medical staff in January.

The Health Ministry says that a first booster increases protection seven days after the shot but has not yet released data on the effectiveness of a fourth dose.
A person holds a photo of late Haitian President Jovenel Moise during his memorial ceremony at the National Pantheon Museum in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on July 20, 2021. (Matias Delacroix/AP Photo)

Jamaica Arrests Ex-Haiti Senator Sought in Leaders Slaying

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HaitiHaitis National Police said Saturday that a former senator who is a prominent suspect in the July 7 killing of President Jovenel Moise has been arrested in Jamaica.

Police spokesman Gary Desrosiers told The Associated Press that John Joel Joseph was in custody. No further information was immediately available.

Meanwhile, Jamaica Police Superintendent Stephanie Lindsay told the AP that other people were arrested along with Joseph and that authorities were trying to determine whether they are family members. She said they were arrested before dawn on Saturday and declined to share other details.

For more than one reason, were not sharing more information, she said.

Joseph is a Haitian politician and opponent of the Tet Kale party that Moise belonged to.

One more suspect has been apprehended. One more opportunity to shed light on my husbands murder, wrote Martine Moise, who was injured in the shooting, on Twitter. In Haiti or elsewhere, the tracking of the wanted must continue so that all the sponsors and perpetrators of this heinous crime are punished.

A still-unreleased police report obtained by the AP quoted various sources as saying Joseph had several links to the attack, with at least one identifying him among the leaders of it.

The sources said Joseph paid in cash for rental cars used by the attackers and had met with other suspects ahead of the killing, including Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a Haitian businessman and evangelical pastor who had expressed desire to lead his country. Associates have suggested that Sanon was duped by the true masterminds of the assassination. He was arrested shortly after the killing.

The report also stated that the former senator introduced other suspects to Joseph Badio, an alleged leader of of the plot who previously worked for Haitis Ministry of Justice and the governments anti-corruption unit until he was fired.

It said phone records show James Solages, a Haitian-American arrested in the case, had a WhatsApp conversation with Joseph regarding preparations for the mission. And it said that Solage told authorities that Joseph, Badio, and Rodolphe Jaara Haitian citizen and former U.S. government informant arrested Jan. 7 in the Dominican Republicwere among those appointed leaders of the operation.

Badio remains a fugitive, while Dominican officials say Jaar was arrested there at the request of U.S. authorities.

Among those celebrating the arrest was Claude Joseph, Haitis former minister of foreign affairs who briefly served as interim prime minister following Moises killing.

The arrest of John Joel Joseph shows that there will be no hiding place for those who are directly or indirectly involved in the assassination, he wrote, saying that the international effort he initiated continues to bear fruit.

The 122-page police report said authorities visited at least three homes from July 10 to July 21 in efforts to track down John Joel Joseph, finding nothing except for four 12-gauge rifles, ammunition, and firearms accessories in the first house that was under his name.

Its not immediately clear where the former Haitian senator arrested in Jamaica will be taken.

Claude Joseph, the former interim prime minister, said there is no extradition treaty between Haiti and Jamaica, but since the suspect is Haitian, he could be sent back to his native country.

John Joel Joseph is the second suspect to be arrested in Jamaica. In late October, Jamaican authorities arrested former Colombian soldier Mario Antonio Palacios Palacios, whom U.S. officials had interviewed while he was in hiding.

Palacios was recently extradited to the United States and was awaiting a court hearing after being charged with conspiracy to commit murder or kidnapping outside the United States and with providing material support resulting in death, knowing or intending that such material support would be used to prepare for or carry out the conspiracy to kill or kidnap.

More than 40 people, including 18 former Colombian soldiers, have been arrested in the killing of Moise, who was shot several times at his private residence in an attack that also injured his wife, Martine Moise.

Colombian government officials have said that the majority of former soldiers were duped and did not know about the real mission. The soldiers, who remain in prison in Haiti, have accused authorities of torture, while the Colombian government recently said the countrys consul in Haiti was threatened after trying to provide humanitarian assistance.

By Harold Isaac and Danica Coto
Inspired by esoteric Tibetan sand mandalas and their corporeal impermanence, one UK-born artist uses natural landscapes as his canvas, and paints with pebbles of various colors, shapes, and tones to portray earthwork likenesses of Michelangelos David and Mark Zuckerberga challenging juxtaposition to be sure, but incredible to behold and no less beautiful.

That artist, 45-year-old Justin Bateman, now based in Chiang Mai, Thailand, believes that artwork should connect with our natural environment, and draws inspiration from land art sculptor Andy Goldsworthy and Philip Guston, who challenged the notion of high art. And so, Bateman set off into the forests, jungles, and beaches of Thailand and Indonesia to create his colorful, mosaic-like masterpieces.

It begins with meditation, Bateman told The Epoch Times. Both suitable site and stones must present themselves. If the subject, site, and stones do not align, the work is not made. If they do, then I begin by creating color maps of the subject.

A pebble-painted rendering of Michelangelos David. (Courtesy of Justin Bateman and @pebblepicassos)

Bateman often paints in stone old masterpieces from art history, such as works by Michelangelo, Leonardos La Scapigliata, a Rembrandt self-portrait, a Raphael cherub, and Botticellis Birth of Venusall of which betrays an awareness of arts cultural content.

Batemans work explores a broader context by portraying real individualsfamous and unknown, living and long passedsuch as: Mark Zuckerberg in a piece cleverly titled Facebook Fossil, the late Pablo Picasso and Nelson Mandela, actor Robert Powell playing the role of Jesus of Nazareth, as well as a local Chiang Mai Cattle Herder. In addition, George Washington, Queen Elizabeth II, and Frida Kahlo make cameo appearances.

Bateman puts the finishing touches on a work based on a famous painting by Johannes Vermeer. (Courtesy of Justin Bateman and @pebblepicassos)

A painting in rock after Vermeers Girl with the Pearl Earring. (Courtesy of Justin Bateman and @pebblepicassos)

The subject matter for Batemans pebble portraits arises from a sense of spontaneous human curiosity rather than a mere contrived ideology. Like ephemeral Tibetan mandalas, Batemans philosophy transcends mundane, worldly troubles. Instead of worrying about finances or world order etc., I can focus on locating a particular hue or tone of sepia, he said jokingly. In some ways, it is a mindful practice, but thats not to say it isnt without its own issues! I just prefer these issues to worldly ones.

He describes his creative process: There are so many unknowns and variables. I am on the journey with the work, the outcome is as unknown to me as a spectator watching the process. I start with a test, making the eyes, if the eyes dont work, the piece must be abandoned  The work must establish a soul.

As the pebbles become pixels, there can be many surprises. Sometimes the stones can interlock in very satisfying ways, at other times it is like forcing a poorly made jigsaw together. Like natures creations, Batemans earthworks are fleeting. After toiling for as few as 3 or as many as 30 days to produce a splendidly detailed likeness, the visage will adorn its agrarian gallery without walls, for passersby to marvel at in wonder, until its eventually reclaimed by the earth.

Batemans pebbles are my pixels portraitsas goes his mottoare nevertheless an outlier in the long line of mosaic tradition, he acknowledges. Historically, there have been strict rules around mosaic practice, he said. Around 200 B.C., more random stones were being replaced by materials cut into a cubical or regular shape. In mosaic practice, this is called tessera. The most common material became marble, for its durability and gloss finish when polished. My work returns to a more ancient practice. I guess you could say it is the sculptural equivalent to cave painting!

Here are more of Batemans extraordinary lithic portraits:

A reproduction in rock of The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo. (Courtesy of Justin Bateman and @pebblepicassos)

The Birth of Venus after Botticelli. (Courtesy of Justin Bateman and @pebblepicassos)

After a self-portrait by Rembrandt. (Courtesy of Justin Bateman and @pebblepicassos)

Bateman puts the finishing touches on a rock reproduction of Leonardos Mona Lisa, which he titled Stona Lisa. (Courtesy of Justin Bateman and @pebblepicassos)

A local peruses Batemans Pebble President. (Courtesy of Justin Bateman and @pebblepicassos)

A pebble portrait of a Buddha in Bali. (Courtesy of Justin Bateman and @pebblepicassos)

A dog portrait in pebbles. (Courtesy of Justin Bateman and @pebblepicassos)

This time-lapse series demonstrates the Batemans creative process; the work depicts Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the former Turkish president. (Courtesy of Justin Bateman and @pebblepicassos)

You can see more of Justin Batemans work on his Instagram pebblepicassos.

Share your stories with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.com, and continue to get your daily dose of inspiration by signing up for the Epoch Inspired newsletter at TheEpochTimes.com/newsletter
A general view of a largely deserted Dutch urban centre is seen as the country enters into its third day of lockdown, in Den Bosch, Netherlands, on Dec. 21, 2021. (Piroschka van de Wouw/Reuters)

Netherlands Eases COVID-19 Lockdown

AMSTERDAMDutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Friday announced the reopening of stores, hairdressers, and gyms, partially lifting the countrys strict lockdown.

We are taking a big step and that also means were taking a big risk, Rutte told a televised press conference.

Non-essential stores, hairdressers, beauty salons, and other service providers will be allowed to reopen under strict conditions until 5 p.m. local time for the first time since mid-December.

Rutte added that the uncertainties meant that bars, restaurants, and cultural venues would have to remain closed until at least Jan. 25.

Earlier on Friday restaurants in one Dutch city reopened and others said they would open on Saturday regardless of government plans.

We are taking a calculated risk because we have to. Lockdowns are very hard on everyone and keeping everything closed is also bad for our health, Health Minister Ernst Kuipers said.

Shoppers are seen along the Kalverstraat, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on Jan. 15, 2021. (Evert Elzinga/ANP/AFP via Getty Images)

Ruttes government ordered the lockdown in mid-December.

A poll by Hart van Nederland published on Friday found that 89 percent of people supported reopening stores and a majority also support reopening restaurants and cultural institutions.

More than 86 percent of Dutch adults are fully vaccinated and nearly 50 percent received a booster shot in a major campaign during the lockdown.

In the southern city of Valkenburg, restaurants opened on Friday in defiance of the rules and with support from the citys mayor, and 15 other municipalities said they would follow suit on Saturday.

Rutte said he viewed the actions as one-off protests and had talked to municipal authorities about enforcing the new rules after this weekend.

Primary and secondary schools reopened on Jan. 10 after a longer-than-planned winter holiday, but have been plagued by frequent class dismissals due to illness or exposure of teachers or students.

On Friday the government said universities and vocational schools would also reopen and announced a shorter quarantine period after an exposure and an expansion of the use of masks.
Jason Grossman and his mother, Andrea Grossman, with their dogs. (courtesy of Mrs. Grossmans Paper Company)

Northern California Sticker Company Moves to Utah

A beloved sticker company from Petaluma, California, is joining the exodus from the state.

Jason Grossman, president of Mrs. Grossmans Paper Company, said he doesnt like the states policies, high taxes, and stances on social issues, so the company is moving to Utah. Since 1979, it has been producing stickers and creative products for the young and old worldwide.

The son of company founder Andrea Grossman, Jason is now running the company. He told NTD Television that the past two years have been challenging with the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, causing the company to lose 30 percent in sales.

Im not happy with the way the government is going right now. Im tired of the taxation, Im tired of all the crises we have, roads being one of the big ones I have, Jason Grossman said. I go all over the country. Our roads are just pathetic. Its embarrassing. And I dont see how theyre ever going to fix it. Every road you go on, its got potholes.

The states policies and high taxes also contributed to his decision to move.

Im just throwing money at it. [Theyre] taxing me more, and I just dont feel Im getting any bang for my buck. I feel Im just the piggy bank to them, Grossman said.

On Jan. 10, California Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed to have universal health care for all Californians, including illegal immigrants. The plan would rely on a gross receipts tax, a payroll tax, and a personal income tax on those earning above $149,509 to fund the single-payer health care system.

I pay $1,000 a month for health care. Why does someone who never contributed to this country or the state, come in to get free health care? I think thats ridiculous, Grossman said.

An assortment of stickers is on display at Mrs. Grossmans Paper Company. (courtesy of Mrs. Grossmans Paper Company)

Now, the Bay Area-based company is moving from Petaluma to Kanab, Utah, a small town north of the Arizona state line. Grossman said he has a summer home there.

But hes not planning for retirement.

Im actually doing the exact opposite. Im going to keep the company going. I bought a warehouse down there for, honestly, almost 75 percent cheaper than here, and Im going to do the stickers in there, Grossman said. But Im also going to open a museum featuring Americana, Western history, and I have a large muscle car collection. So were going to do something we enjoy to do.

His 89-year-old mother still lives in California, so hell return to visit regularly. Hes planning to pass the company on to his stepson.

The companys equipment is getting packed into trucks for the move to Utah, where unloading is expected to start on Jan. 19. Until things settle down, the California store will remain in operation for a few more months.
A woman people ride on a metro car next to a logo for Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics mascot Bing Dwen Dwen during rush hour in Beijing on Jan. 13, 2022. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

Omicron Reaches Beijing, Deepening Uncertainty for Winter Olympics

The fast-spreading Omicron variant has hit Beijing amid emerging COVID-19 clusters across the country, raising pressure on the regime to keep the virus at bay just weeks before the city is due to host the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.

Beijing on Jan. 15 reported its first locally transmitted Omicron case from Haidianthe second-largest district located in the citys northwest. Officials responded by sealing off 17 risk areas associated with the COVID-19 case. All residents of the neighborhood compound where the person lives have temporarily been barred from leaving their homes.

Omicrons detection in Beijing comes as cities across China have ratcheted up vigilance against the virus ahead of the Winter Games, which are scheduled to start on Feb. 4. The variant is posing a fresh challenge for the regime, whose officials have doubled down on its zero-tolerance approach, which was originally a nationwide effort to bring the Delta variant under control.

Over 20 million Chinese residents in at least five cities are under lockdown. In Xian, harsh virus containment policies have caused locals to struggle for access to food and other necessities, and the dying have been unable to obtain medical help. Similar lockdown measures in port cities such as Ningbo also threaten to disrupt the global supply chain.

Despite the stringent control efforts, more than 14 provinces across China have reported Omicron cases as of Jan. 15, according to He Qinghua, a senior official with Chinas National Health Commissions Disease Prevention and Control Bureau. The official didnt disclose the exact infection numbers, but Mi Feng, a spokesperson for the commission, described the situation as grim.

Residents in line to undergo COVID-19 nucleic acid testing in Xian in Chinas Shaanxi Province on Jan. 14, 2022. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

China is facing the two-fold challenge from Delta and Omicron, He said at a Jan. 15 press conference, noting that with the upcoming Chinese Lunar New Year holidaywhich coincides with the Beijing Olympicsthe risks of COVID-19 transmission are even higher.

The megacity of Tianjin, a two-hour drive from Beijing, also has been sealing off residential communities, triggering panic buying among local residents who wish to avoid the same pains as those inflicted on residents of Xian, where the Dec. 26, 2021, lockdown remains in force.

Omicron cases linked to Tianjin are officially reported to have risen to 400 as of Jan. 15, spilling into cities as far as Anyang city in central China, and the northeastern city of Dalian.

In December, Beijing implemented travel curbs restricting people from entering the city if the area theyre traveling from has had one or more local infections in the past two weeks.

Zhuhai, a city in the southeastern Chinese province of Guangdong bordering Macau, has canceled all flights to Beijing and public bus routes after announcing seven cases of Omicron.

Chinese officials also confirmed local Omicron infections in Shanghai on Jan. 15. The night before, videos shared on social media showed college students fleeing their campuses to avoid being locked inside.

So scary, one man says, after he and others slip out from the cordoned school entrance. I almost didnt make it.

To avoid arousing suspicion from security, he says he decided to leave with only his laptop in a backpack, and he shipped his clothing before he left.
Mention Chincoteague Island, Virginia, and youre likely to be asked, Isnt that the place where those ponies are? The answer is yes. The narrow spit of land and nearby Assateague Island became famous as home to a herd of wild ponies in 1947, when the popular childrens book Misty of Chincoteague was published. A 1961 movie spread the story even further.

During my visit, I was immersed in stories about the ponies, including the annual penning and sale. Each summer since 1925, ponies have been rounded up and those strong enough to swim herded into the narrowest part of the channel that separates Assateague and Chincoteague. The next day the foalsthose less than a year oldare sold at auction during some spirited bidding. The remaining ponies spend another night in town and swim back to their home on Assateague Island the next day.

If youd prefer to miss the large crowds that gather for that annual event and see the ponies in their natural setting, there are plenty of opportunities to do so. They are often visible as they graze near designated viewing areas in the Chincoteague Wildlife Refuge.

I also enjoyed sightings during a water tour. The boat passed clam and oyster beds in the shallows, and I spotted bald eagles and other birds circling overhead. There are other ways to get up close and personal with the ponies, too. At the Chincoteague Pony Center, descendants of Misty are available for riding and lessons. Wildlife bus tours offered from April through November carry passengers into areas closed to other vehicles and include pony sightings on every trip.

Misty fans also wont want to miss the Museum of Chincoteague Island. Exhibits explore the local history, culture, and people. They include interesting stories about the oystering industry, which employs many island residents, and descriptions of ornamental waterfowl and land-bird decoy carving, for which the area is equally well-known.

Ornamental bird-carving is a popular pastime on Chincoteague Island, Virginia. (Victor Block)

My introduction to oystering came during a visit to the Chincoteague Shellfish Farms. I learned that dredging for oysters as was done in the past has pretty much given way to present-day aquaculture. I welcomed the opportunity to sample the bivalves and followed the suggestion that in order to enjoy their full flavor I should down them raw and naked, without sauce.

As a self-styled aficionado of oysters who has slurped down more than my share, I was overjoyed by the first taste of the treat my host proudly offered and by each succeeding sample. Fat and succulent, they were the best Ive enjoyed anywhere, any time.

A visit to an oyster operation and viewing the beds in the shallow waters surrounding the islands provides an introduction to the process that transports oysters from their environment to dinner plates all over the country. And if youre as lucky as I was, you may be treated to a tasting.

Interactions with island residents add another layer to the local culture. People here exude a strong sense of pride in where they live and genuine friendliness toward visitors. Another attribute is the unique twang that immediately differentiates them from visitors. In their vernacular, the word town comes out as tayn, where is wahr, and air translates to ayer.

I found equally engrossing the story of ornamental bird-carving, which, I was told, still has about two dozen practitioners on Chincoteague Island today. Long before European settlers arrived in the New World, Native Americans fashioned floating decoys from reeds and grasses that they used to attract waterfowl to venture within reach of arrows and nets. Over time, those lures gave way to simple carved wooden decoys and, later, manufactured plastic models.

Some talented carvers began to fashion much more elaborate waterfowl, then added other bird species. What had begun as a craft with practical purposes evolved into an art form. The best examples display every feather and other features of birds in intricate, lifelike detail, and it can take months of painstaking work to complete a single model.

Decorative carvings are available to see and purchase at a number of places around town. The best collection I discovered was at the museumlike store named Decoys Decoys Decoys, which delivers on its promise. More than 2,000 birds that were produced by both local artists and outstanding carvers from around the country surround visitors like a colorful aviary.

While the highest known price paid for a decorative bird was $830,000, you wont have to pay nearly that much to take home one of the magnificent figures here. If you do buy one, youll have a treasured keepsake to remind you of a very different kind of destination where life definitely moves at a leisurely pace.

That fact became evident shortly after I had arrived and saw several people gathered on a corner, all looking in the same direction. Moving nearby to check out the action, I realized that the object of attention was a mother duck followed by several ducklings that were slowly waddling across the street. The onlookers merely wanted to make sure traffic stopped to allow mom and kids to make it safely to the other side. Clearly, they are as friendly and kind to the local animals as they are to human visitors.

When You Go

For more information: ChincoteagueChamber.com

Victor Block is a freelance writer. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at Creators.com. Copyright 2022 Creators.com
Price Drop Slows in December for New Homes in China

Chinas new home prices tumbled at a slower pace at the end of 2021, after hitting a six-year low in November, official data show.

According to the latest new home price indices released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Jan. 15, new home prices in 70 tracked Chinese cities slipped 0.2 percent month-on-month in December, lower than the 0.3 percent drop a month earlier.

Chinas property market has slowed since June 2021 as regulators stepped up their deleveraging campaign against the bloated sector, triggering defaults at some heavily indebted companies.

Yet the decline moderated as authorities and property developers in multiple Chinese cities introduced measures in December to boost home sales, including subsidies and discounts for buyers.

Average monthly prices fell in 50 of the 70 cities last month, down from 59 in Novemberthe worst since February 2015. New home prices edged down 0.1 percent on a monthly basis in tier-one cities in China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, and 0.3 percent in tier-two and tier-three cities, said senior NBS statistician Sheng Guoqing.

New home prices rose 2.6 percent year-on-year in December, slower than the 3.0 percent growth reported in November.

In a recent note, Oxford Economics analysts said they expect central and local authorities to take steps to contain risks from defaults by property developers, such as increasing credit to the sector and tweaking the strict three red lines policy introduced to curb borrowing by developers.

On Dec. 30, Chinese regulators ordered beleaguered Evergrande to demolish 39 luxury apartment buildings on a southern tropical island in China within 10 days, the company said earlier this month.

The Chinese developer has spent 81 billion yuan ($13 billion) to build over 60,000 homes at the integrated resort.

Yan Yuejin, research director of Shanghai-based E-house China Research and Development Institute, said he expects property policies to continue to ease in the first quarter given the large economic impact of the real estate market.

Reuters contributed to this report.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) speaks to guests during a campaign stop on March 19, 2019 in Dubuque, Iowa. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Sen. Gillibrand Vows to Do Better After Being Spotted Maskless at Restaurant

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) has promised to do better after surveillance video showed her maskless inside a New York restaurant, running counter to the requirement thats part of the state mandate to mask up indoors or show proof of vaccination.

We all need to do our part to help stop the spread of Omicron and that means following state and local guidance, Gillibrand told Fox News. That includes me and I will do better going forward.

Her apology came after the owner of Innovo Kitchen in Latham, New York, posted a video on Instagram showing Gillibrand walking into the restaurant not wearing a mask. The restaurant does not ask customers for proof of vaccination, opting instead for a masking policy, an option provided for in New York states vaccinate-or-mask mandate for businesses.

The problem with NY politics in a nut shell. My Senator blowing past my manager before she can even ask her to put a mask on. Walking right past a really big sign that says masks required to enter,' the owner wrote.

The masks are a mandate from the Governor. As good citizens, agree or not, we must follow our leaders. Her guest is graciously wearing one. I guess Senator Gillibrand thinks that the Governor is wrong or she is special and above the rules, the post continued.

Gillibrand has been outspoken in her support for COVID-19 vaccines and other related public health measures.

Innovo Kitchen owner John La Posta told the New York Post that other members of the group Gillibrand was with when she strolled into the restaurant were wearing masks. La Posta added that Gillibrands actions would make it harder for his restaurant to enforce the mask requirement.

People will say, If Gillibrand is not wearing a mask, why should I wear a mask? he told the outlet.

New York states mask mandate, announced by Gov. Kathy Hochul in December, requires indoor masking in all businesses unless they have a proof-of-vaccination policy. Innovo Kitchen has chosen not to demand proof of vaccination, instead requiring customers to wear masks when not seated.

Over the course of the pandemic, politicians on both sides of the aisle have been called out for not adhering to restrictions.
The Nick's Ride 4 Friends Board of Directors hosted an open house Wednesday at the addiction recovery support group's new location on Chapel S
ATLANTAFor two hours on the evening of Jan. 14, there was no pandemic at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, where Shen Yun Performing Arts was performing. Thats how audience members said they felt.

Bret Tenny, vice president of product development at Datatrac Corp., attended with his wife.

Very well done, he said of New York-based Shen Yun. Loved it.

Shen Yun is an international phenomenon known for its presentation of classical Chinese dance and live orchestral music. Its program juxtaposes the 5,000 years of traditional Chinese culture before communism with some realities of present-day China. Because Shen Yun is based outside of China, its able to point out injustices taking place in China today.

I think theres a lot of parallels to what might be going on here, Tenny said. Our freedom is being taken away, and religious freedomspecifically, belief in the good and the scriptures and the Creatoris being taken.  I think theres a lot of parallels there to what it was like in China back in 1949.

Its great to be able to support the show that cant be seen in China, that what I think a lot of the Chinese people are missing and would feel liberated by seeing it perform.

Shen Yun is not allowed to be performed in China, and many of its performers are refugees of religious persecution.

Tenny was grateful to have seen the performance and to see his fellow theatergoers come out despite the pandemic.

God has given our bodies an incredible immune system  and its important for us to see each other.  Bret Tenny

God has given our bodies an incredible immune system  and its important for us to see each other, Tenny said. We were made to interact with each other and see each others faces and smilesinstead of being isolated in our homes.

I think it promotes a vibrant wellness among us as people.

Encouraged and Uplifted

Phillip Lancaster at the Jan. 14, 2022, performance of Shen Yun in Atlanta. (Sherry Dong/The Epoch Times)

Phillip Lancaster, the owner of a real estate firm, echoed some of Tennys sentiments.

Its the best thing to overcome a poor health and a sad spirit, and I think that will help you fight the pandemic.  Phillip Lancaster

I think our spirit and our attitude is tied to our physical health, Lancaster said. So I think this kind of thing is encouraging and healing for people.  I think if you come and enjoy a show like this, its the best thing to overcome a poor health and a sad spirit, and I think that will help you fight the pandemic.

A program like this teaches you that youre connected to other people and that you need to think about something beyond yourselfsomething transcendent.

Spirituality, Shen Yuns hallmark, has been the backbone of Chinese civilization throughout its 5,000-year history. Its dances feature stories of divine intervention, redemption, and unbreakable faith.

When it was over, I told my wife, I could sit through this again right now,' Lancaster said. Its the kind of thing you would never get tired of, because its so beautiful. The movement, the color, the background, the story. Its all very impressive.

Certainly, well be back next year for sure.

Reporting by Roland Ree, Sherry Dong, and Frank Xie.

The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts. We have covered audience reactions since Shen Yuns inception in 2006.
ATLANTAThe sheer enjoyment of watching Shen Yun Performing Arts brings many theatergoers back time and time again, and Tad Newman is one of those people. And he doesnt keep this pleasure to himself.

I think the first time I saw [the performance] it was very magical and so I keep coming back here, and I try to bring new people  to let them experience Shen Yun, said Mr. Newman, a product manager for Omron.

Newman was attending Shen Yun at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre in Atlanta. He was accompanied by Destinee Moody, who works in hospitality.

Shen Yuns mission is to revive Chinas traditional culture in its true form through classical Chinese dance, ethnic dances, and music.

Many people choose to see New York-based Shen Yun for an entertaining and educational experience, but also to balance their equilibrium and take a fresh breath of air, especially during the challenging times wrought by the widespread effects of the pandemic.

If you stay at home in fear of what could be, you dont take the time to appreciate the things that we could normally do in life at that same time, and to get out and see a [performance] like [Shen Yun]. I mean you wouldnt be able to do that at home, you wouldnt be able to experience it in the same way. So, I think its well worth the risk to come out and see [Shen Yun], and enjoy some time, Mr. Newman said.

Its a very colorful and vibrant show and  it will counteract the depression. The dance movements and the color are very energizing, and the quality of the performance is always very good, he said, adding that he had enjoyed the Water Sleeves dance. Water Sleeves depicts the graceful ladies of the imperial court with their flowing sleeves.

Just watching the dancers, one can feel their passion for their dance and how much it means to them, Ms. Moody said. She was also amazed by the synchronicity of the dancers.

I think its when [the dancers]  connect for this one big movement  like with the flowers, when they all made that huge flower, they were all separate pieces to become one big picture.

It just inspires me to appreciate things that Ive never experienced and things I dont know about and to see the beauty and the culture.

I think that whether youre aware of it or not, the energy will affect you moving forward, and its an experience you wont forget.

Also in the theater was Trey Burgess, a commercial real estate broker for Taycora Advisors. Mr. Burgess was attending Shen Yun with his wife and daughter.

The skill portrayed by the dancers, their authenticity and commitment and the costumes, were just as impressive, said Trey, who had seen Shen Yun on a previous occasion.

Trey Burgess at Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, Atlanta, Georgia on Jan. 15, 2022. (Roland Ree/The Epoch Times)

Having played in a symphony orchestra in his youth, Burgess appreciated and enjoyed Shen Yuns live orchestra.

Its a good marriage between the two: the performance on the stage as well as the performance of the band, he said.

Shen Yuns baritone, who sang To Heaven in This Lifetime, was also very impressive. I always like to see and hear a great voice.

Although Shen Yun can perform freely in most parts of the world, it has been banned from performing in China by the Chinese communist regime.

Mr. Burgess said that it was fortunate that Shen Yun could present the true picture of Chinese culture in the United States.

Traditional Chinese culture is believed to have been a gift from the gods that was passed down to mortal beings. Teachings from the schools of Buddhism and Taoism form the foundation of Chinas spiritual practices and its culture.

Mr. Burgess felt there were many similarities between Chinese spiritual beliefs and those of the people in the United States. This was something that he had been unaware of previously, he said.

Getting together to see a performance such as Shen Yun is very beneficial, he believes.

[If] people stay at home  theyre missing out on not just culture, but theyre missing out on personal interactions.  I think given the opportunity, its nice to be able to interact with other people. So, anything that can be uplifting or positive I think has its merits.

Reporting by Sherry Dong, Roland Ree and Diane Cordemans.

The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts. We have covered audience reactions since Shen Yuns inception in 2006.
US dollar notes are seen on Aug. 28, 2009. (Hoang Dinh Nam/AFP via Getty Images)

The Escalating Nationwide Battle Over Private Millions to Bankroll Public Elections

Democrats across the country are pushing to continue allowing private money to fund public elections as Republicans try to limit the practice, which they say gave Joe Biden an unfair and perhaps decisive advantage in his victory over Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential contest.

So far at least 10 Republican-controlled states have passed laws to prohibit or limit the use of private money in public elections. These include the swing states of Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and Ohio. In another swing state, North Carolina, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed such legislation, as did other Democratic governors.

During 2020, nonprofits donated more than $400 million to state and local election boards to support their work and get out the vote. Most of the funding, around $350 million, came from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, distributed primarily through the Center for Tech and Civic Life, or CTCL, a Chicago-based progressive-led group that includes former operatives of President Obama.

Democrats and others contend that such moneyan amount approaching the $479.5 million in federal and state matching funds provided for COVID-related election expenses in 2020is necessary to support the work of underfunded election boards facing the added challenges of the pandemic.

In vetoing the North Carolina legislation, Gov. Cooper said the money provided necessities such as masks, single-use pens and other protective equipment, so voters stayed safe during the pandemic.

Republicans assert that the private grants were disproportionately allocated to counties eventually won by Biden, a mismatch that hurt them in 2020 and, if continued, would damage their chances in future elections.

Our elections should never be for sale, but they were in 2020, Congresswoman Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) said last month, calling the private funding a partisan exercise.

The CTCL insists the grants were available to any entity that applied.

Among other things, the money went to get-out-the-vote efforts and tallying mail-in ballots. In some cases, the money allowed Democratic Party operatives in key states to help run the election, including the counting of votes.

The center was very lenient regarding what we could spend the money on, Deb Cox, a Lowndes County, Ga., elections supervisor, told RealClearInvestigations in May. The county paid off a $15,000 legal bill with some of the grant. They put virtually no restrictions on it as long as it relates to the election.

The center reports that it distributed the grants to elections offices in 48 states and the District of Columbia. Included in its election funding, it said, was $25 million from the New Venture Fund, a progressive nonprofit affiliated with Arabella Advisors, which coordinates a politically liberal, so-called dark money network.

With federal election funding distributed primarily based on voting age population, most money tends to flow to logistically challenged cities and larger countiesoften Democrat-run. This was the case in 2020 and 2018, both years when Congress approved hundreds of millions of dollars for election security upgrades.

The outsized private grants in 2020, however, were not covered by transparency laws governing federal spending. And many on the right saw in the opaqueness little more than political advocacy at play.

The Capital Research Center, a conservative group that describes its study of election 2020 as exposing how one billionaire privatized a presidential election, estimates that in Georgia, the Zuckerberg-aligned center gave $5.06 per capita in counties that went for Joe Biden and 98 cents in counties that went for Donald Trump.

In Pennsylvania, another swing state, the group estimates that the center gave $3.11 per capita in counties that went for Biden, while Trump counties received 57 cents per capita. In Arizona, the group says, the breakdown was $5.83 for Biden counties and $1.29 for Trump counties.

CTCLs executive director, Tiana Epps-Johnson, told the Associated Press that the funding allocation reflects those who chose to apply. Every eligible election department that was verified as legitimate was approved for a grant, the center said on its website.

Epps-Johnson did not respond to an email seeking an interview.

Interested parties are monitoring the issue ahead of this years midterms. According to the progressive Brennan Center for Justice, 19 states have enacted 34 laws to make it harder for Americans to vote. It says 25 states have enacted 62 new laws that make it easier to vote, including expanded mail ballot drop-off points and less stringent mail ballot verification.

The Brennan Center did not respond to an interview request.

Lawmakers in 27 states this year passed legislation specifically to make mail-in voting easier, according to the Voting Rights Lab, which declined an interview request.

A review of these laws finds many are returning to pre-pandemic policies that were uprooted as a flurry of states insisted it was unsafe for voters in the pandemic year to cast ballots as they had before. Other new rules call for stricter monitoring of mail-in ballot procedures in addition to bans or limits on private grants.

The private funding on its own is not as problematic as the appearance it creates based on the originator of the money, said Ilya Shapiro, director of the Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute.

If just one group is providing the money, it has the look of being tainted, Shapiro said. Part of election integrity is the perception.

The private grants are legal if not specifically outlawed, said Ron Labasky, general counsel for the Florida Supervisors of Elections.

Florida has precluded public officials from taking money for running elections, Labasky said. But there were no legal prohibitions from receiving those grants. 

Floridas election bill to ban the funding, like those in several other states, was part of an omnibus voting measure that also codified rules regarding mail-in ballots and the responsibilities of poll watchers. Moves to restrict that funding have been opposed with the help of an army of lobbyists funded by progressive groups including New Venture, the Hopewell Fund, Secure Democracy and Represent.us.

The laws struck down in exclusively blue states include Wisconsin, where Gov. Tony Evers vetoed a measure outlawing private grants to local elections offices, claiming the law unnecessarily restricts the use of resources that may be needed to ensure elections are administered effectively.

Michigans Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer rejected a similar bill, although her veto did not state her reason. Louisianas Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards vetoed a bill outlawing private donations to election officials claiming the measure would ban all donations, no matter how good the intentions, while calling committee debate over Zuckerbergs grants overheated rhetoric.

The rhetoric included a comment during the introduction of the legislation from Republican state Rep. Blake Miguez (the bills sponsor), who said that the money that was sent through this nonprofit organization was a disguised way of getting out the vote for a particular  special interest in this case.

Miguez was asked by a political opponent in the statehouse during the hearing if the measure would have come if the presidential election went the other way.

I think this bill is good in any scenario, Miguez said.

As a result of the vetoes, several states governed by Democrats are now fully open to receiving largesse from partisan sources in 2022, a year in which both houses of Congress are up for grabs in the midterm elections.

It remains to be seen if there will be more people dumping money through private foundations into our election system, said Jason Snead, executive director of the conservative Honest Elections Project. Theres unquestionably a need for adequate public funding to run an election, and the money should come from the states. I encourage states to close this [private] money off.

Snead added that there could be an argument made this year that the nation is still dealing with the coronavirus and there remains the need for protective equipment, which was an argument made for the private money in 2020.

In an October 2020 statement, Zuckerberg said he hopes that for future elections the government provides adequate funding. But absent that funding, I think its critical that this urgent need is met.

Without the billions these elections officials seek, Zuckerberg can again assert the lack of adequate funding in plying elections supervisors with money this fall.

The average American does not want to see this practice going forward, said Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican who took some of the private grant money in 2020, which was approved by state legislators. Some states require such approval while others do not.

That was an extraordinary circumstance, and I would not accept that money now, LaRose said. The practice should be halted, he said.

Ideally, maybe something should be done at the federal level, sort of putting a line in the sand on private funding. I think its time for that.

This article was written by Steve Miller for RealClearInvestigations.
The eruption of an underwater volcano off Tonga, which triggered a tsunami warning for several South Pacific island nations, is seen in an image from the NOAA GOES-West satellite taken at 05:00 GMT on Jan. 15, 2022. (CIRA/NOAA/Handout via Reuters)

Tsunami Injuries in Tonga Still Unknown as Wave Hits Other Regions of Pacific

Injuries in Tonga are currently unknown after a four-foot tsunami wave hit the Pacific island nation on Saturday, triggered by an underwater volcano eruption.

Information has been slow to get out due to a disruption to communications.

Australias Bureau of Meteorology said the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haapai volcano erupted at 5:10 p.m. local time on Saturday, and tsunami waves have been observed as a result of the eruption.

A tsunami warning has also been posted for certain coastal areas of surrounding Pacific nations.

Japans meteorological agency reported a four-foot tsunami wave in Amami Oshima, with smaller waves reported along other areas of Japans Pacific Coast.

Hundreds of thousands of Japanese citizens were advised to evacuate on Sunday as waves of more than a metre hit coastal areas, public broadcaster NHK reported.

Around 230,000 people were advised to evacuate across eight prefectures due to the tsunami risk, NHK reported. The alert included areas hit by the deadly 2011 tsunami.

Ten boats were capsized in Kochi prefecture on Shikoku island in southern Japan, NHK said, and Japan Airlines cancelled 27 flights at airports across the country.

Meanwhile, marine warnings are active for Australias east coast and Lord Howe, Norfolk, and Macquarie islands after a tsunami wave height of 1.27 metres was observed on Norfolk Island at 9 p.m. local time and an 82-centimetre wave was registered on the Gold Coast at 10:54 p.m. AEDT on Saturday. A 50-centimetre surge was observed at Hobarts Derwent Park about 11:44 p.m. AEDT, and Port Kembla in NSWs Wollongong registered a 65-centimetre wave at 2:50 a.m. AEDT on Sunday.

Land warnings were issued earlier for Norfolk Island and Lord Howe Island, but by 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, these were downgraded and replaced with marine warnings.

In areas with a threat to the marine environment only, emergency authorities advise people to get out of the water and move away from the immediate waters edge of harbours, coastal estuaries, rock platforms, and beaches, the bureau said in a statement.

BOM meteorologist Sarah Scully said these warnings would remain in place until there were no significant observations for six hours.

Were waiting to be really sure that the impacts and the energy from the volcanic eruption has dispersed and its no longer a danger to any people out of the water, she told ABC News.

No Australians have been injured in that tsunami after it struck Tonga, Australias Health Minister Greg Hunt has said.

Hunt said the countrys Foreign Minister Marise Payne and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade are working with Tongan authorities.

DFAT will continue to engage with the Tongan Government and has offered through the foreign minister all possible support that may be required, Hunt told reporters in Canberra during his latest COVID-19 update on Sunday.

A tsunami warning for Hawaii was lifted on Saturday morning. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre posted on Twitter for residents to beware of small sea level changes and strong or unusual currents that may persist for several additional hours.

Reuters and AAP contributed to this report.
A laptop screen displays a warning message in Ukrainian, Russian, and Polish, that appeared on the official website of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry after a massive cyberattack, in this illustration taken on Jan. 14, 2022. (Valentyn Ogirenko/Illustration/Reuters)

Ukraine Suspects Group Linked to Belarus Intelligence Over Cyberattack

KYIV, UkraineKyiv believes a hacker group linked to Belarusian intelligence carried out a cyberattack that hit Ukrainian government websites last week and used malware similar to that used by a group tied to Russian intelligence, a senior Ukrainian security official said.

Serhiy Demedyuk, deputy secretary of the national security and defense council, told Reuters that Ukraine blamed the Jan. 14 attackwhich defaced government websites with threatening messageson a group known as UNC1151 and that it was cover for more destructive actions behind the scenes.

We believe preliminarily that the group UNC1151 may be involved in this attack, he said.

Demedyuks comments offer the first detailed analysis by Kyiv on the suspected culprits behind the attack on dozens of websites. Officials on Jan. 14 said Russia was probably involved but gave no details. Belarus is a close ally of Russia.

The cyberattack splashed websites with a warning to be afraid and expect the worst at a time when Russia has massed troops near Ukraines borders, and while Kyiv and Washington are concerned that Moscow is planning a new military assault on Ukraine.

Russia has dismissed such fears as unfounded.

The office of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko didnt immediately respond to a request for comment about Demedyuks remarks.

Russias foreign ministry also didnt immediately respond to a request for comment on his remarks. It has previously denied involvement in cyberattacks, including against Ukraine.

The defacement of the sites was just a cover for more destructive actions that were taking place behind the scenes and the consequences of which we will feel in the near future, Demedyuk said in written comments.

In a reference to UNC1151, he said: This is a cyber-espionage group affiliated with the special services of the Republic of Belarus.

Track Record

Demedyuk, a former head of Ukraines cyber police, said the group had a track record of targeting Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, and Ukraine, and had spread narratives decrying the NATO alliances presence in Europe.

The malicious software used to encrypt some government servers is very similar in its characteristics to that used by the ATP-29 group, he said, referring to a group suspected of involvement in hacking the Democratic National Committee before the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The group specializes in cyber espionage, which is associated with the Russian special services (Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation) and which, for its attacks, resorts to recruiting or undercover work of its insiders in the right company, Demedyuk said.

The messages left on the Ukrainian websites on Jan. 14 were in three languages: Ukrainian, Russian, and Polish. They referred to Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, where mass killings were carried out in Nazi German-occupied Poland by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). The episode remains a point of contention between Poland and Ukraine.

Demedyuk suggested the hackers had used Google Translate for the Polish translation.

It is obvious that they did not succeed in misleading anyone with this primitive method, but still this is evidence that the attackers played on the Polish-Ukrainian relations (which are only getting stronger every day), he said.

By Pavel Polityuk
Produce shelves are seen nearly empty at a Giant Food grocery store, as the United States continues to experience supply chain disruptions, in Washington on Jan. 9, 2022. (Sarah Silbiger/Reuters)

US Grocery Shortages Deepen as Pandemic Dries Supplies

High demand for groceries combined with soaring freight costs and Omicron-related labor shortages are creating a new round of backlogs at processed food and fresh produce companies, leading to empty supermarket shelves at major retailers across the United States.

Growers of perishable produce across the West Coast are paying nearly triple pre-pandemic trucking rates to ship things like lettuce and berries before they spoil. Shay Myers, CEO of Owyhee Produce, which grows onions, watermelons, and asparagus along the border of Idaho and Oregon, said he has been holding off shipping onions to retail distributors until freight costs go down.

Myers said transportation disruptions in the last three weeks, caused by a lack of truck drivers and recent highway-blocking storms, have led to a doubling of freight costs for fruit and vegetable producers, on top of already-elevated pandemic prices. We typically will ship, East Coast to West Coastwe used to do it for about $7,000, he said. Today its somewhere between $18,000 and $22,000.

Birds Eye frozen vegetables maker Conagra Brands CEO Sean Connolly told investors last week that supplies from its U.S. plants could be constrained for at least the next month due to Omicron-related absences.

Earlier this week, Albertsons CEO Vivek Sankaran said he expects the supermarket chain to confront more supply chain challenges over the next four to six weeks as Omicron has put a dent in its efforts to plug supply chain gaps.

Shoppers on social media complained of empty pasta and meat aisles at some Walmart stores; a Meijer store in Indianapolis was swept bare of chicken; a Publix in Palm Beach, Florida, was out of bath tissue and home hygiene products; while Costco reinstated purchase limits on toilet paper at some stores in Washington state.

The situation is not expected to abate for at least a few more weeks, said Katie Denis, vice president of communications and research at the Consumer Brands Association, blaming the shortages on a scarcity of labor.

The consumer-packaged goods industry is missing around 120,000 workers, out of which only 1,500 jobs were added last month, she said, while the National Grocers Association said that many of its grocery store members were operating with less than 50 percent of their workforce capacity.

U.S. retailers are now facing roughly 12 percent out-of-stock levels on food, beverages, household cleaning, and personal hygiene products compared to 710 percent in regular times.

The problem is more acute with food products where out-of-stock levels are running at 15 percent, the Consumer Brands Association said.

SpartanNash, a U.S. grocery distributor, last week said it has become harder to get supplies from food manufacturers, especially processed items like cereal and soup.

Consumers have continued to stock up on groceries as they hunker down at home to curb the spread of the Omicron variant. Denis said demand over the last five months has been as high or higher than it had been in March 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic. Similar issues are being seen in other parts of the world.

In Australia, grocery chain operator Woolworths Group said last week that more than 20 percent of employees at its distribution centers are off work because of COVID-19. In the stores, the virus has put at least 10 percent of staff out of action.

The company, on Thursday, reinstated a limit of two packs per customer across toilet paper and painkillers nationwide, both in-store and online, to deal with the staffing shortage.

In the United States, recent snow and ice storms that snared traffic for hours along the East Coast also hampered food deliveries bound for grocery stores and distribution hubs. Those delays rippled across the country, delaying shipment on fruit and vegetables with a limited shelf life.

While growers with perishable produce are forced to pay inflated shipping rates to attract limited trucking supplies, producers like Myers are choosing to wait for backlogs to ease.

The canned goods, the sodas, the chipsthose things sat, because they werent willing to pay double, triple the freight, and their stuff doesnt go bad in four days, he said.

By Siddharth Cavale and Christopher Walljasper
Former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli arrives at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, on July 31, 2017. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

US Judge Bars Martin Shkreli From Drug Industry, Orders $64.6 Million Payment

WASHINGTONA U.S. judge on Friday barred Martin Shkreli from the pharmaceutical industry for life and ordered him to pay $64.6 million after he famously raised the price of the drug Daraprim and fought to block generic competitors.

U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan ruled after a trial where the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and seven states had accused Shkreli, the founder of Vyera Pharmaceuticals, of using illegal tactics to keep Daraprim rivals out of the market.

Shkreli drew notoriety in 2015 after hiking Daraprims price overnight to $750 per tablet from $17.50. The drug treats toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection that threatens people with weakened immune systems.

In a 130-page decision, Cote faulted Shkreli for creating two companies, Vyera and Retrophin Inc., designed to monopolize drugs so he could profit on the backs of patients, doctors, and distributors.

She said the Daraprim scheme was particularly heartless and coercive, and a lifetime industry ban was needed because of the real danger that Shkreli could become a repeat offender.

Shkrelis anticompetitive conduct at the expense of the public health was flagrant and reckless, the judge wrote. He is unrepentant. Barring him from the opportunity to repeat that conduct is nothing if not in the interest of justice.

After the ruling, FTC Chair Lina Khan posted the decision on Twitter, calling it a just outcome.

Shkrelis lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Shkreli is serving a seven-year prison sentence for securities fraud. He did not attend the trial held last month.

Vyera was founded in 2014 as Turing Pharmaceuticals, and acquired Daraprim from Impax Laboratories Inc. in 2015.

Regulators accused Vyera of protecting its dominance of Daraprim by ensuring that generic drugmakers could not obtain samples for cheaper versions, and keeping potential rivals from buying a key ingredient.

The seven states joining the FTC case included California, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

By Diane Bartz and Jonathan Stempel
Virginia Governor Bans Critical Race Theory, Names Anti-CRT Advocates to Key Education Posts

On his first day in office, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin fulfilled his campaign promise by prohibiting public schools in the state from teaching critical race theory (CRT), which he described as an inherently divisive concept.

Youngkin, who was sworn in as governor on Jan. 15 in Richmond, signed nine executive orders and two executive directives to address some of his administration hot-button issues, with the first on the list aiming to end the use of divisive concepts  in public education.

Inherently divisive concepts, like Critical Race Theory and its progeny, instruct students to only view life through the lens of race and presumes that some students are consciously or unconsciously racist, sexist, or oppressive, and that other students are victims. This denies our students the opportunity to gain important facts, core knowledge, formulate their own opinions, and to think for themselves, the order states.

Our children deserve far better from their education than to be told what to think.

Specifically, the executive order tasks the states superintendent of instruction to review all policies, programs, academic standards, and curricula within the Education Department to determine whether they promote or endorse inherently divisive concepts such as CRT. The order also bans any executive employee from directing or otherwise compelling students to personally affirm, adopt, or adhere to inherently divisive concepts.

The order defines divisive concepts as ideas that would violate federal anti-discrimination laws, such as the idea that one race is inherently superior to another race, that anyone should be discriminated against or adversely treated because of his or her race; that anyone should bear responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race; or that ones moral character is inherently determined by his or her race.

Youngkin has appointed two women to top leadership posts to enforce his order. Both appointees are known critics of progressive activism in K12 schools and are advocates for giving parents more say in their childrens education.

Jillian Balow, who has been serving as Wyoming superintendent of instruction since 2015, resigned last week to accept Youngkins job offer as his school chief. In September 2021, she joined two Republican state senators to announce a bill (pdf) that would require schools to post online a list of all teaching materials they use.

K12 classrooms are not an appropriate forum for radical political theory such as CRT, Balow said. This bill empowers parents with tools they need to oversee what is being taught in their district and provides guidance to districts on comprehensive U.S. history and civics instruction.

Elizabeth Schultz was named by Youngkin to be the next assistant superintendent. A senior fellow of the pro-parental rights group Parents Defending Education, Schultz has been active in combating the efforts to inject CRT into Fairfax and Loudoun County, the two largest counties in her state.

Despite protestations of school boards in Fairfax and Loudoun that they are not teaching it, there has been a comprehensive, deliberative, and manipulative effort of school staff and the school boards, underway for years, Schultz wrote in an op-ed last year, pointing to a series of initiatives aimed to advance equity and social justice.

Meanwhile, the current version of the Virginia governors website no longer includes a page for chief diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) officer, a position held by Janice Underwood during the Northam administration.

The Epoch Times has reached out to the Youngkin administration to confirm whether the cabinet-level DEI office has been eliminated.
Jason Miyares is sworn in as Virginias 48th attorney general, in Richmond, Va., on Jan. 15, 2022. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Virginias New AG Opens Probes Into Parole Board, Loudoun County Public Schools

Within hours of being sworn in as Virginias new attorney general, Jason Miyares has announced investigations into the Virginia Parole Board and Loudoun County Public Schools, citing public demand for transparency and accountability in the wake of what he described as scandals and their horrific aftermath.

Miyares, who was sworn in on Jan. 15, said in a statement that one of the probes relates to the Virginia Parole Boards alleged illegal actions in connection with the early release of individuals responsible for a range of crimes, including murder.

The Virginia Parole Board broke the law when they let out murderers, rapists, and cop killers early on their sentences without notifying the victims, Miyares said.

One of the cases pertained to the freeing of parolee Vincent Martin, who was sentenced to life behind bars for the 1979 murder of police officer Michael Connors during a traffic stop.

In 2020, Virginias Office of the State Inspector General issued a report (pdf) finding that the parole board skirted procedures in freeing Martin.

The report noted, among other findings, that the Virginia Parole Board declined to hear from several people with concerns about releasing Martin and that it didnt endeavor diligently to contact the slain officers family, as required by law, precluding the family from having a chance to provide their input.

Shortly after the release of the report, one of the sisters of the slain officer called its findings horrific and devastating.

The other probe relates to an incident involving a sexual assault on school grounds that Miyares alleged was covered up by Loudoun County Public Schools for political gain, which led to an additional assault of a young girl.

Paving the way for the start of the probes were two executive orders signed by newly minted Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican.

Youngkin said in one of the orders that, in 2021, Loudoun County Public Schools was made aware of a sexual assault that took place at a district high school, with a decision made to transfer the assailant to another Loudoun County school, where the student was able to commit a second sexual assault.

Both Loudoun County Public Schools and school administrators withheld key details and knowingly lied to parents about the assaults, Youngkin said, adding that no one has been held accountable.

Neither the Virginia Parole Board nor the Loudoun County Public Schools immediately responded to a request by The Epoch Times for comment on Miyaress announcement of the probes.

Virginians have dealt with the horrific aftermath of these scandals, without understanding how or why they were able to happen, Miyares said.
Felix Dima, 13, from Newcastle receives the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at the Excelsior Academy in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, on Sept. 22, 2021. (Ian Forsyth/Getty Images)

Waste of Time to Keep Vaccinating People: Ex-Head of UK Vaccine Taskforce

It is a waste of time to keep vaccinating people against the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, the former chairman of Britains Vaccines Taskforce has said.

Dr. Clive Dix, who played a key role in helping pharmaceutical firms create the COVID-19 vaccines, told LBC radio on Jan. 16: The Omicron variant is a relatively mild virus. And to just keep vaccinating people and thinking of doing it again to protect the population is, in my view, now a waste of time.

Dix said the focus now should be on protecting vulnerable people, such as those over 60, 2 percent of whom remain unvaccinated.

We should have a highly-focused approach to get those people vaccinated and anybody else whos vulnerable, he said.

Though he supports the ongoing booster campaign, he said he has been critical of boosting everybody as he is not convinced it was needed or is needed for younger people.

Dix said, I think the thinking of the time was very much to stop infection and transmission where clearly these vaccines dont do that.

He said the government needs to be very focused on educating itself for the future vaccination programme next winter.

He suggested that an immune status study should be conducted to understand exactly where everybodys immunity is, so that by next winter, we can really have a policy of vaccination thats educated, using the right vaccines at the right time for the right people.

Dix told The Observer newspaper last week that mass vaccination against COVID-19 should come to an end and the UK should focus on managing it as an endemic disease like flu.

We now need to manage disease, not virus spread, he said. So stopping progression to severe disease in vulnerable groups is the future objective.

The UK governments medical advisers have already acknowledged that it is untenable to jab the population every three or six months.

Sir Patrick Vallance, the UKs chief scientific adviser, said on Jan. 3 that it is not the governments long-term view to give everyone a booster vaccine every few months.

Professor Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group and chair of the governments Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), told The Telegraph that its not sustainable or affordable to vaccinate the planet every four to six months.

On Jan. 7, the UK governments vaccination advisory committee recommended against giving a fourth dose of COVID-19 vaccine to nursing home residents and people over 80.

The JCVI said the three doses of the vaccines are still providing very good protection against severe disease, and an immediate second booster dose to the most vulnerable would provide only limited additional benefit against severe disease at this time.

Lily Zhou and PA Media contributed to this report.
Former President Donald Trump prepares to speak at a rally at the Canyon Moon Ranch festival grounds in Florence, Arizona, on Jan. 15, 2022. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

We Are Going to Take Back America: Trump Holds 1st Rally of 2022 in Arizona

Former President Donald Trump painted a positive picture of the future for Republicans during his first rally of 2022, held in Arizona on Jan. 15.

A great red wave is going to begin here in Arizona and is going to sweep across this country, and its going to wash hundreds and thousands of Democrat socialists out of office with an unstoppable surge of Republican patriots. And theyre going to be doing it, youre going to be heading to the polls, Trump said at the Canyon Moon Ranch festival grounds, in Florence, Arizona, a Republican stronghold about 70 miles southeast of Phoenix.

This is the year we are going to take back the House, we are going to take back the Senate, and we are going to take back America. This is so important. This is maybe the most important election weve ever had. I do believe that 2024 will be even more important.  In 2024, we are going to take back the White House!

Former President Donald Trump speaks during a rally at the Canyon Moon Ranch festival grounds in Florence, Ariz., on Jan. 15, 2022. (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)

Thousands of supporters gathered at Trumps rally, his second in Arizona since he left office.

The former president described the crowd as a sea of people that stretched as far as the eyes can see, and urged the media members present to turn their cameras around. Trump used the crowd size to question the results of the 2020 election.

I ran twice, and we won twice, and we did better the second time.  This crowd is a massive symbol of what took place because the people are hungry for the truth, they want their country back, Trump said.

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally at the Canyon Moon Ranch festival grounds in Florence, Ariz., on Jan. 15, 2022. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

A person that comes here and has crowds that go further than any eye can see  and has cars that stretch out for 25 milesthats not somebody that lost an election. And now because of it, our country is being destroyed.

Trump spoke against the current state of the nation, but expressed hope that the situation will change, outlining an agenda that includes eliminating COVID-19 mandates, investigating the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and combating illegal immigration.

During his speech, Trump endorsed Kari Lake for Arizona governor while calling incumbent Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, a terrible representative of the state.

Lake, a former journalist, promised that she will eliminate mandates if she becomes governor. She also promised that she would help to ensure election integrity and address illegal immigration, including by finishing the border wall.

Former President Donald Trump and Kari Lake, whom Trump is supporting in Arizonas gubernatorial race, speak during a rally at the Canyon Moon Ranch festival grounds in Florence, Ariz., on Jan. 15, 2022. (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)

COVID-19 Mandates

Trump heavily criticized the Biden administrations mandates, which he said are absolutely decimating our economy.

He urged Americans to tell Joe Biden the Americans health choices are none of his business. We can make our own choices.

With these decisions theyre making, theyre wrecking and devastating peoples lives: firing Americans from their jobs, forcing innocent children to grow up in masks, closing their schoolsdestroying education, crushing their development, demolishing their futures[and] locking people in their homes, Trump said.

Theyre truly hurting the American people.  Theyve taken away their dignity. Theyve taken away their liberties. And I say enough is enough, and we are not going to take it anymore. This is the moment the Americans must take their lives and their future back. We have to do it. We have to be strong. Its time for the radical Democrats to leave our families alone, leave our elderly alone, leave our children alone with their strong immune system.

Supporters gather at a rally by former President Donald Trump at the Canyon Moon Ranch festival grounds in Florence, Ariz., on Jan. 15, 2022. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Big Pharma is making a fortune. Democrats are putting corporate profits over the rights of the American people. These corrupt, power-hungry lunatics need to hear us loud and clear: We are done having our lives controlled by politicians and Washington bureaucrats. Were done with the mandates, including the mandates for frontline health care workers.

Trump said he had fiercely resisted mandates and always will.

Jan. 6 Probe

The former president said if Republicans regain control of Congress, theyll start an investigation into the events of Jan. 6, 2021, the day when the U.S. Capitol was breached.

We will immediately begin our own investigations into what happenedwhat really happened, because this is being totally whitewashed, Trump said while denouncing the current Democratic-led House committee investigation of the Jan. 6 Capitol breach.

January 6 has become the Democrat Partys excuse to justify an unprecedented assault on Americans civil rights and liberties.

A supporter wears a large button reading Fighting for President Trump, January 6 Were Coming on his hat as he attends the first rally of the year by former President Donald Trump at the Canyon Moon Ranch festival grounds in Florence, Ariz., on Jan. 15, 2022. (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)

He criticized the treatment of people who have been detained in the Jan. 6 investigation.

Appalling persecution of political prisoners. Whats happening to those people in those jails  the blatant abuse of power to harass their political opponents is disgraceful. Its never happened to this extent, Trump said.

When it comes to January 6 defendants, most of whom were charged with non-violent offenses, partisan Democrats have celebrated their indefinite detention without trial. These people are living in hell. Let them fight. Let them see their lawyers. Let them go out.  These people are being persecuted.

Trump also denounced the shooting of Ashli Babbitt and the man who shot her.

Lets see how he could do without the protections that he got, Trump said. Its a disgrace the way he shot Ashli.

The American people deserve answers. The January 6 rally was a protest against a crooked election carried out by unhinged Democrats, Big Tech, working with the fake news media, all working together to defeat Republicans, he said, adding, in jest, and your favorite president, me.

Illegal Immigration

Trump said that if Republicans regain control of Congress, one of their top priorities will be to stop the illegal flood of aliens across our southern border, including human trafficking.

Trump said Republicans plan to increase the number of ICE and Border Patrol officers in order to detain and deport illegal aliens.

We should also pass a law that says that sanctuary city officials who knowingly release criminals will be charged as accessories in any future crimes, he said.

The border situation changed from best to worst in the span of one year, according to Trump.

Over 2 million illegal aliens have trespassed across our bordersbut thats also a fake number given by the press and others, Trump said, noting that he believes that the number could be 10 times that amount.

I think were talking about tens of millions of people are pouring into this country. We see certain people, and we sort of lock it down. Well thats the number, but its not. I think that its tens of millions of people, and these are not necessarily people we want in our country.

Trump noted a record number of undocumented migrant children arriving across the border. He accused Democrats of pushing very cruel policies [that] are pushing vulnerable youths into the arms of child smugglers, human traffickers, and very vicious criminal cartels.

What the criminal cartels are doing to women and childrenunbelievable. The trafficking is mostly in women, [and] what theyre doing to women is horrible. Yet despite all of this  the radical left are still hellbent on passing mass amnesty for illegal aliens, he said.
Xian Residents Seek Survival During Lockdown

Chinese residents in Xian city continue to seek outside help since Chinas anti-COIVD-19 policy staged a stringent lockdown, causing food scarcity for more than twenty days.

According to a Jan. 11 report in the state-run China Youth Daily, 62-year-old decoration worker Liang Yanping from Hubei and his workmates, after the sudden lockdown in Xian, were isolated in an unfinished house without heating, a stove, or any furniture. They survived three weeks of freezing during the coldest time of the year on only three boxes of instant noodles. The report commended the workers for being the loveliest people who did not cause any trouble for Xian, and only asked for a meal at the New Year festival.

The report also indirectly confirmed the difficulty of accessing medical treatment during the lockdown through another citizens inability to go to the hospital for a sudden bone dislocation.

The Washington Post reported on Jan. 5 that a bleeding pregnant woman sat at the entrance of Xian Gaoxin Hospital waiting for medical treatment and finally miscarried because she did not receive timely treatment.

Ms. Le, a resident in Yangjiacun community of Yanta district in Xian city, told Chinese-language Epoch Times, we can never see [vegetable delivery by the authorities]  we were given a phone number of a vegetable deliverer, but it [the phone] was always turned off and didnt get through.

According to Le, her living community compound, after the lockdown, was only left with a QR code for a group chat and a just for show volunteer.

The officials are only responsible for power, not for people, Le said. People outside of China need to see the real life of ordinary people in Xian, and not be confused by the illusion shown by the authorities.

On Jan. 9, a Weibo (Chinas version of Twitter) account named Du Weilong posted that she lives in the Xian high-tech Gaoxin zone and had been locked at home for almost 20 days, not allowed to go out except to do nucleic acid tests.

I only received vegetables once, 2 potatoes, 2 onions, one cabbage, and two white radishes during the period and did not receive any other food so far.

What do we eat? Are we going to be starved to death at home?

Du questioned the authorities propaganda about vegetables being dispatched to Xian from other cities of the country, saying why cant we, the people, receive them? She also said that everyone in her family has suffered, its everyone who is starving.

Du hoped that through help on social media they could get food and not die of hunger at home.

Although Dus post was quickly censored, an Epoch Times reporter kept a screenshot of her post.

Many people were blocked by a metal fence for 10 hours in the evening on the Wangxian road, bordering the east of Weicheng district in Xianyang city, where about 30 kilometers from Xian in December 2021. (Courtesy of Mr. Chen)

Mr. Chen, a resident of Xianyang city 31 kilometers (19 miles) from Xian, told the Chinese-language Epoch Times on Jan. 10 that a few days before, when he finished work and was heading home in the evening, he suddenly found his way home cut off by a tin fence erected built on Wangxian road, bordering the east of Weicheng district.

On the other side, a few hundred meters away, the defense and control officers had also set up a barrier, and those who had come out from that side were also blocked from entering or leaving.

Chen said he and more than 200 people were trapped in a nearly one-kilometer encirclement of the two borders of an emergency blockade.

When they tried to explain that they were out to get 48-hour nucleic acid certificates and just wanted to go home for a hot meal, all they got was silence from the security officers across the fence.

In addition to the residents who could not go home, there was an ambulance and a truck with a banner reading fight the epidemic, protect peoples livelihood, overcome the difficulties together. Chen said it was very ironic.

The crowd waited anxiously in the cold evening of 4C (39.2 Fahrenheit) for 10 hours until 3 a.m. until they reached an agreement with epidemic prevention officers that they could finally go home, but from then on, they had to stay at home and not come out again.

Jennifer Bateman Follow Jennifer Bateman is a news writer focused on China.
HARTFORD  Mayor Luke Bronin vowed that the police department would hold those responsible accountable after a 13-year-old boy died following a fentanyl overdose last week inside a city school.

City police said Saturday that the boy, a seventh-grade student at The Sport and Medical Sciences Academy had died in the hospital.

We still have much to learn about the circumstances of this tragedy, and about how a child had access to such a shocking quantity of such deadly drugs, and our police (department) will continue their investigation and seek to hold accountable the adults who ultimately are responsible for this childs death, Bronin said in a statement. In the meantime, our prayers are with everyone touched by this loss, and we will do everything we can to support the SMSA community.

Hartford police officers were called to the school Thursday after receiving reports that a boy was unconscious and there was evidence of drugs nearby.

Two other boys complained of dizziness and were also transported to Connecticut Childrens Medical Center for evaluation, police said. They were later released from the hospital.

It is believed that the three juveniles came into contact with the fentanyl at the same time, police said.

In response, the school entered a Code Yellow which is a shelter in place order for the students, police said.

With the help of several responding agencies, multiple drug detecting canines were deployed into the school to do a safety sweep for the presence of additional narcotics prior to the dismissal of the students.

This investigation remains active. On Sunday, John Fergus,director of communications & marketing at Hartford Public Schools, said the focus of the schools is on supporting all students, families, and staff through this tragedy.

In a letter Saturday to parents, School Superintendent Leslie Torres-Rodriguez said she extends her heart and offers her deepest condolences to the seventh-graders family, friends, and loved ones for their loss.

I ask that everyone keep the family, friends, and the entire school community at SMSA in their thoughts and prayers, she wrote.

She added, in response to the loss, the school and districts crisis intervention team has been assembled and will continue to help with the needs of students, parents, and school personnel.

The letter said school social workers were available Sunday and will also be available Monday for students, families, and staff, both in-person and virtually.

Additionally, clinical psychologists from Connecticut Childrens Medical Center mobile psychiatric crisis services for children will also be available Monday by phone to offer emotional health support.

As a community, we will continue to provide additional support and care to students, families, and staff who need it. If you have any questions or need assistance, please do not hesitate to contact our Welcome Center on Tuesday at 860-695-8400, Torres-Rodriguez said.

She asked everyone to keep the family, friends, and the entire school community in their hearts as we support each other through this incredible tragedy.

Police are asking anyone with information to contact the departments tip line at 860-722-TIPS (8477).
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As 2023 is fast approaching, citizens have been in limelight searching for the political party and candidates that would work out for them without considering the fact that the constitution is the key element to successful, visionary and good governance/ leaders.

Over the decades, the country had been experiencing acute hardship and vast failure from a government that promised a lot in the name of 'change' and failed to keep their lip-service promises. On the other hand, citizens never learnt their lessons to change their mindset and choose a well constructive concept that would suit them, bringing about the recruitments of government into offices. Election without a well defined structure is nothing, and a constitution without proper broad guidelines is nothing.

With this, It is clearly objective to state that without a review of the "constitution", nothing will change for good. Since the constitution provides for the fundamental objectives, broad guidelines for government of human society, the powers of government, functions of of individual and so forth, then if lawlessness reigns, the constitution that gives government these powers needs to be reviewed. If then a constitution is a contract between the people and the government, the question which needs to be answered is are the people in agreement on the violation of their rights?

What amounts to the gross failure of Government in Nigeria is not far fetched. The crux of the matter is powers are not properly specified or apportioned.

Moreover, a constitution of a country is made by the people in whom soverignty resides, and if this is not a mere theory, what are Nigerians waiting for without calling on referendum for positive change but chose to be interested in who will govern them either from the West , South, North or East?

In addition, without a well structured constitution, the national life and on the other hand, the personal lives of the people would be subjected to a lot of arbitrary actions from those in power, and actions of the government would be according to the whims and caprices of the rulers and their agent/ agencies. Then election would be meaningless, human rights, justice and truth will fall to the ground. The question is has Nigeria witnessed any tyrannical government?

At this juncture, I won't bother to ponder on this, I would like to reserve this to my dear readers but it is clearer that tyranny begins where constitutional and democratic rules end. By this virtue, if any government has failed to respect the actions of the Law Courts that protect civil liberty, human rights and vehemently protect the lives of the people, such government in one way or the other justifies itself as tyrannical. Tyrannical government is characterised by regressive economy, chaos, lawlessness, nepotism, gross violation of human rights, measurements of the press, unwarranted arrests, rigging of elections and lots more and the thereby, the people will enjoy maximum hardship they applied for.

Sadly, many of the citizens still sing songs of praises to men in the realm of power. Instead of motivating them by words of constructive criticism, they have only succeeded in exalting them and motivating others to sell their birth rights 'votes' for government and its agents.

lnfact, I have never seen a place where citizens cry for help, blame and criticise government without positive response but in turn collect some palliatives to keep the government in power and thereby expecting best from them. It is disheartening that people have long thrown away their rights, soverignty and shame for food and positions making many victims of the predicament of modern day Nigeria.

"It is visible to the blind and audible to the deaf that two wrongs don't make a right" and choosing the best alternatives between the twos' won't give best solution to the laid down predicament of the country.

Indisputably, bad government is not a global menace, and electoral malpractice is not world wide. It is caused by the structure and system of government which produces those types of economy and rulers.

Since the people made them rulers, the people shall be held responsible for the misconduct of government and on the other hand, the government is not left behind to be blame. they will pay in prices for their misconducts.

I believe that Nigerians which constitute the Government of the Federation could tackle the general problems associated with electoral rigging, failed government and lawlessness if the Constitution, the Electoral act, and provisions of the state directive principle and so forth are reviewed by the people themselves, with the inclusion of proper electronic voting and transmission of votes. It would surely serve as a remedy to treat the ills of the country

Lastly, Nigerians should take solace in the state of the economy, avoid any form of material voting system, demand a brand new constitution before election.

Without these, we shall see what true democracy is and only time will tell.
About 32 Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) under the aegis of Integrity Youth Alliance" have hailed the Federal Government over fuel subsidy removal in Nigeria.

The Alliance gave the commendation in a 5-point communique issued at the end of its National Executive Committee meeting in Abuja on Saturday.

In the communique, which was signed by the Alliance Patron, Adewole Kehinde and the National Publicity Secretary, Danjuma Lamido, the Alliance said it was a right step in the right direction.

The Alliance noted that the subsidy regime was unsustainable; adding that the best way to tackle the problem was to remove it.

Adewole said that if the money being paid as cost of fuel subsidy was channeled into provision of infrastructure and other social sectors of the economy, there would be growth and development.

They further recommended that fuel subsidy regime be stopped immediately in line with the provision of the Petroleum Industry Act

They said the subsidy regime was a major challenge forcing the federal government into external borrowing.

The fuel subsidy regime was a capitalist and elitist policy that services only the top-heavy, hence, successive governments found it difficult to implement their economic policies.

The development was largely responsible for national debts as revenue coming into the Consolidated Revenue Fund accounts are used to settle the fuel subsidy.

They called on the Nigeria Labour Congress not to embark on strike on account of ending subsidies but rather ensure all money saved on subsidy removal is used justly to alleviate the suffering of Nigerians.

If the Nigeria Labour Congress insists on embarking protest against fuel subsidy removal, we shall embark on protest in support of fuel subsidy removal by telling Nigerians the benefits of removing fuel subsidy.

It is time Nigerians support the Federal Government of Nigeria to end the fuel subsidy regime based on the PIA in order to save the sum of N1 trillion yearly as the economy of Nigeria has become very fragile given the financial burden orchestrated by the subsidy regime.

That Nigeria is a monolithic economy as such, revenue earnings must be jealously guarded and which should be channelled into road construction, power, education, health and development of its youth.

The Nigeria Labour Congress should be considerate and not embark on strike action in the circumstance that the Federal government has ended the fuel subsidy regime, given the reversal of huge resources back into the federal government coffers.

The Federal Government and all stakeholders in the oil and gas industry should strictly enforce the provisions of Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), which came into effect after it was signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The federal government, private and public sectors should embark on sensitisation of Nigerians on the need for immediate removal of fuel subsidy in order to save the nation from further financial haemorrhage.

The Alliance commends the Group Managing Director of Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, Mal Mele Kyari for his commitment to the stability of the oil and gas industry in Nigeria.
Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to use his good offices and leadership position to direct the Ministerof Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed to provide our organization with a copy of the agreement recently signed with Twitter, Inc, and to widely publish the details of any such agreement.

SERAP also urged him to direct Alhaji Lai Mohammed to clarify the manner and scope in which the agreement with Twitter will be enforced, including whether the agreement incorporates respect for human rights, consistent with the Nigerian Constitution 1999 [as amended] and international obligations.

In the letter dated 15 January 2022 and signed by SERAP deputy director Kolawole Oluwadare, the organization said: Publishing the agreement would enable Nigerians to scrutinize it, seek legal remedies as appropriate, and ensure that the conditions for lifting the suspension of Twitter are not used as pretexts to suppress legitimate discourse.

SERAP said: Publishing the agreement with Twitter would also promote transparency, accountability, and help to mitigate threats to Nigerians rights online, as well as any interference with online privacy in ways that deter the exercise of freedom of opinion and expression.

According to SERAP, Nigerians are entitled to their constitutionally and internationally recognized human rights, such as the rights to freedom of expression, access to information, privacy, peaceful assembly and association, as well as public participation both offline and online.

The letter, read in part: Any agreement with social media companies must meet constitutional and international requirements, including legality, necessity, proportionality and legitimacy.

This means that any conditions for lifting the suspension of Twitter must meet the requirements of regular legal processes and limit government discretion. Secretly agreed conditions will fail these fundamental requirements.

The government has a duty to demonstrate that the conditions for lifting the suspension of Twitter would not threaten or violate the enjoyment of Nigerians human rights online, and that the conditions are in pursuit of a legitimate goal in a democratic society.

SERAP is concerned that the operation and enforcement of the agreement may be based on broadly worded restrictive laws, which may be used as pretexts to suppress legitimate discourse,interfere with online privacy, and deter the exercise of freedom of opinion andexpression.

For example, the statement by the government announcing the lifting of the suspension of Twitter used overly broad terms and phrases like prohibited publication, Nigerian laws, national culture and history. These open-ended terms and phrases may be used to suppress legitimate exercise of human rights online.

Any agreement with social media companies must not be used as a ploy to tighten governmental control over access to the internet, monitor internet activity, or to increase online censorship and the capacity of the government to restrict legitimate online content, contrary to standards on freedom of expression and privacy.

SERAP notes the interdependence of human rights, such as the importance of privacy as a gateway to freedom of expression.

Section 39 of the Nigerian Constitution, article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights and article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantee the right to hold opinions without interference, and the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers and through any medium.

The Nigerian Constitution and human rights treaties impose duties on your government to ensure enabling environments for freedom of expression, privacy rights and other human rights, and to protect their exercise.

While human rights law requires States to prohibit advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence, States must still satisfy the cumulative conditions of legality, necessity, proportionality and legitimacy in any agreement with social media companies.

Your government has a legal obligation to promote universal Internet access, media diversity and independence, as well as ensure that any agreements with Twitter and other social media companies are not used to impermissibly restrict these fundamental human rights.

By the combined reading of the provisions of the Constitution of Nigeria, the Freedom of Information Act 2011, and human rights treaties to which Nigeria is a state party, there are transparency obligations imposed on your government to widely publish the agreement and details of the conditions upon which the suspension of Twitter was lifted.

It is stated in the statement by the Federal Government that Twitter has reached an agreement with the government to manage prohibited publication in line with Nigerian laws. We would be grateful for clarifications on the definition of prohibited information, and the specific applicable Nigerian laws in the context of the agreement.

It is also stated in the statement by the Federal Government that Twitter has agreed to act with a respectful acknowledgement of Nigerian laws and the national culture and history on which such legislation has been built. We would be grateful for clarifications on the specific and applicable Nigerian laws, national culture and history upon which the operation and enforcement of the agreement will be based.

We would be grateful if the requested information and details are provided to us within 7 days of the receipt and/or publication of this letter. If we have not heard from you by then, SERAP shall take all appropriate legal action in the public interest to compel your government to comply with our request.

According to our information, the approval was given to lift the suspension of Twitter operation in Nigeria effective from 12am 13th January 2022 following the memo sent to you by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof Isa Ali Ibrahim. The decision to lift the suspension was reportedly based on the recommendations by the Technical Committee on Nigeria-Twitter Engagement.

SERAP notes that Alhaji Lai Mohammed on 5th June 2021, announced the suspension of operation of Twitter by the Federal Government, following which a seven-man Presidential Committee was set up to engage Twitter Inc. The Presidential Committee in turn established a 20-member Technical Committee, which reportedly directly worked with the Twitter team.

The letter was copied to Alhaji Lai Mohammed and Mr Abubakar Malami, SAN, Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice.

Kolawole Oluwadare

SERAP Deputy Director

16/1/2022

Lagos, Nigeria

Emails: [email protected] ; [email protected]

Twitter: @SERAPNigeria

Website: www.serap-nigeria.org

For more information or to request an interview, please contact us on: +2348160537202
I know who will be the next president, but I will not mention his name, because if I do, the person will be eliminated Mr. Muhammadu Buhari



In our political party, we do what we promise

Only fools can believe

We will not fight against corruption

Because there is something certain for us

Honesty is fundamental to achieve our deals

We will demonstrate that this is a great stupidity to believe that

Mafias can remain part of the government as in the past.

We ensure, without a shadow of a doubt, that

Social justice will be the main goal of our mandate.

Despite this, there are still stupid people who think that

One can continue to govern

With the wiles of the old policy.

When we will assume the power, we will do so

to end the privileged positions and influence peddling

We will not allow

Our children starve

We will accomplish our purposes though

The economic reserves are emptied completely

We will exercise the power until

You understand that from now

We are the "new policy".

And now, read from the bottom up, starting with the last line and up to the beginning.

What you understand from that opening comment is at your own risk, and I dare say it means a lot, and speaks to many issues regarding the Nigerian state. So, for the next 12 months In Shaa Allah, I will once a month X-ray the issues around the forthcoming General Elections in the worlds largest black population and democracy. Kindly note my use of the phrase In Shaa Allah. I am not a politician that feels that all is figured outand I am not one of the owners of Nigeria that determines who gets what.

Let me start in the following manner.

A huge piece of bakery deliciousness sat in front of me. It was a combination of three desserts in one. One layer was cheesecake, one layer was ice cream cake, and in between those was a layer of brownie-like chocolate cake all drizzled with some kind of fudge icing that was calling my name.

This was served to me while on a family vacation. At the time, I was at the beginning of my no-sugar adventure. Id been doing great at home, but Id been dropped into a place that was teeming with bakery things my mind could not even conceive of, while everyone around me could eat a pound of sugar a day and still look fit and trim.

I didnt want my family to miss out, so I told them to please enjoy. Im fine, I said with a carefree smile. But inside a totally different dialogue was playing in my mind:

Its not fair!

Saying its not fair has caused many girls to toss aside what she knows is right for the temporary thrill of whatever it is that does seem fair. But the next day the sun will rise. As each band of light becomes brighter and brighter, the realization of the choice she made the night before becomes clearer and clearer.

I have friends who like to restore cars. I have other friends who like to restore houses. Many times, we like to restore things because they are broken or because fixing something usually costs less than buying it new. But I think many enjoy the challenge of a fixer-upper because we enjoy the process of building something that is better than what was there before.

When we look at Nigeria as it rides towards the next elections, the truth is that its not fair that the candidates around dont really understand the enormity of the work ahead, how badly fragmented Nigeria is as a nation, that the deal structure which never has been really federal is disjointed.

Do the candidates whether for the office of governor of Plateau or for the unhallowed chambers of presidency understand that several millions of Nigerians are children under the age of 18 and half our population is youthful whether lazy or otherwise.

While we do the drama of cost of cooking gas and gas flaring, solid cooking fuels (which creates respiratory ailments), inadequate sanitation, and substandard housing is at a peak, people lack access to proper drinking water within a 30-minute round trip walk. While we take pride at our 200million+ population figures, and fight amongst ourselves which ethnic group or faith has the higher number, millions are multidimensionally poor people having at least one undernourished person in their homes.

With the campaigns soon heating up, with the best of efforts, Nigerians live in households where a scary percentage has not completed at least six years of schooling, have no access to electricity, lack seven of eight of the following assets (a radio, television, telephone, computer, animal cart, bicycle, motorcycle, or refrigerator). They also do not own a car.

These candidates no sari wetin dey, they will prove that though money is available that could have gone towards the social good, it largely will go to shore up their chances at the polls rather than the manufacturing and industry of the nation.

Dem no sabi say across the nation we need to De-commodify education, which includes strengthening public education and preventing the privatization of education in the manner we have gone about it.

No candidate, not even those that are teachers are promoting or discussing our education. They are not talking about how a would be great nation can bridge the electricity and digital divide. Build publicly financed and publicly controlled high-speed broadband internet systems with spaces open for private players to thrive.

We keep talking about out of school children, but in reality, these candidates and awards 2023 are not about ensuring that all school children have access to all the elements of the educational process, including extra-curricular activities or developing channels through which students participate in decision-making processes in all forms of governance and education.

Sadly, our education is about jobs, getting a job, and not creating one, so, is any candidate coming with a template to make education a lifelong experience, allowing people at every stage of life to enjoy the practice of learning in various kinds of institutions. Fostering the value that education is not only about building a career, but about building a society that supports the continuing growth and development of the mind and of the community.

Candidates that do not know how to make water available beyond commissioning borehole. Leaders, governments and candidates that have no blueprint for education, for schools, for transport, health and hospitals, that have elevated mediocrity, that see public office as a gift and not responsibility, will 2023 see any differenceOnly time will tell..
By Trend

A significant event occurred in Azerbaijan last week. The groundbreaking ceremony for the 240 MW Khizi-Absheron wind farm, which will be built by the Saudi Arabian ACWA Power company, was held.

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and Minister of Energy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman al-Saud attended the ceremony and delivered speeches. It is important to stress that this is the first such project in Azerbaijan, which will be fully implemented through foreign investments.

The project will be implemented in Sitalchay and Perekeshkul villages of Absheron district. The wind farm will generate about 1 billion kwh of electricity per year, save 220 million cubic meters of gas and prevent emissions of more than 400,000 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. Moreover, this project envisages new jobs and a prospect for the manufacturing and service sectors.

Moreover, a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in the field of offshore wind energy was signed between the Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Azerbaijan and ACWA Power company of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on the same day in Baku.

The memorandum envisages the cooperation in determining the main principles of cooperation in the field of offshore wind energy, assessing the potential and creating the conditions for profitable investments in renewable energy projects in Azerbaijan.

The steering committee and a working group will be established to guide and control the activity being carried out within the memorandum.

The topic of the so-called "green transition" - reducing of environmental pollution in connection with energy production has become one of the most relevant topics in the modern world.

As for Azerbaijan, a number of extremely important decisions were made in Azerbaijan in 2021 to stimulate the alternative energy sector, which has great potential for the future development of the national economy.

In particular, the mechanisms were determined to support the use of renewable energy sources in electricity generation.

According to the Azerbaijani legislation, several mechanisms, which will encourage businessmen to invest in the production of electricity from renewable sources, are planned to be implemented at once.

In particular, the matter rests in the guaranteed tariffs, support for active consumers, scientific research in the field of renewable energy sources, as well as tax incentives.

Moreover, the procedure for setting tariffs for electricity which is produced from renewable energy sources has been determined.

Power engineering is traditionally one of the most important sectors of the Azerbaijani economy.

This sector will be greatly changed in 2022 even despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Azerbaijan is actively and intensively developing such a new and extremely promising sector as alternative energy.

President Ilham Aliyev pays great attention to the development of the sector and foreign investors are already investing hundreds of millions of dollars in the Azerbaijani economy.

The specialists were holding discussions a few years ago whether it is so necessary to invest huge funds in the development of the sector while today the importance of renewable energy sources is well known.

Azerbaijan, despite the big oil and gas reserves, is investing in the development of alternative energy, relying not only on traditional sources, but also on the development of advanced spheres.

Azerbaijans potential in the field of alternative energy is very high and certainly is the highest in the region.

Most of the total potential of alternative and renewable energy sources in Azerbaijan accounts for solar energy - 5,000 megawatts.

Wind energy  4,500 megawatts ranks second while the rest part is biomass (1,500 megawatts), geothermal energy (800 megawatts) and the potential of small rivers (350 megawatts).

It is important that along with the development of the domestic market, Azerbaijan is actively negotiating with foreign partners in the field of renewable energy.

For example, the Montenegrin Adriatic Capital company is interested in joint participation with Azerbaijan in the projects on the use of solar energy.

The companys delegation has recently held the talks in Baku at the Azerbaijani Ministry of Energy and has already inspected some areas of the country's territory that may have potential.

As far as the sector is being developed, the costs of its development are being reduced. This is explained not only by the global trend to reduce costs for the development of this sector, but also by the work that is being carried out and will be carried out in Azerbaijan in the field of establishing the production of the necessary equipment and technologies.

The huge potential of this sphere in Azerbaijan is obvious, but the most important factor in the future development of renewable energy in Azerbaijan is the policy being pursued under the leadership of President Ilham Aliyev.

Azerbaijan has achieved great success in developing the business climate thanks to President Ilham Aliyevs efforts and attention.

This attracted the world's biggest investors to Azerbaijan, who are ready to invest huge funds in promising projects not only in power engineering, but also in many other sectors.

The stability, excellent business and investment climate and the great political will which is shown by the country's leadership are the key to the success of the Azerbaijani economy.

Emin Aliyev

Editor-in-chief of Trend news agency
In conjunction with Gov. Kathy Hochul's State of the State speech delivered on Jan. 5, her administration published a briefing book that expanded on the themes of her address.

It was an impressive document in scope, with more than 230 pages describing programs the governor wants to implement to help solve problems and improve lives of New Yorkers.

But we couldn't help but feel disappointed in the level of attention the governor gave to what continues to be a huge statewide problem that has been especially damaging to the Cayuga County area: harmful algal blooms.

Tucked on page 166 is one paragraph about a commitment to a state grant program for replacing aging septic systems. It's the only mention we could find of how Hochul believes the state can do more to reverse the trend of HABs proliferating every summer and early fall in New York water bodies, posing a threat to clean drinking water supplies and making recreational activities on the water potentially hazardous to the health of people and animals.

Funding to reverse damage from septic is important, to be sure. But that's a program that's been in past budgets, so it's hardly an expansion of efforts to combat HABs.

We hope Hochul and her environmental health advisors will outline plans to do much more related to HABs. Perhaps this week's executive budget proposal will be offer some steps in that direction.

One effective action that the state could take was suggested by Cayuga County, city of Auburn and town of Owasco leaders last summer. That's when local leaders spoke out to call for expedited state Department of Health approval on new rules and regulations for the Owasco Lake Watershed that local officials approved and sent to the state in the fall of 2020.

They also suggested the state could use the Owasco Lake process as a template for other communities dealing with HABs and establish a streamlined process for getting these much-needed updates approved by the state.

Unfortunately, nothing has happened since. We now face the possibility of a second HABs season with proposed rules and regulations for Owasco Lake that are tangled up in Albany's notorious bureaucracy.

The single paragraph on HABS in the governor's State of the State briefing book finished with this sentence: "Rather than just treating HABs once they have formed, these (septic) grants will enable a proactive approach to mitigating these environmental hazards before they start."

That concept of being proactive HABs is exactly what the watershed rules and regulations changes are all about. It's vital that the Hochul administration finish the job and approve the Owasco Lake proposal, and that the governor works with the state Legislature to make the rules updating process for other watersheds much more efficient.

The Citizen Editorial board includes president and director of local sales and marketing Michelle Bowers, executive editor Jeremy Boyer and managing editor Mike Dowd.

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If there is any politician that can be said to be in Nigerias political history being pressurized unprecedentedly to run for the presidency, he is unarguably the incumbent Vice-President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo.

A perusal of recent editions of most newspapers and online media platforms since the agitation for him to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari began would reveal various headlines that were cast in the following similitude: Businessmen, Northern coalition support Osinbajo for 2023, 2023: Osinbajo hasn't declared interest in presidential, 2023 Presidency: Kano Rep declares support for Osinbajo, 2023 PRESIDENCY: Why Tinubu's Declaration Won't Stop ..., 2023: Arewa Consensus Assembly roots for Osinbajo and Northern groups from across the region under the aegis of Arewa Consensus Assembly, met in Kaduna for a one day Northern Agenda conference, ....

Other headlines that are equally revealing cut across, Businessmen woo Osinbajo as campaign posters flood ..., 2023: Meddling with Osinbajo, Tinubu's undeclared ... and other thought-provoking headlines that strongly suggest that the Vice President is under unprecedented pressure to succeed Buhari. As if the foregoing headlines are not enough indication of how pressurized he has being in the last few weeks, virtually every discussions in churches, beer parlors, offices; particularly in the newsroom revolve around his suitability for the presidential position.

At this juncture, one is tempted to ask, Why would he not be considered to be suitable for the presidential position when he has the leadership qualities of Moses? To those in the Christendom that are reading this piece, it is expedient to remind them that as a people-oriented leader that Moses only message to the stone-hearted Pharaoh was encapsulated in only four words; Let my people go. Apart from spearheading the deliverance of the Jews from the hands of the Egyptians, Moses, at various times stood for his people (the Jews) during the period Egypt was atrophied by plagues. He spiritually interceded for the Jews at the brink of the Red Sea and variously played similar roles when God blessed the Jews with manna, quails and water in the desert. Simply put, Moses was the messiah of the Jews. He saw their collective problem as his problem.

Against the backdrop of the foregoing, it is expedient to say that amid the challenges which Nigeria has been faced with in the last couple of years that Osinbajo has remained optimistic about the country emerging from its current challenges a greater and more united Nigeria, and his message has been that Gods promise of greatness for the country will certainly come to fruition.

Given the foregoing view, one is compelled to at this juncture see Osinbajo as the Moses of Nigeria. Who else would have become the Moses of the Nigerian people at this time of being at crossroads if not for him, particularly as he is been seen in that light by pressurizing to succeed the President, come 2023?

The book of Proverbs chapter 3 verse 27 says Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is in your power to act. Furthermore, verse 28 says Do not say to your neighbor, come back later, Ill give it tomorrow, when you have it with you. From the context of the foregoing scripture, Nigerians should support Osinbajo; both by pressurizing him to run despite the fact that his political mentor, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, has recently told the president that he will contest in the election. To my view, Osinbajo should not be advised to wait till after the next political dispensation as that would be a disservice to him. The electorate should not self-destructively gag their collective voice but should urge him to run the presidential race, just as they should not withhold their voter cards in his support when he eventually decide to run.

With a sense of equanimity, not few people at the moment need a Moses in the person of Osinbajo. They need a Moses that would impact the economy with his Midas touch.

Without doubt, the foregoing viewpoint may be very difficult to share by not few Nigerians as they reasoned that he has throughout his role as a vice to the President been doing well to the admiration of the people.

To those that would argue along the foregoing perspective, they should not forget that in 2017 when the president went on an extended sick leave abroad that Osinbajo made wide use of the constitutional powers granted him as the country sought to avoid a debilitating power vacuum, even at a time when the country was confronting its first recession in 25 years. During the short period he deputized in the absence of the president, and on other occasions, the economy which he managed was adjudged to improve given the indices which people empirically gathered and announced. Ostensibly appraising his performance during the presidents leave of absence, the Financial Times (FT) in one of its scintillating and incisive analysis titled, Nigerias vice-president Yemi Osinbajo puts positive spin on economy wrote, Yemi Osinbajo, Nigerias vice-president, has put a positive spin on his countrys tepid recovery from its worst recession in 25 years, highlighting the high level of foreign investment and its success in battling militants. To the common man, he was unarguably brash and audacious to opine that each time Osinbajo hold the forth for the president that the economy usually improved.

Indeed, the people need a Moses that is ready to be on bended knees and clasped hands in prayer for them at all times. They need a Moses that would always go with God the same way the biblical Moses always went about with his rod. Moses, as variously recorded in the bible, interceded for the Jews so much so that he became a mediator between God and the Jews. A school of thought has it that if not for Osinbajos prayers that Nigerias situation would have being worse than it is. Aptly put, those who know him and the wife say they are prayer warriors.

At a forum that may be likened to present day Town Hall event, Moses stood before the people as recorded in Exodus chapter 14 verse 13 to 14 and assured them Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still. In the same Mosaic fashion, would it not have been nice to be seeing Osinbajo praying for Nigeria in the same setting, and assuring the people that they should not be worried anymore that he would personally press their case further, and that they should be still that the LORD would use him to restore their economy to them? At this juncture, not few critics of this piece would ask the question, What makes him not to be doing the Town Hall Prayer session in this political dispensation? The answer cannot be farfetched as he is not in total control of the economy and government as he is merely a vice president. Again, we should not be ignorant of the fact that God has the power to unlock the economy. It is crucial to ask this question. Why? Because it is a great mystery.

In consideration of the foregoing view, it is expedient to ask, Hope Osinbajo as the Moses of Nigeria, will not wrongfully strike the rock?

For the sake of clarity, it is expedient to say that Moses moment of greatest failure came when the people of Israel resumed complaining, this time about food and water (Num. 20:1-5). Moses and Aaron decided to bring the complaint to the Lord, who commanded them to take their staff, and in the peoples presence command a rock to yield water enough for the people and their livestock (Num. 20:6-8). Moses did as the Lord instructed but added two flourishes of his own. First he rebuked the people, saying, Listen, you rebels, shall we bring water for you out of this rock? Then he struck the rock twice with his staff. Water poured out in abundance (Num. 20:9-11), but the Lord was extremely displeased with Moses and Aaron.

Against the background of the foregoing, it is expedient to let him realize that not few Nigerians are on bended knees asking God to give him the grace to declare his ambition to become the countrys number one citizen come 2023. While it is accepted that he will eventually agree to declare his ambition to run for the presidency, it is also advisable to advise him that like Moses, he should obey what God told him by rightly striking the rock; that is by declaring his ambition to run, and consequently leading the people with fear of God without toeing Buharis the governance style of Buhari.
The Bay of Bengal, the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, is of great political, economic, and cultural importance to its coastal countries of Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, and Indonesia. With maritime trade, fishing, and tourism being the region's most significant economic activities, it faces a variety of maritime security issues, including illicit trade, piracy, armed robbery, and illegal fishing.

Incidents of human trafficking after the influx of the Rohingya refugees influx to Bangladesh from Myanmar in 2017, piracy, and attacking seamen at the cargo and fishing trawlers and engine boats on the seaway are increasing day by day. Crews, boatmen, fishermen, and owners of cargo trawlers and engine boats are not safe in the Bay of Bengal as the pirates attack them at the offshore areas on the sea. Particularly, the fishermen cannot go to the sea due to rampant incidents of attacks of pirates on the fishermen. Fishermen of Chittagong and Coxs Bazar are now suffering a lot. In this situation, the role and involvement of law enforcement agencies are needed here to combat this maritime security threat.

On the other hand, the US declared an Indo-Pacific strategy to combat traditional and nontraditional security threats in the strategic Bay of Bengal. Combating piracy and human trafficking is one of the main goals of the US IPS strategy. Regional countries such as the USA, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, Maldives, and members of BIMSTEC countries can work together to deal with the maritime problems. Bangladeshs law enforcement agencies such as the Coast guard, Navy, Special elite force RAB can work together with other regional stakeholders in this regard. RAB has been playing a key role in this regard.

For example, RAB-15 arrested 6 pirates in a raid on the Maheshkhali channel in the Bay of Bengal recently. Weapons and ammunition were recovered from them at that time. At a press briefing in the Khurushkul Ghat area around 1 pm on Friday, RAB commander Khairul Islam Sarkar confirmed the operation. However, the identities of the captured pirates were not immediately known. The RAB commander said that for a long time, the pirates had been carrying out various misdeeds including boat robbery, the beating of fishermen, looting, and kidnapping of fishermen at sea. On the basis of such allegations, we carry out intelligence activities in the sea on the Maheshkhali channel. Later on, Friday night from 9:30 to 12 o'clock the operation was able to arrest the pirates. At that time, they had three guns and 11 rounds of ammunition. "We have started operations against pirates in the coast as well as in the sea," he added. We will continue this campaign. The RAB commander also mentioned that the detainees were involved in piracy on the basis of interrogation and action would be taken against their godfathers.

According to the media reports, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has arrested 10 pirates following a drive in the Bay of Bengal on Coxs Bazar 6 arms and 37 round ammunitions were seized in 2018. Three women were kidnapped by pirates. They were arrested from the deep sea early on Monday morning. The arrested pirates are said to be members of three forces.

The pirates were robbing two fishing trawlers on the deep sea at around 12 pm on Sunday. After the robbery, the pirates kidnapped three middle-aged men in the trawler. After getting complaints from other fishermen, RAB launched operations in the sea. RAB was rescued at one stage and rescued three women. 10 pirates were arrested in the meantime.

A team of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) seized huge Yaba tablets in the Bay of Bengal on March 14, 2016, while being smuggled to Bangladesh from Burma by the sea route. Members of Rapid Action Battalion-15 have seized a large consignment of 1.3 million yachts smuggled from Myanmar to Cox's Bazar in 2020.

According to media reports, pirates have shifted their attention to the deep sea from the Sunderbans as the Rapid Action Battalion continues its raids and vigilance in the mangrove forest. Pirates regularly rob fishermen, kidnap them for ransom and even kill them.

Meanwhile, the Bangladesh government is going to strengthen vigilance on its water territory especially on the coastal areas and outer anchorage of Chittagong port with a view to check all sorts of piracy. The concerned authorities including RAB, BN, BCG and WTMC, and Bangladesh Cargo Trawlers Owners Association are taking special security measures to resist piracy on the Bay of Bengal.

RAB can play a key role in this regard. They have training from the US. They have modern sophisticated technologies. Basically, they have been playing their role in combatting this maritime threat. Thus, they can work with other stakeholders in this regard. Those who are still involved in piracy, the RAB rehabilitates them if they surrender. But the RAB won't spare them if the piracy doesn't end. The RAB would do whatever necessary to suppress the pirates

Despite having many challenges, all regional actors should make immense progress on improving coastal welfare, developing the blue economy, building capable maritime enforcement entities, and strengthening mechanisms for international and regional maritime cooperation.

Maritime security and countering terrorism and other crimes in the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal have emerged as a focus area for India as part of its Indo-Pacific strategy and the doctrine of Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR).

The main task of this alliance will be to maintain security in the sea area and stop human trafficking and smuggling. The members of the alliance will also work on providing mutual humanitarian assistance. To this end, they will provide mutual training to their Navies and Coast Guards for the next year. Member States will conduct Naval exercises that would be a milestone for the IOR.

Sri Lanka has also faced an increase in heroin use within the country, as well as becoming a transit country for trafficking destined for other places. Much of the heroin entering Sri Lanka arrives on fishing boats or by air, often coming through India or Pakistan. The number of seizures that Sri Lankan authorities have conducted remains relatively small, meaning that the data collected is not always reliable. Smugglers in Sri Lanka have come from a variety of countries, including Pakistan, India, Iran, and the Maldives.

While India also suffers from petty theft and attempts at armed robbery on board ships at anchor near busy ports, the main threat arises out of the maritime dimension of terrorism, especially landing of terrorists as well as of arms and explosives. These are also linked with drug trafficking. The shallow waters and creeks of the Gujrat coast, especially of the Kutch region, now under immediate surveillance of the maritime wing of the Border Security Force (BSF), as well as the seacoasts of Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu are the sensitive areas and under constant surveillance of the Navy and the Coast Guard.

Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India face piracy, illegal fishing, and human trafficking in the Bay of Bengal. Although the Bangladeshi Navy and the Coast Guard are very active in the region, the perpetrators are very clever. The Rohingya crisis worsened the situation. Various gangs are involved in human trafficking. Bangladeshis are trafficked to Malaysia, Thailand, and North Africa to Greece and Italy (Europe) through the marine route via the Mediterranean Sea. The role of Bangladesh RAB is very positive here. It has been working to combat this maritime threat in the strategic Bay of Bengal. USA, India, Sri Lanka have the same policies in the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal. Thus, the authorities of the USA, India, Sri Lanka can and should work with Bangladesh law enforcement agencies such as RAB in combatting this maritime threat. So, recent US sanctions on RAB are very inappropriate. USA, India should understand that RAB is on the security guarantee in the region including the Bay of Bengal. The US should lift its ban on RAB. RABs role in combatting human trafficking, illegal drug trafficking is huge. Tom Kelly said Bangladesh has a special role to play in the security of the Bay of Bengal due to its location in an important region. The United States is hopeful that Bangladesh will continue to support maritime security. He said uninterrupted navigation in the Bay of Bengal is essential not only for Bangladesh but also for the countries of the region.

In response to a question on the security of the Bay of Bengal, Mustafa Kamal said that there is no piracy in the economic zone of Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal. However, there is a need to increase the capacity of the Navy and Coast Guard to ensure security in large maritime areas.

"A better defense relationship is needed in the interests of both countries," said Tom Kelly. We will continue to work together for the common goal of stability, peace and prosperity in the region, "said David Cook, chief of The Christian Science Monitor's Washington bureau. The United States is interested in cooperating in counterterrorism, maritime security and peacekeeping operations. However, the US, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and India can and should work together in combatting this maritime threat. The United States has pledged continued support to Bangladesh to play an important role in ensuring security in the Bay of Bengal in 2014.

Tom Kelly, the Deputy Chief of Staff of the US State Department's Political and Military Affairs, told reporters after the third Bangladesh-US security dialogue in Dhaka on Tuesday. Not only Bangladesh, countries like India, Sri Lanka, Maldives and all States across the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal face the same problems. Regional cooperation is much needed.
Man recounts 21-day ordeal, lost and fleeing elephants

PRACHIN BURI: A missing man has staggered exhausted and starving out of a vast area of eucalyptus and rubber plantations with an incredible story of having spent 21 days lost and fleeing attacks by wild elephants.

wildlifeanimalsaccidents

By Bangkok Post

Sunday 16 January 2022, 10:00AM

Thongsa Wanthumma, 43, uses a crutch to help him walk at his home in Kabin Buri district, Prachin Buri, on Wednesday (Jan 12), as he tells the story of 21 days fleeing elephants, lost in a vast expanse of rubber and eucalyptus plantations. Photo: Manit Anubboon / Bangkok Post

Thongsa Wanthumma, 43, was back at his home in Ban Wang Thong village in tambon Wang Tha Chang of Kabin Buri district on Wednesday (Jan 12), reports the Bangkok Post.

He appeared totally worn out by his proclaimed ordeal and was using a wooden crutch because, he said, his legs were weak after weeks of living on leaves and running for his life from herds of elephants.

Mr Thongsa had gone missing on Dec 22. Five days later police found his motorcycle abandoned in the middle of a rubber plantation, about 10 kilometres from the eucalyptus plantation where he worked as a timber cutter, and eight kilometres from the house where he lived with his mother.

Mr Thongsa said on Wednesday that on Dec 22 he was riding his motorcycle back home along a trail deep in a eucalyptus plantation in tambon Tha Kra Dan of Chachoengsaos Sanam Chai Khet district, near his village.

He found himself confronted by a big herd of wild elephants. He abandoned his motorcycle and fled, panicked into the rubber and eucalyptus plantations.

Later, he could not find his way back out. The plantations spread over an area of about 20,000 rai. The area was full of wild elephants and he had been trying to avoid them and find his way home ever since.

He said he saw elephant herds roaming there every day. They came out of Khao Ang Rue Nai Wildlife Sanctuary in search of food.

In the plantations I had no food. I survived by eating sour leaves and drank from ponds and irrigation canals. At night I slept on leaves that I gathered to keep myself warm, Mr Thongsa said.

All the time he was lost he prayed for a blessing from holy spirits and his parents so that he could find his way safely out of the trees, he said.

Mr Thongsa finally emerged from the plantations on Tuesday morning. He met a neighbour and got a ride to a relatives house.

One of his neighbours said that when they were searching for him they found the remains of two people apparently killed by wild elephants.

The victims clothes were in tatters and the mutilated bodies unidentifiable and covered with leaves and soil, which was what wild elephants did after killing humans, she said, but asked not to be named.
Phuket students allowed to go back to school

PHUKET: Phuket Governor Narong Woonciew has issued a provincial order allowing schools across Phuket to resume on-site classes for students of all ages, starting tomorrow (Jan 17).

COVID-19Coronavirus

By The Phuket News

Sunday 16 January 2022, 06:52PM

The order allowing students to go back to school was issued earlier today (Jan 16). Image: Phuket Info Center

The move has made national news, as schools elsewhere throughout the country must remain closed to on-site classes until Jan 31 under an order by the Ministry of Education.

The order (Phuket Provincial Order No. 352/2565), although posted online earlier today (Jan 16), is marked to be in effect from Jan 15-31.

The order was posted online by the Phuket Info Center, operated by the Phuket office of the Ministry of Interior, just after 10am, giving students and their parents less than one day to make arrangements to prepare to go back to school.

The provincial order today recognised the previous order asking all schools, kindergartens and other educational institutions on the island, both public and private, to refrain from holding any on-site activities from Jan 15-31.

However, the order today noted: "In the case of any educational institutions that are ready to open classroom teaching (On Site) before the deadline, they must follow the following measures

Schools with students 12 years old or older must randomly ATK test students, teachers and personnel on commencement of classes, and continue random testing every seven days.

Schools with students younger than 12 years old must ATK test all students, teachers and personnel on commencement of classes, and continue random testing every seven days.

All schools must comply with the Thai Stop Covid Plus operating requirements, the order added.

The Office of Education of Phuket Province or the agency under the jurisdiction of each educational institution shall prepare a report on the results of educational institutions that are ready and wish to open classroom teaching (On Site), which must be reported to the province [provincial government within 7 days after the start date, the order noted.

Educational institutions must also submit to the Phuket Provincial Public Health Office (PPHO) their response plan for any students, staff or personnel who test positive by ATK, the order added.
Trial of Bangla shooter cop still postponed

PHUKET: The trial of Pornthep Channaong, the Phuket police officer who shot a 25-year-old noodle venor on Bangla Rd while drunk off duty in February last year, has still been postponed for COVID reasons. The next trial date is currently set for March.

patongpolicecrimeviolence

By The Phuket News

Sunday 16 January 2022, 12:00PM

Pornthep Channarong, a corporal of the Phuket Provincial Police at the time, is caught on CCTV firing at close range at Mr Aroon on Bangla Rd, Patong, early on Feb23 last year. . Image: CCTV / Eakkapop Thongtub

Pornthep was drunk off-duty when he shot noodle vendor Aroon Thongplab in the stomach on Bangla Rd in Patong early on Feb 23 last year.

He was corporal with the Phuket Provincial Police who had just been transferred to Region 8 Police at the time.

Pornthep was quickly stripped of his rank and discharged from the Royal Thai Police. He now faces charges of attempted murder, carrying a firearm in a public area without necessary reason, and firing a weapon in a public area.

Mr Aroon has been left paralysed from the waist down after surgeons removed the bullet, which had lodged near his spine. His wife, Kulthida Chananan, spends most of her time caring for him, and their two young children.

The trial was first deferred in August last year, and again in September. Now it has been postponed again, until Mar 17.

No progress has been made in the trial, Kerdphol Kaewkerd, the Bangkok-based lawyer assisting Mr Aroon with the case for free, told The Phuket News.

The court has scheduled an examination for witnesses on March 17-18, and April 7, he said.

The appointment for witness examination has been scheduled since last year, but has to be postponed every time because the defendants lawyer has requested to postpone the appointment two to three times, claiming that it is during the COVID outbreak, and the lawyers, prosecutors and courts cant find the time to match, he said.

Mr Kerdphol confirmed that Pornthep continues to remain in remand at Phuket Provincial Prison.

The police take care of the family to a certain extent, not special care. Police patrol their house from time to time, he added.

Lt Gen Amphol Buarabporn, who took up the post of Region 8 Police Commander after the shooting in February last year, said he did not know much about the case, but strongly dried it and thanked the press for following up on progress in the trial.

The police cant shoot anyone carelessly, Lt Gen Amphol told The Phuket News.

The use of guns by police has rules. Everyone must obtain prior authorisation every time they carry a firearm in a public area.

If you are in uniform, you are legally allowed to carry a gun because it is considered that you are on duty. But if they are not in uniform, permission must be obtained first, he said.

Unsolicited, Lt Gen Amphol said that he would raise the issue with subordinate officers.
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The Coconino County Superior Court will soon add another judge and court division to cut down the backlog of cases caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 forced court officials to push back numerous jury trials in the nearly two years since March 2020. While the move helped curb the spread of the virus within the courts, hundreds of criminal and civil cases seemingly came to a standstill before returning to somewhat normal, but still cautious operations near the end of 2021.

But the Coconino County Superior Court is facing a packed schedule as it attempts to catch up on the long list of delayed cases. More than 60 jury trials are already scheduled for 2022, and the calendar already stretches well into 2023, according to presiding Coconino County Judge Dan Slayton.

The court is pressed on both sides, Slayton said. We have the constitution on one side and we have the virus on the othe,r and sometimes the judges would just go in and see who would win that day.

The court will attempt to tackle the problem head-on by temporarily adding a new court division and judge, increasing the number of divisions to eight between criminal, civil and juvenile courts.

The money for the new position -- known as a judge pro tem -- will come from the countys American Rescue Plan Act funds. The Coconino County Board of Supervisors approved agreed to fund the position for two years to decrease the case backlog. The new judge will primarily handle criminal cases, as well as civil.

This new division will hopefully increase confidence in citizens that we are mindful of their desire to get into court and have their cases heard, Slayton said.

The anticipated cost of about $500,000 also includes all the other personnel needed to make the new division operational, including a judicial assistant, court technician and bailiff.

Spacing -- or the lack thereof -- does place some limitations on capacity. The courthouse only has five courtrooms and that wont change despite the addition of the new division. An existing reading room and another side room will serve as chambers for the new division.

Court administrators are currently working to figure out how many trials can run concurrently given the current setup while still ensuring social distancing and other COVID prevention measures.

Slayton said they expect to run no more than three trials at the same time. It will likely take two to three years to return to normal caseloads even with the help of another judge, he added.

Applications for the position closed on Jan. 5 and interviews of the candidates are expected to start in the coming weeks. The new judge position could start as soon as spring arrives.

Were moving quickly because we want to start addressing the backlog of cases, especially those in custody pending trial, court administrator Sharon Yates said.

Slayton expects the new position to pay for itself and become permanent once ARPA funds run out. The shifting of the workload will make it easier for judges to handle matters strategically, with Judge Fanny Steinlage primarily focusing on cases where mental health is a factor, including cases in which the defendant must be restored to competency before they can stand trial.

Digitally recording hearings, as opposed to relying entirely on court reporters, should also help with budget savings. Recent changes in state statute allowed for most hearings to be digitally recorded -- which Slayton said will help ease the burden on the countys rural courts where finding a court reporter can be challenging. Superior Court will staff five court reporters based on priority throughout the eight divisions and use digital recordings for the others.

Reporter Bree Burkitt can be reached at 928-556-2250 or bburkitt@azdailysun.com.

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GODFREY  Two of Lewis and Clark Community Colleges tech career programs are going all-in on flexible course offerings to maximize student accessibility.

Program Coordinator Louise Jett said her goal is to convert all the classes in the Graphic Design and Web Design and Development associate degree programs to the colleges new Blendflex format, which allows students to attend courses virtually or in-person, and switch back and forth throughout the semester as needed.

Im converting one class each semester and following a cohort of students until the entire program is available in this format, Jett said.

Owl cameras in the classrooms make it possible for students attending courses virtually to see and interact with the instructor and in-person students via a panoramic live view. In-person students can see and interact with remote students through the Owls microphone as the virtual classroom is projected on an overhead screen at the front of the room.

Students are responding well to the new format, which LCCC introduced in Spring 2021.

As a chronically-ill, adult student, Blendflex courses enabled me to not only succeed at L&C, but to thrive, said Graphic Design student Lin Dean. The flexibility allowed me to care for my health and learning at the same time  something hard to do in traditional learning settings. I now actively seek out classes in the Blendflex format.

"At any other institution, getting sick like I did last semester wouldve meant withdrawing to save my GPA," said Dean. "Blendflex and Zoom options allowed me to complete the semester with a really high GPA, so Im eternally thankful! Life isnt predictable, and Blendflex is a great tool for the modern and disabled student.

Graphic and web offerings currently available in the Blendflex mode include:

 ART-161 Graphic Design I

 ART-162 Graphic Design II

 ART-262 Graphic Design III

 CGRD-144 Adobe Illustrator

 CGRD-243 Marketing Creative Portfolios

 CGRD-244 Advanced Illustrator

 CGRD-264 Computer Graphics Cooperative

 MKTG-240 Social Media Marketing

 WEB-260 Web Designer Cooperative.

Jett is also taking working on Hyflex courses which add an online asynchronous option to the Blendflex format.

Students taking Hyflex courses dont need to attend class during scheduled times if they choose not to. Course materials, lectures and projects are all posted to the virtual classroom in Blackboard, so students can work through the course on their own time, as long as theyre meeting deadlines and participating in the course on Blackboard. Unlike traditional online classes, they can still attend in person or virtually during scheduled class times as they please.

I am looking forward to creating a truly hybrid learning setting in these programs that includes that important online option, Jett said. Eventually, I would like to offer all my courses this way.

This semester, three courses are available in the Hyflex mode, encompassing in-person, virtual and fully online options:

 CGRD-144 Adobe Illustrator

 ART-161 Graphic Design I

 MKTG-240 Social Media Marketing.

I believe this flexibility will go a long way to support student success, Jett said. With these flexible modes, students can choose to participate in whichever way works for them as they move through the programs. Were meeting students where they are.

Learn more about the Graphic Design program at https://www.lc.edu/program/graphic-design/ or the Web Design and Development program at https://www.lc.edu/program/webdesign/. Potential or current students can reach Jett via email at ljett@lc.edu.

The Spring 2022 semester begins Tuesday, Jan. 18. New this year, LCCC students can enroll in full-semester courses through Friday, Jan. 21. Summer course enrollment will open Feb. 14, but students can apply online anytime at www.lc.edu/admissions.

To learn more about Blendflex courses available in other programs, ask general questions, or start the enrollment process, call/text the Enrollment Center at 618-468-2222.


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London, KY (40741)

Today

Overcast. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 82F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. Low 58F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 70%.
Millions of mobile phone users will face extra charges when using their handsets in Europe later this year as some of the biggest network providers reintroduce roaming fees.

Since 2017, all phone users have enjoyed free roaming in Europe. It meant they can use mobile data and make and receive calls and texts on the same deal as they have in the UK.

However, providers including EE, Vodafone and Three have announced plans to reintroduce roaming charges this year.

Increased charges: Some of the biggest network providers are reintroducing European roaming fees

The additional charges could cost a family of four up to 100 on a two-week holiday in Europe. But there are ways you can keep costs down  or banish them altogether.

Switch provider

Virgin Mobile and O2 customers will not have to pay roaming fees in Europe, parent company Virgin Media O2 confirmed last week.

It is the only major provider to buck the trend and abstain from reintroducing the charges.

As a result, phone users who travel in Europe often and like to use their handsets while abroad, could find it makes financial sense to switch provider once their current contract ends.

However, lower costs while abroad must be weighed up against all other network costs to determine whether it would amount to an overall saving.

Before switching you should also check that your new network provides good coverage in your area: all networks have maps showing their coverage on their websites.

Switching phone network is straightforward and is arranged by the new provider. You can opt to keep your existing phone number if you wish.

All you need to do is get a porting authorisation code  known as a PAC code  from your existing provider by phoning their customer support line or by texting PAC to 65075.

Use wi-fi to make and receive calls

If your phone provider plans to start charging to make and receive calls in Europe, you could make calls over the internet, using wi-fi instead.

Services such as Skype and WhatsApp offer free calls and generally offer comparable sound quality.

You will need to find free wi-fi while abroad, often available at hotels, cafes and in public buildings.

Switch off your voicemail before you go abroad

Once providers introduce roaming charges, you may have to pay to pick up your voicemails while abroad.

To avoid this, you can turn off your voice mailbox before you travel. Callers will not be able to leave you messages, but your phone should still log missed calls, so you will know who was trying to reach you.

Keeping voicemail switched off while away could help holidaymakers avoid surprise fees

Use a different SIM card

If you plan to use your phone a lot while abroad, it may make sense to buy a local SIM card to use in your existing handset.

That should offer you cheaper local calls and web browsing. If you travel regularly and widely, a global SIM card that works in numerous countries may make better sense.

The cost of making and receiving calls and using data will vary depending on which country you are in.

Download everything you need before you travel

If you plan to watch movies or read books on your tablet or smartphone while away, download them at home before you travel.

That way, you are using your existing allowances or home wi-fi, rather than paying for roaming abroad.

You can even download maps from Google of the places you plan to visit.
Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday's ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below.

Mystery: RBS looked in the wrong place but finally the 2,000 was returned

Ms L.S. writes: I sent 2,000 from my Lloyds account to an account at the Royal Bank of Scotland, but I mistyped one digit of the RBS sort code.

I realised this the next day and informed Lloyds, and after I contacted the Ombudsman, Lloyds tried to recover my money. However, RBS responded months later, saying the RBS account had been closed since 2015 so it had returned the money to Lloyds.

Despite this, Lloyds says my money is still with RBS. We need this money badly.

Tony Hetherington replies: The original mistake was yours, and Lloyds Bank did query the sort code and account number when you made the transfer, but you have spent months since then, trying without success to find out where your 2,000 went. Your own bank, Lloyds, has even paid you 50 twice, after accepting that on two occasions it did not move quickly enough on your behalf, and the Ombudsman approved these payments.

The major stumbling block all along has been RBS's insistence that you sent your money to an account which no longer existed, so I asked officials at NatWest Group  RBS's parent company  to take another look at this.

They came back to me with an answer that was just as puzzling, saying they had found a 2,000 payment from you on the date in question, but it had gone through without a hitch.

Meanwhile, adding to an increasingly confused picture, your own bank had been contacted by Yorkshire Water, asking Lloyds to explain an unexpected 2,000 that had popped up in the water company's account.

This made even less sense when NatWest Group told me the 2,000 had gone to a personal account and not a business account.

And whatever happened to the suggestion that the money had gone to a dead account that was closed in 2015 and that it had been returned to Lloyds?

When I discussed this with you, things became a little clearer. The 2,000 was to help your daughter whose central heating boiler had failed. When the first 2,000 vanished into the banking system, rather than let her down, you paid all over again.

What NatWest Group had found and reported to me was your second payment; the first 2,000 was still missing. And then, out of the blue, Yorkshire Water re-entered the picture and returned the missing 2,000 to your account at Lloyds.

It had been sitting in the water company's NatWest Group holding account, not allocated to any of its customers because, of course, it had only gone there by accident.

NatWest Group and RBS had been looking in the wrong place, concentrating on the 2,000 that you had successfully transferred, and not on the initial 2,000 that had gone to Yorkshire Water whose account was one digit different.

Reliance on sort codes and account numbers is clearly helpful to the banks, but bad experiences like yours show that making a single slip is as easy as mis-dialling a phone number  but a lot more expensive and far harder to put right.

Why is Halifax refusing to accept my shares?

B.H. writes: I have been using Halifax Share Dealing for over 20 years. I read with interest about Primarybid's service, and I applied successfully for shares in Draper Esprit plc.

However, Primarybid then told me that Halifax refused to accept the shares into my portfolio.

The Halifax website says nothing about why it would reject shares acquired via Primarybid, so I rang and after 90 minutes in a queue, Halifax simply told me that its dealer did not want to deal with them.

Refusal: The Halifax website says nothing about why it would reject shares acquired via Primarybid, but our reader was told the shares would not be accepted into their portfolio

Tony Hetherington replies: Primarybid is a useful service that allows ordinary investors access to Initial Public Offerings, rather than those IPOs being the privileged province of the big financial institutions.

You used it to apply successfully for shares in Draper Esprit (recently renamed Molten Ventures), a venture capital firm that invests in technology companies. Normally, your shares would be passed to your broker, but Halifax Share Dealing would not accept them.

Staff there tell me that this was not because Halifax has a blanket ban on shares bought through Primarybid. The problem was with Draper Esprit itself.

Halifax's share dealing arm is intended for ordinary investors to trade in shares that are easily and freely bought and sold.

But when Halifax looked at Draper Esprit's own paperwork, it warned that typical investors were expected to be experienced traders, institutions, investors with professional advisers, or people wealthy enough to risk a complete loss.

Since Halifax was never intended for this, I cannot criticise its decision. You have reached the same conclusion and have told me you have now switched to a different broker that will accept your shares.

If you believe you are the victim of financial wrongdoing, write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TS or email tony.hetherington@mailonsunday.co.uk. Because of the high volume of enquiries, personal replies cannot be given. Please send only copies of original documents, which we regret cannot be returned.
Tomorrow is Blue Monday, known as the most depressing day of the year. The festive season is well and truly over, credit card bills are trickling in and taxes have to be paid by the end of the month.

Sadly, an increasing number of people feel blue not just for one day a year but for days, weeks and months at a time.

According to the NHS, one in four adults fall prey to some kind of mental health issue at least once a year, even before the pandemic.

Online help: Kooth's mental health service

The numbers have risen since, not just among adults but among children and teenagers too, with current estimates suggesting that around 12 million people across the UK suffer from psychological problems at any given time in the year.

Kooth works with the NHS and other organisations to help sufferers from mental health issues.

Set up in 2001, Kooth provides treatment online, offering a completely anonymous service that includes written advice, peer-to-peer support and one-on-one chats with experienced counsellors.

The company joined AIM in September 2020 and the stock rose sharply before tailing off in recent months. The decline was unwarranted and the shares, at 3.19, should increase in price as the business expands.

Kooth's number one customer is the NHS, which pays the group to offer digital services to mental health sufferers.

Originally set up for young people, Kooth has now signed contracts with 90 per cent of UK NHS trusts to help 10 to 25 year-olds suffering from problems including anxiety, self-harm and anorexia.

In recent years, the firm has added adult mental health services to its roster, recently signing contracts with NHS Trusts in Liverpool, Gloucestershire and Newcastle.

Chief executive Tim Barker has spearheaded a move into the business world as well, working with companies so they can offer digital treatments to employees who feel they need it.

Kooth services can be accessed instantly online (image posed by model)

Mental health issues cost businesses more than 40billion a year and they are the second biggest cause of staff absence (after back ache) so there is a big incentive for companies to help workers feel better.

Cost is a big issue in the public sector too. Physical counselling sessions are expensive and therapists are in short supply so NHS waiting lists run into millions. Enabling people to access help online saves huge amounts of money and, crucially, the services work.

Barker, a data expert, has reams of information showing that, in more than 70 per cent of cases, those who access Kooth feel better afterwards.

The data is useful in many other ways too, helping the NHS and business customers to spot trends, such as rising anxiety, and act on them.

Digital treatment may sound impersonal but, for many people, that is a real advantage, because the services are easy to use, free from stigma and instantly available.

A trading statement this Wednesday should prove reassuring. Brokers expect Kooth to deliver annual revenues of 16.7million for 2021, a 28 per cent increase over 2020, with further strong gains pencilled in for this year too.

Kooth is also forecast to move into profit this year and advance rapidly thereafter. Barker is highly ambitious, with a four-pronged growth strategy focused on working with increasing numbers of young people, winning more NHS contracts for adults, signing more corporate deals and expanding overseas, especially in the US.

Preliminary research suggests that Americans would be highly receptive to Kooth's services, with mental health a growing problem there as it is here.

The company also benefits from being a pioneer in its sector, drawing on more than 20 years of experience to tailor treatments to best effect.

Midas verdict: The World Economic Forum forecasts that mental health issues will cost more than 4trillion by 2030. Kooth is tiny by comparison but its treatments provide a way to help people simply, swiftly and cost-effectively.

Like Stelrad, Kooth is a UK business at the forefront of its field and, like Stelrad, the group floated to turbocharge growth. At 3.19 the shares are a buy and investors can bask in the knowledge that they are supporting a good cause too.

Traded on: AIM Ticker: KOO Contact: koothplc.com or 020 3984 9337
Consumer goods giant Unilever is working on a 50billion megadeal to buy part of rival GlaxoSmithKline, an acquisition that would transform the group.

GSK revealed last night that Unilever had made three approaches late last year  the third for 41.7billion cash and 8.3billion shares.

Unilever, 92-year-old owner of Lipton tea and Ben & Jerry's ice cream, wants to seize GSK's consumer division, adding the likes of Sensodyne, Nicorette and Panadol to its portfolio of brands.

Brush off: Glaxo rejected Unilever's secret offer for Sensodyne toothpaste maker before Christmas. The most recent offer was for third for 41.7billion cash and 8.3billion shares

The deal would also propel Unilever in size, adding about 10billion in sales and challenging Procter & Gamble as the second biggest consumer goods group in the world behind Nestle.

Unilever confirmed yesterday it had made an unsolicited approach 'about a potential acquisition' to GSK and Pfizer, which owns a stake in the division. The approach was rejected.

The Mail on Sunday understands that Unilever, which also owns Marmite and Dove soap, is this weekend preparing to restart talks.

In a statement yesterday, Unilever said: 'GSK Consumer Healthcare is a leader in the attractive consumer health space and would be a strong strategic fit as Unilever continues to reshape its portfolio. There can be no certainty that any agreement will be reached'.

GSK said it 'rejected all three proposals made on the basis that they fundamentally undervalued the Consumer Healthcare business and its future prospects'.

It added that the business can 'deliver annual organic sales growth in the range of 4-6 per cent over the medium term.'

The boards of GSK and Pfizer would have to consider higher bids, as part of their fiduciary duty to shareholders. The consumer division is valued by analysts at about 42billion. Goldman Sachs has assigned it a 48billion price tag.

Richard Buxton, fund manager at Jupiter Asset Management who has invested in GSK for a decade, said the pharma giant was 'absolutely right to reject it'.

He added: 'Unilever would be completely the wrong people to run it, given their own lacklustre performance.' GSK is focused on demerging its consumer healthcare division by the middle of this year, provisionally through a flotation.

The unit is chaired by Sir Dave Lewis, who formerly led Tesco. He had also previously worked with Alan Jope, who is now chief executive of Unilever.

Buxton added: 'The approach demonstrates GSK's consumer business is a hidden gem and with the demerger there'll be a real beginning of an understanding of what a fabulous business it is.

'You want to demerge and let the market spend 18 months to two years understanding the business in its own right and rating it accordingly, and I'm sure it's worth a lot more than 50billion.'

Household names: Panadol is another one of the portfolio of brands that Unilever could add to its stable, if its deal for GlaxoSmithKline's consumer division went ahead

The Sunday Times, which reported Unilever's interest on its website yesterday, said it is not yet clear whether Unilever's shareholders would back such a bold acquisition.

News of the approach broke just days after Unilever came under fire from high-profile fund manager Terry Smith, who said the FTSE100 company had 'lost the plot' and 'become obsessed with publicly displaying sustainability credentials at the expense of focusing on the fundamentals'.

Billionaire investor Peter Hargreaves said he agreed that Unilever must not become 'bogged down' with strategies that do not deliver for shareholders.

The City veteran, whose Blue Whale fund held the shares until 2020, said that focusing too much on environmental, social and governance targets could be a distraction.

He said: 'The most important thing for any business is profitability, because if a company is profitable you can afford to do all these [sustainable] things.'

Unilever has seen its shares drop by a tenth over the past year to 16.43. Jope, who became chief executive in 2019, is attempting to refocus on higher growth products and sectors.

Buying GSK's consumer division would allow the product ranges to benefit from being part of a much larger group, potentially making the combined value greater.

It is estimated Unilever already has a presence in about 40 per cent of GSK's consumer businesses.

Unilever found itself on the defensive in 2017 when it faced a 115billion hostile bid from US giant Kraft Heinz.

It fended off the approach. But then last year it was rocked by rumours it could be broken up by activist City funds, such as Veteran US activist Nelson Peltz.

GSK, which is led by Dame Emma Walmsley, has also come under pressure from activist investor Elliott Advisers.
James Watt once hurled stuffed cats from a helicopter over the City of London in a publicity stunt designed to lampoon 'fat-cat' corporate greed.

Now he's preparing a charm offensive with the same pinstriped ranks of financiers as his craft beer business BrewDog heads towards a float on the stock market.

The blockbuster listing, rumoured to be worth more than 2billion, is one of the most hotly-anticipated IPOs among City investors keen to buy into a premium brand following the successful float of shoe brand Dr Martens.

The brewer  famous for its guerrilla marketing campaigns  has appointed high-powered lawyers at Freshfields to help chart a course towards the stock exchange, bolstering a reshaped top team that includes finance chief Niall McCallum and former Asda boss Allan Leighton, who joined as its chairman and Watt's mentor four months ago.

Toast to the future: James Watt says BrewDog will stay rebellious as it targets an IPO

Watt, chief executive of the firm, says a float will give 'longer term liquidity' to its existing individual investors, who currently have a single day each March to trade shares.

'We're pretty much working towards IPO for them as much as anyone else. They are the heart and soul of the business,' he says, speaking over Zoom from his office at BrewDog's production hub in Aberdeenshire, dressed in a blue and white striped jumper with a white beanie hat covering his shaven head.

BrewDog's knack for grabbing headlines  including the taxidermy 'cat bombs'  have given it an international following.

Other stunts included creating a 'BrewDog Viagra' beer for Prince William's 2012 wedding taglined 'Arise Prince Willy' and Watt and co-founder Martin Dickie dressing up as red light district sex workers for a crowdfunding ad.

It has loudly championed its initiatives to share profits with employees and cap salaries for bosses at 14 times the lowest paid worker.

Annual sales growth has averaged 57 per cent over the past decade and it is on course to sell 400million cans this year.

But the past two years have delivered shocks for a company that had become accustomed to springing its own.

The pandemic at times left its pubs deserted  and Watt sleeping in the office as he was working so hard to cope with the financial battering.

Outrageous: James Watt, left, and Martin Dickie prepare to drop 'fat cats' over the City

Worse still, he received a scathing public attack with accusations of a 'rotten culture' levelled by his own former staff last summer  an episode he says made him belatedly face up to his own responsibilities as company co-founder and boss.

Watt is, therefore, perhaps uncharacteristically coy on the timing of any IPO  at least for the time being.

Stock market conditions and the outlook for Covid curbs on bars must be right to press the button, he says. 'The key thing is getting that certainty and stability back,' he adds, cautioning that the final trigger point for an IPO 'could be this year or some point in the future, we're working towards it'.

The top 10 beer brands are all companies which are 100 years old. In what other industry does that happen?'

Companies rarely signal when exactly they will float until they are ready to list.

Access to fresh capital will also allow BrewDog to pursue an aggressive international expansion strategy and continue taking on established labels. 'The top 10 beer brands are all companies which are 100 years old, in what other industry does that happen?'

A float has also long been promised for the 200,000 'equity punks' brought on board through crowdfunding rounds since the brand's launch in 2007.

Since then, the Aberdeenshire-based brand has led the march of craft brewing into the mainstream: opening branded bars and hotels at home and overseas, and selling in supermarkets.

Several other craft brewers  including Meantime and Camden Town Brewery  have been snapped up by brewing giants in recent years.

But Watt, who counts a US private equity firm as a minority investor, dismisses suggestions he might be caught up in the latest buyout frenzy, which is being led by private equity firms.

'We've had loads and loads of inbound [takeover interest]', including two approaches last year. 'We're very passionate about our independence,' he adds.

But institutional investors may still be nervous after last year's staff storm. A group of 60 employees published an open letter accusing it of pursuing growth at all costs, and Watt personally of leaving staff 'burnt out, afraid and miserable'.

It appears BrewDog's unconventional approach had spilled over into its workplace culture.

Watt, suitably contrite, says the allegations were 'difficult to hear' and the episode offered an 'opportunity to get better as a company'.

THIS IS MONEY PODCAST What's the point in saving when inflation is so high?

Covid, he says, triggered 'some tough people decisions'. It shut down its 100 bars and small collection of hotels through a string of lockdowns and played havoc with BrewDog's plans.

He admits that, even before that, expansion was so rapid that 'maybe we didn't focus on the element of strategy that we should have'.

But there is a limit to how much he's willing to grovel. 'I think a quote I heard about leadership was if you want to keep everyone happy, you should give away ice cream as opposed to run a company  sometimes things we do are not popular.

'And that's kind of part and parcel of running the company, I suppose. But some of the personal elements are tough to hear.

'Before this I was working on a North Atlantic fishing boat. I'd never been a CEO before. I take the responsibility [for BrewDog's 2,500 employees] very seriously.'

A 'period of reflection on my own leadership' followed the criticisms  as well as an independent review into the company's culture by specialist Wiser.

BrewDog then conducted leadership training, gave staff a pay rise and introduced a whistleblowing hotline. So should prospective investors be concerned there may be more skeletons in the closet?

Watt says: 'We've done a very thorough, transparent response to those issues. I think we're now in a very good place.'

Thirsty work: The Aberdeenshire-based brewer is on course to sell 400million cans this year

Meanwhile, Watt says he 'doubled down' on property investments during the pandemic, swooping on bargain sites for its bars and hotels.

Huge new venues will soon open in Waterloo, London and on the Las Vegas Strip.

Watt spent Christmas isolating alone with Covid in front of Netflix, seeing his two daughters later in the festive season.

That was followed by a trip to the Maldives, swimming with sharks. He's planning to release a documentary this year to bemoan the routine killing of sharks around the world.

But, despite what appears to have been a period in which he has matured, Watt insists the growing pains and the course towards a City listing will not mean the end of BrewDog's rebellious image.

'If I thought going into an IPO would change the essence of the business in any way, then it wouldn't be part of the plan,' Watt says.

'We might be a slightly unconventional public company, but we'll continue wearing our heart on our sleeve, continue to take a stand for the things that we believe in,' he adds.
Entrepreneur: Chika Russell received offers from all five dragons in BBC show Dragons' Den in 2015

Snacks entrepreneur Chika Russell would offer tax breaks to women who set up their own businesses if she were made Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Russell, who in 2015 received offers from all five dragons in BBC show Dragons' Den  accepting one from Peter Jones only to later turn him down  recently secured a multi-million pound investment for her African-inspired 'boldly-flavoured' snacks, Chika's.

She donates a penny from every pack sold to charity World Vision which helps young girls in Africa. Russell, 36, talked to Donna Ferguson.

What did your parents teach you about money?

I'm of Nigerian descent and my parents believed you should only spend what you have. The Nigerian saying is: adjust your coat according to your size.

My late father used to run a large Nigerian bank. He was financially astute. My mother was a businesswoman. Our family had homes in Nigeria and the UK.

By Nigerian standards, we were well off. We had drivers, cooks and cleaners. But in the UK, the naira  the currency of Nigeria  didn't convert well. By UK standards, I'm definitely not from a wealthy family. I was the youngest of seven children. We made do with what we had and lived within our means.

Have you ever struggled to make ends meet?

No, because I have always lived within my means and I have always worked. I got my first part-time job as a hairdresser at my mother's hair and beauty salon. I was just 14.

Customers would see my hair and ask me to do theirs. I started quoting ridiculous prices because I didn't want to work every weekend. It got to the point where I could earn 1,000 for four or five hours' work.

Often I would earn 2,000 a weekend. I had no living expenses and I saved every penny. By the time I was 22, I had managed to build up savings of 140,000.

What was the best financial year of your life?

Last year. My business, Chika's Foods, received an investment of 9.8million to expand it. As a result I've started paying myself a salary for the first time since I set it up seven years ago.

Buying a tuna baguette at an airport was the biggest mistake I ever made. It ended up costing me 3,800

Less than 10 per cent of private equity funding goes to female entrepreneurs  and less than one per cent goes to women like myself who are from black, Asian and other ethnic minority backgrounds.

So it's a huge deal to secure such a significant investment. Plus, around 70 per cent of my workforce in Nigeria are female, so more women in Nigeria will have jobs as a result of the investment.

The most expensive thing you bought for fun?

A black Python sky-high boots with six-inch stiletto heels. They cost 5,500.

I got them two years ago as a treat because I'd been working so hard. I could afford them because I have always saved.

I went from living with my parents to living with my husband who works in a senior role in financial services. So I have never had to spend loads on rent or anything like that.

What is your biggest money mistake?

It was a few years ago, I was flying to Portugal with my family for my niece's wedding. I had this craving for a tuna baguette when we were in the airport terminal. So I took my family off to go and buy one.

Everyone decided they wanted something to eat or drink. As a result, it took a lot longer than it would have done to get a single tuna baguette.

Eleven of us missed our flight. I then rebooked and paid for everybody's tickets which is why buying that baguette was the biggest mistake I ever made. It ended up costing me 3,800.

Treat: Chika Russell appearing on Dragons' Den with her African inspired snacks in 2015

The best money decision you have made?

Giving a penny of every product that we sell to charity World Vision. It helps empower girls and women through education. It makes me feel good because when I sell a product I am not just making money for myself, but helping make the world a better place.

One little luxury you treat yourself to?

Macaroons from Harrods. Each costs 3. I usually get them in boxes of 24, one box every six months.

Do you save into a pension?

No, but now that I am earning a salary I am planning to start this year.

Do you own any property?

I own three properties in South London which I bought when I was in my early-20s. I didn't get any help from my parents, I used the 140,000 I had saved from my part-time work as a hairdresser.

That was about 15 years ago, just before the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the 2008 global financial meltdown. I only had to put down a 10 per cent deposit on each property. Nowadays, I don't think a person my age would be allowed to take on so much risk.

Entrepreneur Chika Russell occasionally treats herself to a box of Harrods macarons

I bought a three-bedroom house in Norbury for 249,000, a two-bed flat in Clapham for 229,000 and a four-bed house in Mitcham for 349,000.

I still own them and benefited from the rental income they generated when I wasn't taking a salary from my business.

I also own three other properties with my husband, one of which is our home. It's an eight-bedroom house in London's Notting Hill that we bought six years ago and moved into three years ago after renovating it.

It cost several million pounds and we bought it outright, after selling another property we owned. I think it's risen in value by a couple of million pounds since we bought it.

Do you invest directly in the stock market?

Yes. I have an Isa which is invested in technology funds and I also invest through Hargreaves Lansdown into various opportunities I come across.

In addition, I'm interested in cryptocurrency. I have quite a large amount invested. So far I've seen a 12 per cent return on the technology funds I'm invested in and a 100 per cent return on my cryptocurrency investments.

If you were Chancellor what would you do?

I would offer tax breaks to female entrepreneurs that males could not qualify for. I think some investors have an unconscious bias towards men while others do it on purpose.

For whatever reason, both private investors and venture capital firms decide to back male founders more often.

I think the Chancellor should level the playing field and make it easier for female entrepreneurs to succeed and become role models for other women.

What is your number one financial priority?

To achieve financial independence and make a success of my business. I want to give back to all the incredible people who believed in me and put their hard-earned cash into my business.
Fuelling the debate: Should investors buy into fossil fuel companies?

Investors have long relied on oil, gas and mining companies to grow their wealth. These stocks tend to be among the UK stock market's highest producers of dividend income  and this year looks set to be no exception.

Yet some of these businesses are mired in controversy, especially the oil and gas giants as they continue to reap rich rewards from the country's energy crisis, which has resulted in household and business fuel bills rising at an alarming rate.

For example, BP's profits for the third quarter of last year jumped to 2.4billion on the back of soaring oil and gas prices with boss Bernard Looney stating that the company was a giant 'cash machine'. Meanwhile, Shell recorded record cash flows in its third quarter.

Both have rewarded shareholders with a tickle up in their quarterly dividends, although these payments still remain way below those made by the oil giants before the pandemic struck.

Mining companies  the likes of Anglo American and BHP  have also provided shareholders with a stream of attractive income on the back of rising commodity prices.

Yet, although these businesses are instrumental in the drive towards a more eco-friendly world  for example providing materials key to the production of electric cars  they have their detractors.

Like the oil giants, they are deemed environmentally unfriendly, responsible for a big chunk of the world's global carbon emissions.

For income investors, it's a dilemma. Should they invest in these companies despite their patchy environmental record and profiteering  or in the hope of them mending their ways. Or should they shun them?

WHY FOSSIL FUEL FIRMS ARE STILL WORTH A LOOK

Some investors choose to avoid businesses that actively contribute to greenhouse gas emissions by ruling out these companies altogether in their portfolios or opting for funds that screen them out.

Yet others, with the same environmental concerns, take a different approach. They invest in fossil fuel firms in the hope of using their influence as shareholders to pressure management into decarbonising their businesses and working towards energy transition  shifting to renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.

There is some evidence this approach from investors is starting to pay off. BP hopes to become a net-zero emissions business by 2050.

It has pledged to reduce oil and gas production by 40 per cent by 2030, increase its renewable energy power generation capacity, and invest up to $4billion (3billion) a year in low carbon projects.

Rival Shell has set out a similar plan to become net zero by 2050, while miner Rio Tinto aims to cut its carbon emissions in half by 2030 and work towards net zero by 2050.

Cleaning up their act? Oil giant Shell has set out a plan to become net zero by 2050, as has BP

Richard Marwood, a fund manager at Royal London Asset Management, is an advocate of this engagement approach. He believes the likes of BP and Shell can contribute to energy transition and will play a vital role given their scale.

The transformation of their businesses will mark the end of significant spending on new oilfields and this money can then be diverted to renewable energy projects.

He suggests readers ask themselves a simple question: 'The starting point has to be whether you are personally comfortable as an investor holding shares in these companies.

'Do you believe that these companies are going to be part of the transition? If the answer is yes, they're investible.'

'CANCELLED' FIRMS ARE POTENTIAL BARGAINS

The number of potential investors in fossil fuel companies is falling as growing numbers express concerns about their impact on the environment. As a result, some investment experts believe these firms are much undervalued, making them potential investment bargains.

John Bennett, a European equity fund manager at investment house Janus Henderson, describes the shares of major oil companies as 'absurdly cheap'.

He currently holds French oil giant TotalEnergies and Swedish-listed Lundin Energy in Henderson European Focus, a 345million investment trust he has run since 2010.

He adds: 'Many listed oil, gas and cement companies are seriously undervalued because many are 'cancelled' on environmental grounds, despite the fact they are decarbonising and essential for the energy transition.'

The share price of Swiss cement producer Holcim is a case in point. Bennett says: 'The share price should be 34 per cent higher than it is today, because investors are overlooking its ambitious plans to become a less carbon-intensive company.'

Royal London's Marwood believes BP and Shell look undervalued, particularly in light of the strong cash flows they produce and the prospect of annual dividends producing returns of about 4 per cent.

He says: 'I think these companies are cheap and I can see why they got this way because there haven't been many buyers of the stock.'

Marwood holds BP, Shell and mining giant Glencore in the investment fund Royal London UK Dividend Growth.

BUT WHAT IF THERE ARE NO BUYERS?

Share prices may look undervalued, but if there are not buyers out there, Marwood believes it will be hard for the investment potential of some of these companies to be realised.

It is no use buying companies that are going to become isolated because their customers move away from them Fund manager Gervais Williams

'The concern is that today's fashion for ESG (environmental, social and governance) scorecard investing runs longer than our patience can hold out,' he says.

However, Marwood adds that if shares remain depressed, companies may start to buy them back, which would help drive up the share prices and improve returns for investors.

Veteran fund manager Gervais Williams runs investment fund Premier Miton UK Multi Cap Income. He advises that anyone considering an investment in carbon-intensive stocks should ensure they opt for those that will meet the climate change emissions targets.

'It is no use buying companies that are going to become isolated because their customers move away from them, and governments won't buy from them because they are not meeting the climate change agenda,' he says.

SOME INVESTORS SEEK CLEANER ALTERNATIVES

For some investors, the idea of buying carbon-intensive companies on the grounds they are transitioning does not stack up.

'We don't feel that investing in oil on the basis of transition will ever work,' says Ketan Patel, manager of the EdenTree Responsible and Sustainable UK Equity Fund.

Attractive: Renewable energy investment trusts offer annual income between 4 and 7 per cent

He points to the potential environmental damage that the major oil companies are likely to cause in the run-up to becoming net zero.

The fund manager anticipates they will pump as much oil as they can before 2050, which will have disastrous consequences for the environment.

He adds: 'If they do want to transition, they must transition fully so they are no longer oil companies and become major renewable energy players. Also, are they going to make good on 150 years of ecological damage financially?'

Patel says there are attractive alternatives that offer a good income from less carbon-intensive sectors.

For example, renewable energy investment trusts offer annual income of between 4 and 7 per cent  the likes of Greencoat UK Wind and Bluefield Solar Income.

He says 'Renewable energy trusts can produce a high-quality income stream without the price volatility that oil, gas and mining shares are likely to experience.'
Tifton, GA (31794)

Today

Mostly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 91F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 66F. Winds light and variable.
Cumberland, MD (21502)

Today

Sun and clouds mixed. Slight chance of a rain shower. High 77F. Winds ESE at 5 to 10 mph..

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Rain likely. Low around 60F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall around a half an inch.


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Kingsport, TN (37660)

Today

Sunshine and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High around 85F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph..

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Scattered thunderstorms. Low 63F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50%.
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

 Martin Luther King, Jr. Montgomery, Alabama, March 25, 1965.

Martin Luther King Day is celebrated on the third Monday in January, a day to honor and remember Dr. King for his leadership in commanding the attention of the nation to address civil rights. On March 25, 1965, Dr. King and many others, white and black, completed their march from Selma to Montgomery to demand an end to voting rights discrimination. The national Voting Rights Act was passed later that year with overwhelming support from both parties.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 required the U.S. Justice Department to review and approve new voting laws in state and local election offices with a history of racial discrimination. In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that review requirement was out-of-date and therefore unconstitutional. Many states including Montana have passed discriminatory voting laws since this ruling. Voters denied the right to vote because of these laws must file costly and time-consuming lawsuits to prove they faced racial discrimination when they tried to vote.

Two bills now in the U.S. Senate would protect voting rights and overrule state level discriminatory voting laws. The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act addresses the 2013 U.S. Supreme Court ruling and restores the powers of the Justice Department to review and approve voting laws before they are implemented. The Freedom to Vote Act is a transformative voting rights bill that will protect and expand the right to vote, decrease the influence of money in politics and curb partisan gerrymandering. This legislation will put power back into the hands of American voters by prioritizing voting access and participation, while also modernizing future elections to ensure a system that everyone can trust.

The historic 2020 election, deemed the most secure in modern history by election officials of both parties, achieved record-shattering voter participation and necessary expansions to voter access during a deadly pandemic. Now is not the time to back down, but to surge forward. Federal voting rights protections cannot wait and are vital to saving the soul of our democracy.

The fight for voting rights has been a long and enduring battle. Dr. King and the voting rights activists of the 1960s put their bodies on the line in non-violent demonstrations to draw national attention to the moral importance of the right to vote. Today, we are called upon to stand up for the moral right of all citizens to exercise their right to participate in free and fair elections.

Your voice is powerful. Now its time to raise it up to the Oval Office. Call on the Biden-Harris White House to lead this fight to protect the freedom to vote. Montanas senators also need to hear from each and every one of us who support democracy as the cornerstone of our representative republic to change the filibuster and pass voting rights legislation.

Senator Tester: call Missoula office: 406-728-3003 or email tester.senate.gov/contact/

Senator Daines: call Missoula office: 406-549-8198 or email daines.senate.gov/connect/email-steve

Contact the President and your senators today and tell them to do whatever it takes to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Return control of our government back where it belongs  into the hands of the people.

By showing an overwhelming level of support from constituents for changing the filibuster to pass these bills, we can alter the arc of history, preserve our democracy, and protect the right to vote for all American citizens.

Nancy Leifer is the president of the League of Women Voters of Montana.

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Two words . . .

Gas prices.

The rest of it is above our pay grade.

We won't pretend to understand geopolitics like so many other keyboard warriors.

Sure, this thing might plunge us all into World War III . . .

Or, more likely, it'll just make this "dark winter" even more miserable and expensive.

Store shelves are already sparse and that'll likely worsen. Gas going to 5 bucks a gallon and beyond in the Heartland won't end human existence . . . It'll only make drivers wish it had.



Accordingly . . .



We share this quick collection of news which realizes that international events do have an impact on cowtown life as the world keeps getting smaller.

Check TKC news gathering . . .



Headed to disaster? US, Russia harden stances in talks | AP News WASHINGTON (AP) - The failure of last week's high-stakes diplomatic meetings to resolve escalating tensions over Ukraine has put Russia, the United States and its European allies in uncharted post-Cold War territory, posing significant challenges for the main players to avoid an outright and potentially disastrous confrontation.

Here's what a Russian invasion of Ukraine would mean for markets Fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine are on the rise, prompting analysts and traders to weigh the potential financial-market shock waves. "If Russia invades Ukraine, the trade is buy TY," wrote Brent Donnelly, president of Spectra Markets, in a Friday note, referring to 10-year Treasury-note futures .

After talks make no progress, is Russian attack on Ukraine more likely?: Analysis A week of diplomatic talks failed to dispel fears of a Russian attack. A week of high-profile diplomatic talks between the West and Russia have not dispelled fears that Russia may be preparing to attack Ukraine.

Fears of Russian invasion of Ukraine rise despite US push for diplomacy U.S. officials are raising alarm that Russian threats of war against Ukraine are spiking dangerously despite the conclusion of a week of diplomatic meetings aimed at avoiding the outbreak of open conflict. is preparing a "false flag" operation to use as a pretext to launch an offensive against Kyiv on top of its buildup of more than 100,000 troops on Ukraine's eastern border.

Exclusive: U.S. talks to energy firms on EU gas supply in case of Russia-Ukraine conflict The U.S. government has held talks with several international energy companies on contingency plans for supplying natural gas to Europe if conflict between Russia and Ukraine disrupts Russian supplies, two U.S. officials and two industry sources told Reuters on Friday.

Developing . . .
The Courthouse is facing a surprising amount of resistance over a mask mandate for youngsters as COVID stats spike.

Accordingly . . .

Agree or disagree about COVID or public health policy . . . There is no denying that "pandemic fatigue" is very real and residents are increasingly opposed to more restrictions.

This is exceptionally true in the suburbs of Jackson County where smaller school districts and municipalities are openly defying health dress code orders and receiving backup from GOP Missouri House & State Senate officials.

And so . . .

CHECK RESISTANCE AGAINST JACKSON COUNTY EXEC FRANK WHITE AND HIS LATEST COVID MASK MANDATE!!!

As always, the whole point of this blog is that our community should serve as a beacon to seek out alternative perspectives . . . Again, agree or disagree, we believe that it's important vital to the strength of our democracy to listen to EVERYONE in our community, laugh from time to time and examine the issues impacting all of us. And so we share A VERY EPIC THANKS TO A KICK-ASS TKC READER who sent time note our way.

We respect the effort so much that we're sharing it in full . . . Check-it . . .

Some interesting noise coming out of Jackson County . . .

Frank has proposed a K-12 Mask Mandate for all Jackson County Schools, believing that kids are super-spreaders, while the data shows that they arentbut I digress.

In order to get the bill passed, Frank is planning on break the law. With the end of the statewide State of Emergency, county charter rules are back in effect. Meaning: 2/3 support is needed to pass any ordinance or mandate.

Frank is bypassing the Charter, and is planning to claim a simple majority, knowing he wont get the required six votes. In fact, he has tweeted his support of a simply majority.

Right now, the K12 mask mandate will pass, 5-4. And the result will be immediately challenged in court, simply because it does not follow the charter.

Additionally, some of the local school districts are planning on not following the mandate. While EJC superintendents have pledged to be supportive via email, they don have the power to make the decisionultimately, the board of education at each district does.

In the recent Robinson vs. State of Missouri court ruling, it was affirmed that school boards have complete autonomy, based on state lawsand while Frank believes he has power, he doesnt.

Currently, there are only a handful of districts in EJC that dont have mask mandates, and those are who Frank is specifically targeting. But, hes most angry at Blue Springs for standing up to his last attempt to put forth a community-wide mandateand like Quinton Lucas, he much doesnt like those white folks from Blue Springs."

Finally, Frank has made it clear that he doesnt want any press of his proposed K-12 Mask Mandate. Hes told some legislative members to not publicize the vote and if youve noticed, there hasnt been much media coverage, as well. He wants to keep it quiet, doesnt want angry constituents, and wants it to pass easily. If passed, there are going to be many surprised citizens, teachers, and students. All in all, this setting up to be pretty messy. Because there is a thought one or two of the school districts will say no, Frank and the legislature will say yes, and lawsuits will be filed.

OH!! And dont pay any attention to the fact CDC just said cloth masks dont really work to stop Omicron, and that most kids wear superhero masks from Target and Gap.

############

You decide . . .
For years some of the very best TKC readers have reminded us that Mission Mall might be one of the worst development projects in Kansas City metro history.



Here's a tacit admission as much from the 4 dollar Kansas City Star Sunday paper . . .



The project was required to be substantially complete by the end of 2021 for developer Tom Valenti, of The Cameron Group in New York, to receive an estimated $36 million in tax incentives pledged by the city of Mission. With the work incomplete, both the agreement and incentives expired as the clock struck midnight on New Years Eve.



Valentis group still owns the property, so both he and city officials expect they will attempt to renegotiate a new development agreement early this year. City officials have grown frustrated after years of unmet promises, however, and it is unclear how the council may view another new Valenti proposal.



We acknowledge and share the frustration of our residents with respect to this project, Mission Mayor Sollie Flora said in a statement last month. Our top priority in any renegotiation will be protecting the Citys interests.

Translation . . .

They don't have a clue what's going to happen.

Some of the smarter people from this blog have suggested green space or a dog park.



Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com paywall blog news link . . .
TRUMBULL  Dmitri Paris long knew that there were problems with the Hillcrest Middle School pool. But for a while, the Trumbull superintendent of parks and recreation found a way to keep the pool running while seeking a permanent fix.

Then, over the summer, water started coming out of the walls in a mechanical room underneath the pools deep end.

That definitely got my attention, Paris said.

During Wednesdays meeting of the Trumbull Aquatics Facilities Committee, Paris and public works director George Estrada spoke about the pool, which has been closed since July for repairs. The pools closure has forced members of local swim teams to travel out of town for practices and competitions.

We are very mindful of the inconvenience, especially for the younger athletes that are out late at night for practices and competition, Estrada said. We recognize what a difficult time and a hardship it is for parents to manage that.

Still, he and Paris said fixing the pool  which is more than 50 years old  is easier said than done.

The notion that we can quickly recover from what we have to do (with) this pool is virtually impossible, Estrada said. It will take some considerable capital investment and time.

Paris said the issue began a few years ago when the pool really started to go into a more notable state of decline where (the water) wasnt able be balanced to a safe level regularly anymore.

He said he was able to keep the pool running as he and other officials tried to figure out a more permanent fix. Then he got the call about the water in the mechanical room.

A number of fissures developed in the upper corner of the mechanical room directly adjacent to the deep end, Paris said. It has worked its way around one corner of the mechanical room and it was now starting to work its way toward a third wall, where water was literally waterfalling through the walls of the mechanical room. We obviously had a significant mechanical failure.

The pool was deemed unsafe and it was shut down.

He said he, Estrada and a representative of an architectural firm hired on the project will give a full report Jan. 20 to town staff and stakeholders, including parents of those on Trumbull swim and dive teams. Paris said the hope is to figure out a cost for addressing the pools issues that the town can work with.

There is a number out there thats too much and theres a number out there thats going to make it work, Paris said. Lets see what we have. Lets put together real data and see where we are and move forward.

Aquatics Facilities Committee chair Jason Marsh thanked Paris and Estrada for their presentation, but he was quick to point out that the pool hasnt exactly been neglected.

Every year we put money toward it, he said. Its just now getting to a critical failure on a number of components, correct?

Paris confirmed that the was the case.

Wednesdays meeting, which was virtual, was the first meeting of the Aquatics Facilities Committee in more than a year. The group stopped meeting due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

About half of the meeting was to discuss the Hillcrest pool. The other half was to discuss the possibility of building a combination senior center, recreation department and aquatics center.

Before the committee went on hiatus, members were discussing the possibility of an aquatics center at Tashua Knolls. But, since then, the town authorized the purchase of about 25 acres of land on Hardy Lane. The land sits roughly between Church Hill Road and the Pequonnock River.

Marsh said the committee is now considering whether Hardy Lane is a good spot for a new facility. Estrada and Paris said they had been looking into it too.

We see an incredible opportunity to bring together a recreation department, a senior center and aquatics facility all in one, Estrada said.

Some members of the public said, though they like the idea of an aquatics center, they want something to be done with Hillcrest pool in the short term.

Catherine Kosak is president of the Trumbull High School Swim and Dive Splash Club. She spoke in the public comment of Wednesdays meeting, and pointed out that it would be a while before the aquatics center is complete.

It doesnt really help the current burden of our high school swimmers and their families, she said. We feel the repair of the Hillcrest pool is essential until a new pool can be built.
Tullahoma, TN (37388)

Today

Sunshine and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 82F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Variably cloudy with scattered thunderstorms. Low 61F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%.
If you know someone is a Republican or Democrat, then you might assume you know exactly where they stand on whether local jails need to be expanded.

But if recent experience in the rural, southwest Oregon county where I live is any guide, its not that simple.

The economy in Jackson County is dominated by mostly low-wage jobs in tourism, health care, agriculture and forestry, yielding a median income 24 percent lower than the national average. Yet the median home price is 9 percent higher than the national average, and one out of three households pays more than half of what they earn just for housing.

Republicans win every county commissioner election, and last year, those commissioners asked voters to authorize a new jail with three times the capacity of the old one. The local newspaper came out in favor, publishing a three-part series and a positive editorial as well.

But voters in this red county said no by nearly 3 to 1. How did this happen?

It happened because a broad-based community group of volunteers convinced voters that lockups werent the only answer. The group did intensive public outreach, pointing out that a large percentage of what was considered local crime involved mental illness, addiction, homelessness, and poverty  all underlying issues that a larger jail couldnt help.

A study they cited by the independent Vera Institute of Justice examined the experience of 77 counties and found that larger jails often become overcrowded again because expansion fails to address the root causes of an increased (jail) population.

The coalition even brought in police to make their case. They hosted forums, inviting law enforcement leaders from other counties to talk about how they reduced jail bookings instead of expanding jails. In many cases, they said, mental health professionals or social service workers were more effective and less costly than sending in police.

Tad Larson, the jail commander from Marion County, Oregon, said his county operates mobile crisis intervention teams that connect individuals with counseling services, alcohol and drug treatment, and peer mentor support.

Less than 3% of calls the crisis teams respond to result in arrests, Larson said, and the county has reduced annual jail bookings by 20 to 25 percent.

A similar program in Lane County, Oregon, responds to 24,000 calls per year involving dispute resolution, medical crises, mental illness, substance abuse, or homelessness. The program saves $15.5 million a year by handling calls that would otherwise go to the police. This reduces arrests and diverts patients from emergency rooms, according to program coordinator Tim Black.

The Real Solutions coalition also pointed out that crisis intervention alternatives are supported by a national group called Right on Crime, which was founded by well-known conservatives such as Newt Gingrich, Grover Norquist, and Mike Huckabee.

Research shows that, especially in regards to low-risk defendants, even brief jail stays can increase the chance of committing another crime in the future, Right on Crime reports.

When someone who has mental health issues is locked up pretrial it can compound their situation, Right on Crime adds. The same can be said for people who display signs of substance abuse.

While crisis response programs save money once operating, many communities need seed money and technical assistance to get started. Federal grants totaling $15 million have been awarded to 20 states, including California, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, and Utah, to help local jurisdictions to plan such programs.

Meanwhile, the Oregon legislature this year set an example by appropriating $10 million to expand local mobile-crisis programs throughout the state.

In the county where I live, the county commissioners have been silent on this subject since their proposal was soundly defeated. But the voters decision has prompted discussions among public agencies, nonprofits, and community advocates about establishing a crisis intervention system.

With continued population growth and with new fiscal challenges as a result of COVID-19, it will be particularly important to find cost-effective alternatives to continually building bigger jails, wrote four city councilors from local communities in Jackson County after voters turned down jail expansion. We hope Jackson County officials have learned those lessons too, and we look forward to working with them on constructive and practical alternatives.

That would be an example, increasingly rare these days, of a community finding a solution that everyone  no matter their political leanings  can support.

Matt Witt is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, a nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation in the West. He is a writer and photographer in Talent, Oregon.

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Annie Charnley Eveland is a retired newspaper editor and journalist. A freelance writer, she produces the weekly Etcetera column Sundays in the Union-Bulletin. Send news with contact name and daytime phone number to acereporter1979@gmail.com.
Monday is the 36th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a holiday established in 1986 for celebrating the life and the dreams of this civil rights leader and all he represented.

In the Walla Walla Valley, the tradition of honoring King and his work began well before the federal government set aside the third Monday of January each year as a holiday in his name. Students in Walla Walla rallied through downtown and held a memorial service on April 8, 1968, just four days after King was shot and killed by an assassin in Tennessee.

Through the years, the Union-Bulletin has followed many stories about King and about others celebrating the ideals he fought for as they happened throughout the year but most especially on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

From the Vault: 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. memorial service at Whitman College Martin Luther King Jr. memorial service in Cordiner Hall at Whitman College, and the walk from there to the Alder Street side of the Court House lawn for an assembly, April 8, 1968.

In my foray through the U-Bs archives this week, I was on the lookout for stories about King himself and ways the Valley has celebrated the holiday over the years.

I was hoping to find the cover for Aug. 29, 1963, the day I assume we would have printed something on Kings famous I Have a Dream speech given on the marble steps of the Lincoln Memorial at the March on Washington. But the U-Bs digital archives are missing from Jan. 1 through Oct. 31 of that year.

I was, however, able to find Page A1 for April 5, 1968, the day Kings assassination was reported. LBJ plans address on racial problems, one headline reads. President Johnson canceled his plans to fly to Hawaii to begin plans for peace talks with the North Vietnamese. Instead he planned to address a joint session of Congress to deal with the problems stemming from the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, The Associated Press reported.

Johnson said the fiber and the fabric of America were being tested and he planned to give new recommendations and suggestions for easing the plight of Black Americans.

In his statement, Johnson said: The dream of Martin Luther King has not died with him. Men who are white  men who are Black  must and will join together now as never in the past to let the forces of division know that America shall not be ruled by the bullet but by the ballot of free and just men.

In the Walla Walla Valley, community members have been coming together for many years to recognize King and to continue his work.

A U-B story that ran on Monday, Jan. 20, 1986, which was the first time Americans celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day, interviewed locals on their opinion of the day of recognition. King admirers say holiday must be more than day off, the headline by reporter Kathleen Knutson read.

Most people think of Martin Luther King as a Black leader, a catalyst for the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Many people also consider him a high-minded thinker whose philosophy of non-violence, teaching and dream are in league with that of Mahatma Gandhi, Knutson wrote.

In more recent times, students and staff at Whitman College, Walla Walla Community College and Walla Walla University have, along with many community members, honored Kings legacy with awareness programs, local rallies, speeches and more.

On Jan. 18, 2010, U-B reporter Alfred Diaz wrote about one of these events, a five-day community awareness program sponsored by Whitman, WWU and WWCC to raise awareness on the plight of women and girls who are forced into slavery. Award-winning actress Anne Archer took part in the programs to help raise participation numbers, and money collected was to be used for a Helpline womens shelter in Walla Walla.

It was also the first time all three local colleges had worked together to bring light to the issue of modern-day slavery and to raise money for the local womens shelter, Diaz reported.
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Joe Davis is the chair of Whitman's Board of Trustees. Danielle Garbe Reser served as the chair of the presidential search committee.
A nonprofit that supplies blood to hospitals in the Dakotas is offering an incentive to urge people to donate during what officials say is a national blood shortage that's further stressing the countrys health care system amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Vitalant serves about 900 hospitals nationwide, including about 85 in the region. The organization said it is experiencing "a historic, two-year-low blood supply," as COVID-19 lessens the number of healthy, available donors and prompts the cancellation of community blood drives.

Supplies of Type O blood, which is the most transfused blood type, have plummeted to under a two-day supply, according to Vitalant. During January -- National Blood Donor Month -- all Vitalant donors will be eligible to win one of four, $5,000 prepaid gift cards.

Its important for people to remember that they can give blood immediately after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine if youre healthy and well, Vitalant Chief Medical Officer Dr. Ralph Vassallo said in a statement. To ensure patient care isnt jeopardized, we need people to schedule an appointment today. Even if the appointment is several weeks from now, setting and keeping it will help replenish whats needed for both routine treatments and emergencies.

Sanford Health Bismarck "is working closely with Vitalant to preserve the necessary blood supply that will ensure all medical needs are met for patients in the communities we serve," Chief Medical Officer Dr. Chris Meeker said. "As health care across the country continues to see impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, we encourage the communities across central and western North Dakota to reach out to local blood banks and donate.

CHI St. Alexius Health didn't immediately detail its blood supply situation to the Tribune.

Blood donations at Vitalant in December fell short of the need by more than 4,500 donations. The trend has continued into January as the omicron variant of the coronavirus has led to a surge in COVID-19 cases and severe winter weather in various parts of the U.S. has impacted blood drives.

Now is the time when new blood donors, those that havent given in a while and regular donors are all needed to step up and help address this critical health care issue, Vitalant Regional Director Jennifer Bredahl said. Astonishingly, only about 3% of the population donates blood, but most people are eligible. If more people start donating, shortages could be prevented.

For more information or to schedule a donation appointment, go to vitalant.org or call 877-258-4825.

The American Red Cross -- which supplies 40% of the nation's blood -- says the shortage is the worst in more than a decade. The not-for-profit has experienced a 10% decline in the number of blood donors since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 and continues to encounter blood drive cancellations and staffing shortages. The onset of the delta variant last fall and now the omicron wave have cut deeply into donor turnout.

"Every community in America needs blood on a daily basis. At a time when many businesses and organizations across the country are experiencing pandemic challenges, the Red Cross is no different," Chief Medical Officer Dr. Pampee Young said. "And while we are all learning how to live in this new environment -- how we spend our time, where we work, how we give back, how we make a difference in the lives of others -- donating blood must continue to be part of it."

A number of American Red Cross chapters around the country are issuing a plea for donations, including the American Red Cross of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota.
Jennifer Ann Hancock was born Nov. 20, 1956, in Atlanta, to William Roy and Martha Jones Hancock. She went home to be with the Lord on Tuesday, April 26, 2022, in Gray. She was preceded in death by her father, William Roy Hancock, and her brother, Timothy Roy Hancock, as well as grandparents
Like all great things, the 2021-22 editorial boards term has come to an end. Read more
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Rome, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 16th Jan, 2022 ) :Pioneering Italian fashion designer Nino Cerruti has died at the age of 91, it was on reported Saturday.

Cerruti, who dressed many a Hollywood star in his heyday, introduced "casual chic" into men's fashion when he created the first deconstructed jacket in the 1970s.

He died at the Vercelli hospital in the northwest region of Piedmont, where he had been admitted for a hip operation, the Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported on its website.

Cerruti was one of the leading figures in men's ready-to-wear fashion in the 20th century, with a look that was at once stylish and relaxed.

"I want men more free in their elegance, more elegant in their freedom," he once said.

Tall and slim, Cerruti always insisted he be the first to try on his creations, many of which he kept stored away at the woollen mill his grandfather founded in the northern town of Biella in 1881.

"I have always dressed the same person -- myself," he once said.

tributes poured in on Saturday for the designer.

"A giant among Italian entrepreneurs has left us," said Gilberto Pichetto, deputy minister for economic development.

- 'Italy's chicest man' - Born in 1930 in Biella, Cerruti dreamt of becoming a journalist.

But after his father died when he was 20, he was forced to give up his philosophy studies to take over the family textile factory.

In the 1960s, he met Giorgio Armani and hired him as a creator of men's fashion.

The duo made a profound mark on the world of fashion, before Armani branched out with his own fashion house in 1975.

On Saturday, Carla Capasa, head of the National Chamber of Italian Fashion, mourned the passing of "Italy's chicest man".

She called the designer, often seen at his fashion shows in his signature yellow jumper, "a great innovator, a visionary creative and a forerunner of many realities today" in fashion.

"He leaves behind a great legacy: the courage to invest and believe in youth. He was the one who believed in a very young Giorgio Armani." Cerruti opened his first shop in Paris in 1967, launching his luxury brand on the path to global fame.

"Clothes only exist from the moment someone puts them on. I would like these clothes to continue to live, to soak up life," he said.

- 'Philosopher of clothing' - While French students rose up in revolt in May 1968, he revolutionised fashion by asking male and female models to walk down the catwalk in the same clothes.

"Trousers have given women freedom," he said.

He created his first line of women's clothing in the 1970s, a branch of the business that two decades later would account for a fifth of its revenue.

He then moved into perfumes, watches, shoes and jewellery.

The man nicknamed the "philosopher of clothing" dressed American actors Richard Gere and Robert Redford as well as French star Jean-Paul Belmondo.

He also made cameo appearances in Hollywood films "Cannes Man" (1996) and "Holy Man" (1998).

In the 1990s, his fashion house was asked to be the official designer of the Ferrari Formula 1 team.

Struggling to keep up with the highly competitive world of luxury fashion as an independent business, he sold his label "Cerruti 1881" to Italian investors in 2001. It was then taken over by a US investment fund, and then by the Chinese group Trinity.

After the sale, he returned to the family home in Biella.
The severe ideological divide that makes even debate impossible can only be bridged by a return to civility in dispute. Strong opinions civilly expressed is the best first step. []

One of the sadder deaths in 2021 was that of former Kansas senator Bob Dole. Wounded war-hero and long-serving politician, Dole was widely respected from people across the political spectrum not only for his skills but also for his willingness to try and work across divides to achieve common objectives.

That type of talent seems less obvious among large swathes of the political class these days. Perhaps one reason for that is an absence of civility in political life. Its much harder to forge agreement on difficult policy issues when you have spent days and weeks describing your political opponents as anything spanning the gamut from the spawn of Satan to the equivalent of name-your-dictator-of-choice.

Given just how charged American political life has become over the past 30 years, it seems difficult to imagine that there is much prospect of restoring some civility to the American public square. Dole was concerned enough about the problem that he set up The Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics, whose role is to promote political and civic participation as well as civil discourse in a bi-partisan, balanced manner.

Thats a noble goal, but the obstacles to its realization are formidable. For one thing, American political culture has not always given significant priority to civility. Its worth noting that, from the beginning of the Republic, civility has disappeared for long stretches from public discourse and debate if enough people thought the occasion demanded it.

Recall, for example, the sheer rancor that marked the first contested presidential election, that of 1800, as the Republicans and the Federalists duked it out with no holds barred. Figures like President John Adams and his erstwhile friend Thomas Jefferson were subject to pamphleteering from their opponents that left little to the imagination when it came to character assassination. Only a few years earlier, the once untouchable President George Washington, elected unopposed twice, had been vilified as a traitor and a lackey of England in newspapers and journals for signing the Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation with Great Britain in 1794.

Another factor at work is incentives. The incentives for aspiring and incumbent politicians to tone down the rhetoric are relatively few. Those political leaders who speak in a calm and reflective manner just arent going to get anywhere near as much attention as the congressmen or senators adept at getting themselves on the evening news and thus garnering publicity (very important for fundraising) by using extravagant language that verges on the apocalyptic.

All this is exacerbated by the melancholy fact that the political divisions between left and right in America are very wide and, if anything, deepening. Of course, there have always been profound and even unbridgeable disagreements about particular subjects in American politics. Whether it is slavery in the past or abortion in the present, the likelihood of some type of consensus emerging around certain important issues is often unlikely because of what different people believe to be at stake. The number of such issues, however, seems to be magnifying today.

I dont have any particular solution to this problem in American politics, but I do think that one starting point is for a deeper discussion as to what civility actually means. That, at least, would help widen appreciation of why civility is so important if republican government is to persist in America.

The first thing that helps us grasp the meaning of civility is to recognize that it is not friendship. Nor is the goal of civility for everyone to be everyone elses friend.

Rather, it involves behaving toward others in a certain manner described as civil. By this is meant politeness and a minimal level of respect that everyone merits, regardless of a persons social background, ethnicity, religion, political views, or status in society. I may strongly disagree with someones political views about subjects ranging from levels of federal government spending to foreign policy. I have a choice, however, in the way that I express my views to others. I can either be civil and polite, or I can be antagonistic and downright rude. Civility is when I choose the former way of speaking and acting over the latter.

Behaving civilly to others, however, doesnt mean that I cant state my thoughts strongly and forcibly. Civility is not about soft-peddling your opinions. Its not about avoiding a confrontation with truly evils ideas such as Marxism or fascism. Nor is civility immediately concerned with trying to establish agreement on disputed questions, let alone making indispensable debates fizzle away into a bland exchange of opinions.

If anything, civility is concerned with allowing strongly held disagreements to be articulated in ways that help underscore the nature of the differences, while also allowing onlookers to judge who has the better argument. Civility thus assists in preventing participants in public debates, as well as those trying to make up their minds about where they stand, from becoming distracted by heated rhetoric designed to inflame passions and distract people from the substance of what is being argued about.

That, Id suggest, is the most important reason why we need more civility in politics. Any political system that perpetually assigns priority to who out-shouts everyone else over grasping the substance of what is being debated cannot help but move more and more in the direction of demagoguery. And few things are more dangerous than demagoguery for the internal stability of a constitutional republic like the United States.

American politics has always been a messy, often ugly, and sometimes deeply polarizing business. A resurgence of civility wont eliminate this. To the extent, however, that civility allows space for a degree of public-mindedness and greater transparency and therefore more light than heat into the public square, its conscious cultivation can only help.

This article originally appeared in The Detroit News on Jan. 14, 2022
Geneva, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 16th Jan, 2022 ) :The World Health Organization vowed Sunday to continue demanding aid access to Ethiopia's war-ravaged Tigray region despite a complaint from Addis Ababa against the WHO chief.

Ethiopia's government said Friday it had asked the UN health agency to investigate its leader Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus -- a former Ethiopian health and foreign affairs minister -- for "harmful misinformation" and "misconduct", accusing him of backing rebels in his native Tigray.

The WHO said Sunday it was "aware that the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has dispatched a note verbale".

But, it stressed, "WHO will continue to ask the Ethiopian government to allow access to deliver humanitarian supplies and services to the seven million people in Tigray, Ethiopia, living under de facto blockade, according to the United Nations, for more than a year." Adis Ababa filed its complaint after Tedros -- the highest-profile Tigrayan abroad -- last week described conditions in the Ethiopian region as "hell" and said the government was preventing medicines and other life-saving aid from reaching locals.

The Ethiopian government said his comments threatened the WHO's integrity, and demanded Tedros be investigated for "misconduct and violation of his professional and legal responsibility".

It accused Tedros of supporting the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), the Federal government's adversary in the 14-month war in the country's north.

Ethiopia's mission to the United Nations also protested against the WHO head's remarks and called for Tedros to recuse himself "from all matters concerning Ethiopia".

WHO however stressed that Tigray was no different than any other humanitarian setting where it and other UN agencies "require unfettered access to be able to protect and promote the health and wellbeing of all vulnerable and displaced people." It pointed out that it had been prevented from delivering health supplies to Tigray since July 15, 2021, "despite multiple requests to Ethiopian authorities", even as it was allowed to deliver aid to other northern regions of the country.

Ethiopian forces and their allies have been fighting the TPLF since November 2020, when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent troops into Tigray after accusing the rebels of attacking army camps.

Thousands have died in the fighting, while many more are facing starvation.

The World food Programme warned Friday its operations were "grinding to a halt" in northern Ethiopia because fierce fighting was preventing aid from reaching millions in need.
BELGRADE (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th January, 2022) Kosovar Serbs have held a peaceful protest in the northern part of the city of Mitrovica over the breakaway government's refusal on holding a referendum on changes to the Serbian constitution, Serbian national television reported on Sunday.

According to the broadcaster, several hundred Serbs on Sunday marched peacefully through the center of northern Mitrovica, where a symbolic vote took place with several people placing sheets with the inscriptions "Yes to freedom" and "No to life in slavery" in an impromptu ballot box.

"The Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija stand firmly with their state of Serbia and want to vote in a referendum on constitutional changes related to the judiciary. We demand from the European Union, the Quint (US, UK, Germany, France) and all other international actors to give Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija the right to vote as it was possible in all previous electoral processes with respect to all agreements, procedures and existing practices," Kosovar Minister for Communities and Returns Goran Rakic told protesters as aired by the broadcaster.

On January 16, Serbian citizens will vote on the country's judicial reform. Proposed changes include the elimination of several offices, expansion of the public prosecutor's office to become a collective body, and changes regarding the election of judges. Voting in the referendum will take place at 8,029 polling stations throughout Serbia, with the exception of breakaway Kosovo and Metohija. The decision on the results of the referendum will be made by a simple majority of votes.

A delegation from the European Union and the embassies of France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States welcomed Serbia's constitutional referendum as a step towards the country's accession to the EU and the strengthening of the national judiciary. The countries also expressed regret that the Kosovo government has not allowed Serbs living on the territory of the self-proclaimed republic to vote, urging the authorities to change the decision and all sides to refrain from increasing tensions.
BERLIN (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th January, 2022) Tens of thousands of vaccination supporters and pandemic deniers rallied across Germany on Saturday as tight COVID-19 restrictions continued to apply to those resisting the shot.

Around 8,500 people took to the streets in the southwestern city of Freiburg, according to the public broadcaster ARD.

Some 6,000 of them protested curbs on public and private life, while 2,500 staged a rival demonstration.

Further 3,000 demonstrators critical of COVID-19 dissidents rallied in the northern port city of Hamburg. The rally was called to rival a planned anti-vax gathering that was cancelled as an infection security risk. Hundreds of maskless protesters defied the ban to rally outside Hamburger Kunsthalle, leading to sporadic clashes with police.

Thousands more people demonstrated in Osnabruck, Schwerin, Munich, Furth and Dusseldorf.
KIEV (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th January, 2022) The Ukrainian Ministry of Digital Transformation said on Sunday that there was evidence pointing to Russia's alleged involvement in recent cyberattacks against the country's government websites.

On Friday, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said its website, as well as websites of some other government bodies, were unavailable because of a cyberattack. The Ukrainian Security Service and the National Police opened a criminal investigation into the attacks. The Ukrainian law enforcement agencies said Russian special services may have been involved.

"So far, it can be said that all the evidence indicates that Russia is behind the cyberattack," the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry urged Ukrainians not to panic, saying that their personal data is safeguarded by the government.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN that Russia "had nothing to do" with the incident and that such claims were groundless. He added that Moscow is "nearly accustomed to the fact that Ukrainians are blaming everything on Russia, even their bad weather".
The ambassador of Burkina Faso to the Holy See, His Excellency Robert Compaore, says he appreciates Pope Francis encouragement for multilateral diplomacy.

Stanislas Kambashi, SJ and Vatican News English Africa Service- Vatican City.

Pope Francis has decried the diminished effectiveness of many international organisations as nations pursue unilateral solutions. The Holy Father made the remarks on Monday in his annual New Years address to ambassadors accredited to the Holy See. The Pope spoke to ambassadors of 183 countries whose countries have diplomatic relations with the Holy See.

The Popes message was inspiring



In his speech, Pope Francis underlined the value of multilateral diplomacy as a way of valuing diversity.

For some time now, multilateral diplomacy has been experiencing a crisis of trust due to the reduced credibility of social, governmental and intergovernmental systems, Pope Francis told the diplomats in the Vaticans Hall of Benedictions.

Reflecting on the Holy Fathers speech, Burkina Fasos ambassador to the Holy See, His Excellency Robert Compaore, said the Holy Fathers address was timely and had essential lessons.

According to diplomacy.edu, multilateral diplomacy is the cooperation of three or more countries that work toward a common goal. It has developed alongside bilateral diplomacy, mainly through congresses and conferences. Modern multilateral diplomacy begins with the co-founding of international organisations. In the wake of current challenges and globalisation, multilateral diplomacy is a necessary form of international diplomacy.



For Ambassador Compaore, Pope Francis call is an invitation for nations to build a world with solid foundations where the interests of all are well assured.

Multilateral diplomacy in Africa

For Africa, such multilateral diplomacy can be translated into the pooling of energies, notably at the African Union (AU) level, without neglecting the work done at the level of sub-regional organisations.



At the core of the Popes thought is a call for solidarity, a solidarity that consists of common action, for the defence of common interests ... Divisions will always be detrimental to us all, but unity always makes us stronger, especially given the potential that Africa as a continent has. If united, the voice of Africa would carry more weight and go so far as to win unexpected victories, said the Burkinabe diplomat.



Ambassador Compaore illustrated the kind of solidarity he has in mind with an African proverb: If you want to go fast, go alone; but go together if you want to go far.



The multidimensional security crisis in the Sahel



Pope Francis also spoke about the security situation in the Sahel, highlighting violent incidents of international terrorism in the region. For Ambassador Compaore, what is currently happening in the Sahel is a multidimensional crisis, which he says involves everyone. The eradication of terrorism in the region must bring affected nations together. It is only through multilateralism and solidarity that the crisis in the Sahel can be overcome. Otherwise, African countries in the region will continue to pay the high price we are seeing in terms of human lives.

Terrorists rarely confine themselves to one country



Ambassador Compaore warned that at the moment, Burkina Faso was like a dam and that if the dam breaks, terrorism could become more widespread on the continent.

Today, it is the country most affected by this scourge of terrorism. The Burkinabe government is doing its best to combat this threat. It has, for example, increased the budget of the defence and security forces and provided them with substantial resources to deal with this festering wound, said Mr Compaore.



Ambassador Compaore told Vatican News that the war on terrorism that his country is fighting should concern the entire international community. Countries of the Sahel need more support, he emphasised.

Burkina Faso has been grappling with militias. The al-Qaeda-linked jihadist militia group JNIM has carried out attacks in the north and northwest. At the same time, the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) is mainly active in the east and in the border region with neighbouring Niger.

Peace is a gift of God and the work of men

When all is said and done, we must remember that peace is a gift from God, said the Ambassador of Burkina Faso. The Burkinabe diplomat recalled the New Year message of the Archbishop of Ouagadougou, Cardinal Phillipe Ouedraogo, who said recently that peace is both a gift from God and the work of men.

Cardinal Ouedraogo referenced Pope Francis 55th Message for the World Day of Peace, which traditionally falls on 1 January. Peace is both a gift from on high and the fruit of a shared commitment, Pope Francis said at the beginning of the year.
With food, fuel and funding at an all-time low, the United Nations World Food Programme warns that millions in Ethiopias war-torn Tigray region will starve.

By Vatican News staff reporter

The United Nations has sounded an alarm that its life-saving food assistance operations in northern Ethiopia are about to grind to a halt. The escalation of conflict across the northern Tigray region means that no WFP convoy has reached the regional capital Mekelle since mid-December, WFP, the UNs World Food Programme said on Friday.

More worrying still, stocks of nutritionally fortified food to treat malnourished women and children have now been exhausted and the last of WFPs cereals, pulses, and oil will be distributed next week in Tigray, where millions are estimated to be in need of food assistance.

Because of fighting, food distributions are at an all-time low, WFP spokesperson, Tomson Phiri told reporters in Geneva. WFP aid workers on the ground tell me that warehouses are completely empty. In my experience thats a very dire sign, it almost never happens, he added.

Looming humanitarian disaster

Another WFP official warned, Were on the edge of a humanitarian disaster.

Were now having to choose who goes hungry to prevent another from starving, said Michael Dunford, WFPs Regional Director for Eastern Africa, calling for immediate guarantees from all parties to the conflict for safe and secure humanitarian corridors, via all routes, across northern Ethiopia.

He lamented that humanitarian supplies are simply not flowing at the pace and scale needed, adding, The lack of both food and fuel means weve only been able to reach 20% of those we should have in this latest distribution in Tigray.

Funding crunch

WFP also raised concern over an unprecedented lack of funding, saying it will likely mean millions of people will be left without food and nutrition across all of Ethiopia from next month.

More than a year into the conflict in northern Ethiopia, an estimated 9.4 million people require humanitarian food assistance. This is an increase of 2.7 million from four months ago, the highest number yet, WFP said in a statement.

The UN agency plans to reach 2.1 million people with food assistance in Tigray, along with 650,000 in the neighbouring region of Amhara and 534,000 in Afar region.

WFP is thus appealing for an additional $337 million to deliver its emergency food assistance response in northern Ethiopia and $170 million to reach those affected by severe drought in the Somali region over the next six months.

Devastating airstrikes  war crimes

The worsening situation follows numerous airstrikes in Tigray since the year began, which the UN rights office, OHCHR, said have killed at least 108 civilians since the year began, and injured 75 others, allegedly the result of Ethiopian air force operations.

Issuing an alert in Geneva, OHCHR spokesperson Liz Throssell condemned multiple, deeply disturbing reports of civilian casualties and the destruction of civilian infrastructure. Targets have included camps for displaced people and refugees, a training college, a private minibus with people aboard, and a flour mill, killing many civilians.

But the deadliest strike so far has been on Dedebit camp on 7 January, which left at least 59 people dead and injured 30 others, which UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said had left him deeply saddened.

Throssell called on the Ethiopian authorities and their allies to ensure the protection of civilians and civilian objects, in line with their obligations under international law. She warned the parties in conflict that failure to respect the principles of distinction and proportionality could amount to war crimes.

Ethiopians deserve peace

The UN Secretary-General is also calling on warring parties "to stop fighting in all its forms."

"All people who need humanitarian aid must receive it as quickly as possible, Antonio Guterres urged in a tweet on Friday. Its time to start dialogue and reconciliation," he wrote, adding that he remains "heartbroken" by the suffering of the Ethiopian people. "I can testify that all Ethiopians have always been exemplary in their generosity and hospitality towards refugees. Ethiopians deserve peace," Guterres added.

(Source: UN)
Music Time in Africa is VOAs longest running English language program. Since 1965, this award-winning program has featured pan African music that spans all genres and generations. Ethnomusicologist and Host Heather Maxwell keeps you up to date on whats happening in African music with exclusive interviews, cultural information, and of course, great music -- including rare recordings from the Leo Sarkisian Library of African Music.
By Trend

We welcome and support the beginning of Turkish-Armenian contacts, Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf Khalafov said on Saturday, Trend reports.

He noted that there is no alternative to the implementation of the joint statements adopted as a result of the Second Karabakh War and the agreements reflected in these statements

"The region must develop towards peace and stability. The only way that serves these purposes is the normalization of relations between the countries of the region, the rejection of enmity, the strengthening of trust between countries, the development of economic ties, the opening of communications and the formation of an environment for cooperation. Therefore, we welcome and support the start of Turkish-Armenian contacts initiated by Turkey. We believe that the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations also determines the normalization of Azerbaijani-Armenian relations," he said.

He stressed that first of all it meets the interests of the Armenian people, and then other countries and peoples of the region.

"Therefore, these processes must be continued, and, of course, we support them. To build trust, communications between countries should be opened, ties restored and normalized. It is definitely necessary to reject hostile moods, hostile ideology. If Armenia wants to get out of today's severe social, economic and political crisis, then, of course, it must change its policy in the region, demonstrate its good intentions, normalize relations, renounce enmity, win the trust of countries," he said.

Khalafov noted that restoration of trust implies commitment to sovereignty, territorial integrity, inviolability of each other's borders

Deputy FM expressed hope that the start of the Turkish-Armenian dialogue would speed up not only the process of normalizing relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia, but also the fulfillment of the obligations arising from the tripartite statement.
Thawing Arctic permafrost laden with billions of tons of greenhouse gases not only threatens the region's critical infrastructure but life across the planet, according a comprehensive scientific review.

Nearly 70% of the roads, pipelines, cities and industry  mostly in Russia  built on the region's softening ground are highly vulnerable to acute damage by mid-century, according to one of half-a-dozen studies on permafrost published this week by Nature.

Another study warns that methane and CO2 escaping from long-frozen soil could accelerate warming and overwhelm global efforts to cap the rise in Earth's temperature at livable levels.

Exposure of highly combustible organic matter no longer locked away by ice is also fueling unprecedented wildfires, making permafrost a triple threat, the studies report.

Blanketing a quarter of the northern hemisphere's land mass, permafrost contains twice the carbon currently in the atmosphere, and triple the amount emitted by human activity since 1850.

By definition, it is ground that has been at temperatures colder than zero degrees Celsius (32F) for more than two years, though much permafrost is thousands of years old.



Temperatures in the Arctic region have risen two to three times more quickly over the last half-century than for the world as a whole  two to three degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The region has also seen a series of freakish weather anomalies, with temperatures in winter flaring up to 40C above previous averages.

Permafrost itself has, on average, warmed nearly 0.4C from 2007 to 2016, "raising concerns about the rapid rate of thaw and potential old carbon release," note researchers led by Kimberley Miner, a scientist at the California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.



Zombie fires

Their study projects a loss of some four million square kilometers of permafrost by 2100 even under a scenario in which greenhouse gas emissions are significantly reduced in the coming decades.

Rising temperatures are not the only driver of accelerated melting.

Arctic wildfires rapidly expand the layer of permafrost subject to thawing, the researchers point out.



As the climate warms, these remote, uncontrolled blazes are projected to increase 130% to 350% by mid-century, releasing more and more permafrost carbon.

Indeed, thawing renders buried organic carbon more flammable, giving rise to "zombie fires" that smolder throughout frigid winters before igniting again in Spring and Summer.

"These below-ground fires could release legacy carbon from environments previously thought to be fire-resistant," Miner and colleagues warn.

The most immediate threat is to the region's infrastructure.



Northern hemisphere permafrost supports some 120,000 buildings, 40,000 kilometers (25,000 miles) of roads and 9,500 kilometers of pipelines, according to another study led by Jan Hjort, a scientist at Finland's University of Oulu.

"The strength of soil drops substantially as temperatures rise above the melting point and ground ice melts," the study noted.

No country is more vulnerable than Russia, where several large cities and substantial industrial plant sit atop frozen soil.

Some 80% of buildings in the city of Vorkuta are already showing deformations caused by shifting permafrost.

Nearly half of oil and gas extraction fields in the Russian Arctic are in areas with permafrost hazards threatening current infrastructure and future developments.

Sudden collapse

In 2020, a fuel tank ruptured after its supports suddenly sank into the ground near the Siberian city of Norilsk, spilling 21,000 tons of diesel into nearby rivers.

Thawing permafrost was blamed for weakening the plant's foundation.

North America does not have large industrial centers built on permafrost, but tens of thousands of kilometers of roads and pipelines are increasingly vulnerable too.

While scientists know far more than a decade ago, basic questions remain unanswered as to how much carbon may be released as Arctic soil warms.

As a result, "permafrost dynamics are often not included in Earth system models," which means their potential impact of Earth's rising temperature are not adequately taken into account, Miner and colleagues note.

This is especially true, they warn, for the sudden structural collapse of permafrost, a process known as thermokarst.

It is also still an open question as to whether climate shifts will cause the Arctic region to become drier or wetter.

The answer has huge implications.

"In a greener, wetter Arctic, plants will offset some or all permafrost carbon emissions," the authors note.

In a browner, drier Arctic, however, CO2 emissions from decomposing soils and the amount of ever-more flammable fuels for wildfires will increase.

Permafrost covers 30 million square kilometers, roughly half of it in the Arctic, and a million km2 across the Tibetan Plateau. Most of the rest was covered when seas rose at the end of the last ice age.
The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said early Sunday 326.2 million people around the world have been infected with the coronavirus, while 5.5 million deaths have been recorded. More than 9 billion vaccines have been administered, the center reported.

UNICEFS executive director said Saturdays shipment of 1.1 million COVID vaccines to Rwanda included the billionth dose supplied to COVAX. Henrietta Fore said, With so many people yet to be offered a single dose, we know we have much more to do.

COVAX is the international alliance working to ensure the equitable allotment of COVID vaccines to low- and medium-income countries.

One case of the omicron variant of the coronavirus has been detected in Beijing -- a rare breach of the citys strict containment measures -- as Chinese authorities battle outbreaks elsewhere before the February opening of the Winter Olympics in Beijing and the start of the Lunar New Year.

A locally transmitted omicron infection was discovered in Beijings Haidaian district Saturday morning, Beijing disease prevention and control official Pang Xinghuo said at a news conference.

Pang said other occupants in the patients residential building and an office building were being tested and that access to 17 locations linked to the patient had been restricted.

Officials in the southern city of Zhuhai suspended the citys bus service after uncovering seven cases of the highly contagious variant and advised residents to stay home.

Authorities in China are also trying to contain a series of outbreaks, including from the omicron variant, in the port city of Tianjin, the central city of Anyang and in other smaller cities, keeping millions of people in lockdown across the country.

Additionally, Chinas National Health Commission spokesperson, Mi Feng, warned Saturday that China is facing "severe" challenges before the Feb. 1 beginning of the Lunar New Year amid the spread of omicron and delta variants.

"The Lunar New Year travel rush is about to start," Mi noted. "The migration and gathering of people will increase significantly."

In the next week or two, Americans will begin receiving free rapid home coronavirus tests from the U.S. government. Residents will have to request the tests on a designated website. The tests have been almost impossible to find in stores.

The Russian government on Friday delayed approving unpopular legislation that would have restricted access to public places without proof of COVID-19 vaccination, amid a surge in new infections.

The Associated Press reports the bill would have required Russians seeking to enter certain public places to have a QR code either confirming vaccination, recent recovery from COVID-19 or a medical exemption from immunization.

Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said the measure was pulled due to uncertainty regarding its effectiveness as it was drawn up in response to the delta variant of the virus that causes COVID-19. The omicron variant is currently driving a surge in new infections in the country.

Meanwhile, a French court suspended an outdoor mask requirement in the streets of Paris. The requirement had been imposed Dec. 31 in an effort to suppress the spread of the omicron variant.

A court in Versailles on Wednesday suspended a similar outdoor masking requirement for the Yvelines region.

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse.
A suicide bomber in the Somali capital has injured government spokesman and former journalist Mohamed Ibrahim Moalimuu.

Witnesses told VOA Somali that a suicide bomber ran toward Moalimuus vehicle in central Mogadishu and detonated an explosive vest.

Moalimuu sustained injuries to the hand and leg from shrapnel from the device.

The Somali militant group al-Shabab immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

Moalimuu has survived at least three previous al-Shabab attacks, and tweeted It was a lucky escape after surviving one in 2016.

Somali Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble has condemned the odious terrorist attack that targeted Moalimuu. Roble said Moalimuu is in stable condition and wished him a quick recovery.

Moalimuu is a former journalist for the BBC Somali Service. He also led the Federation of Somali Journalists a national union of professional journalists in Somalia, before joining the government.

A person-borne homemade bomb, used increasingly in recent months by al-Shabab, targeted Moalimuu, according to security sources.

On November 20, a similar device killed journalist and director of Somali government radio Abdiaziz Mohamud Guled Abdiaziz Africa in Mogadishu. Todays attack appeared to use the same technique.
Police say one hostage has been released uninjured from a Texas synagogue where a man had been holding four people.

The Colleyville Police Department said the man was released shortly after 5 p.m. Saturday. He was expected to be reunited with his family soon and did not require medical attention.

FBI crisis negotiators were continuing to communicate with the man who took the hostages, police said.

Earlier, authorities said a man took the hostages Saturday and could be heard in the livestreamed services demanding the release of a Pakistani neuroscientist who was convicted of trying to kill U.S. Army officers in Afghanistan.

The Colleyville Police Department tweeted Saturday afternoon that it was conducting SWAT operations at the address of Congregation Beth Israel, northeast of Fort Worth.

Initially at least four hostages were believed to be inside the synagogue, according to two law enforcement officials who were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation and who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. The synagogue's rabbi was believed to be among the hostages, one of the officials said.

Authorities are still trying to discern a motive for the attack. The hostage-taker was heard demanding the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist suspected of having ties to al-Qaida. She was convicted of trying to kill U.S. military officers while in custody in Afghanistan, the officials said. He also said he wanted to be able to speak with her, according to the officials. Siddiqui is in federal prison in Texas.

John Floyd, of the Houston, Texas, chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and long-time legal counsel for the brother of Aafia Siddiqui, said his client is not responsible for the incident:

We strongly condemn the hostage-taking at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas. This antisemitic attack against a house of worship is unacceptable. We stand in solidarity with the Jewish community, and we pray that law enforcement authorities are able to swiftly free the hostages and bring them to safety. We want to make it very well known that the hostage-taker is NOT Dr. Aafia Siddiquis brother  We want the hostage-taker to know that Dr. Aafia Siddiqui and her family strongly condemn this act and do not stand by you. Dr. Aafias family has always stood firm in advocating for the release of their sister from incarceration by legal and non-violent means only.

Investigators have not positively identified the man, officials said.

Police were first called to the synagogue around 11 a.m. and people were evacuated from the surrounding neighborhood soon after that, FBI Dallas spokesperson Katie Chaumont said. There have been no reported injuries, she added. She did not say whether the hostage-taker was armed.

The services were being livestreamed on the synagogue's Facebook page for a time. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that an angry man could be heard talking about religion at times during the livestream, which didn't show what was happening inside the synagogue.

Shortly before 2 p.m., the feed cut out. A Meta company spokesperson later confirmed that Facebook removed the video.

Multiple people heard the hostage-taker refer to Siddiqui as his "sister" on the livestream, but Faizan Syed, the executive director of Council on American-Islamic Relations in Dallas Fort-Worth Texas, told The Associated Press that Siddiqui's brother, Mohammad Siddiqui, was not involved. Syed said CAIR's support and prayers were with the people being held in the synagogue.

Texas resident Victoria Francis told the AP that she watched about an hour of the livestream before it cut out.

"He was just all over the map. He was pretty irritated and the more irritated he got, he'd make more threats, she said. "He was clearly in extreme distress."

Francis, who lives in Rhome, Texas, and grew up near Colleyville, tuned in after she read about the hostage situation.

"It's a scary situation. I'm hopeful it ends the best way it can, obviously with no one hurt," she said. "Especially in this area, you never think something like this is going to hit home until it does."

Colleyville, a community of about 26,000 people, is about 23 kilometers northeast of Fort Worth.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki tweeted Saturday evening that President Joe Biden had been briefed and was receiving updates from senior officials.

Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist with advanced degrees from Brandeis University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was sentenced in 2010 to 86 years in prison on charges that she assaulted and shot at U.S. Army officers after being detained in Afghanistan two years earlier. The punishment sparked outrage in Pakistan among political leaders and her supporters, who viewed her as victimized by the American criminal justice system.

In the years since, Pakistan officials have expressed interest publicly in any sort of deal or swap that could result in her release from U.S. custody, and her case has continued to draw attention from supporters. In 2018, for instance, an Ohio man who prosecutors say planned to fly to Texas and attack the prison where Siddiqui is being held in an attempt to free her was sentenced to 22 years in prison.
Four hostages are safe and their captor is dead after an hourslong standoff that began when the man took over services at a Texas synagogue where he could be heard ranting on a livestream and demanding the release of a Pakistani neuroscientist who was convicted of trying to kill U.S. Army officers in Afghanistan.

One hostage held Saturday at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville was released during the standoff; three others got out about 9 p.m. when an FBI SWAT team entered the building, authorities said. The hostage-taker was killed and FBI Special Agent in Charge Matt DeSarno said a team would investigate "the shooting incident."

Video from Dallas TV station WFAA shows people running out a door of the synagogue, and then a man holding a gun opening the same door just seconds later, before he turns around and closes the door. Moments later, several rounds of gunfire can be heard, followed by the sound of an explosion.

FBI and police spokespeople declined to answer questions about who shot the man.

DeSarno said the hostage-taker was specifically focused on an issue not directly connected to the Jewish community, and there was no immediate indication that the man was part of any broader plan. But DeSarno said the agency's investigation "will have global reach."

It wasn't clear why the attacker chose the synagogue.

Law enforcement officials who were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation and spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity earlier said that the hostage-taker demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist suspected of having ties to al-Qaida. He also said he wanted to be able to speak with her, according to the officials. Siddiqui is in federal prison in Texas.

DeSarno said Saturday night that the man had been identified "but we are not prepared to release his identity or confirm his identity at this time."

A rabbi in New York City received a call from the rabbi believed to be held hostage in the synagogue to demand Siddiqui's release, a law enforcement official said. The New York rabbi then called 911.

Police were first called to the synagogue around 11 a.m. and people were evacuated from the surrounding neighborhood soon after that, FBI Dallas spokesperson Katie Chaumont said.

Saturday's services were being livestreamed on the synagogue's Facebook page for a time. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that an angry man could be heard ranting and talking about religion at times during the livestream, which didn't show what was happening inside the synagogue.

Shortly before 2 p.m., the man said, "You got to do something. I don't want to see this guy dead." Moments later, the feed cut out. A Meta company spokesperson later confirmed that Facebook removed the video.

Multiple people heard the hostage-taker refer to Siddiqui as his "sister" on the livestream. But John Floyd, board chair for the Houston chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations,  the nation's largest Muslim advocacy group  said Siddiqui's brother, Mohammad Siddiqui, was not involved.

"This assailant has nothing to do with Dr. Aafia, her family, or the global campaign to get justice for Dr. Aafia. We want the assailant to know that his actions are wicked and directly undermine those of us who are seeking justice for Dr. Aafia," said Floyd, who also is legal counsel for Mohammad Siddiqui. "We have confirmed that the family member being wrongly accused of this heinous act is not near the DFW Metro area."

Texas resident Victoria Francis told the AP that she watched about an hour of the livestream before it cut out. She said she heard the man rant against America and claim he had a bomb.

"He was just all over the map. He was pretty irritated and the more irritated he got, he'd make more threats, like 'I'm the guy with the bomb. If you make a mistake, this is all on you.' And he'd laugh at that," she said. "He was clearly in extreme distress."

Francis, who grew up near Colleyville, tuned in after she read about the hostage situation. She said it sounded like the man was talking to the police department on the phone, with the rabbi and another person trying to help with the negotiations.

Colleyville, a community of about 26,000 people, is about 23 kilometers northeast of Fort Worth. The synagogue is nestled among large houses in a leafy residential neighborhood that includes several churches, a middle and elementary school and a horse farm.

Congregation Beth Israel is led by Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, who has been there since 2006 as the synagogue's first full-time rabbi. He has worked to bring a sense of spirituality, compassion and learning to the community, according to his biography, and he loves welcoming everyone, including LGBT people, into the congregation.

Anna Salton Eisen, a founder and former president of the synagogue, said the congregation has about 140 members and Cytron-Walker has worked hard to build interfaith relationships in the community, including doing pulpit swaps and participating in a community peace walk. She described Saturday's events as "surreal."

"This is unlike anything we've ever experienced. You know, it's a small town and it's a small congregation," Eisen said as the hostage situation was ongoing. "No matter how it turns out it's hard to fathom how we will all be changed by this, because surely we will be."

President Joe Biden issued a statement thanking law enforcement after the hostage situation ended.

"There is more we will learn in the days ahead about the motivations of the hostage-taker. But let me be clear to anyone who intends to spread hate  we will stand against antisemitism and against the rise of extremism in this country," Biden said.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Twitter that he had been monitoring the situation closely. "This event is a stark reminder that antisemitism is still alive and we must continue to fight it worldwide," he wrote. He said he was "relieved and thankful" that the hostages were rescued.

The standoff had prompted increased security in other places, including New York City, where police said that they had increased their presence "at key Jewish institutions" out of an abundance of caution.

Siddiqui earned advanced degrees from Brandeis University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before she was sentenced in 2010 to 86 years in prison on charges that she assaulted and shot at U.S. Army officers after being detained in Afghanistan two years earlier. The punishment sparked outrage in Pakistan among political leaders and her supporters, who viewed her as victimized by the American criminal justice system.

In the years since, Pakistan officials have expressed interest publicly in any sort of deal or swap that could result in her release from U.S. custody, and her case has continued to draw attention from supporters. In 2018, for instance, an Ohio man who prosecutors say planned to fly to Texas and attack the prison where Siddiqui is being held in an attempt to free her was sentenced to 22 years in prison.
A massive volcanic eruption in Tonga that triggered tsunami waves around the Pacific caused "significant damage" to the island nation's capital and smothered it in dust, but the full extent was unclear with communications still hampered Monday.

The eruption on Saturday was so powerful it was recorded around the world and heard as far away as Alaska, triggering a tsunami that flooded Pacific coastlines from Japan to the United States.

The capital Nuku'alofa suffered "significant" damage, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said, adding there had been no reports of injury or death but a full assessment was not yet possible with communication lines down.

"The tsunami has had a significant impact on the foreshore on the northern side of Nuku'alofa with boats and large boulders washed ashore," Ardern said after contact with the New Zealand embassy in Tonga.

"Nuku'alofa is covered in a thick film of volcanic dust but otherwise conditions are calm and stable."

Tonga was in need of water supplies, she said, as "the ash cloud has caused contamination."

There has been no word on damage in the outer islands and New Zealand will send an air force reconnaissance aircraft "as soon as atmospheric conditions allow", the country's Defense Force tweeted.

Tonga has also accepted Canberra's offer to send a surveillance flight, Australia's foreign office said, adding it is also immediately prepared to supply "critical humanitarian supplies."

The United States and the World Health Organization have also pledged support, while the United Nations children's agency said it was preparing emergency supplies to fly in.

A 1.2-meter wave swept ashore in the Tongan capital with residents reporting they had fled to higher ground, leaving behind flooded houses, some with structural damage, as small stones and ash fell from the sky.

"It was massive, the ground shook, our house was shaking. It came in waves. My younger brother thought bombs were exploding nearby," resident Mere Taufa told the Stuff news website Saturday.

She said water filled their home minutes later and she watched the wall of a neighboring house collapse.

"We just knew straight away it was a tsunami. Just water gushing into our home," Taufa said.

"You could just hear screams everywhere, people screaming for safety, for everyone to get to higher ground."

Tonga's King Tupou VI was reported to have been evacuated from the Royal Palace in Nuku'alofa and taken by police convoy to a villa well away from the coastline.

Dramatic satellite images showed the long, rumbling eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano spew smoke and ash in the air, with a thunderous roar heard 10,000 kilometers away in Alaska.

The eruption triggered tsunamis across the Pacific with waves of 1.74 meters measured in Chanaral, Chile, more than 10,000 kilometers away, and smaller waves seen along the Pacific coast from Alaska to Mexico.

Two women drowned on a beach in northern Peru due to "anomalous waves" caused by the eruption, authorities said Sunday, and dozens of people required rescue from flooding in the south of the country.

In California, the city of Santa Cruz was hit by flooding due to a tidal surge generated by the tsunami, while waves of around 1.2 meters hit along Japan's Pacific coast.

The U.S. Geological Survey recorded Saturday's eruption as equivalent to a 5.8-magnitude earthquake at zero depth.

The volcano's eruption lasted at least eight minutes and sent plumes of gas, ash and smoke several kilometers into the air.

New Zealand scientist Marco Brenna described the impact as "relatively mild" but said another eruption with a much bigger impact could not be ruled out.

The eruption was so powerful it was even heard in Alaska, the UAF Geophysical Institute tweeted, saying the fact it was audible was "fairly unique."

It cited Alaska Volcano Observatory scientist David Fee as recalling "only a couple other volcanic eruptions doing something like this" -- namely, the 19th-century eruption of Indonesia's Krakatau, and Alaska's Novarupta, the most powerful volcanic eruption of the 20th century.

The Fife weather station in Scotland tweeted it was "just incredible to think of the power that can send a shockwave around the world" after the eruptions produced a jump in its air pressure graph.

Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai, which lies about 65 kilometers north of Nuku'alofa, has a history of volatility.

In recent years, it breached sea level during a 2009 eruption while in 2015 it spewed so many large rocks and ash into the air that when they settled, a new island had formed two kilometers long by one kilometer wide and 100 meters high.
Iranian authorities confirmed that they have re-incarcerated French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah for breaking house arrest restrictions.

The judiciary news website Mizan.news on January 16 quoted the deputy head of the judiciary, Kazem Gharibabadi, as saying Adelkhah, who had been furloughed with an electronic-monitoring bracelet, violated judicial restrictions dozens of times.

The official claimed that Adelkhah, 62, violated the limits of her house arrest despite repeated warnings from judicial authorities.

On January 12, the French Foreign Ministry condemned Adelkhah's new imprisonment and demanded her immediate release, saying her case has negative consequences on the relationship between Paris and Tehran.

She holds both Iranian and French passports, but Iran doesnt recognize dual nationality. Iranian officials insist that Adelkhah is an Iranian citizen and have denied French consular staff access to her.

Adelkhah, an expert on Iran and Shia Islam at France's prestigious Paris Institute of Political Studies, was arrested on June 5, 2019, at Tehran airport.

Adelkhah was given a five-year sentence for conspiring against national security. Iranian authorities have not provided any solid evidence to back the charges.

In October 2020, she was allowed to live under house arrest at her sisters home in Tehran, wearing an electronic-monitoring bracelet.

Adelkhah is one of at least a dozen Western nationals believed to be held in Iran. Rights groups accuse Iran of using foreign detainees as bargaining chips for money or influence in negotiations with the West.

Iran denies it, though there have been such prisoner exchanges in the past. In March 2020, Iran released Adelkhah's French colleague and partner, Roland Marchal, in a prisoner exchange with France.

Marchal, who was arrested in June 2019 alongside Adelkhah, was swapped for Iranian engineer Jalal Ruhollahnejad.

Information from AFP and AP was used in this report
Microsoft said late Saturday that dozens of computer systems at an unspecified number of Ukrainian government agencies have been infected with destructive malware disguised as ransomware, a disclosure suggesting an attention-grabbing defacement attack on official websites was a diversion. The extent of the damage was not immediately clear.

The attack comes as the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine looms and diplomatic talks to resolve the tense stand-off appear stalled.

Microsoft said in a short blog post that amounted to the clanging of an industry alarm that it first detected the malware on Thursday. That would coincide with the attack that simultaneously took some 70 government websites temporarily offline.

The disclosure followed a Reuters report earlier in the day quoting a top Ukrainian security official as saying the defacement was indeed cover for a malicious attack.

Separately, a top private sector cybersecurity executive in Kyiv told The Associated Press how the attack succeeded: The intruders penetrated the government networks through a shared software supplier in a so-called supply-chain attack in the fashion of the 2000 SolarWinds Russian cyberespionage campaign targeting the U.S. government.

Microsoft said in a different, technical post that the affected systems span multiple government, non-profit, and information technology organizations. It said it did not know how many more organizations in Ukraine or elsewhere might be affected but said it expected to learn of more infections.

The malware is disguised as ransomware but, if activated by the attacker, would render the infected computer system inoperable, Microsoft said. In short, it lacks a ransom recovery mechanism.

Microsoft said the malware executes when an associated device is powered down, a typical initial reaction to a ransomware attack.

Microsoft said it was not yet able to assess the intent of the destructive activity or associate the attack with any known threat actors. The Ukrainian security official, Serhiy Demedyuk, was quoted by Reuters as saying the attackers used malware similar to that used by Russian intelligence. He is deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council.

A preliminary investigation led Ukraine's Security Service, the SBU, to blame the web defacement on hacker groups linked to Russia's intelligence services. Moscow has repeatedly denied involvement in cyberattacks against Ukraine.

Tensions with Russia have been running high in recent weeks after Moscow amassed an estimated 100,000 troops near Ukraine's border. Experts say they expect any invasion would have a cyber component, which is integral to modern hybrid warfare.

Demedyuk told Reuters in written comments that the defacement was just a cover for more destructive actions that were taking place behind the scenes and the consequences of which we will feel in the near future. The story did not elaborate and Demedyuk could not immediately be reached for comment.

Oleh Derevianko, a leading private sector expert and founder of the ISSP cybersecurity firm, told the AP he did not know how serious the damage was. He said also unknown is what else the attackers might have achieved after breaking into KitSoft, the developer exploited to sow the malware.

In 2017, Russia targeted Ukraine with one of the most damaging cyberattacks on record with the NotPetya virus, causing more than $10 billion in damage globally. That virus, also disguised as ransomware, was a so-called wiper that erased entire networks.

Ukraine has suffered the unfortunate fate of being the world's proving ground for cyberconflict. Russia state-backed hackers nearly thwarted its 2014 national elections and briefly crippling parts of its power grid during the winters of 2015 and 2016.

In Friday's mass web defacement, a message left by the attackers claimed they had destroyed data and placed it online, which Ukrainian authorities said had not happened.

The message told Ukrainians to be afraid and expect the worst.

Ukrainian cybersecurity professionals have been fortifying the defenses of critical infrastructure since 2017, with more than $40 million in U.S. assistance. They are particularly concerned about Russian attacks on the power grid, rail network and central bank.
Several hundred migrants who had departed from the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula on Saturday in hopes of reaching the United States entered Guatemalan territory where they were intercepted by authorities who began talks on returning them to their homelands.

Some 300 migrants, mainly Hondurans and Nicaraguans, arrived in Corinto, Honduras Saturday afternoon and crossed into the Guatemalan border province of Izabal, where they were met by hundreds of anti-riot agents from the national police and army.

The Guatemalan Migration Institute said it was in talks with the migrants on returning them to their countries of origin. Those who wish to remain in Guatemala must present their personal identification document, vaccination card and a negative test for the coronavirus.

People are being returned, everything in order, humanely, said institute general director Carlos Emilio Morales. We are protecting our borders; we are protecting the health of all Guatemalans.

Guatemala's government said 36 people were deported to Honduras because they did not meet the requirements and a group of 10 who met immigration and health requirements were allowed to continue.

The migrants had begun their journey toward the U.S. from San Pedro Sula shortly after dawn Saturday, walking to the Guatemalan border in hopes that travelling in a group would be safer or cheaper than trying to hire smugglers or trying on their own. They were joined by a second smaller group.

Fabricio Ordonez, a young Honduran laborer, said he had joined the group in hopes of giving a new life to my family.

The dream is to be in the United States to be able to do many things in Honduras, he said, adding he was pessimistic that left-leaning President-elect Xiomara Castro, who takes office on Jan. 27, would be able to quickly solve the Central American nation's economic and social problems after 12 years of conservative administrations plagued by scandal.

They have looted everything, he said. It is going to be very hard for this government to improve things.

Nicaraguan marcher Ubaldo Lopez expressed hope that local officials would not try to hinder this group, as they have in the past.

We know this is a very hard road and we ask God and the Honduran government to please accompany us to the border with Guatemala and not put more roadblocks, he said.

He said he hoped that Guatemala and Mexico also would allow the group to pass and that the U.S. government will open the doors to us -- despite repeated recent examples of regional governments, often under U.S. pressure, trying to halt such caravans.

The caravan, which is the first to be registered this year, originally had about 600 members but divided into several groups to try to evade the control of the Guatemalan authorities and go through the different border crossings and illegal routes.

Large numbers of migrants, many from Central America and Haiti, have reached the U.S. border over the past year, creating a headache for the administration of President Joe Biden.

In December, 56 migrants died when a truck carrying more than a hundred foreigners overturned on a highway in southern Mexico.

The U.S. Border Patrol has said it had more than 1.6 million encounters with migrants along the Mexican border between September 2020 and the same month in 2021, more than four times the total of the previous fiscal year.

Biden has backed proposals for $7 billion in aid to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras in hopes improved economic conditions will slow migration.

At the end of last year, the U.S. government reactivated an immigration policy that forced asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their hearings. Mexico's foreign ministry confirmed the reactivation of the U.S. program and said it would temporarily not return migrants to their countries of origin for humanitarian reasons.

The government of Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has indicated that Washington has accepted its humanitarian concerns with the program, including the need for greater resources for shelters and international organizations, protection for vulnerable groups, consideration of local security conditions as well as vaccines and anti-COVID-19 measures from migrants.
The caskets were brought one by one  all 15 of them  on a frigid winter day, as hundreds of mourners filled a Bronx mosque Sunday to bid farewell to those who died exactly a week ago trying to escape their smoke-filled apartment building.

Many hundreds more huddled outside, peering into the mosque's windows or watching on big-screen televisions, to pay their respects after New York City's deadliest fire in three decades.

"One week they were with us ... now they're gone," said Musa Kabba, the imam at the Masjid-Ur-Rahmah mosque, where many of the deceased had prayed. "Last Sunday it happened, and today we are about to bury these families. It is hard."

In all, 17 people died in the fire, which authorities said was sparked by a faulty space heater in a third-floor apartment. Among the dead were eight children as young as 2, whose tiny caskets underscored the day's loss.

All of those who lost their lives collapsed and were overcome by smoke while trying to descend the building's stairwell.

Sunday's mass funeral at the Islamic Cultural Center capped a week of prayers and mourning within a close-knit community hailing from West Africa, most with connections to the small country of Gambia  where four of the victims would be buried, officials said. Eleven of the victims were transported to a cemetery in New Jersey.

Earlier in the week, burial services were held for two children at a mosque in Harlem.

"This is a sad situation. But everything comes from God. Tragedies always happen, we just thank Allah that we can all come together," said Haji Dukuray, the uncle of Haja Dukuray, who died with three of her children and her husband.

Men and women alike wept openly as six children and nine adults were given final rites before their caskets were returned to the hearses.

Ibrahim Saho's reddened eyes welled with tears as he rattled off the family names of the deceased. "A lot of people, too many people," he said, dabbing tears.

Amid the mourning, there was also frustration and anger, as family, friends and neighbors of the dead tried to make sense of the tragedy.

"There's outcry. There's injustice. There's neglect," said Sheikh Musa Drammeh, who was among those leading the response to the tragedy.

Some residents said space heaters were sometimes needed to supplement the building's heat, and apartment repairs weren't always done in a timely fashion  if at all.

Because of the magnitude of the tragedy, funeral organizers insisted on a public funeral to bring attention to the plight of immigrant families across New York City.

"We want the world to know that they died because they lived in the Bronx," Drammeh asserted. "If they lived in midtown Manhattan, they would not have died. Why? Because they wouldn't need to use space heaters. This is a public outcry. Therefore, there has to be responsibility from the elected officials to change the conditions that causes death every single day."

New York City Mayor Eric Adams, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin, as well as two officials representing the Gambian government, attended the funeral services.

"When tragedies occur, we come together," Schumer said.

Adams later added that he was there "to express the pain all New Yorkers are experiencing."

New York Attorney General Letitia James vowed to investigate, saying "there were conditions in that building that should have been corrected."

The investigation into the fire is ongoing.

The fire itself was contained to one unit and an adjoining hallway, but investigators said the door to the apartment and a stairway door many floors up had been left open, creating a flue that allowed plumes of black, choking smoke to quickly spread throughout the 19-story building.

New York City fire codes generally require apartment doors at larger apartment developments to be spring-loaded and slam shut automatically.

In the wake of the deaths, a coalition of officials  including federal, state and city lawmakers  announced a legislative agenda they hoped would stiffen fire codes and building standards to prevent similar tragedies from happening.

The proposals range from requiring that space heaters automatically shut off, to mandating that federally funded apartment projects install self-closing doors on units and stairwells, which would have to be inspected on a monthly basis.

As families bid farewell to their loved ones, others remained in hospitals, some in serious condition because of smoke inhalation.

Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Sunday that $2 million in aid would be available to help families recover from the tragedy, including help to replace damaged property and money to help with rent or finding a new place to live.

The Mayor's Fund, Bank of America and other groups said 118 families displaced by the fire would each get $2,250 in aid.

Fundraisers have collected about $400,000 thus far.

All week, family members had been anxious to lay their loved ones to rest in line with Islamic tradition, which calls for burial as soon after death as possible. But complications over identifying the victims delayed their release to funeral homes.
The pandemic and the ever-changing nature of the coronavirus has made it clear that high-speed internet access is a fundamental necessity for families, businesses and students. Yet even before the virtual shift caused by Covid-19, too many New Yorkers were struggling to connect without reliable access to affordable, high-speed internet.

This digital divide has only grown more apparent during the pandemic  but with new federal funding on the way, we have the chance to improve broadband capabilities in New York, and create access for the 9 million New Yorkers without an affordable or reliable internet connection.

In November, President Biden signed into law his $1 trillion infrastructure bill, which contains $65 billion for states to expand broadband access.

This funding gives New York the opportunity to build broadband infrastructure for millions of New Yorkers. Providing consistent broadband access removes one substantial barrier to the states recovery efforts, allowing more people to get connected and stay safe.

But we know that the promise of funding doesnt guarantee it will reach those who need it most. Historically, telecommunications companies have neglected to serve less profitable areas  a major reason we are in this situation today.

With corporations as the sole deciders of who deserves access, many New Yorkers will continue to deal with expensive and unreliable internet options. Though the infrastructure bill includes a provision for the Commerce Department and National Telecommunications and Information Administration to provide guidance on how money is to be spent, state lawmakers can do more to guarantee these funds are used to build strong, reliable broadband networks.

A crucial step New York can take to make this happen is to pass Sen. Sean Ryan and Assemblywoman Nily Rozics New York Broadband Resilience, Public Safety and Quality Act (S.5117/A7412). The bill will empower the Public Service Commission to establish rules and regulations that govern broadband safety, reliability and quality, as well as conduct evaluations and oversee broadband spending and development.

In order for broadband funds to reach New Yorkers in need and build out access successfully, they must be spent correctly. Empowering the Public Service Commission with the oversight to regulate these investments will ensure broadband infrastructure is built where it is most needed.

With the needed resources on its way, New York must not fall short of this opportunity.

Thomas Roulley of Lewiston works on legislation and policy for the Communications Workers of America, where he is part of the broadband team.
A dangerous winter storm combining high winds and ice was sweeping through parts of the U.S. Southeast on Sunday, knocking out power, felling trees and fences and coating roads with a treacherous, frigid glaze.

Tens of thousands of customers were without power in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida. Highway patrols were reporting hundreds of vehicle accidents, and a tornado ripped through a trailer park in Florida. More than 1,200 Sunday flights at Charlotte Douglas International were cancelled  more than 90% of the airport's Sunday schedule, according to the flight tracking service flightaware.com.

By noon Sunday, between 20 and 30 centimeters of snow had fallen in some counties of North Carolina, while significant icing was causing problems in the central part of the state.

First Sgt. Christopher Knox, a spokesman for the North Carolina Highway Patrol, said that by mid-afternoon, the agency had responded to 300 car crashes and nearly 800 calls for service. Transportation Secretary J. Eric Boyette said many roads in the central and western part of the state were covered with ice. He said the eastern part of the state was being hit with high winds and rain.

Kristen Baker Morrow's 6-year-old son made snow angels after their home in Crouse, North Carolina, got 10 centimeters of snow Sunday morning, but she said they couldn't stay outside long because of the uncomfortable wind chill.

"It took 30 to 45 minutes to get everything on for about 10 minutes in the snow, but it was definitely worth it for him, to get our pictures and make some memories," said Morrow, a 35-year-old registered nurse.

More than 260,000 customers were without power by midafternoon Sunday, according to poweroutage.us. Especially hard hit was North Carolina, with 90,000 outages. The remaining outages were in Georgia, South Carolina and Florida.

The National Weather Service confirmed that a tornado struck southwest Florida. Officials in Lee County say 27 mobile homes were destroyed and 24 incurred major damage. There were no reports of serious injuries.

Edward Murray, 81, told the Naples Daily News in southwest Florida that he was inside his mobile home Sunday morning when a tornado picked it up and tossed it on top of his neighbor's home.

"That's my house that's turned upside down," he told the newspaper. "The tornado took me off my feet, blew me toward the east wall and buried me under the sink, refrigerator, kitchen chairs and everything else."

Murray and his daughter, Cokie, escaped unharmed, crawling from the wreckage.

"I was so happy when I saw the sky," Murray told the newspaper. "I said to the devil, 'it's not going to be today."

Virginia State Police said traffic came to a standstill Sunday afternoon on Interstate 81 in Roanoke County after a tractor-trailer jackknifed and the cab of the truck disconnected from the trailer in the northbound lanes. Two additional accidents occurred in the traffic backup, one with minor injuries. The Virginia Department of Transportation said a detour was being set up. "Please stay off the roads if possible. Begging again! Hazardous conditions," read a tweet from VDOT's Salem office.

From midnight to 12:45 p.m., Virginia state troopers responded to 142 traffic crashes and 162 disabled vehicles. No traffic fatalities were reported.

The West Virginia Department of Homeland Security tweeted photos of snow-covered roads in the southern part of the state and advised residents to "keep calm and hunker down." The agency says the storm is moving north and most areas of the state are expected to have accumulations of at least 10 centimeters, with up to 30 centimeters possible in the mountains.

In Tennessee, there were multiple reports of abandoned and wrecked cars on snow-covered roads.

After lashing the South, the storm was expected to bring frigid and snowy conditions to the Northeast. New York City was expected to be spared from most, if not all, of the snowfall, but Long Island and Connecticut coastal areas were expecting gale conditions. Upstate New York was projected to get hit with up to 30 centimeters of snow to go along with high winds.

Fifteen to 33 centimeters of snow was expected in parts of east-central Ohio and western Pennsylvania from Sunday afternoon.

Frigid temperatures lingered across New England on Sunday, with wind chills in northern Vermont reported at -33 Celsius. In Boston, where a cold emergency was declared on Saturday, wind chills remained below zero (-17 C) even as the region started the thaw.
Aafia Siddiqui, a U.S.-educated-Pakistani neuroscientist serving an 86-year sentence in the United States for trying to kill Americans in Afghanistan, is the person whose release was sought by the hostage-taker at a Texas synagogue on Saturday.

U.S. authorities said the hours-long standoff ended with all captives safe and the man holding them dead.

Siddiqui, the Pakistani neuroscientist, is being held at a federal prison in Texas.

Marwa Elbially, her attorney, issued a statement condemning the hostage-taking.

"Whoever the assailant is, we want him to know that his actions are condemned by Dr. Siddiqui and her family," Elbially told CNN.

Siddiquis case continues to draw attention ever since she was arrested in the eastern Afghan province of Ghazni in 2008 under suspicion of being in possession of notes on how to make dirty bombs and plans to attack U.S. cities. Her family and lawyers have denied the charges.

Siddiqui was immediately flown to the U.S., where two years later a federal court found the 49-year-old mother of three guilty of attempted murder and assault of U.S. officials during interrogation in Ghazni.

The neuroscientist studied at two prestigious U.S. institutions  Brandeis University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology  between 1991 and 2002 before moving back to Pakistan.

The Pakistan-born Siddiqui disappeared from her native Karachi a year later and her whereabouts was not known until she surfaced in neighboring Afghanistan and detained.

Analysts say most Americans are unaware of Siddiquis case, but militant groups have been seeking her release and using the case to gain more recruits.

In 2014, Islamic State sent an email to the family of American journalist James Foley, who was kidnapped in Syria, offering to release him in exchange for Siddiqui. Foley was later beheaded.

Siddiqui isnt well known in the U.S., but in Pakistan shes a big name  many view her as an innocent victim. Also, at one point, ISIS had demanded that she be released in exchange for ISIS captives, Michael Kugelman, the deputy director of the Asia program at Washingtons Wilson Center, wrote on Twitter in response to Saturdays hostage-taking.

The 2010 conviction of Siddiqui sparked outrage in Pakistan, where thousands took to the streets to denounce the U.S.

The Pakistani Senate unanimously passed a resolution in 2018, dubbing Siddiqui as Daughter of the Nation and urged the government to take concrete steps for her repatriation.

Prime Minister Imran Khan suggested in media interviews after meeting at the White House in 2019 with then-U.S. President Donald Trump that his government could consider the possibility of releasing Pakistani doctor Shakeel Afridi in exchange for Siddiqui.

In 2018, a Pakistani court sentenced Afridi to 33 years in prison for organizing a fake vaccination campaign to help the CIA locate and kill al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden. Afridis appeal against the verdict is still pending.

In July 2021, Siddiqui suffered serious injuries after an inmate attacked her.

The Foreign Ministry in Islamabad immediately took up the matter with U.S. authorities through its embassy in Washington.

We lodged a formal complaint with the relevant U.S. authorities to thoroughly investigate the matter and ensure the safety and well-being of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, the ministry said at the time.

The attack prompted protests by human rights activists and religious groups in the U.S., calling for improved prison conditions and Siddiquis repatriation to Pakistan.
On a cold winter afternoon in the Indian capital, New Delhi, a group of auto rickshaw drivers huddled outside a metro station hoping to pick up passengers. Since the city shut schools, colleges, restaurants and offices to cope with a third wave of the pandemic fueled by the omicron variant, though, they know their wait could be long and probably futile.

We work on the streets and depend on people being out, Shivraj Verma said.

Now I will not be able to earn enough to even buy food in the city. We get crushed when the city closes.

This is the third consecutive year that tens of millions of workers in Indias vast informal economy are confronting a loss of livelihoods and incomes as megacities such as New Delhi and Mumbai, which are the epicenter of the new wave, partially shutter.

While India has not enforced a stringent nationwide lockdown as it did in 2020, Delhi has closed offices, imposed a weekend and night curfew and restricted large gatherings. In the business hub of Gurugram, markets shut early as part of measures to curb the spread of coronavirus.

For those that work on the street, though, contracting the virus is of little concern -- their masks hang loosely on their faces, only to be pulled up when a policeman, who might impose a fine, passes by. Their pressing problem is to earn enough money to feed families, send children to school and pay rent for their tiny tenements.

In the lives-versus-livelihoods debate that has posed one of the pandemics greatest dilemmas, their vote is squarely with the latter.

We dont worry about the virus, we worry about how to take care of our families. I will have to return again to my village if the situation stays the same, auto rickshaw operator Mohammad Amjad Khan said.

Khan was among millions of migrants returned to their villages when India witnessed a mass exodus in 2020. He only picked up the courage to return to Delhi after a year and a half in September. At that time India had recovered from its devastating second wave.

Its cities were humming, restaurants and markets were packed, and businesses saw a revival. As Indias economy picked up pace briskly, Khan made a decent living from the auto rickshaw he took on hire to ferry customers and could send some money home. The pandemic appeared to have become a distant memory.

The good times lasted for four months. From less than 7,000 new cases a day in mid-December, India has been counting more than a quarter million in recent days. As cities like Delhi hunker indoors, earnings have again plummeted.

Now I dont even make enough money to pay for the daily hire of this vehicle. Its really tough, Khan said with a despondent shrug.

Indian policymakers have underlined the need to protect jobs.

At a meeting with chief ministers this week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that there should be minimal loss to the ordinary peoples livelihoods and related economic activity as the country battles the latest wave.

We have to keep this in mind, whenever we are making a strategy for COVID-19 containment, he said.

Delhis Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has reassured migrant labor that a lockdown will not be imposed.

On the ground however, even partial curbs hit hard the tens of thousands of vendors who line Indian streets  vegetable and fruit sellers, small kiosks selling chips, soft drinks and cigarettes, and food carts.

Anita Singh is allowed to operate her street cart that sells hot meals and snacks till 8 p.m., but in the last two weeks, there have been very few customers to serve.

Most of my sales were to college students or in the late evening when people left offices. Now they are shut, she said.

Employment has not returned to its pre-pandemic level since the Indian economy was battered by COVID-19 lockdowns, according to a recent report by the Center for Monitoring the Indian Economy. The report said that there are fewer salaried jobs, whereas daily wage work and farm labor has increased  a sign of economic distress.

There has been a drop in average wages and daily earnings across sectors because of COVID stipulations, said Anhad Imaan, a communication specialist with several nonprofit organizations working with migrant labor.

Even in the construction and manufacturing sectors which have remained open, there is less work available per worker.

That means the quality of lives of those in the informal sector has taken a huge hit.

They used to spend much of what they earned on food and a place to stay and sent home whatever they saved, he said, Now they are down to subsistence levels.

Although estimates vary widely, studies say millions in India have slipped below the poverty line during the pandemic. A study by Pew Research Center in March pegged the number at 75 million. Another one by the Centre for Sustainable Employment at Azim Premji University in May after India experienced a second wave put it at 230 million due to income shocks.

Whatever the numbers, it is a reality that the group of auto rickshaw drivers waiting for passengers knows too well. As they talked to each other, their top concern was whether there will be a lockdown and whether they should be heading home for a third time.
The massive underwater volcanic eruption in Tonga was so powerful it was recorded around the world and triggered a tsunami that flooded Pacific coastlines from Japan to the United States, scientists said Sunday.

Dramatic satellite images showed the long, rumbling eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano spew smoke and ash into the air, with a thunderous roar recorded 10,000 kilometers (6,000 miles) away in Alaska.

The U.S. Geological Survey recorded Saturday's eruption as equivalent to a 5.8 magnitude earthquake at zero depth.

New Zealand scientist Marco Brenna, a senior lecturer at Otago University's School of Geology, described the impact of the eruption as "relatively mild" but said another eruption with a much bigger impact could not be ruled out.

Waves of around 1.2 meters hit along Japan's Pacific coast with the Japan Meteorological Agency warning waves as high as three meters were possible.

In New Zealand, more than 2,300 kilometers from Tonga, 120 people were evacuated from northern coastal areas and several boats destroyed when a huge wave crashed into a marina.

Australia's popular Bondi Beach in Sydney was briefly evacuated as a precaution while in California, coastal streets in Santa Cruz were awash and closed to traffic.

The National Weather Service Alaska reported the Alaska Volcano Observatory had recorded the eruption in Anchorage and Fairbanks "6,000 miles from the volcano."

The Fife weather station in Scotland tweeted it was "just incredible to think of the power that can send a shockwave around the world" after the eruptions produced a jump in its air pressure graph.

Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai, which lies about 65 kilometers north of Nuku'alofa, has a history of volatility.

In recent years, it breached sea level during a 2009 eruption while in 2015 it spewed so many large rocks and ash into the air that when they settled a new island had formed 2 kilometers long by 1 kilometer wide and 100 meters high.
The tsunami threat around the Pacific from a huge undersea volcanic eruption began to recede Sunday, while the extent of damage to Tonga remained unclear.

Satellite images showed the spectacular eruption that took place Saturday evening, with a plume of ash, steam and gas rising like a mushroom above the blue Pacific waters. A sonic boom could be heard as far away as Alaska.

In Tonga it sent tsunami waves crashing across the shore and people rushing to higher ground.

The eruption cut the internet to Tonga, leaving friends and family members around the world anxiously trying to get in touch to figure out if there were any injuries and the extent of the damage. Even government websites and other official sources remained without updates Sunday afternoon.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said there had not yet been any official reports of injuries or deaths in Tonga but cautioned that authorities hadn't yet made contact with some coastal areas and smaller islands.

Communication with Tonga remains very limited. And I know that is causing a huge amount of anxiety for the Tongan community here, Ardern said.

She said there had been significant damage to boats and shops along the Tongan coastline. The capital, Nuku'alofa, was covered in a thick film of volcanic dust, Ardern said, contaminating water supplies and making fresh water a vital need.

Aid agencies said thick ash and smoke had prompted authorities to ask people to wear masks and drink bottled water.

Ardern said New Zealand was unable to send a military surveillance flight over Tonga on Sunday because the ash cloud was 19,000 meters high, but they hoped to send the flight on Monday, followed by supply planes and navy ships.

One complicating factor to any international aid effort is that Tonga has so far managed to avoid any outbreaks of COVID-19. Ardern said New Zealand's military staff were all fully vaccinated and willing to follow any protocols established by Tonga.

Dave Snider, the tsunami warning coordinator for the National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska, said it was very unusual for a volcanic eruption to affect an entire ocean basin, and the spectacle was both humbling and scary.

The tsunami waves caused damage to boats as far away as New Zealand and Santa Cruz, California, but did not appear to cause any widespread damage. Snider said he anticipated the tsunami situation in the U.S. and elsewhere to continue improving.

Tsunami advisories were earlier issued for Japan, Hawaii, Alaska and the U.S. Pacific coast. The U.S. Geological Survey estimated the eruption caused the equivalent of a magnitude 5.8 earthquake. Scientists said tsunamis generated by volcanoes rather than earthquakes are relatively rare.

The Tonga Meteorological Services said a tsunami warning was declared for all of the archipelago, and data from the Pacific tsunami center said waves of 80 centimeters were detected.

Rachel Afeaki-Taumoepeau, who chairs the New Zealand Tonga Business Council, said she hoped the relatively low level of the tsunami waves would have allowed most people to get to safety, although she worried about those living on islands closest to the volcano. She said she hadn't yet been able to contact her friends and family in Tonga.

We are praying that the damage is just to infrastructure and people were able to get to higher land, she said.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote on Twitter he is deeply concerned for the people of Tonga as they recover from the aftermath of a volcanic eruption and tsunami. The United States stands prepared to provide support to our Pacific neighbors.

Tonga gets its internet via an undersea cable from Suva, Fiji. All internet connectivity with Tonga was lost at about 6:40 p.m. local time, said Doug Madory, director of internet analysis for the network intelligence firm Kentik.

On Tonga, which is home to about 105,000 people, video posted to social media showed large waves washing ashore in coastal areas and swirling around homes, a church and other buildings. A Twitter user identified as Dr. Faka'iloatonga Taumoefolau posted video showing waves crashing ashore.

Can literally hear the volcano eruption, sounds pretty violent, he wrote, adding in a later post: Raining ash and tiny pebbles, darkness blanketing the sky.

The explosion of the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai volcano was the latest in a series of dramatic eruptions.

Earth imaging company Planet Labs PBC had watched the island in recent days after a new volcanic vent there began erupting in late December.

Satellite images captured by the company show how drastically the volcano had shaped the area, creating a growing island off Tonga.

The surface area of the island appears to have expanded by nearly 45% due to ashfall, Planet Labs said days before the latest activity.

Following Saturday's eruption, residents in Hawaii, Alaska and along the U.S. Pacific coast were advised to move away from the coastline to higher ground and to pay attention to instructions from their local emergency management officials, said Snider.

We don't issue an advisory for this length of coastline as we've done -- I'm not sure when the last time was -- but it really isn't an everyday experience, Snider said.

Savannah Peterson watched in shock as the water rose dozens of centimeters in a matter of minutes in front of her oceanfront house in Pacifica, California, just south of San Francisco.

It came up so fast, and a few minutes after that it was down again. It was nuts to see that happen so quickly, she said. I've never had water come all the way up to my front door, and today it did.'

Police rescued a surfer whose surfboard broke in powerful waves off San Francisco.

Farther south in Santa Cruz, California, officials were taking stock of damage after a surge damaged boats and inundated low-lying streets and parking lots, sending cars afloat.

In Southern California, surging waters sunk at least one boat in Ventura Harbor northwest of Los Angeles.

New Zealand's private forecaster, Weather Watch, tweeted that people as far away as Southland, the country's southernmost region, reported hearing sonic booms from the eruption. Others reported that many boats were damaged by a tsunami that hit a marina in Whangarei, in the Northland region.

Earlier, the Matangi Tonga news site reported that scientists observed massive explosions, thunder and lightning near the volcano after it started erupting early Friday. Satellite images showed a 5-kilometer-wide plume rising into the air to about 20 kilometers.

The Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai volcano is located about 64 kilometers north of Nuku'alofa. In late 2014 and early 2015, a series of eruptions in the area created a small new island and disrupted international air travel to the Pacific archipelago for several days.

There is not a significant difference between volcanoes underwater and on land, and underwater volcanoes become bigger as they erupt, at some point usually breaching the surface, said Hans Schwaiger, a research geophysicist with the Alaska Volcano Observatory.

With underwater volcanoes, however, the water can add to the explosivity of the eruption as it hits the lava, Schwaiger added.

Before an explosion, there is generally an increase in small local earthquakes at the volcano, but depending on how far it is from land, that may not be felt by residents along the shoreline, Schwaiger said.

In 2019, Tonga lost internet access for nearly two weeks when a fiber-optic cable was severed. The director of the local cable company said at the time that a large ship may have cut the cable by dragging an anchor. Until limited satellite access was restored people couldn't even make international calls.

Southern Cross Cable Network's Veverka said limited satellite connections exist between Tonga and other parts of the world, but he did not know if they might be affected by power outages.
Ukraine Sunday blamed Russia for the defacement of government websites, contending it was part of Moscows hybrid war against the former Soviet republic.

With Russia already massing 100,000 military troops along Ukraines eastern flank, Ukrainian officials said, "All evidence indicates that Russia is behind the cyberattack.

Moscow continues to wage a hybrid war and is actively building up its forces in the information and cyberspaces," the ministry statement said, after Microsoft said dozens of computer systems at various Ukrainian government agencies had been infected with destructive malware disguised as ransomware.

Russia has repeatedly denied Ukrainian accusations of hacking.

The cyberattack comes amid the threat of a Russian invasion, eight years after Moscow annexed Ukraines Crimean Peninsula.

Diplomatic talks to resolve the tense standoff appear to be at a stalemate after several meetings in Geneva, Brussels and Vienna last week did not result in any resolution.

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told CBS Newss Face the Nation show that the United States remains ready for further diplomatic talks with Russia over its troop deployment but will respond with significant economic sanctions against Moscow if President Vladimir Putin invades Ukraine.

Microsoft said Saturday that it first detected the malware on Thursday, coinciding with the attack that simultaneously took about 70 Ukrainian government websites offline temporarily.

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
UNHCR, the U.N. Refugee Agency is calling for international action to end the armed conflict in Africas Central Sahel region, a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 2.5 million over the last decade.

Data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project finds violence in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger caused more than 4,660 deaths in the first six months of 2020.

Statistics from other international monitoring groups and U.N. agencies show internal displacement in Africas Central Sahel region has increased tenfold since 2013, from 217,000 to 2.1 million by late 2021.

U.N. refugee spokesman Boris Cheshirkov says displacement continues to grow across the Sahel, as civilians flee violent attacks.

Armed groups reportedly carried out over 800 deadly attacks last year. Such violence uprooted 450,000 people within their countries and forced a further 36,000 to flee to a neighboring country as a refugee," he said. "Women and children are often the worst-affected and disproportionately exposed to extreme vulnerability and the threat of gender-based violence.

Cheshirkov says conditions across the region continue to deteriorate. He says host communities and government authorities are buckling under increasing pressure despite their commitment to help the displaced.

He says humanitarian agencies are finding it increasingly difficult and dangerous to deliver assistance and protection. He says humanitarians risk road attack, ambush, and car jacking.

What we have been calling for and we repeat this call again now is for a unified, a strategic, a substantial intervention in the Sahel that will make sure that international efforts are supporting the governments and host communities  and a security response cannot prevail on its own. It needs to be hand-in-glove with humanitarian and development action, he said.

Cheshirkov says the UNHCR is leading an effort by United Nations and private agencies to provide shelter and protection services, including combating gender-based violence.
The United Nations is allocating $150 million from its Central Emergency Response Fund to support seriously underfunded humanitarian operations in 13 countries in Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Middle East.



Topping the list of underfunded crises are Syria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan. These countries will receive between $20- and $25 million each to help them implement life-saving humanitarian operations.

International support for Syria has all but dissipated after more than a decade of conflict. Some 13 million refugees and internally displaced Syrians are living in a state of destitution, with little recourse to basic relief.

The DRC is one of the longest and most complex humanitarian crises. Millions of people are suffering from conflict, displacement, epidemics, and acute hunger.



The United Nations warns the humanitarian crisis in Sudan is deepening, as political instability grows and the country contends with flooding, rising food prices and disease outbreaks.

Jens Laerke, the spokesman for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, says the distribution of funds made by Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths is the largest ever. He says it beats last years $135 million by $15 million.

This announcement of funding will help the prioritization of life-saving projects to respond to for example food security, nutrition, health, and protection needs. More detailed strategies are expected from these countries later this month, he said.

Other recipient countries include Myanmar, where the U.N. is providing aid to some three million people suffering from conflict, COVID-19, and a failing economy. U.N. aid also will go to Burkina Faso, Chad, and Niger, three countries in Africas central Sahel that are struggling with mass displacement because of armed attacks.

Laerke says these countries as well as six others in dire straits in Africa, the Middle East and the Americas, including Haiti and Honduras, will receive between $5- and $12 million each from the U.N. fund to help them tackle their emergency needs.

These allocations happen twice a year to countries selected because of their low level of funding, severity of humanitarian needs, and vulnerability," he said. "These countries have just entered a new cycle of humanitarian fundraising and program implementation on the back of underfunded appeals from last year, all below 50 percent covered at years end.

Humanitarian needs are growing across the world. The United Nations says it expects at least 274 million people will need humanitarian assistance in 2022 and it will require $41 billion to assist the most vulnerable.

Afghanistan is the worlds largest humanitarian appeal. The U.N. recently launched a record $4.5 billion appeal to assist 22 million Afghans, more than half the countrys population.
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy Sunday said, Its going to be a tough few weeks for the United States in confronting the omicron variant of the coronavirus.

The cases numbers are high, hospitals are struggling, Murthy told ABCs This Week show.

But he also voiced optimism, saying, Were going to get through this. Were pulling out the stops on testing, soon making test kits available to Americans who want them.



He described as very disappointing and a setback for public health a recent Supreme Court decision blocking President Joe Bidens mandate that 84 million workers at large businesses be vaccinated or tested frequently. The court, however, let stand an order requiring 17 million health care workers to be inoculated against the infection.

Murthy said the Biden administration is still encouraging companies to impose mandates on their workers, as many companies have done so while others have decided otherwise. The Supreme Court order does not block individual companies from ordering such mandates, although some Republican state governors have been trying to stop any mandates from taking effect in their states.

One of the lessons weve learned about vaccines is that they are working, Murthy said, while acknowledging that even those who have been fully vaccinated and received a booster shot still stand about a 20% chance of being infected with the omicron strain.

Overall, the U.S. is currently recording about 800,000 new coronavirus cases a day and nearly 2,000 deaths, although there are early indications that the surge in omicron cases has reached a peak in some parts of the country and leveled off.

Still, the number of new cases has, as Murthy said, overwhelmed hospitals in some states. Biden last week dispatched military medical personnel to six of the countrys 50 states to assist health care workers at hospitals there.
Police in Britain announced late Sunday the arrests of two people in connection with the investigation of a hostage-taking at a synagogue in the U.S. state of Texas.

Greater Manchester Police said in a statement that Counter Terror Policing officers detained two teenagers in South Manchester and that they remained in custody for questioning. There were no details about any possible charges.

U.S. authorities earlier Sunday identified 44-year-old Malik Faisal Akram, a British citizen, as the man who took four people hostage at Congregation Beth Israel, near Fort Worth, Texas.

The standoff lasted for 10 hours before law enforcement commandos stormed the building. All the hostages were freed, and an FBI strategic weapons team shot Akram dead.

U.S. President Joe Biden praised the courageous work of the law enforcement agents and said antisemitism represented by the attack would not be tolerated.

There is more we will learn in the days ahead about the motivations of the hostage taker, Biden said. But let me be clear to anyone who intends to spread hate -- we will stand against antisemitism and against the rise of extremism in this country.

The FBI said in a statement there was no indication that anyone else was involved in the attack, but it didn't provide a possible motive.

Akram was heard ranting on a Facebook livestream of the synagogue service, demanding the release of a Pakistani neuroscientist who was convicted of trying to kill U.S. Army officers in Afghanistan.

Video from Dallas TV station WFAA showed people running out a door of the synagogue, and then a man holding a gun opening the same door just seconds later before he turned around and closed it. Moments later, several rounds of gunfire could be heard, followed by the sound of an explosion.

During a visit to a food pantry in Philadelphia on Sunday morning, Biden told reporters that Attorney General Merrick Garland is focused and making sure that we deal with these kinds of acts.

The Associated Press reported that investigators told it that Akram demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist suspected of having ties to al-Qaida and who is in a federal prison in Texas. Akram also said he wanted to be able to speak with her, according to the officials.

Siddiqui earned advanced degrees from Brandeis University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before she was sentenced in 2010 to 86 years in prison on charges that she assaulted and shot at U.S. Army officers after being detained in Afghanistan two years earlier.

The punishment sparked outrage in Pakistan among political leaders and her supporters, who viewed her as victimized by the American criminal justice system.

During the incident, Marwa Elbially, her attorney, issued a statement condemning the hostage-taking.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Twitter that he had been monitoring the situation closely.

"This event is a stark reminder that antisemitism is still alive and we must continue to fight it worldwide," he wrote. Bennett said he was "relieved and thankful" that the hostages were rescued.

Ayaz Gul in Islamabad contributed to this report. Some material came from The Associated Press.
If there were a Pulitzer Prize for taking words out of context, several Republican politicians would be leading contenders.

Former President Donald Trump, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are among those who cite one of Martin Luther Kings most famous sentences, from his 1963 I Have a Dream speech, when they speak out against teaching about racism in U.S. schools.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character, said King, who would have turned 93 on Saturday. The slain civil rights leaders birthday is commemorated as a U.S. holiday today.

Using that sentence, some conservatives quote King more often than they do Ronald Reagan, William F. Buckley or Barry Goldwater. They contend that King advocated for a color-blind society and would take offense at racial equity initiatives in schools about or teaching the history of slavery or racism in the United States.

DeSantis has said that such school curriculum is basically teaching kids to hate our country and to hate each other based on race. It puts race as the most important thing. I want content of character to be the most important thing.

McCarthy, in a floor speech last year, said Democrats continue to look at race as the primary means of judging a persons character. The minority leader told an interviewer that the left is trying to take America backward.

Kings four little children are all grown up now and they object to their fathers words being used this way. Bernice King, a lawyer who is Kings youngest daughter, tweeted at McCarthy, asking him to consider her fathers whole body of work.

Rep. McCarthy, I encourage you to study my fathers teachings & words well beyond the last lines of I Have A Dream, she wrote. This nation has yet to firmly commit to the intensive, multi-faceted work of eradicating racism against Black people. You should help with that.

She added that when her father dreamed his children would one day be judged by the content of their character, he was beckoning people to end racism, not deny its existence.

In Texas, state Sen. Bryan Hughes last July said he was offended by educators teaching the inverse of what Dr. King taught us. At the same time, Hughes introduced a bill that would have excised Kings I Have a Dream speech and his Letter From Birmingham Jail from the state curriculum.

Kings oldest son objected to Hughes twisting his fathers words.

Yes, we should judge people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin  but that is when we have a true, just, humane society where there are no biases, where there is no racism, where there is no discrimination, Martin Luther King III told the Texas Tribune. Unfortunately, all of these things still exist.

Cherry-picking Kings words is nothing new. The speeches and writings he left behind amount to a Swiss army knife of rhetoric, with a sentence or phrase to fit any task.

On Martin Luther King Day in 2020, the Senate was about to start its first impeachment trial of Trump. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told reporters that if King were still alive, he would be speaking out against the impeachment because it would divide America.

I dont think it was within Dr. Kings vision to have Americans dragged through a process where the president is not going to be removed from office, is not being charged with bribery, extortion, high crimes or misdemeanors, she said.

Kings legacy is much more complex than a few sentences that fit onto a T-shirt or coffee mug. He did share his dream of a unified United States that lived up to its democratic ideals, but he had few illusions about how far the country was from realizing that vision.

While King preached nonviolence, which put him at odds with some other civil rights leaders, he very much stood for peaceful resistance and unrest. He became an advocate for social and economic justice, as well as racial equity. In 1968, King was working on the Poor Peoples Campaign and he was in Memphis to support a strike by sanitation workers. King was shot to death at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4, 1968.

For a broader understanding of Kings work, find one of his speeches, such as his address at the Riverside Church in New York City in April 1967, when King spoke out against the Vietnam War.

Explaining why he joined the anti-war movement, King said he had walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems.

Those young men ask  and rightly so  what about Vietnam? They ask if our own nation wasnt using massive doses of violence to solve its problems.

King was a man of peace, but in many ways a radical. For anyone to twist his principles or try to whitewash his legacy is to dishonor the preeminent civil rights leader of the 20th century.

  

Whats your opinion? Send it to us at lettertoeditor@buffnews.com. Letters should be a maximum of 300 words and must convey an opinion. The column does not print poetry, announcements of community events or thank you letters. A writer or household may appear only once every 30 days. All letters are subject to fact-checking and editing.
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Mnangagwa said on Wednesday that China would be donating another 10 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine over the course of 2022.

Zimbabwe, like most African countries, is struggling with low rates of vaccination, due to availability issues and also to vaccine hesitancy or public apathy.

The country has so far fully vaccinated just over a fifth of its population of 15 million people, mostly using vaccines either purchased from or donated by China. Nearly a third of Zimbabweans have received at least a single dose of the Chinese vaccine.

"The assistance, comprising four million Sinopharm doses and six million Sinovac doses, is in addition to the two million doses Zimbabwe has received as donations since February 2021 from the People's Republic of China," Mnangagwa said.

China's ambassador to Zimbabwe, Guo Shaochun, said the 10 million doses would be delivered in batches throughout 2022.

To date, the southern African country has recorded 223,765 coronavirus infections and 5,201 deaths, according to health ministry data. (Reporting by Nelson Banya Editing by Promit Mukherjee and Gareth Jones)
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 (243.5 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 5-10 s :   8  .  ,    ,     ,    ,  | 5 users found this interesting.

Plovdiv (242.1 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s : I was sitting down and was swayed side to side. | 4 users found this interesting.

Sofia, Ljulin district, floor 15 (314.3 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s : Hanging objects slightly swinging, short lightheaded feeling like feeling the swinging of the 15 story building, in which i am on the 15th floor sitting in my chair behind my desk | 2 users found this interesting.

Canakkale (182 km E of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / complex rolling (tilting in multiple directions) / 2-5 s I was just sitting on the couch and then I felt the Earthquake like a lot my books fell and my bed started making noises by hitting on a wall. | 2 users found this interesting. (reported through (reported through our app / Weak shaking (MMI III) / complex rolling (tilting in multiple directions) / 2-5 s

Sofia / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 30-60 s : It was about a minute long, horizontal swinging, Christmas tree decoration was swinging. Height 7th floor | 2 users found this interesting.

Sofia / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 30-60 s : It was about a minute long, horizontal swinging, Christmas tree decoration was swinging. Height 7th floor | One user found this interesting.

nikiti...chalkidiki ..old village / not felt : im alten dorf von nikiti war das beben NICHT zu spuren. ein tal weiter...sowie im neuen dorf haben viele das starke beben gespurt | One user found this interesting.

Plovdiv (242.1 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s : I was sitting down and was swayed side to side. | One user found this interesting.

Plovdiv (242.1 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s : I was sitting down and was swayed side to side. | One user found this interesting.

IZMIR (303 km ESE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 10-15 s : I felt dizzy. the lamps was shakig | One user found this interesting.

Scutari, Ist (416 km ENE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) : The building was moving | One user found this interesting.

Gelibolu (209.1 km ENE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s : Inside the bathroom | One user found this interesting.

Plovdiv, Bulgaria (251.4 km NNE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 2-5 s : I was in my flat on the third floor, the lamp on the ceiling was shaking and I felt the sofa shake. | One user found this interesting.

Athens (226.4 km SSW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 5-10 s : Light shaking | One user found this interesting.

Sykia HALKIDIKI (29.2 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s : Shaking rattling for about 5-10 seconds | One user found this interesting.

Plovdiv (244.3 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 5-10 s : 5 floor, very light shake | One user found this interesting.

krinides kavala (114.9 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 1-2 s : 5 min erlyer | One user found this interesting.

Sofia (313.1 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 10-15 s : I felt I'm shaking, then I saw my clothes rack shaking | One user found this interesting.

Velingrad Bulgaria (227.1 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / vertical swinging (up and down) / 2-5 s : Shaking of block of apartments shaking of clothing and rocking of a stall on floor. | One user found this interesting.

 (110.6 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 2-5 s :  | One user found this interesting.

Sofia bulgaria (310.8 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 5-10 s : Sitting in chair and felt the shaking for about 15 to 20 sec | One user found this interesting.

Plovdiv (242.2 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 10-15 s : .))7 | One user found this interesting.

plovdiv (243 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s : I was lting on the couch | One user found this interesting.

Athos / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s : Like a big truck drove very close by | One user found this interesting.

Krakow / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / vertical swinging (up and down) / very short : Odczucie ,startu ,lub zatrzymywania sie windy .Bardzo sabo odczuwalne. | One user found this interesting.

Ugur Mumcu / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / very short Just shake | One user found this interesting. (reported through (reported through our app / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / very short

Plovdiv / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / very short : Almost unnoticeable | One user found this interesting.

 / Weak shaking (MMI III) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 20-30 s : Weak shaking | One user found this interesting.

Thessaloniki / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / horizontal (sideways) swinging : The wardrobe shaked | One user found this interesting.

Sykia / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / vibration and rolling / 2-5 s : Starkeres Schwingen, vibrieren und brummen | One user found this interesting. Wo wohnt ihr genau? / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / vibration and rolling / 2-5 s

Asprovalta, Thessaloniki, Zentralmakedonien (97.3 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / not felt
Photo: Getty Images

Gentefied, the critically acclaimed and beloved comedy series helmed by Marvin Lemus and Linda Yvette Chavez, has been canceled by Netflix after two seasons, the streaming service announced last week. Chavez took to social media on Friday with a heartfelt reflection on the show and its impact, both onscreen and behind the scenes. The series, Chavez wrote, put people into positions theyre so often left out of  whether it was a face rarely if ever seen onscreen, a director of color not often seen on set, a department head not often given the chance to lead, or a writer empowered and given their first credit  Those seeds blossomed and reached millions around the world. Though Gentefied never broke into Netflixs Top 10 series rankings following its debut, Chavez highlighted the importance of the shows message and small acts of revolutionary love. Metrics and algorithms will never measure the true impact of what we did here, Chavez wrote. Dont let anyone tell you we didnt succeed. We blasted through a brick wall and made ourselves known. That looks like a whole lot of success to me. Read Chavezs entire statement below.
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money cash dividends

Written by Chris MacDonald at The Motley Fool Canada

Creating passive income is a goal many investors have. However, with growth investments generally outperforming in recent years, many investors may have lost the will to focus on this space.

Fair enough.

However, for those nearing or entering retirement, or young folks looking to add to ones income stream over time, there are a range of possibilities to do so. Whether its fixed income or dividend-paying stocks, there are ways to create that second income stream that can grow over time.

Here are two of my top picks for Canadian income stocks for investors looking to do so.

Top passive-income stocks: Restaurant Brands

One of my top picks for investors looking for income stocks is Restaurant Brands (TSX:QSR)(NYSE:QSR). In fact, this is one of my top picks overall.

Restaurant Brands is the parent company of Tim Hortons, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, and Burger King. These franchises are world class and provide incredibly defensive cash flows. Accordingly, for those looking at Restaurant Brands from a dividend angle, theres a lot to like.

Currently, Restaurant Brands stock generates a yield of 3.6% for investors. While there are certainly higher-yielding stocks out there, the quality of QSR stock is not debatable.

This is a company long-term investors may want to hold, not only for the passive-income potential of this stock, but the companys growth prospects as well.

Toronto-Dominion Bank

In the banking sector, Toronto-Dominion Bank (TSX:TD)(NYSE:TD) is one of the top income stocks investors should look at.

TD is the second-biggest Canadian bank in terms of market capitalization. As it turns out, TD is also one of the best growth plays among big Canadian banks as well. Despite growing at an impressive rate, TD stock still yields an impressive 3.5%. For those seeking passive income, thats a very reasonable yield.

The companys recent results speak to the stability of TDs overall business. This company is far from a Canadian lender, with a massive network of retail branches in the United States. Accordingly, the companys recent dividend hike of 13% and share-repurchase plan totaling $4.6 billion should not come as a surprise.

Story continues

As the North American economy grows, TDs income stream becomes more stable and more likely to grow. Accordingly, those looking to make a long-term bet on the strength of North America may want to consider TD stock.

Indeed, as part of a well-balanced portfolio of income stocks, both TD and QSR make my list. These are high-quality, blue-chip companies with the right makeup for most investors.

The post Create a Passive-Income Stream With These 2 Top Canadian Stocks appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.

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Fool contributor Chris MacDonald owns Restaurant Brands International Inc. The Motley Fool recommends Restaurant Brands International Inc.

2022
The USS Alaska was a large, powerful and extremely capable ship built during WWII. If going by statistics alone, one could easily confuse her for a battleship. Alaska was not a battleship though, instead, she was a large cruiser, sometimes known as a battlecruiser. This formidable vessel was fast and armed to the teeth, but due to her late commissioning and the drastically different conditions from when she was ordered, she had limited use in the war.

Alaska was the lead ship of the Alaska-class, which was meant to be a family of six vessels in total. Only the USS Alaska and USS Guam were completed though, with a third being canceled during construction. They were the largest cruisers built by the US in WWII.

Alaska Class

These ships were unique as they were a middle ground between cruisers and battleships. Conventional cruisers are fast, heavily armed yet thinly armored ships that were useful in situations that needed plenty of firepower, but werent worth dedicating an entire battleship to.

The US took a liking to these ships, which before the war were limited to 10,000 tons and 8-inch guns by the Washington Naval Treaty. In the late 1930s, US intelligence suggested that Japan was building large super cruisers  much larger and more powerful than any American cruisers  that could speed around the Pacific as commerce raiders.

At this time the aircraft carrier had not yet become the king of the seas, so to combat these Japanese vessels the US decided to build large cruisers of their own; the Alaska-class. All of the ships  including the unbuilt ones  were named after US territories in homage to their not-quite-battleship not-quite-cruiser status.

Even though there were only two of this class, they were mighty vessels. At 808 ft (246 m) long they were about as long as the Bismarck and with a displacement of 34,000 tons they were heavier than Essex-class carriers.

Powered by eight Babcock and Wilcox boilers, the Alaska-class could reach speeds of 33 knots (38 mph) and had a range of 12,000 nautical miles.

As mentioned, these vessels were heavily armed. Their main battery consisted of nine 12 inch (305 mm) L/50 Mark 8 guns in three turrets; two forward turrets in a superfiring position and one aft. Six turrets housed another twelve 5 in (130 mm) L/38 dual-purpose guns while 56 quad-mounted 40 mm (1.6 in) Bofors guns and 34 single-mounted 20 mm (0.79 in) Oerlikon guns served as the ships light anti-aircraft defense.

In comparison to their armament and battleships of the same era, the Alaska-class featured thin armor, but it was by no means poor. Their belt armor was 229 mm thick, their deck was 102 mm thick and their turret faces were 325 mm thick. This is much less than something like the Yamato or USS Missouri, but comparable to older and smaller battleships.

USS Alaska

Work started on Alaska in December 1941, just days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and launched on August 15, 1943. She was commissioned on June 17, 1944. By this time the original purpose for which she was built  to combat Japanese commerce raiders  had never materialized, and the power dynamic of the seas had changed. When she was ordered, heavily armed ships ruled the seas, but by mid-1944 aircraft carriers had proven to be the dominant force.

Even the most formidable battleships could be attacked by hundreds of aircraft from hundreds of miles away, and couldnt do a great deal to stop it. Lightly armored vessels like the Alaska-class were at a particularly high risk, so they were put to work as fast carrier escorts instead, defending the vital carriers from air and sea attacks.

Alaska helped to support the landing at Iwo Jima in February 1945, protecting the aircraft carriers Enterprise and Saratoga. After this, she joined the carriers Yorktown and Intrepid, which were launching airstrikes on Okinawa.

During the Battle of Okinawa, Alaska had her first taste of combat, being thrown straight into the deep end against a fierce Japanese air strike on the American fleet. She shot down two Japanese aircraft, one of which was attempting to crash into Intrepid.

On a night in March, she opened up on Minamidaito with forty-five 12 inch shells and three hundred and fifty-two 5 inch shells. Then, on April 11, Alaska shot down a Japanese aircraft and another that was likely a Ohka rocket-powered kamikaze aircraft.

For the rest of the war, she conducted similar missions  bombardment and carrier escort  before spending some time as part of the occupation force in Japan shortly after the war. She took US soldiers home as part of Operation Magic Carpet, and was finally removed from active service in August 1946. She was decommissioned on February 17, 1947.

A few studies were done to see if Alaska and Guam could be repurposed, but when it was released this would be too expensive they were both stricken from the naval registry and scrapped in the early 1960s.

More from us: The USS Olympia Is a Cruiser with a Battleships Guns And A Very Long History

Despite arriving late to the war without much purpose, Alaska was put to work and scored a number of victories, kept all of her crew safe and earned an impressive three battle stars.
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Unlike the rise and fall and rise of violent crime, which follows a logic that researchers can find elusive, shootings by children are relatively easy to understand and even predict. They would also be far easier to prevent  if only adults would stop making guns so readily available. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight The costs of that failure are adding up. Last year was a banner year in firearm deaths among children. If you follow groups such as the Gun Violence Archive or social media accounts such as Well Regulated Militia, you can track the carnage daily. More than 1,500 children under 18 were killed by firearms in 2021. According to Everytown for Gun Safety(1), there were 342 unintentional shootings by children last year. The result, 141 deaths and 219 injuries, was slightly less than in 2020 (369 unintentional shootings) but more than in 2019 (308).

The variety of these shootings  child shoots self, child shoots child, child shoots adult, child shoots classmates  is superficial. All follow an identical formula: Adult makes gun available to minor. The only distinction is whether access is granted by negligence or design. The first is how a 1-year-old in Texas shot his mother and 3-month-old sibling this month. The second is how a disturbed 15-year-old obtained a firearm for his alleged shooting spree at a Michigan high school last fall.

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The most effective way to prevent unintentional gun injuries and deaths to children, notes the American Academy of Pediatrics, is not to keep guns at home in the first place, or even in the community. In lieu of convincing American gun owners to part with firearms, however, the AAP recommends that all guns in your home should be locked and unloaded, with ammunition locked separately.

This seems like a more achievable goal, and the benefits are likely significant. One research simulation suggests that anywhere from 6% to 32% of firearm deaths among those 19 and younger could be prevented by more widespread adoption of safe storage.

Yet according to a Rand Corporation analysis, fewer than half of the U.S. families with firearms and children store firearms locked (either in a locked place or secured with a trigger lock) and separate from ammunition. About 2.6 million children, by Rands count, have access to lethal firepower. In a 2018 study, little more than one third of gun-owning parents who self-reported having a child with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, depression or another mental health condition, said they stored their guns locked and unloaded. The danger to communities is compounded because those same unsecured guns are a boon to criminals; an estimated 380,000 guns are stolen each year.

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Locking guns is not difficult. You can do it with expensive gun safes or cheap trigger locks. (You can even get a gun lock for free if you live in Philadelphia, or from many local police departments.) But safe gun storage has never been a cause championed by the gun movement, which focuses on expanding gun possession, not making it less dangerous. SecureIt Tactical, Inc., for example, a gun safe company based in Syracuse, N.Y., markets its products as a departure from traditional gun safes that, the company says, work against you. SecureIt promotes multiple gun safes per home to afford fast access without sacrificing security.

Safe storage runs counter to a gun culture that not only glorifies guns, but often trivializes them, transforming lethal machines into toys. Have an emotionally disturbed teen? Take him to the range and get him comfortable shooting at targets. Want to show your 9-year-old a fun time? Let her shoot an Uzi.

For those who fetishize guns, the call for safe storage is less a call to conscience than an attack on their identity. The National Rifle Association website advises gun owners to store guns so they are not accessible to unauthorized persons; at the same time the NRA opposes safe-storage laws.

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NRA propagandist Wayne LaPierre has spent decades telling his flock that they cant afford to let down their guard for even a moment. The lone gunslinger, LaPierre said in a jolly 2014 speech, faces terrorists, home invaders, drug cartels, car jackers, knock-out gamers, rapers, haters, campus killers, airport killers, shopping mall killers and killers who scheme to destroy our country with massive storms of violence against our power grids or vicious waves of chemicals or disease that could collapse a society that sustains us all.

When a vicious wave of chemicals knocks at your door, you simply dont have time to retrieve your gun and ammunition from a locked safe.

Inhabitants of gun cultures paranoia-verse arent the only gun owners resistant to safety. Others are so willfully negligent its hard to imagine what might get through to them. A lawyer once told me of a client whose young daughter had found his gun and shot a bullet into the wall of their home. Even after that episode, the client failed to secure his gun. The same girl later found the gun in her fathers bag. This time she used it to kill her sister.

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Still, among the parents of those 2.6 million vulnerable children are plenty of adults who might benefit from reminders about the lethal danger of a loaded gun in the nightstand or in the console of the car. With so many guns in America  almost 400 million, after a Covid sales boom  and so few regulations on who can own them, pointless violence is guaranteed. But more safe storage could reduce the toll  especially on children.

More From Bloomberg Opinion:

 Ending the Growing Threat of Homemade Guns: The Editors

 Guns Are Not a Winning Issue for Democrats: Matthew Yglesias

 Canadas Reasonable Vision of Gun Control: Francis Wilkinson

(1) Michael Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, is a founder and financial supporter of Everytown.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Francis Wilkinson writes about U.S. politics and domestic policy for Bloomberg Opinion. He was previously executive editor of the Week, a writer for Rolling Stone, a communications consultant and a political media strategist.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion

2022 Bloomberg L.P.

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Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, the former president of Mali who was elected in 2013 in the wake of a coup and then ousted by the military after a turbulent seven-year rule, died Jan. 16 at his home in Bamako, the capital. He was 76 and had been in poor health in recent years.

The state broadcaster, ORTM, announced his death but did not share information about the cause. His death came a week after West African leaders moved to close borders and cut off trade with the country, in response to an announcement from Malis transitional government that a new presidential election would not be held until 2026.

Known by his initials IBK, Mr. Keita was seized by Malian soldiers and forced to step down in August 2020, with three years left in his second term. He appeared in a late-night broadcast on state television announcing that he would resign to avoid bloodshed in the West African nation.

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Tens of thousands of Malians had previously taken to the streets, protesting his administrations response to a fast-growing Islamist insurgency and an economic crisis that only worsened during the coronavirus pandemic. When soldiers streamed into Bamako, they were met with jubilation.

By contrast, his ouster spurred condemnation abroad, including from West African leaders, the United States and France, which had sent troops to Mali to battle extremists linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. The coup injected further instability into the region, where Malis small army struggled to defend a country of 20 million from Islamist insurgents who burned villages and sought to expand their territory.

Troops with the junta kept Mr. Keita in custody for 10 days at a barracks in nearby Kati, where a strikingly similar coup had originated eight years earlier. Both uprisings were driven by military frustrations with the government, and by a view that the political elite are increasingly disconnected from the populace, said Judd Devermont, a former director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in a 2020 phone interview.

Devermont, who is now special adviser for Africa strategy at the National Security Council, added in the interview that IBK is ultimately a symbol of a distant and corrupt political elite. His election heralded the second return of civilian rule, but not a change in the way the country governed itself, or in the way that governments need to hold up their side of the social contract.

Mr. Keita had deep links to France, the countrys former colonial ruler, and had been involved in Malian politics since democratic rule returned in the early 1990s. He served as prime minister for six years and founded his own political party, Rally for Mali, before unsuccessfully running for president in 2002 and 2007.

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By then, the country had become known as a bastion of democracy in West Africa, with a vibrant music scene and history that brought tourists to the ancient city of Timbuktu. That image began to fracture after the 2011 collapse of Libyan strongman Moammar Gaddafis regime, which led militants to stream across the border with weapons.

A rebellion escalated in the Malian north, and in 2012 mutinous soldiers ended the decade-long rule of President Amadou Toumani Toure, resulting in a power vacuum that helped Islamist militants take over much of Mali. The extremists were dislodged by a French-led military operation in 2013, the same year Mr. Keita was elected with more than 77 percent of the vote.

No one will make fun of Mali again, he vowed on the campaign trail, where he appeared in a traditional white flowing robe and appealed to the countrys overwhelmingly Muslim population by reciting verses from the Koran. He also promised to end political patronage and pledged zero tolerance for corruption.

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Supporters had a nickname for Mr. Keita: Kankeletegui, meaning man of his word in Bambara. But his government soon came under fire for buying a $40 million presidential jet, and he was accused of nepotism after his son Karim was appointed chairman of an influential defense committee in the National Assembly.

Mr. Keita also struggled to quell violence in the country, which spilled into Burkina Faso and Niger, displaced tens of thousands of people, and led the United Nations to spend $1.2 billion a year on what it called the most dangerous peacekeeping mission in the world.

Islamist insurgents took 170 hostages and killed 20 at a Bamako hotel in 2015, and attacks surged in early 2020. Nearly a fifth of the countrys health-care facilities were destroyed, according to a Washington Post report, and Mr. Keitas longtime political opponent Soumaila Cisse was held hostage for several months by unidentified militants.

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Mr. Keita presided over 5 percent annual growth and was reelected in 2018 amid allegations of electoral fraud. But he struggled to alleviate poverty  with 43 percent of the country living on $1.90 a day or less, according to the World Bank  and cycled through six prime ministers in seven years, using the rest of the cabinet as scapegoats for problems he wasnt ready to solve, Devermont said.

After he was accused of rigging parliamentary elections, demonstrations broke out across the country in 2020, led in part by the popular imam Mahmoud Dicko. The protests continued amid crackdowns by state security forces, which have a history of committing torture, extrajudicial killings and disappearances, according to Human Rights Watch. Researchers later concluded that pro-Russian disinformation campaigns also fueled the demonstrations, with messages against France and democracy flooding social media.

IBK did not want to listen to his people, Nouhoum Togo, a spokesman for the protest coalition M5-RFP, told Reuters after soldiers took Mr. Keita into custody. He thought that France . . . or the international community could save him.

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The coups organizers included Col. Assimi Goita, who led another military takeover nine months after the first and named himself president in May. His decision to delay new elections, postponing the return of civilian rule, led the ECOWAS bloc of West African states to impose harsh new sanctions on Mali last week.

The son of a civil servant, Mr. Keita was born in Koutiala, a center of cotton production in the Malian south, on Jan. 29, 1945. He studied political science, history and international relations at the University of Dakar in Senegal and the Sorbonne in Paris, where he taught and worked as a researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).

After returning to Mali in 1986, he worked as an adviser to the European Development Fund, an aid organization of the European Union, and joined the French chapter of the humanitarian organization Terre des Hommes.

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Mr. Keita helped elect President Alpha Oumar Konare in 1992 and rose through the government ranks, serving as an ambassador and minister of foreign affairs before being named prime minister in 1994. He was president of the National Assembly for five years beginning in 2002.

Survivors include his wife, Aminata Maiga Keita, and four children, according to the Associated Press.

Curiously, Mr. Keita was one of the only leading Malian politicians who was untouched by military officials during the coup in 2012. When he ran for president a year later, some accused him of being too close to the junta. He incarnates this figure of authority, Gilles Holder, a Mali expert at the CNRS, told the New York Times. Mr. Keita, he added, had invoked the image of General de Gaulle.

After his election, Mr. Keita insisted  wrongly, it turned out  that the militarys primacy was over. Kati will no longer scare Bamako, he said, referring to the army base where he would be held captive seven years later.

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Prosecutor: Unrest results in 225 bodies Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight The bodies of 225 people killed in unrest in Kazakhstan last week, including 19 members of the security forces, were delivered to morgues throughout the country, the prosecutor generals office said on Saturday. The figure included civilians and armed bandits killed by security forces, Serik Shalabayev, the head of criminal prosecution at the prosecutors office, said at a briefing.

Violent protests began in the oil-producing Central Asian state this month after a jump in car fuel prices. The toll provided by Shalabayev confirmed the violence was the deadliest in the countrys post-Soviet history.

Shalabayev said 50,000 people joined the riots throughout the former Soviet republic at their peak on Jan. 5 when crowds stormed and torched government buildings, cars, banks and shops in several major cities.

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 Reuters

Fugitive Haitian senator detained

Jamaican authorities have detained a former Haitian senator who was a key suspect in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise in July, Jamaican national police said Saturday.

Jamaica Constabulary Force spokesman Dennis Brooks said John Joel Joseph, a well-known Haitian politician named by the authorities as a suspect in Moises killing, was arrested by the authorities on Friday.

Moise was fatally shot when assassins armed with assault rifles stormed his private residence in the hills above Port-au-Prince on July 7, sparking a major manhunt across several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Days after Moises slaying, the then-National Police Chief Leon Charles said Joseph was a key player in the plot, alleging he supplied weapons and planned meetings, and that police were searching for him.

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 Reuters

Hundreds of migrants set off from Honduras toward U.S.: Hundreds of Hondurans and Nicaraguans congregated in the northern Honduran city of San Pedro Sula on Saturday and began to march toward the United States. The caravan, the first of the year, set off days before Honduran President-elect Xiomara Castro takes office. She has vowed to revive the economy and combat corruption that stokes mass migration.

Protest over eviction of activists in Greece turns violent: A protest march by 1,500 far-left activists in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki turned violent, when some protesters threw firebombs and rocks at riot police, who responded with stun grenades and tear gas. Police prevented the marchers from reaching their intended destination, the campus of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. The march was the culmination of a week of protests over the New Year's Eve eviction of activists who had occupied a room at the university's biology department for 34 years.

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Kosovo bans ethnic Serbs from voting in Serbian referendum: Kosovo's parliament passed a resolution banning ethnic Serbs from voting on Kosovan soil in Serbia's national referendum on Sunday on constitutional amendments that would change how judges and prosecutors are elected. It is a move the Serbian government says is aimed at securing an independent judiciary, a condition for European Union membership.

Philippines to acquire Indian missile system for $375 million: The Philippines has finalized a deal to acquire a shore-based anti-ship missile system from India for nearly $375 million to beef up its navy, the Southeast Asian nation's defense minister said. The Philippines is in the late stages of a five-year, 300 billion pesos ($5.85 billion) project to modernize its military's hardware that includes warships from World War II.

Swedish police hunt for drone seen over nuclear plant: Police in Sweden deployed patrols and helicopters to the Forsmark nuclear plant to hunt for a large drone seen flying over the site late Friday, but were unable to catch the unmanned vehicle, they said on Saturday. The incident came a day after Sweden's military started patrolling the main town on the Baltic Sea island of Gotland amid increased tensions between NATO and Russia and a recent deployment of Russian landing craft in the Baltic.

 From news services

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How could the underside of the original subfloor in this old house be stained by concrete? (Tim Carter/TNS)

Ill readily admit that just about any building product that helps save on energy costs with respect to heating and cooling is absolutely better than what was used 100 years ago when energy was so cheap builders didnt insulate homes.
mphillips007 / Getty Images/iStockphoto

Social Security is a lifeline for millions of retirees and other older Americans who are still in the workforce. Making sure you qualify for every dollar youve got coming to you is not a step you want to skip  and believe it or not, Social Security is not guaranteed. In fact, there are more than a half-dozen ways that you could miss out on benefits that you were counting on and that you paid for with your tax dollars.

Find Out: All You Need To Know About Collecting Social Security While Still Working

Read More: The Biggest Problems Facing Social Security

You Failed the Social Security Earnings Test

Early claimers who are still working have to pass the Social Security earnings test in order to qualify for benefits. There is no such test once you reach full retirement age. In 2021, the Social Security Administration (SSA) temporarily withholds $1 in benefits for every $2 earned over $18,960, although theres a more forgiving monthly test for those entering the year of full retirement.

Find Out: The Average Social Security Check the Year You Were Born

You Came Up Short on Credits

In order to receive Social Security payments, you have to first work for a certain amount of time, pay taxes into the system and build up enough credits to qualify for benefits. In 2021, you get one credit for every $1,470 in income earned, up to one credit per quarter or four credits per year. Most people must have 40 credits to receive Social Security benefits, which means you have to work for 10 years before youre eligible.

Read More: Next Years Social Security Checks Could Get Biggest COLA Bump in 13 Years

You Have Debt That Qualifies For Garnishment

Its hard for private lenders to snatch your Social Security payments, but your benefits can be garnished to satisfy certain kinds of other debts. Among them are alimony, child support and restitution, but the states determine what constitutes a valid order for garnishment. If your benefits have been garnished for any of these reasons, contact the appropriate state agency, not the SSA.

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If you guessed that tax debt is one of the other exceptions, you would be correct. The Department of the Treasury can garnish up to 15% of your Social Security benefits every month until your tax debt is paid. The Treasury Department can also garnish your benefits for nontax debt, including any federal student loans you might have defaulted on.

Poll: Are Social Security Benefits Big Enough?

Youre Covered Under the Civil Service Retirement System

Instead of paying into Social Security, some federal employees hired before 1984 have instead been contributing to the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS). The CSRS was formed as part of the 1920 Civil Service Retirement Act and was replaced by the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) in 1987. CSRS recipients do not receive Social Security benefits unless theyre eligible through another job or through a spouse.

Are You Doomed To Work Forever? What You Can Do If Your Social Security Isnt Enough

Youre Covered By the Railroad Retirement Act

Some railroad workers are also covered by a retirement system outside of Social Security and are ineligible for benefits. People who participate in the Railroad Retirement Act pay more of their salaries into the fund but receive higher payments when they retire  particularly career employees with at least 30 years on the job.

When Social Security Runs Out: What the Program Will Look Like in 2035

You Dont Qualify For a Divorced Spouses Benefits

Some people are eligible to receive benefits on their former spouses records, but they have to meet certain qualifications first. You must have been married for 10 years or longer and you must not be remarried, although you can still qualify if your former spouse remarries. There are other requirements, too, so if you were planning on applying for benefits on a former spouses record, make sure you qualify first.

You Moved  Like, Far  in Retirement

In most cases, you can collect Social Security in another country if you live abroad in retirement, although you have to follow strict and specific rules from both the SSA and your host country. The SSA, however, is generally forbidden from sending payments to a handful of countries, but dont worry. None of them are exactly beacons for U.S. retirees.

They include Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Some exceptions can be made for some eligible retirees in those countries, but you can never collect Social Security in Cuba and North Korea.

More From GOBankingRates

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: 7 Reasons You Might Not Receive Social Security Benefits
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WA Premier Mark McGowan is raising the alarm that COVID-19 is likely circulating in the community undetected as a cluster linked to a massage spa in Applecross grows, and WAs active Omicron cases rise to 81.

We need everyone in Perth and Peel to take this situation very seriously, he said.

We now have some community spread of Omicron in Perth. We know it spreads fast and easily. In the past seven days weve now recorded a total of 18 local cases. From Midland to Northbridge. From Victoria Park to West Swan, Cannington to Applecross and Mount Lawley to Jandakot.

Mr McGowan called on the community to again follow public health advice after several cases of Omicron were found to be infectious in the community since January 6.
Loading Many nations continue to impose mask requirements, vaccination mandates and travel restrictions. But few leaders in democratic societies have the political capital to take harsh measures to suppress transmission. Even the arrival of the ultra-transmissible Omicron variant did not throw the world back into 2021, when the paramount goal remained stopping viral spread at all costs  much less back to 2020, when people were told to stay home, wipe down their groceries and not touch their face. Let it rip In Australia, long a fortress nation that sought to suppress the virus at all costs, many mandates have been eased but opposition leaders and some experts have decried what they call the let it rip strategy. The decision to remove restrictions just as Omicron surged has cost us dearly, declared a report from an independent group of experts called OzSAGE. The let it rip strategy and defeatist narrative that we are all going to get it ignores the stark lived reality of the vulnerable of our society.

In South Africa, where officials first sounded the alarm about Omicron, the government in December eased protocols, betting that previous encounters with the virus have given the population enough immunity to prevent significant levels of severe illness. The Omicron wave there subsided quickly with modest hospitalisations, and scientists think one reason is that so many people - close to 80 per cent - had previously been infected by earlier variants. A COVID vaccination centre in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Thursday. Credit:Getty Images Omicron also appears to be less virulent - less likely to cause disease. This heavily mutated coronavirus variant stiff-arms the front-line defence of antibodies generated by vaccines and previous infection but does not seem to be adept at invading the lungs or escaping the deeper defences of the immune system. In the ideal scenario, Omicrons alarming wave of infections will spike quickly, leaving behind a residue of immunity that will keep a broad swath of the population less vulnerable to future infections. This would be the last major, globally disruptive wave of the pandemic. The virus would still be around but would no longer be in a special category apart from other routinely circulating and typically non-fatal viruses such as influenza. There are other scenarios less attractive. Scientists are quick to point out that they dont know how long Omicron-induced immunity lasts. The virus keeps mutating. Slippery variants packing a more powerful punch could yet emerge, and virologists say that, contrary to what has sometimes been conjectured, viruses do not inexorably evolve toward milder strains.

But humans change, too. Outside locked-down China, most people are no longer immunologically naive to the coronavirus. Scientists believe thats a factor in Omicrons relatively low severity for individual patients. In the long term, humans and viruses tend to reach something like a stalemate. Only one disease-causing virus, smallpox, has ever been eradicated. Residents line up for the coronavirus test during a mass testing in north Chinas Tianjin municipality, on January 9, 2021. Credit:Chinatopix/AP In the short term, experts believe Omicron is essentially unstoppable but of limited threat to individuals even as it causes societal chaos. Ali Mokdad, an epidemiologist at the University of Washingtons Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, said he believes that about half of the US population will be infected with Omicron during the next three months, with most cases asymptomatic. Theres no way to stop its spread - unless we do measures like China is doing, and you and I know very well thats not possible in the United States, Mokdad said. Follow the science

There is no unified global response to the pandemic. Despite calls to follow the science, scientific research cannot dictate the best policy for some of the stickiest issues  such as when to open schools to in-person learning, or who should be prioritised for vaccines, or whether people who have no symptoms should be regularly tested. The national strategies typically reflect elements of a countrys culture, wealth, government structure, demographics and underlying health conditions. Also geography: New Zealand has managed to record only a few dozen deaths from COVID-19, one of the lowest per capita death tolls on the planet, by leveraging its isolation in the South Pacific. Japan, Singapore and South Korea, nations with a long history of mask-wearing and aggressive measures to suppress epidemics, have managed to keep the virus largely in check without draconian lockdowns or major sacrifices to their economies. Peru, hammered by the variants dubbed lambda and gamma before the Delta and Omicron waves arrived, has had the deadliest pandemic per capita, according to the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus tracking site. The nations of Eastern Europe, with older populations and high vaccine scepticism, are not far behind. Countries have different and sometimes unreliable ways of documenting the pandemic, but some general trends are clear. Among the wealthiest nations, the United States - where the pandemic is thoroughly polarised, misinformation is rampant and a significant fraction of the public has resisted vaccination - has had an unusually deadly pandemic. According to the Hopkins tracker, the United States ranks 21st in reported deaths per capita. Britain is not much better, at 28th, while Canada is 82nd.

New normal A group of doctors who advised US President Joe Biden during the presidential transition have urged a reset of the strategy to recognise the new normal of the virus, which has little chance of being eradicated and will probably continue to cause typically mild illness and require vaccination boosters at a frequency yet to be determined. Biden took office nearly a year ago vowing to crush the pandemic, having won the presidency in part by emphasising a more aggressive posture against the contagion than his predecessor Donald Trump. Bidens administration pushed vaccination hard and saw millions of people a day roll up their sleeves during the spring. On July 4, after caseloads had dropped, he assembled a crowd on the South Lawn for a celebration of independence from the virus. But the surge of infections and deaths from the Delta variant proved that celebration to be premature, and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention revised its guidelines, saying even those people fully vaccinated should resume wearing masks indoors. The Delta wave began to subside in the fall, but then Omicron, crammed with mutations that make it wildly more transmissible and evasive of immunity, erupted in late November. Bidens Omicron strategy is not significantly different from what he employed against previous variants. On December 2, he detailed his plans by first announcing what he would not do: lockdowns. He vowed to distribute 500 million rapid tests and doubled the number in recent days. His COVID taskforce continues to emphasise the importance of vaccines, therapeutics and testing rather than restrictions on mobility and gatherings.

Overrun hospitals Many global leaders, including those in the United States and Europe, have focused on vaccination as the key to mitigating the pandemic. The vaccines do lower the risk of severe illness. What they do not do as well is stop transmission and mild infection. The speed of Omicrons spread is the key factor in the equation that determines how much pressure it will put on hospitals  which are currently seeing record numbers of COVID patients in the US. If we just completely let everything go and allow the Omicron epidemic to run its natural course, well completely overrun our health system and be left in a situation potentially worse than what we experienced in early 2020, said James Lawler, co-director of the University of Nebraskas Global Centre for Health Security. He is not seeing the precautions he saw early in the pandemic, when he was among the first disease experts to sound an alarm about the extreme transmissibility of the coronavirus. Earlier this week, he went to a grocery store and was virtually alone in wearing a mask. Thats the norm, he said, in Omaha. Theres not a mandate, he said. Across the entire experience of humanity, we should have learned by now the only way to get high levels of compliance like this is to make it mandatory. Thats what happened with seat belts.
Aid agencies said thick ash and smoke had prompted authorities to ask people to wear masks and drink bottled water. Loading Ardern said New Zealand was unable to send a planned surveillance flight over Tonga on Sunday because the ash cloud was 19,000 metres) high, but they hoped to try again on Monday, followed by supply planes and navy ships. One complicating factor to any international aid effort is that Tonga has so far managed to avoid any outbreaks of COVID-19. Ardern said New Zealands military staff were all fully vaccinated and willing to follow any protocols established by Tonga. Olympian appeals for help

Pita Taufatofua, an unofficial ambassador known for baring his chest during opening ceremonies for the Olympic Games, on Sunday pleaded for help for his homeland. The three-time Olympian, who lives in Australia, created a GoFundMe account, saying communications with his family in Haapai had been cut off. My current knowledge is that my father (now the governor of Haapai) was trying to fly back to Haapai from Tongatapu straight after the opening of parliament, he wrote on social media. After getting to the airport his flight was cancelled due to the volcanic eruption. Last we heard he was securing our home in Veitongo right on the waters edge. Our family in Haapai has had all communication cut off. The King has called all the reservists and armed forces to prepare for assistance. The information Ive been sent shows the tsunami going over both Popua and the main town in Tongatapu, Nukualofa. No word yet from Haapai.

What I do know is that the Tongan people are some of the strongest most resilient people to grace Gods earth. In times of great struggle is when their true spirit shines. Taufatofua, who has competed in the 2016 and 2020 Summer Games in taekwondo and the 2018 Winter Games in skiing. Humbling and scary Dave Snider, the tsunami warning co-ordinator for the National Tsunami Warning Centre in Palmer, Alaska, said it was very unusual for a volcanic eruption to affect an entire ocean basin, and the spectacle was both humbling and scary. The tsunami waves caused damage to boats as far away as New Zealand and Santa Cruz in California, but did not appear to cause any widespread damage. Snider said he anticipated the tsunami situation in the US and elsewhere to continue improving.

Tsunami advisories were earlier issued for parts of Australia, Japan, Hawaii, Alaska and the US Pacific coast. In northern Perus Lambayeque region, two women drowned after being swept away by abnormal waves following the eruption, authorities said. A dozen restaurants and a coastal street were also flooded along El Chaco beach in Paracas district. A dock was torn apart in Tutukaka, New Zealand after waves swept into the marina. Credit:Northern Advocate/NZME via AP The US Geological Survey estimated the eruption caused the equivalent of a magnitude 5.8 earthquake. Scientists said tsunamis generated by volcanoes rather than earthquakes are relatively rare.

Rachel Afeaki-Taumoepeau, who chairs the New Zealand Tonga Business Council, said she hoped the relatively low level of the tsunami waves would have allowed most people to get to safety, although she worried about those living on islands closest to the volcano. She said she hadnt yet been able to contact her friends and family in Tonga. We are praying that the damage is just to infrastructure and people were able to get to higher land, she said. Tonga gets its internet via an undersea cable from Suva in Fiji. All internet connectivity with Tonga was lost at about 6.40pm local time on Saturday, said Doug Madory, director of internet analysis for the network intelligence firm Kentik. On Tonga, which is home to about 105,000 people, video posted to social media showed large waves washing ashore in coastal areas and swirling around homes, a church and other buildings. The explosion of the Hunga Tonga Hunga Haapai volcano, about 64 kilometres north of Nukualofa, was the latest in a series of dramatic eruptions. In late 2014 and early 2015, eruptions created a small new island and disrupted international air travel to the Pacific archipelago for several days.
CEO Alex Pernin said the project has the potential to sequester significant amounts of atmospheric CO2 from enhanced management of their forest resource

Star Royalties Ltd (TSX-V:STRR) said it has increased its gross revenue royalty on carbon offset credits from forested lands in Elizabeth Metis Settlement (EMS) in Alberta to 40.5%.

The royalty is owned by Stars pure green subsidiary Green Star Royalties, which will receive a share of revenue from the creation and sale of carbon offset credits.

The royalty is now expected to generate annual revenues equivalent to around 9,000 carbon offset credits starting in 2023, expanding Toronto-based Stars unique carbon credit portfolio.

The move also provides carbon finance for improved forest management practices in Alberta to create biosequestration-based compliance carbon offset credits, according to a statement from Star.

As per the term sheet, Green Star paid EMS C$600,000 in cash to increase its royalty to 40.5% of EMSs revenue share from the forest project. The royalty covers the entire forest project and has a term of the earlier of 10 years commencing on the date EMS receives any gross revenue from the monetization of carbon offset credits, or the date until the first 225,000 carbon offset credits are issued and sold in connection with the project.

Star Royalties CEO Alex Pernin told investors that the project has the potential to sequester significant amounts of atmospheric CO 2 from enhanced management of their forest resource.

This upsizing of our royalty not only represents a pure green investment in a tier-one jurisdiction with cash flow visibility, but it also highlights the intuitive and replicable structure of our revenue sharing business model, Pernin said.

This re-investment also demonstrates our ability to partner with Indigenous communities to unlock their many carbon sequestration opportunities. Our company is committed to sustainable environmental solutions and continues to view this as a highly scalable business model with attractive returns."

The EMS forest project covers a forested area of 15,457 hectares around 230 kilometres northeast of the provincial capital city of Edmonton. Carbon offset developer and marketer Bluesource is assisting EMS in developing the project to generate carbon offset credits that can be sold to federally regulated industrial emitters. Revenue will be split with the majority going to EMS and the remainder to Green Star Royalties.

Contact Angela at angela@proactiveinvestors.com

Follow her on Twitter @AHarmantas
A fifth person with ties to Delaware has been arrested on federal charges associated with the insurrectionist riot at the U.S. Capitol last year.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 16)  Some senators seeking another term were united in saying that keeping the country's health system strong and increasing the vaccine rollout would be effective long-term responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In CNN Philippines' first Senatorial Forum on Sunday, Senators Sherwin Gatchalian, Risa Hontiveros and Miguel Zubiri spoke about what could be done to help stem the pandemic.

Universal Health Care Law a template

Hontiveros said the existing Universal Health Care Law could guide policy concerning COVID-19.

"Yung Universal Health Care Law, na isa ako sa naging author para maipasa, gives us the template to strategically strengthen our public health system and make us COVID- -- or any other pandemic -- ready into the future," she said.

Hontiveros said raising testing capacity, as well as increasing vaccination and booster efforts, would be part of the plan.

'Vaccines work'

Gatchalian stressed the need for more vaccinations, saying the rate must be raised from 50% to 70%.

"With the experience from Omicron, vaccines work. The reason why we're not seeing an occupancy in our hospitals is because...vaccinated na tayo dito sa Metro Manila. But we're still at 50%, so we have to raise it to 70%," he said.

He added that inoculating children aged five to 11 was also important so that face-to-face classes could resume.

Prevention, cure, sustainability

Zubiri said the government should begin meting out harsher penalties to health and safety protocol violators.

"Kapag ikaw ay nag-skip ng quarantine, nandaya sa vaccination card, nagsinungaling ay dapat mataas ang parusa sa iyo," he said.

[Translation: If you skip quarantine, cheat information on the vaccination card or lied, you should get a harsher punishment.]

He said both the violator and those who help them should be penalized.

He also added that hospitals nationwide must be upgraded and provided with more medical equipment.
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(CNN) -- An underwater volcano in the South Pacific erupted violently on Saturday, causing tsunamis to hit Hawaii, Japan, and Tonga's largest island, Tongatapu -- sending waves flooding into the capital.

The Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai volcano, about 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) southeast of Tonga's Fonuafo'ou island, first erupted on Friday and a second time on Saturday around 5:26 p.m. local time, according to CNN affiliate Radio New Zealand (RNZ).

The eruptions sent a plume of ash, gas and steam 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) into the air, according to RNZ. Satellite imagery showed a massive ash cloud and shockwaves spreading from the eruption. Ash was falling from the sky in the Tonga capital, Nuku'alofa, Saturday evening and phone connections were down.

The eruption caused a severe tsunami on Tongatapu, where the capital is located, with waves flowing onto coastal roads and flooding properties on Saturday.

So far, New Zealand authorities have not received any reports of deaths or injuries in Tonga related to the eruption, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said at a news conference on Sunday.

The tsunami had a "significant impact" on Nuku'alofa, with boats and large boulders washed ashore, and shops along the coast damaged, she added.

RNZ reported that residents fled for higher ground as waves swept the waterfront, main street and grounds of Tonga's Royal Palace. Though it was early evening, videos show the sky already dark from the ash cloud.

Tonga's King Tupou VI was evacuated from the palace, RNZ said, citing local media reports of a convoy of police and troops rushing the monarch to a villa at Mata Ki Eua.

Telecommunications were affected, though it's not clear how widespread the damage is yet, Ardern said, adding that the main undersea cable has been impacted likely due to loss of power.

The New Zealand government has committed an initial $340,000 in relief supplies, technical support, and supporting local responses, with the country's Defence Force sending assistance to Tonga, Ardern said.

She added that while conditions in the area seem stable, further eruption activity cannot be ruled out.

Impact in Japan

The eruption also had effects across the Pacific, as tsunami warnings and advisories were issued from parts of New Zealand and Japan to the United States and Canada's British Columbia.

Per the National Weather Service, a tsunami warning means those nearby should get inland or seek higher ground immediately, while an advisory means they should stay away from the shore and out of the water.

Japan's Meteorological Agency issued a tsunami advisory for the country's coastal areas early Sunday morning, with the northeastern prefecture of Iwate seeing waves as high as 2.7 meters (9 feet). Multiple smaller tsunamis were reported in numerous other locations, according to public broadcaster NHK.

By Sunday afternoon, all tsunami advisories had been lifted, the meteorological agency said. Weather agency officials ruled out the possibility of further tsunamis across the country, but said there might be some tidal fluctuations.

Japan's coast guard was out assessing damage, but so far none had been reported, NHK said, noting it was still dark and more waves were expected. Officials continued to ask people to stay alert and away from beaches.

Footage shared on NHK from a viewer in Setouchi town, on Amami Oshima Island, showed bumper-to-bumper traffic as cars evacuated to higher ground. Other footage showed people sleeping on floors in evacuation centers in Iwate.

Elsewhere, Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said it recorded a tsunami wave of 1.2 meters (about 4 feet) near Nuku'alofa at 5:30 p.m. local time on Saturday. And the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said tsunami waves of 2.7 feet (0.8 meters) were observed by gauges at Nuku'alofa and waves of 2 feet at Pago Pago, the capital of American Samoa, Reuters reported.

The nearby island of Fiji also issued a public advisory asking people living in low-lying coastal areas to "move to safety in anticipation of the strong currents and dangerous waves." Footage from the ground shows people fleeing to higher ground in Suva, the capital of Fiji, as large waves hit the coast.

In Samoa, another Pacific island nation, a tsunami watch is in effect for all low-lying coastal areas, the Samoa Meteorological Service said, with residents and visitors advised to stay away from beach areas.

An earlier tsunami advisory for the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu was discontinued, with the country's National Disaster Management issuing an "all clear." The office had earlier advised residents to move away from the coastline and seek higher ground.

Waves seen in the US

The eruption also sent waves to the US West Coast, with some exceeding 3 and 4 feet in height, according to the National Weather Service office in San Diego.

The highest waves recorded were in Port San Luis, California (4.3 feet); King Cove, Alaska (3.3 feet); Area Cove, California (3.7 feet); Crescent City, California (3.7 feet); and Port Reyes, California (2.9 feet).

The first tsunami waves were felt on the West Coast early Saturday morning, according to Dave Snider, the tsunami warning coordinator at the National Weather Service's National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska.

A wave as high as 1.2 feet had been observed in Nikolski, Alaska, he told CNN via telephone, while waves as tall as 1 foot were observed in Atka, Adak and King Cove, Alaska.

"This may not be the largest wave as this is coming in yet," Snider told CNN, saying the event was not over.

The initial coastal tsunami advisory included the states of California, Oregon, Washington and Alaska, according to the National Tsunami Warning Center. All of the advisories had been lifted by early Sunday morning, according the Tsunami Warning Center.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning tweeted no damage was reported thus far from the tsunami observed in the Hawaiian Islands. A tsunami advisory for Hawaii was canceled by the agency Saturday morning.

Adam Weintraub, a spokesperson for the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, told CNN there were "no reports of major damage so far," though the effects had been felt across multiple islands. Officials were still assessing the damage.

The impacts were the equivalent of a "high King Tide," Weintraub said earlier, telling CNN there had been flooding in parking lots and harbor areas he characterized as "nuisance flooding."

Speaking by telephone, Snider said, "We don't have a really good forecast because this event is based on a volcano rather than an earthquake."

Nonetheless, the National Weather Service in Seattle urged caution along the US Pacific Coast on Saturday. "Move off the beach and out of harbors and marinas in these areas," NWS Seattle tweeted.

The city of Laguna Beach, California, closed all beaches, boardwalks, harbors and piers until further notice in response to the tsunami advisory early Saturday morning, telling residents, "please stay out of the water and away from the shore."

Santa Cruz, California, also experienced some "minor flooding" at the harbor, city manager Elizabeth Smith told CNN.

The waves came right at high tide, Fire Chief Rob Young said. The initial wave occurred at approximately 7:40 a.m. local time, he said, bringing with it a 1 to 2-foot wave right at the peak of high tide. The largest wave came in at about 8:49 a.m. local time, prompting a surge of about 7 feet at the harbor. A subsequent surge just after 10 a.m. was "diminished."

"When it comes, it comes quickly," he said. "Not just a 1-foot wave, but it comes in a surge because it draws all the water out first, and then it comes in."

There was some damage in the harbor and to some docks, he said. There was also "light flooding" on the beaches and up to the city's first surface street, Young said.

All beaches and the harbor will be closed until at least noon local time, Smith said, and people were evacuated from nearby stores and the area near the harbor, though no one has been evacuated from their homes. A surf contest has been postponed and is expected to resume later Saturday.

New Zealand on alert

A tsunami advisory was also issued for coastal areas on the north and east coast of New Zealand's North Island and the Chatham Islands, where "strong and unusual currents and unpredictable surges at the shore" were expected, according to New Zealand's National Emergency Management Agency.

New Zealand's official weather service said its weather stations across the country had observed "a pressure surge" on Saturday evening from the eruption.

Scientist Emily Lane, of New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, told the New Zealand Science Media Centre it was a "very significant" eruption.

"The shock wave from it is clearly visible in satellite imagery and there are reports of the eruption being heard at least as far away as New Zealand," she said. "The tsunami from the eruption has reached over 2,500 kilometers being recorded on gauges over all of Aotearoa."

Tsunamis generated by volcanoes are much less common than tsunamis from underwater earthquakes, Lane said.

A smaller eruption in late 2014 and early 2015 built up the crater of the volcano to above the surface of the water, Lane added, but it's not yet clear exactly how Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai erupted on this occasion. "When we see what is left of the island after this eruption is over we can start to put together the pieces of what happened," she said.

Professor Shane Cronin, from the School of Environment at the University of Auckland, told the New Zealand Science Media Centre research into historical eruptions by the same volcano suggested the current eruption episode could last for weeks or months "and further similar-sized eruptions to the 15 January 2022 event are possible."

"The eruption is likely to result in significant ash fall (up to 10 centimeters) in Tongatapu as well as the Ha'apai group of islands," he said. "Help will be needed to restore drinking water supplies. People of Tonga must also remain vigilant for further eruptions and especially tsunami with short notice and should avoid low-lying areas."

An earlier tsunami warning issued for American Samoa has since been canceled, according to the NWS Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

There is no tsunami threat to Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands from a "distant eruption," according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

The volcano had been active from December 20, but was declared dormant on January 11, according to RNZ.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "Tsunami advisories lifted in US after waves hit Tonga following volcanic eruption"
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COLLEYVILLE, Texas (AP)  A rabbi who was among four people held hostage at a Texas synagogue said Sunday that their armed captor grew increasingly belligerent and threatening toward the end of the 10-hour standoff, which ended with an FBI SWAT team rushing into the building and the captor's death.

Colleyville police Chief Michael Miller addresses reporters in a nearby parking lot after the conclusion of a SWAT operation at Congregation Beth Israel synagogue on Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022, in Colleyville, Texas. All four people taken hostage inside the synagogue during a morning service were safe Saturday night after an hours-long standoff, authorities said. (Smiley N. Pool/The Dallas Morning News via AP)

COLLEYVILLE, Texas (AP)  A rabbi who was among four people held hostage at a Texas synagogue said Sunday that their armed captor grew increasingly belligerent and threatening toward the end of the 10-hour standoff, which ended with an FBI SWAT team rushing into the building and the captor's death.

Authorities identified the hostage-taker as a 44-year-old British national, Malik Faisal Akram, who was killed Saturday night after the last hostages ran out of Congregation Beth Israel around 9 p.m. The FBI said there was no early indication that anyone else was involved but had not provided a possible motive.

The investigation stretched to England, where late Sunday police in Manchester announced that two teenagers were in custody in connection with the standoff. Greater Manchester Police tweeted that counter-terrorism officers had made the arrests but did not say whether the pair faced any charges.

President Joe Biden called the episode an act of terror. Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker credited security training that his suburban Fort Worth congregation has received over the years for getting him and the other three hostages through the ordeal, which he described as traumatic.

In the last hour of our hostage crisis, the gunman became increasingly belligerent and threatening, Cytron-Walker said in a statement. Without the instruction we received, we would not have been prepared to act and flee when the situation presented itself."

Colleyville police Chief Michael Miller addresses reporters in a nearby parking lot after the conclusion of a SWAT operation at Congregation Beth Israel synagogue on Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022, in Colleyville, Texas. All four people taken hostage inside the synagogue during a morning service were safe Saturday night after an hours-long standoff, authorities said. (Smiley N. Pool/The Dallas Morning News via AP)

Akram could be heard for a time ranting on a Facebook livestream of the services and demanding the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist suspected of having ties to al-Qaida who was convicted of trying to kill U.S. Army officers in Afghanistan.

Video of the standoff's end from Dallas TV station WFAA showed people running out a door of the synagogue, and then a man holding a gun opening the same door just seconds later before he turned around and closed it. Moments later, several shots and then an explosion could be heard.

Authorities have declined to say who shot Akram, saying it was still under investigation.

Matthew J. DeSarno, Special Agent in Charge of the Dallas FBI Field Office, addresses reporters in a nearby parking lot after the conclusion of a SWAT operation at Congregation Beth Israel synagogue on Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022, in Colleyville, Texas. All four people taken hostage inside the synagogue during a morning service were safe Saturday night after an hours-long standoff, authorities said. (Smiley N. Pool/The Dallas Morning News via AP)

Speaking to reporters in Philadelphia on Sunday, Biden said Akram allegedly purchased a weapon on the streets.

Federal investigators believe Akram purchased the handgun used in the hostage taking in a private sale, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. Akram arrived in the U.S. at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York about two weeks ago, a law enforcement official said.

Akram arrived in the U.S. recently on a tourist visa from Great Britain, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was not intended to be public. Londons Metropolitan Police said in a statement that its counter-terrorism police were liaising with U.S. authorities about the incident.

Law enforcement officials talk to each other after a news conference where they announced that all hostages at Congregation Beth Israel synagogue were safe and the hostage taker was dead on Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022, in Colleyville, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

FBI Special Agent in Charge Matt DeSarno had said Saturday night that the hostage-taker was specifically focused on an issue not directly connected to the Jewish community. It wasn't clear why Akram chose the synagogue, though the prison where Siddiqui is serving her sentence is in Fort Worth.

On Sunday night, the FBI issued a statement calling the ordeal a terrorism-related matter, in which the Jewish community was targeted." The agency said the Joint Terrorism Task Force is investigating.

Michael Finfer, the president of the congregation, said in a statement there was a one in a million chance that the gunman picked our congregation.

Police stand in front of the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue, Sunday, Jan. 16, 2022, in Colleyville, Texas. A man held hostages for more than 10 hours Saturday inside the temple. The hostages were able to escape and the hostage taker was killed. FBI Special Agent in Charge Matt DeSarno said a team would investigate "the shooting incident." (AP Photo/Brandon Wade)

Authorities said police were first called to the synagogue around 11 a.m. and people were evacuated from the surrounding neighborhood soon afterward.

Akram used his phone during the course of negotiations to communicate with people other than law enforcement, according to a law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Multiple people heard the hostage-taker refer to Siddiqui as his sister on the livestream. But John Floyd, board chair for the Houston chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations  the nations largest Muslim advocacy group  said Siddiquis brother, Mohammad Siddiqui, was not involved.

President Joe Biden speaks with members of the press about the Texas synagogue hostage incident before volunteering with first lady Jill Biden, back right, at hunger relief organization Philabundance, Sunday, Jan. 16, 2022, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

We want the assailant to know that his actions are wicked and directly undermine those of us who are seeking justice for Dr. Aafia, said Floyd, who also is legal counsel for Mohammad Siddiqui.

Texas resident Victoria Francis, who said she watched about an hour of the livestream, said she heard the man rant against America and claim he had a bomb. Biden said there were apparently no explosives, despite the threats.

He was just all over the map. He was pretty irritated and the more irritated he got, hed make more threats, like Im the guy with the bomb. If you make a mistake, this is all on you. And hed laugh at that, Francis said. He was clearly in extreme distress.

Law enforcement process the scene in front of the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue, Sunday, Jan. 16, 2022, in Colleyville, Texas. A man held hostages for more than 10 hours Saturday inside the temple. The hostages were able to escape and the hostage taker was killed. FBI Special Agent in Charge Matt DeSarno said a team would investigate "the shooting incident." (AP Photo/Brandon Wade)

Colleyville, a community of about 26,000 people, is about 15 miles (23 kilometers) northeast of Fort Worth. By Sunday morning, the police perimeter around the synagogue had shrunk to half a block in either direction and FBI agents could be seen going in and out of the building. A sign saying Love  with the o replaced with a Star of David  was planted in a neighbors lawn.

Reached outside his home Sunday, Cytron-Walker declined to speak at length about the episode. Its a little overwhelming as you can imagine. It was not fun yesterday," he told the AP.

Andrew Marc Paley, a Dallas rabbi who was called to the scene to help families and hostages upon their release, said Cytron-Walker acted as a calm and comforting presence. The first hostage was released shortly after 5 p.m. That was around the time food was delivered to those inside the synagogue, but Paley said he did not know if it was part of the negotiations.

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Law enforcement process the scene in front of the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue, Sunday, Jan. 16, 2022, in Colleyville, Texas. A man held hostages for more than 10 hours Saturday inside the temple. The hostages were able to escape and the hostage taker was killed. FBI Special Agent in Charge Matt DeSarno said a team would investigate "the shooting incident." (AP Photo/Brandon Wade)

He appeared a little unfazed, actually, but I don't know if that was sort of shock or just the moment," Paley said of the first hostage who was released.

Cytron-Walker said his congregation had received training from local authorities and the Secure Community Network, which was founded in 2004 by a coalition of Jewish organizations and describes itself as the official safety and security organization of the Jewish community in North America. Michael Masters, the CEO of the organization, said the congregation had provided security training in August and had not been previously aware of Akram.

The standoff led authorities to tighten security in other places, including New York City, where police said that they increased their presence at key Jewish institutions out of an abundance of caution.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Twitter that this event is a stark reminder that antisemitism is still alive and we must continue to fight it worldwide."

___

Tucker reported from Washington, D.C. Also contributing to this reporter were Associated Press writers Paul J. Weber and Acacia Coronado in Austin; Michael Balsamo in Washington; Colleen Long in Philadelphia; Elliot Spagat in San Diego; Jennifer McDermott in Providence, Rhode Island; Michael R. Sisak in New York; Holly Meyer in Nashville, Tenn.; and Issac Scharf in Jerusalem.
COLLEYVILLE, Texas (AP)  A man held hostages for more than 10 hours Saturday at a Texas synagogue where he could be heard ranting in a livestream and demanding the release of a Pakistani neuroscientist who was convicted of trying to kill U.S. Army officers in Afghanistan.

Colleyville police secure the area around Congregation Beth Israel synagogue on Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022 in Colleyville, Texas. Authorities say a man has apparently taken hostages at the synagogue near Fort Worth, Texas. The Colleyville Police Department tweeted Saturday afternoon that it was conducting SWAT operations at the address of Congregation Beth Israel (Jessika Harkay/Star-Telegram via AP)

COLLEYVILLE, Texas (AP)  A man held hostages for more than 10 hours Saturday at a Texas synagogue where he could be heard ranting in a livestream and demanding the release of a Pakistani neuroscientist who was convicted of trying to kill U.S. Army officers in Afghanistan.

One of the four hostages held at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville was released during the standoff; three others were rescued when authorities entered the building about 9 p.m., authorities said. The hostage taker was killed and FBI Special Agent in Charge Matt DeSarno said a team would investigate the shooting incident.

An FBI and a police spokeswoman declined to answer questions about who shot the man.

DeSarno said the hostage taker was specifically focused on an issue not directly connected to the Jewish community and there was no immediate indication that the man had was part of any broader plan, but DeSarno said the agencys investigation will have global reach.

Law enforcement officials who were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation and spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity earlier said that the hostage-taker demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist suspected of having ties to al-Qaida. He also said he wanted to be able to speak with her, according to the officials. Siddiqui is in federal prison in Texas.

Police secure the area around Congregation Beth Israel synagogue on Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022 in Colleyville, Texas. Authorities say a man has apparently taken hostages at the synagogue near Fort Worth, Texas. The Colleyville Police Department tweeted Saturday afternoon that it was conducting SWAT operations at the address of Congregation Beth Israel. (Amanda McCoy/Star-Telegram via AP)

DeSarno said Saturday night that the man had been identified but we are not prepared to release his identity or confirm his identity at this time.

A rabbi in New York City received a call from the rabbi believed to be held hostage in the synagogue to demand Siddiquis release, a law enforcement official said. The New York rabbi then called 911 .

Police were first called to the synagogue around 11 a.m. and people were evacuated from the surrounding neighborhood soon after that, FBI Dallas spokesperson Katie Chaumont said.

A Texas state trooper blocks traffic on a road leading to a Colleyville, Texas, synagogue where a man apparently took hostages, Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Jake Bleiberg)

The services were being livestreamed on the synagogue's Facebook page for a time. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that an angry man could be heard ranting and talking about religion at times during the livestream, which didn't show what was happening inside the synagogue.

Shortly before 2 p.m., the man said, You got to do something. I dont want to see this guy dead. Moments later, the feed cut out. A Meta company spokesperson later confirmed that Facebook removed the video.

Multiple people heard the hostage-taker refer to Siddiqui as his sister on the livestream, but Faizan Syed, the executive director of Council on American-Islamic Relations in Dallas Fort-Worth Texas, told The Associated Press that Siddiquis brother, Mohammad Siddiqui, was not involved. Syed said CAIRs support and prayers were with the people being held in the synagogue.

Law enforcement teams stage near Congregation Beth Israel while conducting SWAT operations in the 6100 block of Pleasant Run Road on Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022, in Colleyville, Texas. Authorities said a man took hostages Saturday during services at the Texas synagogue. (Smiley N. Pool/The Dallas Morning News via AP)

Texas resident Victoria Francis told the AP that she watched about an hour of the livestream before it cut out. She said she heard the man rant against America and claim he had a bomb.

He was just all over the map. He was pretty irritated and the more irritated he got, hed make more threats, like Im the guy with the bomb. If you make a mistake, this is all on you. And hed laugh at that, she said. He was clearly in extreme distress.

Francis, who grew up near Colleyville, tuned in after she read about the hostage situation. She said it sounded like the man was talking to the police department on the phone, with the rabbi and another person trying to help with the negotiations.

Law enforcement officials gather at Colleyville Elementary School near the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue on Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022 in Colleyville, Texas. Authorities said a man took hostages Saturday during services at the synagogue where the suspect could be heard ranting in a livestream and demanding the release of a Pakistani neuroscientist who was convicted of trying to kill U.S. Army officers in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

Colleyville, a community of about 26,000 people, is about 15 miles (23 kilometers) northeast of Fort Worth. The synagogue is nestled among large houses in a leafy residential neighborhood that includes several churches, a middle and elementary school and a horse farm.

Congregation Beth Israel is led by Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, who has been there since 2006 as the synagogues first full-time rabbi. He has worked to bring a sense of spirituality, compassion and learning to the community, according to his biography, and he loves welcoming everyone, including LGBT people, into the congregation.

Anna Salton Eisen, a founder and former president of the synagogue, said the congregation has about 140 members and Cytron-Walker has worked hard to build interfaith relationships in the community, including doing pulpit swaps and participating in a community peace walk. She described Saturday's events as surreal.

Emergency teams stage near Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas on Saturday afternoon, Jan. 15, 2022. Authorities said a man took hostages Saturday during services at the synagogue where the suspect could be heard ranting in a livestream and demanding the release of a Pakistani neuroscientist who was convicted of trying to kill U.S. Army officers in Afghanistan. (Lynda M. Gonzalez/The Dallas Morning News via AP)

This is unlike anything weve ever experienced. You know, its a small town and its a small congregation, Eisen said as the hostage situation was ongoing. "No matter how it turns out its hard to fathom how we will all be changed by this, because surely we will be.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki tweeted Saturday evening that President Joe Biden had been briefed and was receiving updates from senior officials.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said he was monitoring the situation closely. We pray for the safety of the hostages and rescuers, he wrote on Twitter.

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Law enforcement teams stage near Congregation Beth Israel while conducting SWAT operations in Colleyville, Texas on Saturday afternoon, Jan. 15, 2022. Authorities said a man took hostages Saturday during services at the synagogue where the suspect could be heard ranting in a livestream and demanding the release of a Pakistani neuroscientist who was convicted of trying to kill U.S. Army officers in Afghanistan. (Lynda M. Gonzalez/The Dallas Morning News via AP)

CAIR, the nations largest Muslim advocacy group, condemned the attack Saturday afternoon.

This latest antisemitic attack at a house of worship is an unacceptable act of evil, CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said in a statement. We stand in solidarity with the Jewish community, and we pray that law enforcement authorities are able to swiftly and safely free the hostages. No cause can justify or excuse this crime.

Siddiqui earned advanced degrees from Brandeis University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before she was sentenced in 2010 to 86 years in prison on charges that she assaulted and shot at U.S. Army officers after being detained in Afghanistan two years earlier. The punishment sparked outrage in Pakistan among political leaders and her supporters, who viewed her as victimized by the American criminal justice system.

In the years since, Pakistan officials have expressed interest publicly in any sort of deal or swap that could result in her release from U.S. custody, and her case has continued to draw attention from supporters. In 2018, for instance, an Ohio man who prosecutors say planned to fly to Texas and attack the prison where Siddiqui is being held in an attempt to free her was sentenced to 22 years in prison.

___

Tucker and Balsamo reported from Washington, D.C.; Associated Press writers Jennifer McDermott in Providence, Rhode Island; Michael R. Sisak in New York; Holly Meyer in Nashville, Tenn.; Acacia Coronado in Austin, Texas; and Issac Scharf in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP)  New Zealand and Australia were able to send military surveillance flights to Tonga on Monday to assess the damage a huge undersea volcanic eruption left in the Pacific island nation.

This satellite image taken by Himawari-8, a Japanese weather satellite operated by Japan Meteorological Agency and released by National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), shows an undersea volcano eruption at the Pacific nation of Tonga Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022. (NICT via AP)

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP)  New Zealand and Australia were able to send military surveillance flights to Tonga on Monday to assess the damage a huge undersea volcanic eruption left in the Pacific island nation.

A towering ash cloud since Saturday's eruption had prevented earlier flights. New Zealand hopes to send essential supplies, including much-needed drinking water, on a military transport plane Tuesday.

U.N. humanitarian officials and Tongas government report significant infrastructural damage around Tongatapu, the main island in the archipelago, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

There has been no contact from the Haapai Group of islands, and we are particularly concerned about two small low-lying islands  Mango and Fonoi  following surveillance flights confirming substantial property damage, Dujarric said.

A British woman who was missing has been found dead, her family said, in the first reported fatality on Tonga.

In this satellite image taken by Himawari-8, a Japanese weather satellite, and released by the agency, shows an undersea volcano eruption at the Pacific nation of Tonga Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022. An undersea volcano erupted in spectacular fashion near the Pacific nation of Tonga on Saturday, sending large waves crashing across the shore and people rushing to higher ground. (Japan Meteorology Agency via AP)

The brother of Angela Glover, who ran an animal rescue center, said the 50-year-old died after being swept away by a wave.

Nick Eleini said his sisters body had been found and that her husband survived.

I understand that this terrible accident came about as they tried to rescue their dogs, Eleini told Sky News.

This satellite image taken by Himawari-8, a Japanese weather satellite, and released by the agency, shows an undersea volcano eruption at the Pacific nation of Tonga Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022. An undersea volcano erupted in spectacular fashion near the Pacific nation of Tonga on Saturday, sending large waves crashing across the shore and people rushing to higher ground. (Japan Meteorology Agency via AP)

He said it had been his sisters life dream to live in the South Pacific and she loved her life there.

The U.N.'s Dujarric said two people were reported missing. It isn't clear whether one of them was Angela Glover.

Communications with Tonga remained extremely limited. The company that owns the single underwater fiber-optic cable that connects the island nation to the rest of the world said it likely was severed in the eruption and repairs could take weeks.

A harbor official pulls debris from rising waters out of Santa Cruz harbor in Santa Cruz, Calif., Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022. An undersea volcano has erupted in spectacular fashion near the Pacific nation of Tonga on Saturday. Following the eruption, a tsunami advisory was issued for Hawaii, Alaska and the U.S. Pacific coast. (AP Photo/Nic Coury)

The loss of the cable leaves most Tongans unable to use the internet or make phone calls abroad. Those that have managed to get messages out described their country as looking like a moonscape as they began cleaning up from the tsunami waves and volcanic ash fall.

The U.N. World Food Program is exploring how to bring in relief supplies and more staff and has received a request to restore communication lines in Tonga, Dujarric said.

Tsunami waves of about 80 centimeters (2.7 feet) crashed into Tonga's shoreline, and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern described damage to boats and shops on Tonga's shoreline. The waves crossed the Pacific, drowning two people in Peru and causing minor damage from New Zealand to Santa Cruz, California.

People look at a damaged boat in a marina at Tutukaka, New Zealand, Sunday, Jan. 16, 2022, after waves from a volcano eruption swept into the marina. An undersea volcano erupted in spectacular fashion Saturday near the Pacific nation of Tonga, sending tsunami waves crashing across the shore and people rushing to higher ground. (Tanya White/Northern Advcate/NZME via AP)

Scientists said they didnt think the eruption would have a significant impact on the Earths climate.

Huge volcanic eruptions can sometimes cause temporary global cooling as sulfur dioxide is pumped into the stratosphere. But in the case of the Tonga eruption, initial satellite measurements indicated the amount of sulfur dioxide released would only have a tiny effect of perhaps 0.01 Celsius (0.02 Fahrenheit) global average cooling, said Alan Robock, a professor at Rutgers University.

Satellite images showed the spectacular undersea eruption Saturday evening, with a plume of ash, steam and gas rising like a giant mushroom above the South Pacific waters.

This combination of satellite images taken by Himawari-8, a Japanese weather satellite operated by Japan Meteorological Agency and released by National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), shows an undersea volcano eruption of the Pacific nation of Tonga Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022. (NICT via AP)

A sonic boom could be heard as far away as Alaska and sent pressure shockwaves around the planet twice, altering atmospheric pressure that may have briefly helped clear out the fog in Seattle, according to the National Weather Service. Large waves were detected as far away as the Caribbean due to pressure changes generated by the eruption.

Samiuela Fonua, who chairs the board at Tonga Cable Ltd. which owns the single cable that connects Tonga to the outside world via Fiji, said the cable appeared to have been severed about 10 to 15 minutes after the eruption. He said the cable lies atop and within coral reef, which can be sharp.

Fonua said a ship would need to pull up the cable to assess the damage and then crews would need to fix it. A single break might take a week to repair, he said, while multiple breaks could take up to three weeks. He added that it was unclear yet when it would be safe for a ship to venture near the undersea volcano to undertake the work.

In this photo provided by the New Zealand Defense Force, an Orion aircraft is prepared at a base in Auckland, New Zealand, Monday, Jan. 17, 2022, before flying to assist the Tonga government after the eruption of an undersea volcano. (NZDF via AP)

A second undersea cable that connects the islands within Tonga also appeared to have been severed, Fonua said. However, a local phone network was working, allowing Tongans to call each other. But he said the lingering ash cloud was continuing to make even satellite phone calls abroad difficult.

He said Tonga, home to 105,000 people, had been in discussions with New Zealand about getting a second international fiber-optic cable to ensure a more robust network but the nation's isolated location made any long-term solution difficult.

The cable also broke three years ago, possibly due to a ship dragging an anchor. At first Tongans had no access to the internet but then some limited access was restored using satellites until the cable was repaired.

In this photo provided by the Australian Defense Force, a Royal Australian Air Force P-8 Poseidon aircraft prepares to depart an airbase in Amberly, Australia, Monday, Jan. 17, 2022, to assist the Tonga government after the eruption of an undersea volcano. (LACW Emma Schwenke/ADF via AP)

Ardern said the capital, Nuku'alofa, was covered in a thick film of volcanic dust, contaminating water supplies and making fresh water a vital need.

Aid agencies said thick ash and smoke had prompted authorities to ask people to wear masks and drink bottled water.

In a video posted on Facebook, Nightingale Filihia was sheltering at her family's home from a rain of volcanic ash and tiny pieces of rock that turned the sky pitch black.

This satellite image taken by Himawari-8, a Japanese weather satellite operated by Japan Meteorological Agency and released by National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), shows an undersea volcano eruption at the Pacific nation of Tonga Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022. (NICT via AP)

Its really bad. They told us to stay indoors and cover our doors and windows because its dangerous, she said. I felt sorry for the people. Everyone just froze when the explosion happened. We rushed home. Outside the house, people were seen carrying umbrellas for protection.

One complicating factor to any international aid effort is that Tonga has so far managed to avoid any outbreaks of COVID-19. Ardern said New Zealand's military staff were all fully vaccinated and willing to follow any protocols established by Tonga.

Dave Snider, the tsunami warning coordinator for the National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska, said it was very unusual for a volcanic eruption to affect an entire ocean basin, and the spectacle was both humbling and scary.

This satellite image taken by Himawari-8, a Japanese weather satellite operated by Japan Meteorological Agency and released by National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), shows an undersea volcano eruption at the Pacific nation of Tonga Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022. (NICT via AP)

The U.S. Geological Survey estimated the eruption caused the equivalent of a magnitude 5.8 earthquake. Scientists said tsunamis generated by volcanoes rather than earthquakes are relatively rare.

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Rachel Afeaki-Taumoepeau, who chairs the New Zealand Tonga Business Council, said she hoped the relatively low level of the tsunami waves would have allowed most people to get to safety, although she worried about those living on islands closest to the volcano.

We are praying that the damage is just to infrastructure and people were able to get to higher land, she said.

The explosion of the Hunga Tonga Hunga Haapai volcano, about 64 kilometers (40 miles) north of Nukualofa, was the latest in a series of dramatic eruptions. In late 2014 and early 2015, eruptions created a small new island and disrupted international air travel to the Pacific archipelago for several days.

Earth imaging company Planet Labs PBC had watched the island in recent days after a new volcanic vent began erupting in late December. Satellite images showed how drastically the volcano had shaped the area, creating a growing island off Tonga.

___

Associated Press journalists Seth Borenstein in Kensington, Maryland, and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.
This photo provided by the Rev. Lucy Robbins shows a "For Sale" sign in front of the Biltmore United Methodist Church in Asheville, N.C. in July 2021. Already financially strapped because of shrinking membership and a struggling preschool, the congregation was dealt a crushing blow by the coronavirus. Attendance plummeted, with many staying home or switching to other churches that stayed open the whole time. Gone, too, is the revenue the church formerly got from renting its space for events and meetings. (Rev. Lucy Robbins via AP)

Biltmore United Methodist Church of Asheville, North Carolina, is for sale.

Already financially strapped because of shrinking membership and a struggling preschool, the congregation was dealt a crushing blow by the coronavirus. Attendance plummeted, with many staying home or switching to other churches that stayed open the whole time. Gone, too, is the revenue the church formerly got from renting its space for events and meetings.

Our maintenance costs are just exorbitant, said the Rev. Lucy Robbins, senior pastor. And we just dont have the resources financially that we used to have to be able to do the kind of ministry work that we would like.

Biltmore is just one of an untold number of congregations across the country that have struggled to stay afloat financially and minister to their flocks during the pandemic, though others have managed to weather the storm, often with help from the federal governments Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, and sustained levels of member donations.

The coronavirus hit at a time when already fewer Americans were going to worship services  with at least half of the nearly 15,300 congregations surveyed in a 2020 report by Faith Communities Today reporting weekly attendance of 65 or less  and exacerbated the problems at smaller churches where increasingly lean budgets often hindered them from things like hiring full-time clergy.

The pandemic didnt change those patterns, it only made them a little bit worse, said Scott Thumma, director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research and co-chair of Faith Communities Today.

Attendance has been a persistent challenge. As faith leaders moved to return to in-person worship, first the highly transmissible delta variant and now the even faster-spreading omicron have thrown a wrench into such efforts, with some churches going back online and others still open reporting fewer souls in the pews.

At Biltmore, for example, attendance at weekly services are down from around 70 pre-pandemic to just about 25 today, counting both in-person and online worship.

After congregants voted last May to put the church property, a two-building campus perched on a verdant knoll just off Interstate 40, on the market, church leaders are still figuring out what comes next, including where the congregation will call home. But they hope to use some of the proceeds from the property sale to support marginalized communities and causes like affordable housing.

Unlike Biltmore, Franklin Community Church, about 20 miles outside of Nashville, Tennessee, doesnt have its own sanctuary, holding services instead at a public school. That turned out to be a blessing during the pandemic, with no need to worry about a mortgage, upkeep, insurance or utilities.

We wouldnt have survived if we'd had all that, said the Rev. Kevin Riggs, the churchs pastor.

Still, it has been a battle. During the 15 months that services at Franklin went online-only, some members left for other congregations or got out of the habit of giving, according to Riggs. Weekly attendance is down from around 100 to less than 40, and the omicron spike recently forced the church to go virtual again.

The impact is felt in the collection plate: The money coming in now is just about a third of what it was before the pandemic, the pastor said. The church has cut spending where it could, turned to grants to try to make up the difference and worked to raise more money from community members who dont attend but support the church's ministries, such as serving homeless people.

Were surviving.  But we have felt the hurt, Riggs said.

Another struggling congregation, Friendship Baptist Church in Baltimore, is essentially living week to week. The predominantly Black church received a PPP loan of more than $55,000, but that barely made a dent in expenses. The Rev. Alvin Gwynn Sr. has given up his pastors salary and for now is living off Social Security checks and his other job in construction.

Slumping attendance has hurt the bottom line there, as elsewhere. Friendship Baptist counts around 900 active members but only about 150 of them are showing up, making their donations especially crucial.

The church is surviving because of the sacrificial giving of the 150, said Gwynn, who doesnt intend to start drawing a paycheck again until the church is stable. They give way, way more than a normal offering each Sunday individually.

During the pandemic, experts said many congregations embraced online giving, which could boost contributions by $300 per person annually, according to The Faith Communities Today report.

More broadly, various other surveys and reports show a mixed picture on congregational giving nationwide.

Gifts to religious organizations grew by 1% to just over $131 billion in 2020, a year when Americans also donated a record $471 billion overall to charity, according to an annual report by GivingUSA. Separately, a September survey of 1,000 protestant pastors by the evangelical firm Lifeway Research found about half of congregations received roughly what they budgeted for last year, with 27% getting less than anticipated and 22% getting more.

Hope Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas, a largely upper-middle-class congregation of about 400, is among those that have enjoyed relative stability despite the pandemic.

The Rev. Josh Robinson had expected contributions to drop off when in-person services paused for more than a year, but they remained steady. So have member pledges for upcoming gifts in 2022. Some in the congregation even donated their government stimulus checks to the church, which used them to set up a fund to provide direct financial assistance to those who lost income due to the pandemic.

It all prompted the pastor to reexamine his own approach to the pandemic.

I needed to step back and think, what did it mean for me as a spiritual leader to not have the same faith mindset, since I was anticipating a downturn? Robinson said. Here were the members of the church stepping up  I had to lean into that. And rightfully, I was able to do so with great joy.

Even before, the church had embraced frugality in order to pay down its debt, which has fallen from $2 million in 2013 to less than $300,000 today.

When services went virtual, savings on utilities and other costs helped keep the budget balanced. PPP loans of some $290,000 were also key to maintaining employees on the payroll and offsetting lost revenue from renting out space and other services.

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At West Harpeth Primitive Baptist Church, another church in Franklin, giving is down but only slightly. Hewitt Sawyers, the pastor, attributes that to the scant turnover among the more than 150-year-old historically Black congregations members, many of whom are committed to financially supporting the church and work in sectors that were less damaged by the pandemic than others.

Weve just been wonderfully, wonderfully blessed, Sawyers said.

Budget projections for this year are rosy enough that West Harpeth leaders are hopeful they can tackle a needed building renovation.

We are extremely optimistic about it, Sawyers said. Were planning on trying to do that in 22, and we feel very, very, very comfortable about trying to get that done.

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The Associated Press receives support from the Lilly Endowment for coverage of philanthropy, nonprofits and religion, in partnership with The Conversation US. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Thousands of miles away from the war in Ethiopia, the ethnic cracks have started to show in an Ethiopian church in Ohio, in a lawsuit between trustees and clergy.

Negasi Beyene, who grew up in Mekele, the capital city of the Ethiopia's Tigray Region, holds a traditional Ethiopian flag Saturday, Dec. 18, 2021 in Columbia, Md. Beyene, who works as a biostatistician near Washington, identifies as a human rights activist for Ethiopian unity. My motto is, humanity before ethnicity. (AP Photo/Steve Ruark)

Thousands of miles away from the war in Ethiopia, the ethnic cracks have started to show in an Ethiopian church in Ohio, in a lawsuit between trustees and clergy.

The original trustees of the Holy Trinity Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in Columbus have accused its clergy of switching the language of services from Amharic, the national language of Ethiopia, to Tigrinya, the language of the Tigray region. They say the clergy is taking sides in a war between Tigray leaders and the Amhara, allied with the Ethiopian government, with an estimated tens of thousands of dead.

The clergy in the church in Columbus, which is home to about 40,000 Ethiopian-Americans, says Tigrinya was added on as a language rather than replacing Amharic to better reach the congregation. Church leaders say the changes werent political in nature.

The tensions in the church reflect how the war in Ethiopia has fueled divides across the more than 3 million members of the diaspora.

The Ethiopian social fabric ... has been torn apart, said Tewodros Tirfe, chairman of the Amhara Association of America, based in North Carolina.

The war started a little over a year ago, when a political dispute between Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the Tigray leaders erupted into violence after a dispute over elections. It has now spiraled to the point where some Tigrayans are starving under a government blockade and atrocities have been reported on all sides, with the worst and most to date reported against Tigrayan civilians.

The conflict entered a new phase in late December when the Tigray forces withdrew into the Tigray region after approaching the capital, Addis Ababa, but are being pushed back by a drone-supported military offensive.

Deep disagreements about the nature and even the facts of the conflict are splintering families, friends and communities in the diaspora. Some consider themselves supporters of Tigray or of its political leaders, who belong to a party called the Tigrayan Peoples Liberation Front, or TPLF. They argue that Tigrayans are being threatened with genocide  profiled, persecuted and killed for their ethnicity.

Saba Desta, who works in health insurance in New York, worries that ordinary people are being forgotten. Desta said shes tried to get her parents out of the northern city of Shire in Tigray, but her father is ill and unable to leave without a nurses assistance.

Its been breaking me, reading the reports of closing of hospitals and health centers, the restricted access to medicine, she said. I can only believe that hes OK, that hes alive. I only have this hope to bank on.

Desta said five of her cousins, all brothers, were shot to death in front of their elderly mother by the military from neighboring Eritrea, which has been in Tigray alongside Ethiopian soldiers. Their mother died shortly after from heartbreak, she said.

Im so numb, she said. I cant even cry anymore.

Other Ethiopians see this as a necessary war against Tigray leaders, who once ruled Ethiopia and were accused of human rights abuses while growing the countrys economy.

The former ruling coalition, dominated by Tigray leaders representing 6% of the nation, appointed Abiy as prime minister in 2018, a choice largely celebrated by Ethiopians across the globe as a step towards peace and unity. Abiy transformed the federal coalition into a single Prosperity Party, and Tigrayan leaders later withdrew. Many Ethiopians feel that Tigray leaders are angry because Abiy leads with more than Tigrays interests in mind as he seeks to centralize power.

I had been there since they were established and I had seen their plans when I was very young, and that never changed, said Teferi Zemene, a Toronto-based union organizer who grew up watching the TPLF rise to power three decades ago.

Zemene returned to Canada recently after 2 1/2 months in Ethiopia. He visited his hometown of Dabat, about 75 kilometers (45 miles) from the northern Amhara city of Gondar, and asserted that it was destroyed by Tigray forces.

If you see Dabat now, you would cry. They devastated the place. Theres no place to even rest, he said.

Zemene said he lost relatives in the war and that he felt the need to fight. He and other Ethiopians who oppose the Tigray forces have expressed concern that the international community and even foreign media are bent on promoting intervention by the U.S.

We should be able to solve our problems ourselves, he said. We didnt ask for any help.

The complexity of the war has made some rethink their position on it. Ethiopian-American journalist and activist Hermela Aregawi advocated for humanitarian work to help Tigray in the early days, but eventually distanced herself from those fundraising efforts when she felt they became politically motivated in favor of Tigrayan leaders.

Im Tigrayan, I care about Tigrayans, I care about Ethiopians as a whole, Aregawi said.

Negasi Beyene, a biostatistician and human rights activist in Washington, feels similarly. My motto is, humanity before ethnicity, he said.

Growing up in Mekele, the capital of Tigray, during an earlier war, Beyene felt pressured to choose between the TPLF and other political groups when he was just 17 years old and kids his age were either killed or recruited to fight. He ultimately sided against the TPLF, and holds what he considers a minority view among Tigrayans that they started the current war.

My sister, brother, I dont talk to them, he said. Because they think TPLF is doing good  Maybe the TPLF idea  if youre not with us, youre against us  has penetrated all of society.

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A year into the war, theres no clear end in sight. Some support the independence of Tigray, while others don't want to see Ethiopia torn apart.

Adem Kassie Abebe, a program officer at the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance in the Netherlands, said that for each side, the anger and longtime grievances are real.

Saying I understand youre angry, that would go a long way (for) both sides, he said. That opens a channel.

Tirfe of the Amhara Association of America blames the war on a federalist governing system that ties the countrys dozens of ethnicities to land and power, pitting them against each other. So long as Ethiopia has this system, he said, there will be another war.

What he and others note, though, is that more Ethiopians are now determined to be heard.

Its good to see so many Ethiopians actively involved, he said. Were not coming (together) as one, but hopefully one day. Well be a force.
BAMAKO, Mali (AP)  Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, the former president of Mali who took office in a landmark election held after a destabilizing coup only to be ousted in another military takeover nearly seven years later, has died. He was 76.

FILE - Mali's President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita poses for a group photograph during the G5 Sahel summit in Nouakchott, Mauritania, June 30, 2020. Mali's former president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has died nearly 18 months after he was ousted in a military coup. Keita's death was announced Sunday, Jan. 16, 2022 in Bamako, where the 76-year-old had been battling health problems in recent years. (Ludovic Marin/Pool Photo via AP, File)

BAMAKO, Mali (AP)  Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, the former president of Mali who took office in a landmark election held after a destabilizing coup only to be ousted in another military takeover nearly seven years later, has died. He was 76.

Keita, known to Malians by his initials IBK, had been in declining health since his forced resignation in August 2020, and had sought medical treatment in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, shortly after his release from junta custody.

His death early Sunday  announced in an alert by the state broadcaster ORTM  comes as the sprawling African nation faces a deepening political crisis. The coup leader who ousted Keita has no immediate plans for a return to democracy as initially promised.

Keita won the historic 2013 presidential election held to restore democracy after a 2012 coup. But only seven years later he himself was ousted by another military takeover following months of public demonstrations against his presidency. Keita had three years left in his final term when mutinous soldiers detained him at his residence in August 2020 after firing shots outside the house. Hours later, he appeared in a midnight broadcast on state television, telling Malians he would resign immediately.

I wish no blood to be shed to keep me in power, Keita said at the time. I have decided to step down from office.

West African regional leaders imposed tough economic sanctions earlier this month after Col. Assimi Goita, who heads the transitional government, indicated that the next presidential election won't be held until 2026, after initially agreeing to an election by the end of next month.

A protest movement against Keitas presidency saw tens of thousands demonstrate in the streets in the months leading up to his overthrow. As discontent with his leadership mounted, Keita had tried to make concessions to his critics, saying he was even open to redoing the vote. But those overtures were swiftly rejected by opposition leaders, who said they wouldn't stop short of Keitas departure.

Support for Keita also tumbled amid criticism of his governments handling of the Islamic insurgency, which significantly expanded into central Mali during his tenure. A wave of particularly deadly attacks in the north in 2019 prompted the government to close its most vulnerable outposts as part of a reorganization aimed at stemming the losses.

Keita also faced criticism for his handling of the political crisis in the north. He signed a peace agreement with former rebels, but it was never fully implemented, prolonging the instability.

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Back in 2013, Keita had emerged from a field of more than two dozen candidates to win Malis first democratic election after a 2012 coup  a landslide victory with more than 77% of the vote. He also enjoyed broad support from former colonizer France and other Western allies. In 2018, Keita was reelected to a second term after receiving 67% of the vote.

Born in 1945, Keita hailed from the town of Koutiala in what is now southern Mali. He studied in Bamako, Dakar, Senegal, and Paris, earning a masters degree in history with postgraduate studies in politics and international relations before entering politics.

His early posts included ambassador to neighboring Ivory Coast and diplomatic adviser to President Alpha Oumar Konare, who took office in 1992. Keita then served as prime minister from 1994 to 2000, and later as president of the National Assembly from 2002 to 2007.

He is survived by his wife, Aminata Maiga Keita, and their four children.

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Associated Press writer Krista Larson contributed to this report from Dakar, Senegal.
LOS ANGELES (AP)  On an isolated farm, greenhouses stand in regimental order, sheltered by a fringe of trees. Inside are hundreds of head-high cannabis plants in precise rows, each rising from a pot nourished by coils of irrigation tubing. Lights powerful enough to turn night into day blaze overhead.

FILE - In this April 15, 2019, file photo, a vendor makes change for a marijuana customer at a cannabis marketplace in Los Angeles. An unwelcome trend is emerging in California, as the nation's most populous state enters its fifth year of broad legal marijuana sales. Industry experts say a growing number of license holders are secretly operating in the illegal market  working both sides of the economy to make ends meet. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel, File)

LOS ANGELES (AP)  On an isolated farm, greenhouses stand in regimental order, sheltered by a fringe of trees. Inside are hundreds of head-high cannabis plants in precise rows, each rising from a pot nourished by coils of irrigation tubing. Lights powerful enough to turn night into day blaze overhead.

In the five years since California voters approved a broad legal marketplace for marijuana, thousands of greenhouses have sprouted across the state. But these, under their plastic canopies, conceal a secret.

The cultivator who operates the grow north of Sacramento holds a coveted state-issued license, permitting the business to produce and sell its plants. But its been virtually impossible for the grower to turn a profit in a struggling legal industry where wholesale prices for cannabis buds have plunged as much as 70% from a year ago, taxes approach 50% in some areas and customers find far better deals in the thriving underground marketplace.

So the company has two identities  one legal, the other illicit.

We basically subsidize our white market with our black market, said the cultivator, who agreed to speak with The Associated Press only on condition of anonymity to avoid possible prosecution.

Industry insiders say the practice of working simultaneously in the legal and illicit markets is all too commonplace, a financial reality brought on by the difficulties and costs of doing business with a product they call the most heavily regulated in America.

For the California grower, the furtive illegal sales happen informally, often with a friend within the tight-knit cannabis community calling to make a buy. The state requires legal businesses to report what they grow and ship, and it's entered into a vast computerized tracking system  known as seed to sale monitoring  that's far from airtight.

It's not too hard to operate outside the tracking system's guardrails, the grower said. Plants can vary widely in what each one produces, allowing for wiggle room in what gets reported, while there is little in the way of on-site inspections to verify record-keeping. The system is so loose, some legal farms move as much as 90% of their product into the illicit market, the grower added.

The passage of Proposition 64 in 2016 was seen as a watershed moment in the push to legitimize and tax Californias multibillion-dollar marijuana industry. In 2018, when retail outlets could open, California became the world's largest legal marketplace and another steppingstone in what advocates hoped would be a path to federal legalization, after groundbreaking laws in Colorado and Washington state were enacted in 2012.

Today, most Americans live in states with at least some access to legal legal marijuana  18 states have broad legal sales for those 21 and older, similar to alcohol laws, while more than two-thirds of states provide access through medicinal programs.

Kristi Knoblich Palmer, co-founder of top edibles brand KIVA Confections, lamented that the migration of business into the illegal market was damaging the effort to establish a stable, consumer-friendly marketplace.

To have this system that now appears to be failing, having people go back into the old-school way of doing things ... it does not help us get to our goal of professionalizing cannabis and normalizing cannabis, she said.

In California, no one disputes the vast illegal marketplace continues to dwarf the legal one, even though the 2016 law stated boldly that it would incapacitate the black market. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was lieutenant governor at the time the law was approved, called it a "game changer.

But Californias legalization push faced challenges from the start. The states illegal market had flourished for decades, anchored in the storied Emerald Triangle in the northern end of the state. Not since the end of Prohibition in 1933 had an attempt been made to reshape such a vast illegal economy into a legal one.

In October, California law enforcement officials announced the destruction of over 1 million illegal plants statewide but said they were finding larger illicit growing operations. In the cannabis heartland of Humboldt County, many illegal growers are moving indoors to avoid detection. Investigators are making arrests and serving search warrants every week, but with so many underground grows we may never eliminate the illegal cultivation, Sheriff William Honsal said in an email to the AP.

California's illegal market is estimated at $8 billion, said Tom Adams, chief executive officer of research firm Global Go Analytics. That's roughly double the amount of legal sales, though some estimates are even larger.

In September, a cannabis company sued government regulators in state court in Orange County, alleging so-called burner distributors were using shadowy front men to get licenses to buy wholesale cannabis, then selling it in the illegal market to sidestep taxes.

No state is claiming to have eliminated illegal operators. U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat who co-chairs the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, said he saw little prospect for undercutting illegal markets without federal legalization, which has been stalled in Congress despite having Democrats in control of Congress and the White House.

The thriving illegal markets in California, Oregon and elsewhere are a "product of the dysfunction, the lack of resources and the fact that we dont have a national market that is regulated, he said.

Like the California cultivator, many businesses do some transactions in the illicit market to help make ends meet, but others have given up on the legal economy or never bothered to enter it.

While California's legal market tightly controls how and where pot is sold, the illegal industry is easy to access and offers a doorway into a vast and profitable national market.

Licensed players are the good guys. Yet it just never feels like were being treated like were on the right side of history, Knoblich Palmer said.

California's effort to establish itself as the preeminent player in the legal cannabis economy has never felt more imperiled, and talk is spreading of a Boston Tea Party-like rebellion against state policies. In a December letter to Newsom, about two dozen industry executives said the state was crippling the marijuana economy.

The California cannabis system is a nation-wide mockery, a public policy lesson in what not to do, the business leaders wrote. Newsom has signaled he's open to change.

The anonymous grower said the burden of competing in the regulated economy simply doesn't make sense to many longtime operators who came up in the pre-Proposition 64 marketplace. There is a widespread mindset  Why bother?  when the illegal economy is booming and there is little law enforcement to fear.

In Los Angeles, for example, opening a retail operation can cost $1 million or more with licensing fees, real estate costs, attorneys and inspections  if you can get a license at all. Promises of social equity programs that would assist businesses run by people of color who were targeted during the war on drugs have gotten off to an uneven start.

For the struggling legal market, when you have quality, price and convenience working against you, thats a challenge, said Adams, the cannabis analyst. The illicit market has all three of them.

An irony in the legal market is that wholesale prices have plummeted, shaking the supply chain. A year ago, a cultivator could get about $1,000 a pound wholesale. Now thats dropped as low as $300, with the market saturated.

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Slap $150 in cultivation taxes on a $300 pound, and thats a stunning 50% rate.

Part of the problem for the industry is about two-thirds of California cities do not allow legal sales or growing  local governments control when, or if, to create legal markets, and many have banned it or failed to set up rules. Even in places that do, cities have been slow to permit storefronts to sell legal products, with less than 1,000 brick-and-mortar shops in a state with nearly 40 million people.

Meanwhile, wholesale prices for buds in the underground are significantly higher. The legal market, with limited outlets to sell it, is flooded with pot from corporate-scale growers.

Few know the industry as well as dispensary owner Jerred Kiloh, who also heads the United Cannabis Business Association, a Los Angeles-based trade group.

No one is making money anywhere in the (legal) supply chain, he said, noting his own sales have nosedived. Kiloh sees few bright spots in the law that established California's legal market, beyond a testing program that safeguards quality and programs to expunge old criminal records for marijuana.

With Proposition 64, we did it all wrong, he said.
(CNN) -- At a conference in India last month, a Hindu extremist dressed head-to-toe in the religion's holy color, saffron, called on her supporters to kill Muslims and "protect" the country.

"If 100 of us become soldiers and are prepared to kill 2 million (Muslims), then we will win ... protect India, and make it a Hindu nation," said Pooja Shakun Pandey, a senior member of the right-wing Hindu Mahasabha political party, according to a video of the event.

Her words and calls for violence from other religious leaders were met with a roar of applause from the large audience, a video from the three-day conference in the northern Indian city of Haridwar shows.

But across India, people were outraged. Nearly a month on, many are still furious at the lack of government response or arrests over the comments, which they say highlights a worsening climate for the country's Muslims.

After mounting pressure, India's top court intervened on Wednesday, asking for a response from state and federal authorities within 10 days.

Pandey and several others are being investigated by local police for insulting religious beliefs, a charge that carries a possible sentence of up to four years in prison, Haridwar police officials told CNN.

Neither Pandey, nor the others, have publicly commented about the outcry or investigations.

Late Thursday, police in Uttarakhand state, where Haridwar is located, arrested a man who spoke at the event, senior Haridwar Police official Shekhar Suyal told CNN. It is unclear what the man said at the event. Police have not formally charged anyone with any crime.

CNN has contacted India's Ministry of Minority Affairs, the Hindu Mahasabha and Pandey, but has not received a response.

Analysts say the Hindu Mahasabha is at the tip of a broader trend in India which has seen an alarming rise in support for extremist Hindu nationalist groups since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power nearly eight years ago.

Although these groups aren't directly associated with Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), his own Hindu nationalist agenda, and the lack of repercussions for these groups' previous vitriolic comments, has given them tacit support, making them even more brazen, analysts say.

Analysts fear this rise poses a serious danger to minorities, especially Muslims -- and worry it may only get worse as several Indian states head to the polls in the coming months.

"What makes the Hindu Mahasabha dangerous," said Gilles Verniers, an assistant professor of political science at Ashoka University near India's capital, New Delhi, "is that they have been waiting for a moment like this in decades."

Rise of the right-wing Hindu group

Founded in 1907 during British rule at a time of growing conflict between Muslims and Hindus in the country, the Hindu Mahasabha is one of India's oldest political organizations.

The group didn't support British rule, but it didn't back India's freedom movement either, led by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who was particularly tolerant of Muslims. Even now, some members of the group worship his assassin, Nathuram Godse.

The Hindu Mahasabha's vision, according to the group's official website, is to declare India the "National Home of the Hindus." The website says if it takes power, it will not hesitate to "force" the migration of India's Muslims to neighboring Pakistan and vows to reform the country's education system to align it with their version of Hinduism.

With its controversial campaigns and ideology, Hindu Mahasabha has always been a marginal political force. The last time the group had a presence in Parliament was in 1991.

But according to Verniers, their "strength is not to be measured in electoral terms." And in the past eight years since Modi came to power, they appear to have expanded in numbers and influence based on the size and frequency of their meetings, he said.

While the group does not publicly disclose how many members it has, Verniers said they are "comfortably in the tens of thousands."

Hindu Mahasabha targets rural communities in northern states, where there is a large BJP presence, encouraging them to vote for parties that align with their Hindu-nationalist ideology, including Modi's BJP, Verniers said.

Modi, in turn, has publicly honored the Hindu Mahasabha's late leader, Veer Savarkar, for "his bravery" and "emphasis on social reform."

And as Hindu Mahasabha has grown in recent years, it has become more outspoken.

In 2015, Sadhvi Deva Thakur, then a senior member of the group, caused widespread controversy when she told reporters Muslims and Christians should undergo forced sterilization to control their population growth. CNN has reached out to her for comment.

Pandey, who spoke at the December conference in Haridwar, was arrested in February 2019 after a video showed her shooting an effigy of Gandhi, according to CNN affiliate CNN News-18. Photos uploaded to her official Facebook page last May show her worshiping a statue of Gandhi's assassin. CNN has not been able to confirm whether she was formally charged over the February 2019 incident.

Hindu Mahasabha isn't the only right-wing Hindu nationalist group to espouse violent sentiment toward liberals and minorities -- including India's 200 million Muslims, who make up 15% of the country's 1.3 billion population.

At last month's conference, several speakers called on India's Hindus to "defend" the religion with weapons. Another called for the "cleansing" of India's minorities, according to video from the event.

But according to Verniers, Hindu Mahasbha one of the largest right-wing political groups aiming to make India the land of the Hindus.

And while the group's campaigns and ideas are decades old, they're more bold about them now.

"The escalation of their hate speech is reflective of the state of affairs in India," said Verniers. "But they are able to get away with it more."

Acting with impunity

The reason extremist groups appear to be on the rise is clear, according to experts: they have impunity and support.

India prohibits hate speech under several sections of its penal code, including a section which criminalizes "deliberate and malicious acts" intended to insult religious beliefs.

According to lawyer Vrinda Grover, any group inciting violence is barred under Indian law.

"Police, states and the government are responsible to ensure (inciting violence) doesn't happen," she said. "But the state, through its inaction, is actually permitting these groups to function, while endangering Muslims who are the targets."

Pandey's rant and some of the other calls for violence were the "worst form of hate speech," according to Verniers.

"This is the first time I find myself using the term 'genocide' in Indian politics," he said, referring to the comments made at last month's conference. "They have tacit support in the form of government silence."

That's because Modi also has a Hindu nationalist agenda, experts say.

Modi swept to power in India in 2014, promising economic reform and development for the country.

But starting from his first term as Prime Minister, minority groups and analysts say they began to see a significant shift in India's ideology from a secular to a Hindu nationalist state.

The BJP has its roots in Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right wing-Hindu group that counts Modi among its members. Many RSS members are adherents of the Hindutva ideology that the Hindu Mahasabha preach -- to make India the land of the Hindus.

In 2018, India's current Home Minister Amit Shah said Muslim immigrants and asylum seekers from Bangladesh were "termites" and promised to rid the nation of them.

The BJP's Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of the north Indian state Uttar Pradesh, known for his anti-Muslim views, once compared Muslim Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan to Hafiz Saeed, the alleged planner of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, according to the Press Trust of India.

Between 2015 and 2018, vigilante groups killed dozens of people -- many of whom were Muslims -- for allegedly consuming or killing cows, an animal considered sacred by Hindus, according to a report from Human Rights Watch.

Modi publicly condemned some of the killings, but the violence continued, and in 2017, his government attempted to ban the sale and slaughter of cows --currently illegal in several Indian states -- nationwide.

Human Rights Watch said many of the alleged murders went unpunished in part due to delayed police investigations and "rhetoric" from ruling party politicians, which may have incited mob violence.

In 2019, India's Parliament passed a bill that would give immigrants from three neighboring countries a pathway to citizenship -- except for Muslims. It led to extended protests and international condemnation.

In December 2020, Uttar Pradesh enacted a controversial anti-conversion law, making it more difficult for interfaith couples to marry or for people to convert to Islam or Christianity.

Other states, including Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, and Assam, introduced similar laws, leading to widespread harassment and, in some cases, arrests for interfaith couples, Christian priests and pastors.

All of this has only served to encourage extremist groups like the Hindu Mahasabha, say experts.

Zakia Soman, a women's rights activist and co-founder of the Muslim group Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, said "a failure of governance" had given rise to more right-wing extremists.

"Our community is realizing that we have become second-class citizens in our own country," Soman said. "Minority bashing and hate is becoming regular and normalized. As the intensity increases, the venom and violence in their language also increases."

A 21-year-old Muslim student in Delhi, who chose to remain anonymous for fear of backlash from right-wing groups, said Muslims are filled with "a sense of fear" every time right-wing Hindu groups make hateful comments.

"It gives us a sense that we don't belong here," he said.

The future of the Hindu-right

Despite police investigations and public outrage, legal action against those who spoke and were present at December's event have been slow.

In a letter submitted to Modi on Friday and seen by CNN, students and faculty of the prestigious Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore and Ahmedabad said his silence "emboldens" hate, adding there is "sense of fear" among minority groups in India.

Some experts agree the government's silence has only emboldened these groups further.

"Hate speech precedes hate crimes," Grover, the lawyer, said. "And we are witnessing a crescendo of hate crimes. These groups are rapidly spreading poison through society."

A 2019 US intelligence report warned that parliamentary elections in India increase the possibility of communal violence if Modi's BJP "stresses Hindu nationalist themes." It added that state leaders "might view a Hindu-nationalist campaign as a signal to incite low-level violence to animate their supporters."

The BJP -- which rarely gives statements on the issue -- says it does not discriminate against minorities, adding in a statement last March that it "treats all its citizens with equality" and "laws are applied without discrimination."

But analysts fear the BJP's divisive politics will could lead to increased violence against minority groups in the lead up to pivotal state elections this year.

And reported episodes of violence against Muslims have already increased ahead of this year's state elections.

In December, crowds of India's Hindu-right confronted Muslims praying on the streets in the city of Gurugram, just outside of Delhi. They prevented Muslims from praying, while shouting slogans and carrying banners in protest.

"It is an electoral strategy," said Verniers, the political scientist. "Create religious tension, activate religious polarization and consolidate on the Hindu vote."

Grover, the lawyer, said criminal laws are "weaponized" in India, adding anyone who challenges those in power "face the wrath of the law."

"Muslim lives in India are demonized," she said. "The Indian state is in serious crisis."

On January 1, Pandey held a live broadcast for her more than 1,500 Facebook followers. The subject was "Religious Parliament," her post said.

For the 21-year-old student, it is difficult to "expect any sense of justice" for Indian Muslims. He says even having a Muslim name is enough to make him feel unsafe.

"It is really scary to carry the Muslim identity in India today."

This story was first published on CNN.com, "India's Hindu extremists are calling for genocide against Muslims. Why is little being done to stop them?"
BOSTON (AP)  Microsoft said late Saturday that dozens of computer systems at an unspecified number of Ukrainian government agencies have been infected with destructive malware disguised as ransomware, a disclosure suggesting an attention-grabbing defacement attack on official websites was a diversion. The extent of the damage was not immediately clear.

In this undated handout photo released by Ukrainian Foreign Ministry Press Service, the building of Ukrainian Foreign Ministry is seen during snowfall in Kyiv, Ukraine. Ukrainian officials and media reports say a number of government websites in Ukraine are down after a massive hacking attack. While it is not immediately clear who was behind the attacks, they come amid heightened tensions with Russia and after talks between Moscow and the West failed to yield any significant progress this week. (Ukrainian Foreign Ministry Press Service via AP)

BOSTON (AP)  Microsoft said late Saturday that dozens of computer systems at an unspecified number of Ukrainian government agencies have been infected with destructive malware disguised as ransomware, a disclosure suggesting an attention-grabbing defacement attack on official websites was a diversion. The extent of the damage was not immediately clear.

The attack comes as the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine looms and diplomatic talks to resolve the tense stand-off appear stalled.

Microsoft said in a short blog post that amounted to the clanging of an industry alarm that it first detected the malware on Thursday. That would coincide with the attack that simultaneously took some 70 government websites temporarily offline.

The disclosure followed a Reuters report earlier in the day quoting a top Ukrainian security official as saying the defacement was indeed cover for a malicious attack.

Separately, a top private sector cybersecurity executive in Kyiv told The Associated Press how the attack succeeded: The intruders penetrated the government networks through a shared software supplier in a so-called supply-chain attack in the fashion of the 2020 SolarWinds Russian cyberespionage campaign targeting the U.S. government.

Microsoft said in a different, technical post that the affected systems span multiple government, non-profit, and information technology organizations." It said it did not know how many more organizations in Ukraine or elsewhere might be affected but said it expected to learn of more infections.

The malware is disguised as ransomware but, if activated by the attacker, would render the infected computer system inoperable, Microsoft said. In short, it lacks a ransom recovery mechanism.

Microsoft said the malware executes when an associated device is powered down, a typical initial reaction to a ransomware attack.

Microsoft said it was not yet able to assess the intent of the destructive activity or associate the attack with any known threat actors. The Ukrainian security official, Serhiy Demedyuk, was quoted by Reuter s as saying the attackers used malware similar to that used by Russian intelligence. He is deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council.

A preliminary investigation led Ukraine's Security Service, the SBU, to blame the web defacement on hacker groups linked to Russia's intelligence services." Moscow has repeatedly denied involvement in cyberattacks against Ukraine.

Tensions with Russia have been running high in recent weeks after Moscow amassed an estimated 100,000 troops near Ukraines border. Experts say they expect any invasion would have a cyber component, which is integral to modern hybrid warfare.

Demedyuk told Reuters in written comments that the defacement "was just a cover for more destructive actions that were taking place behind the scenes and the consequences of which we will feel in the near future. The story did not elaborate and Demedyuk could not immediately be reached for comment.

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Oleh Derevianko, a leading private sector expert and founder of the ISSP cybersecurity firm, told the AP he did not know how serious the damage was. He said also unknown is what else the attackers might have achieved after breaking into KitSoft, the developer exploited to sow the malware.

In 2017, Russia targeted Ukraine with one of the most damaging cyberattacks on record with the NotPetya virus, causing more than $10 billion in damage globally. That virus, also disguised as ransomware, was a so-called wiper that erased entire networks.

Ukraine has suffered the unfortunate fate of being the world's proving ground for cyberconflict. Russia state-backed hackers nearly thwarted its 2014 national elections and briefly crippling parts of its power grid during the winters of 2015 and 2016.

In Friday's mass web defacement, a message left by the attackers claimed they had destroyed data and placed it online, which Ukrainian authorities said had not happened.

The message told Ukrainians to be afraid and expect the worst.

Ukrainian cybersecurity professionals have been fortifying the defenses of critical infrastructure since 2017, with more than $40 million in U.S. assistance. They are particularly concerned about Russian attacks on the power grid, rail network and central bank.
LONDON (AP)  Tesla is turning to Mozambique for a key component in its electric car batteries in what analysts believe is a first-of-its-kind deal designed to reduce its dependence on China for graphite.

FILE - A Tesla Supercharger station in Buford, Ga, on April 22, 2021. Tesla is turning to Mozambique for a key component in its electric car batteries in what analysts believe is a first-of-its-kind deal designed to reduce its dependence on China for graphite. Elon Musks company signed an agreement last month with Australias Syrah Resources, which operates one of the worlds largest graphite mines in the southern African country. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson, File)

LONDON (AP)  Tesla is turning to Mozambique for a key component in its electric car batteries in what analysts believe is a first-of-its-kind deal designed to reduce its dependence on China for graphite.

Elon Musk's company signed an agreement last month with Australia's Syrah Resources, which operates one of the worlds largest graphite mines in the southern African country. It's a unique partnership between an electric vehicle manufacturer and a producer of the mineral that is critical for lithium-ion batteries. The value of the deal hasn't been released.

Tesla will buy the material from the company's processing plant in Vidalia, Louisiana, which sources graphite from its mine in Balama, Mozambique. The Austin, Texas-based electric automaker plans to buy up 80% of what the plant produces  8,000 tons of graphite per year  starting in 2025, according to the agreement. Syrah must prove the material meets Teslas standards.

The deal is part of Tesla's plan to ramp up its capacity to make its own batteries so it can reduce its dependence on China, which dominates global graphite markets, said Simon Moores of United Kingdom-based battery materials data and intelligence provider, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

It starts at the top with geopolitics, Moores said. The U.S. wants to build enough capacity domestically to be able to build (lithium-ion batteries) within the USA. And this deal will permit Tesla to source graphite independent from China.

Moores said producing the batteries in the U.S. will reduce some of the questions Tesla is facing about its ties to China, where there are environmental concerns at some mines. The automaker also has set up a showroom in the region of Xinjiang, where Chinese officials are accused of forced labor and other human rights abuses against mostly Muslim ethnic minorities.

A message was left seeking comment from Tesla, which has disbanded its media relations department.

The battery industry has been confronted with a short supply of graphite in recent months, Moores said. Graphite stores lithium inside a battery until its needed to generate electricity by splitting into charged ions and electrons.

It comes as every major automaker is racing to get into electric vehicles amid concerns about climate change.

Tesla is making almost a million electric cars per year, and sourcing enough batteries is its biggest constraint, he said.

Theyve upped their own battery manufacturing capacity, Moores said, but still they cant get enough batteries.

A new battery factory that the company is building in its new hometown of Austin, Texas, will allow it to get closer to self-sufficiency, but Moores said it is still buying batteries from other manufacturers, and that wont change this decade.

For instance, Tesla has a deal with Panasonic to make battery cells at the automaker's battery factory near Reno, Nevada.

The deal with Syrah is part of a broader effort by automakers to secure relatively scarce raw materials for batteries as demand for electric vehicles is expected to grow, said Sam Abuelsamid, principal e-mobility analyst for Guidehouse Insights.

The deal also brings the graphite processed in Louisiana much closer to Tesla's U.S. factories.

The pandemic pointed out to us that we've got these long, long, long supply chains, and it doesnt take much to disrupt a supply chain, said Donald Sadoway, a professor of materials chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Somebody could all of the sudden say, Were going to jack up the prices,' or Were going to refuse to ship it.'"

It's unlikely that the Tesla deal with Syrah will rankle the Chinese government because China has plenty of markets for its graphite, including increased domestic electric vehicle production, Abuelsamid said.

Ready, Pet, Go! Leesa Dahl looks at everything to do with our furry, fuzzy, feathered, fishy (and more!) pet friends. Arrives in your inbox each Monday. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

China, though, is Tesla's biggest global market. It has a giant factory near Shanghai and sells about 450,000 vehicles per year there, compared with about 350,000 in the U.S., Abuelsamid said.

For the Australian mining firm, the deal is crucial because it has a non-Chinese purchaser for its graphite product, Moores said.

Syrahs graphite mine in Mozambiques northernmost province, Cabo Delgado, is one of the worlds largest, with an ability to produce 350,000 tons of flake graphite a year.

Cabo Delgado has faced violence in recent years by Islamic extremists, an insurgency that has recently extended inland from coastal areas toward the neighboring Niassa province.

The mine is on the main road connecting the Cabo Delgado and Niassa provinces, a thoroughfare that has been recently upgraded by a Chinese contractor. At a ceremony to reopen the road in December, President Filipe Nyusi called for vigilance so the road isn't used by insurgents. ___

Tom Krisher reported from Detroit.
OTTAWA - Canada is advising residents against taking non-essential trips to Ukraine because of the buildup of Russian troops near the country's border.

OTTAWA - Canada is advising residents against taking non-essential trips to Ukraine because of the buildup of Russian troops near the country's border.

Stay informed The latest updates on the novel coronavirus and COVID-19 delivered to your inbox every weeknight. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

The change in risk level comes amid fears of a Russian invasion.

Ottawa says Russia's military presence has been increasing since last fall and advises Canadians who are there for non-essential purposes to consider leaving because the security situation could deteriorate.

Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly is set to depart for Kyiv Sunday to speak with Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishyna.

She's also set to meet with around 200 Canadian troops stationed in Ukraine to help train the country's security forces.

Joly's office says her trip is to underscore Canada's support for Ukraine's sovereignty in the face of Russian aggression.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 16, 2022
A healthy number of delicious dishes carry the name of their creator, including Caesar salad, for Italian-born restaurateur Caesar Cardini, chateaubriand, after French chef Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand and eggs Benedict, widely credited to Lemuel Benedict, a New York stockbroker who, legend has it, smothered a whack of poached eggs with crispy bacon and hollandaise sauce one morning in 1894, in an effort to thwart a nasty hangover.

A healthy number of delicious dishes carry the name of their creator, including Caesar salad, for Italian-born restaurateur Caesar Cardini, chateaubriand, after French chef Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand and eggs Benedict, widely credited to Lemuel Benedict, a New York stockbroker who, legend has it, smothered a whack of poached eggs with crispy bacon and hollandaise sauce one morning in 1894, in an effort to thwart a nasty hangover.

JESSICA LEE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Mariam Hanna holds a freshly-made hawawshi.

The reason we bring this up is because of a fresh entry on the local food front called hawawshi, named after Ahmed al-Hawawsh, the Cairo butcher who, 51 years ago, came up with whats since been commonly described as an Egyptian hamburger. Consisting of minced meat paired with spiced onions, pepper and parsley, and served on homemade dough, hawawshi has rapidly emerged as one of the stars of the menu at newly-opened House of Taste, 1833 Grant Ave.

JESSICA LEE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS A hawawshi is a burger-like creation named after its creator, Cairo butcher Ahmed al-Hawawsh.

"We know there are many restaurants in Winnipeg and that its a very competitive industry. But we thought maybe if we offered something different, something diners hadnt tried before, then we might be successful," says Mamdouh Hanna, who believes the 10-seat, largely take-out locale he runs with his wife Mariam is the first Winnipeg restaurant to feature authentic, Egyptian cuisine, all of which is prepared exclusively with 100 per cent Halal ingredients.

"Its still early days, we only opened in mid-December, but so far, so good. Many people come in telling us theyre not familiar with hawawshi or koshary (a vegan platter consisting of pasta, rice and lentils topped with tomato sauce, onions and garlic) but that they are more than willing to give each a try. We love hearing that, we really do."

Mamdouh and Mariam were both born and raised in Alexandria, Egypts third-largest city. After getting married, Mamdouh helped run a transportation company founded by his late father, while Mariam stayed home with their twin daughters, now 19, and son, who just turned 14. They built a successful life for themselves but following the events surrounding the deadly, 2011 Egyptian revolution, which saw more than 800 protesters killed and thousands more injured, they began making plans to leave their homeland for a safer environment.

JESSICA LEE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS House of Taste restaurant owners Mamdouh Hanna (left) and Mariam decided to leave Egypt after the 2011 revolution, choosing Winnipeg over the United States on a recommendation of Mariams brother.

The couple initially considered relocating to the United States; Mamdouh had traveled there for business a number of times and had always enjoyed himself. But because Mariam had a brother living in Winnipeg whod told them repeatedly that Canada was a better choice, they opted instead for Manitobas capital.

They arrived here in September 2015 after going through the proper channels. They had their first encounter with Jack Frost a week or so later, thanks to a freak, fall snowstorm.

Mariam laughs, noting her brother tried to prepare them, by letting them know how frigid Winnipeg winters can be. But until you experience sub-zero temperatures yourself, you dont really know "how cold, cold is," she says.

(Mamdouh smiles, mentioning he was on the phone with family in Egypt last week, who told him the mercury there had dipped to freezing, and that schools were closing owing to a light sprinkling of snow, the regions first in more than a decade. "I think that was the day the high (temperature) in Winnipeg was minus 30 (Celsius) or something, so although I felt bad for them, I didnt feel too bad," he says.)

Mariam noted her brother tried to prepare them, by letting them know how frigid Winnipeg winters can be.

It didnt take long for the couple to find work in Winnipeg; Mamdouh went into property management and Mariam, a self-taught cook, worked part-time at a restaurant.

Through their church, they met others from Winnipegs Egyptian community. Upon learning she was a whiz in the kitchen, many of their new acquaintances asked if she could make them such-and-such a dish "from home."

She was only too happy to comply, which directly led to her quitting her job and establishing her own catering biz, dubbed House of Taste, in December 2017.

JESSICA LEE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS House of Taste took over the spot of a shuttered ice cream parlour on Grant Avenue.

In the summer of 2019, Mariam was enlisted to lend her expertise to Folkloramas inaugural Egyptian pavilion, staged at the University of Manitobas University Centre. She was primarily responsible for sweets such as konafa (shredded dough topped with mango) and a rice pudding dessert that combines nuts and caramel.

Reviews were so overwhelmingly positive that she and Mamdouh began hunting around for a larger commercial kitchen, hoping they could take her fare to the next level.

JESSICA LEE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Konafa is a traditional dessert of shredded dough topped with mango.

The idea to transition from preparing Tilapia fish, fried squid and grey mullet for Islamic celebrations such as Eid al-Adha  or even fully-dressed turkey dinners for traditional, Christmas gatherings  to opening a restaurant of their own began to gel in March 2021, the second Mamdouh spotted a for rent-sign in the window of a shuttered ice cream parlor on Grant Avenue.

He and Mariam headed down to take a look at the strip-mall property, wedged between a tanning salon and a Subway outlet. They liked what they saw and spent from from July to late November renovating the space, as well as adding a few personal touches, including a Himalayan salt crystal pyramid lamp, a framed piece of cloth boasting the Egyptian alphabet and a colourful acrylic painting depicting an idyllic scene along the Nile River, the latter a gift from a friend of theirs.

JESSICA LEE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Koshary is a vegan dish of pasta, rice and lentils topped with tomato sauce.

House of Taste officially opened for business Dec. 18, and has since attracted both lifelong Winnipeggers in the mood for something different, and ex-pat Egyptians, hunting for a taste of home.

"I feel their restaurant will bring a lot to our community in Winnipeg as they serve true, homemade-style Egyptian food, at its best," says Dr. Hala Salama, a Winnipeg dentist who immigrated to Canada from Egypt in 2001.

JESSICA LEE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS With just the right blend of spices, a chicken kebab reminds a Winnipeg dentist of home.

Salama, who became friendly with the Hannas in 2019 when she was the Egyptian pavilions coordinator, says she is excited there is a place in town she can head to, for delicacies she grew up eating, such as Egyptian-style shawarma, kofta and properly spiced chicken kebabs.

This (House of Taste) will be the very first Egyptian cuisine in Winnipeg; Ive already tried their food several times, and it is always a pleasure to be there."  Dr. Hala Salama

"This will be the very first Egyptian cuisine in Winnipeg; Ive already tried their food several times, and it is always a pleasure to be there," she says.

JESSICA LEE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS The decor is a nod to Egypt, including this representation of the Egyptian alphabet.

Mamdouh and Mariam plan to add to their menu in the weeks and months ahead; whats currently available is a small sample size of what Egyptian-style food is all about, they point out.

For example, former catering customers who sampled their fesikh fish, traditionally served during the spring Sham el-Nessim festival, praised it as "delicious" and "best food in the town," on the couples Facebook page.

JESSICA LEE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Preparing beef shawarma.

"We couldnt be happier we chose Winnipeg as our home, and that were now able to give something back, in the form of our food," Mamdouh says, noting hes since visited a few other urban centres in Canada, and is convinced none compare to here.

JESSICA LEE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS A staff member prepares koshary, a vegan dish.

"Winnipeg is a big city, yes, but, to me, it feels more like a community, where you can get almost everywhere in 15 or 20 minutes, and where everybody seems to know everybody, or at least somebody they know. We cant say enough good things. Were so pleased to be Winnipeggers, too."

For more information and restaurant hours, visit the House of Taste Facebook page.

David Sanderson writes about Winnipeg-centric restaurants and businesses.

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca

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OTTAWA  A remote stretch of northern Manitoba has gone three weeks without mail delivery, leading to locals waiting on prescription drugs.

OTTAWA  A remote stretch of northern Manitoba has gone three weeks without mail delivery, leading to locals waiting on prescription drugs.

"Its just the attitude at Canada Post, like they just dont care," said Cecil Thorne, a resident of Pikwitonei, 630 kilometres north of Winnipeg.

The town of roughly 80 sits along a stretch accessed by snow roads, or through the Hudson Bay Railway, where mail was last delivered on Dec. 22.

Normally, the mail comes on the thrice-weekly Via Rail train, though two recent journeys were cancelled.

The local postmaster told Thorne he couldnt get authorization from Canada Post to come to Thompson and pick up the mail from the post office.

The Crown corporation said thats because the winter road has been closed, which remained the case Friday evening according to the Manitoba 511 website.

However, Thorne said the postmaster in nearby Thicket Portage made the trip along that stretch anyway.

"It seems our mail has been held as hostage in Thompson," said Thorne, who himself went to Thompson along the winter road and says post-office staff couldnt authorize him to pick up his own mail.

"Its two Crown corporations: Via Rail and Canada Post, and between the two of them youd think they could figure out a way to deliver the mail."

A Canada Post spokesman said staff are trying to resume mail service as soon as safely possible.

"We recognize the difficulties and frustration facing the residents of Pikwitonei and surrounding communities who have had mail delivery interrupted," wrote Phil Legault.

He said staff tried to find an alternate arrangement as soon as Via Rail cancelled its Jan. 10 route, but wasnt able to arrange a delivery.

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"When notified of railway service interruptions, Canada Post has a process with contingencies that allows us to deliver the mail while maintaining its integrity and safety," Legault wrote.

"We appreciate that customers depend on us and we take that commitment very seriously."

Thorne said his part of the province depends on mail because they only have access to internet through a shoddy, satellite system, and most people get their medicines delivered through the postal system.

In March 2021, the Free Press reported on residents of The Pas waiting for Christmas parcels 10 weeks after the 2020 holiday.

The Crown corporation said at the time it was overloaded by a boom in online shipping starting in November 2020, when the province implemented COVID-19 restrictions prohibiting stores from selling virtually all non-essential items.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca
A mask mandate isnt currently in Winonas near future, unlike other cities in Minnesota.

Both Winona mayor Scott Sherman and Winona County board chair Chris Meyer said Thursday that a mask mandate is not being planned at either level of government.

Sherman shared that he will not be issuing a mask mandate unless people  including city council members, residents, business owners and more  who have previously opposed the mask mandate start requesting one.

I dont see the benefit of doing it for 72 hours to have council rescind it again, Sherman said, recalling what happened in late August in the city.

Instead of a mandate, the city will continue to make recommendations about how people can help slow the spread of COVID-19.

Sherman had a message for the community: Use common sense. If youre not vaccinated, please go get vaccinated. If youre not boosted, please go get boosted. If youre not wearing a mask, please start. If youre not wearing a KN95 or N95 mask, theyre readily available. Please go out and get some. I know theyre available just about everywhere.

If a person is exposed to COVID-19, its important they get tested, especially if they are unvaccinated, Sherman reminded.

He said that people who are unvaccinated should have at home COVID-19 tests on hand or they should be ready to go get tested when needed.

I think its important that we all recognize and realize that were all neighbors. Ultimately, we are all in this together. I know thats been said a million times over the last few years, but it takes a community effort  it takes an effort by everyone  to try and mitigate, slow, stop the spread of COVID and specifically the omicron variant right now, Sherman said. We all want our neighbors to be safe. We all want our loved ones to be safe. We all want to be able to go to work. We all want our children to go to school. And we all want our children to be able to go to day care and be safe.

Additionally, Sherman added, We got to do our best to try and get through this with the least amount of impact on our community as possible.

About a possible mask mandate at the county level, Meyer said, The board considered modifying our zoning ordinance to allow for a mask mandate and we lacked to votes to bring that forward. That has not changed. I have had exchanges with a couple of hundred folks expressing what I can only characterize as outrage over the prospect of mask or vaccine mandates. To those folks I extend only my care and love because your anger will not protect you. Please take precautions for yourself, your loved ones and your community.

Rule of law is the foundation of our democracy. Legislative and public health duties and authority are granted to a county board from the state constitution. The powers are to the board not to individual commissioners. As individual commissioners, or I as the board chair, have no authority. Only when the majority of the board agrees can we execute our powers. Im not actively advocating for any mandates in large part due to the civil unrest it may cause, but I want people to take advantage of the protections that are available to them, she continued.

The board continues to receive information from public health officials about the current state of the pandemic periodically, including during health and human services advisory committee meetings.

Meyer reminded the community, The big message is please, please, please, please get vaccinated and take precautions.

Other communities are not holding off on mandates, though.

Minneapolis recently issued two major mandates  a mandate that requires people to wear masks when inside businesses and places of public accommodation, and a mandate that requires people to show proof of vaccination or proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken within three days to enter bars and restaurants.

When he learned about the mandates in Minneapolis, Sherman said, I thought good for them. I understand what it takes to make that kind of announcement or that kind of a mandate.

Given the high case rates in Minneapolis, Sherman said, the mayors  with whom Sherman conferred in the past  would face backlash with whatever decisions they made in response.

I do know that its a challenging decision to make, and I think it was prudent for what they were are looking at right now in terms of those types of numbers that theyre seeing right now, Sherman said.

He noted that he knows Minneapolis is listening to public health officials when making these decisions  including public health officials that work for the city, which the city of Winona does not have.

Sherman did note that Winona is seeing similar numbers to Winona when it comes to current COVID-19 cases.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while Hennepin County  the home of Minneapolis  had a seven-day case rate per 100,000 people of 1,452.08; as of Friday, Winona Countys rate was at 1,632.2.

As for test seven-day positivity rate as of Friday, Hennepin County was at 26.81%, while Winona County was close behind at 26.61%.

However, Meyer said about the Minneapolis mandates, They are a more urban area than Winona, and so it makes sense to me that they might choose or need to do something different than what we do here.

Other cities in Minnesota are following Minneapolis lead: The city of Rochester on Saturday issued a mandate requiring masks in all indoor public spaces, effective 6 a.m. Sunday. The Minnetonka City Council passed a similar emergency ordinance Friday.

Individuals across the nation have had mixed reactions to Minneapolis mandates.

Republican National Committee spokesperson Preya Samsundar shared in a statement to media, Its absolutely incredible that Democrats who decry the idea of showing proof of your identity to vote are requiring residents to provide documentation of your health status to enter a place of business.

Minnesota Medical Association President Randy Rice, MD, taking a positive perspective, shared in a statement to media, The more than 11,000 physician, resident and medical student members, of the Minnesota Medical Association applaud the leadership of Minneapolis and St. Paul for taking the decisive yet temporary step to require patrons of restaurants, concerts and other public venues that serve food and beverages to show proof of vaccination or negative test results.

As the omicron variant continues to spread and exacerbate pressure on hospital capacity and our already weary health care workers, we need strong measures such as this to curb this pandemic. We urge other communities across the state to consider similar temporary actions. The best defense against COVID-19 and serious complications remains vaccination and boosters, Rice said. Well-fitted masks, social distancing, washing your hands, staying home when youre sick and getting tested if you have symptoms offer additional protection. These are all ways that Minnesotans can practice good health, protect your friends and loved ones, and demonstrate support for the thousands of health care workers who continue to selflessly care for patients on the front lines.

For more information about COVID-19 locally and recommendations that are currently in place to help slow the spread of the disease, visit the citys website at cityofwinona.com or visit the countys website at www.co.winona.mn.us.

To find information about COVID-19 throughout Minnesota, visit www.health.state.mn.us.

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Columbus Area Historical Society

1972

Sister Generose Koehne, former night supervisor at Columbus Community Hospital was honored for 50 years of service as a Sister of the Divine Savior.

A Columbus girl, Chris Syftestad and her husband George Shehane, were one of the newlywed couples on the Newlyweds a nationally broadcast television program.

1982

Remodeling was completed on the State Farm Insurance building across from City Hall. Owner Ed Schellin extensively restored and remolded the 120-year-old building. At one time the building housed the Farmers & Merchants Union Bank and later the phone company.

Last years Miss Columbus, Mary Kay Walter, daughter of John and Audrey Walter entered the Miss Wisconsin pageant.

1992

Along with the start of the New Year, also began the founding of the Poser Clinic entering its 97th year in business. The Poser Clinic housed four Poser doctors: John (Bob), Rolf (Chub), Rolf and Sam. Poser is currently the second oldest medical clinic in the state. Dr. Edward Poser began the clinic on Jan. 1, 1895, and continues to this day. The first clinic was located on the second floor of the Sharrow Drug Store building with a drug store on the first floor. During Dr. Edward Posers first year the cost of office visits ranged from $1 to $2 and surgeries were $5. Bob and Chub joined the clinic in 1939, with Rolf in 1983, and Sam two years later.

2002

Kevin Vincent, Scout Master for Troop 99 spoke to the Rotary Club about the Scout Cabin Restoration project and presented a plaque to Rotary Club Al Strohschein in recognition of the clubs support of the Boy Scouts.

The Associated Press named the Columbus Girls Basketball team with a record of 13-0 the number one team in Division 2.

Follow us on Facebook at Columbus, WI Area Historical Society, or email museumcahs@gmail.com. The museum is open by appointment and will reopen from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the second and fourth Saturday of the month beginning in April.
A fire at a Portage residence Saturday night started after a tenant was smoking a cigarette in bed, according to Portage Fire Chief Troy Haase.

In a statement released Sunday morning, Haase said Portage Fire Department was dispatched to a report of a fire on East Cook Street at 11:34 p.m.

When fire crews arrived, the fire was active and smoke was showing from the exterior of the two story multifamily residence.

The tenant was smoking in bed, thought she had extinguished the cigarette, but it landed on a role of yarn and started a fire, Haase said. The tenant tried to put the fire out with a fire extinguisher, but the heavy smoke forced her out of the structure.

There were no reported injuries from the fire.

Portage Fire made sure all the residents were out of the building. They entered the building and saw heavy fire and smoke damage to the bedroom the fire started in. Haase said three other apartments had smoke and water damage.

Red Cross assisted four residents with finding living arrangements for the evening. The residents will be displaced until it can be cleaned and remodeled, Haase said.

Pardeeville and Poynette Fire Departments were called to assist with the fire along with Alliant Energy to secure the power and gas in the building and surrounding area. Portage Police assisted with traffic control. Aspirus MedEvac was on scene to monitor firefighter health and residents.

Haase said that residents should who smoke in bed should totally extinguish the material before discarding.

In addition, please check your smoke alarms to make sure they are in good working condition, Haase said. If your smoke alarms are more than 10 years old they must be replaced. It is the landlords responsibility to have working smoke and CO alarms in their rental properties.

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 16)  Individuals who tested positive for COVID-19 may get their booster shot right after their isolation period and when their symptoms subside, according to the Department of Health.

"As long as you have no symptoms and [have] completed your isolation period, kayo po ay pwede [nang] makakuha ng booster shot [you may already take your booster shot]," Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said.

Vergeire issued the reminder on Saturday as authorities admitted COVID-19 vaccination is slowing down due to the ongoing wave of infections.

Under the latest DOH guidelines, mild and asymptomatic cases, as well as probable cases, should isolate for seven to 10 days, depending on whether they are fully vaccinated or not.

Moderate cases must isolate for 10 days from the onset of symptoms, while severe cases and the immunocompromised must isolate for 21 days, regardless of their vaccination status.

As of Jan. 16, the Philippines has 3.2 million COVID-19 cases, including 287,856 active cases, a record-high in the number of infected people.

Metro Manila is still the region with the most cases. The DOH has confirmed the spike in infections in the capital region is caused by the community transmission of the highly contagious Omicron variant.
BEIJING, Jan. 15 (Xinhua)  An article by President Xi Jinping on making continuous efforts to build a stronger digital economy in China will be published.

The article by Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, will be published on Sunday in this year's 2nd issue of the Qiushi Journal, a flagship magazine of the CPC Central Committee.

The article stresses that the rapidly developing digital economy is becoming a key force in reorganizing global factor resources, reshaping the global economic structure and incurring changes in the global competition landscape.

It calls for giving full play to the advantages of massive data and rich application scenarios, promoting deep integration between digital technology and the real economy, empowering the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, and creating new industries and new business models to strengthen, optimize and expand China's digital economy.

While acknowledging China's progress and achievements in the sector, the article points out that China's digital economy strength still lags behind the global digital powerhouses, with certain trends of unhealthy and irregular development emerging, which may cause threats to national economic and financial security and must be resolutely rectified.

Stressing that developing the digital economy is a strategic choice to seize the opportunities arising from the new round of technological revolution and industrial change, the article urges efforts including strengthening core technologies, accelerating new infrastructure construction, regulating the sector's development, improving digital economy governance system, and actively participating in international cooperation in the area.

(Source: Xinhua)
Funding available for local groups as part of Tesco Community Grant scheme

This article is old - Published: Sunday, Jan 16th, 2022

Funding is now available from the Tesco Community Grant scheme for North Wales based not-for-profit organisations, community group or registered charity.

The Tesco Community Grants scheme is now open for applications from not-for-profit organisations, community group or registered charities in North Wales with priority given to projects that provide food and support to young people.

Examples of eligible applications with a focus on food security, children and young people could be:

A local school needing support to buy food for a childrens breakfast club,

A voluntary organisation working with families to run a food bank,

A charity supporting young people with specialist advice to manage mental health,

A brownie or scout group needing new camping equipment,

Kitchen equipment for a youth project to set up a holiday club,

Supporting a community centre wanting to put on a Christmas lunch or Meals on Wheels service,

A healthy eating project that supports families to cook healthy meals on a budget,

A local friend of a park group wanting to develop a new toddler area.

Groundwork North Wales works as an enabler for the Tesco Community Grants programme across North Wales and is looking for applications from North Wales based not-for-profit organisations, community group or registered charities.

If you are a Tesco customer or colleague, you can also nominate a cause that youd like to see supported and well contact them to encourage them to apply.

Geraint Hughes, Tesco Grant Enabler Officer at Groundwork North Wales, said: We would love to hear from any local registered charities and not-for-profit organisations who would be interested in applying for a Tesco Community Grant.

We are here to help throughout the process so please get in touch as the grants are a great opportunity for funding.

Tesco Community Grants have funded thousands of local projects across the country. Since 2016 the scheme has supported over 40,000 community groups with more than 90 million in grants. The scheme aims to make a positive difference  because where our communities thrive, our business and our colleagues thrive too.

Tesco Community Grants will select 3 projects / good causes from the applications that need a little extra help in your local area and when a customer is given a blue token, in any Tesco store at checkout, they can vote for their favourite of the selected three project / good causes to receive a grant by putting the blue token in the Tesco Community Grants box.

You can contact Groundwork North Wales for more information and an informal discussion on 01978 757 524 or email info@groundworknorthwales.org.uk and enabler@groundworknorthwales.org.uk
Wrexham Glyndwr working to boost skills with degree apprenticeships

This article is old - Published: Sunday, Jan 16th, 2022

Wrexham Glyndwr University is working to boost skills, helping companies to attract, recruit and retain talented people through a Degree Apprenticeship Programme.

The University is offering six fully funded Degree Apprenticeship Programmes which start at the end of the month for employees of Welsh companies to access. The courses are:

Cyber Security

Software Engineering

Mechanical Engineering

Electrical Engineering

Production Engineering

Low Carbon Energy, Efficiency and Sustainability

Laura Gough, Head of Enterprise at Wrexham Glyndwr University said: We are very pleased to announce we are recruiting for our Degree Apprenticeship programmes so early into 2022 and have funding available to support learners.

Wrexham Glyndwr University has supported a large number of businesses through the Degree Apprenticeship programme to date across many sectors.

Christine Sheibani HR Director at Comtek Network Systems (UK) Ltd, said: The Degree Apprenticeships are perfect in matching on the job experience with the wealth of academic knowledge and support available at Wrexham Glyndwr University.

It truly links education and industry in ways which has mutual benefits. The advantages of having a fully funded degree whilst also working speak for themselves.

The employer also gains from having a degree course which can be tailored to the needs of the job thus benefitting both the student and the business.

Comtek is currently recruiting for a new member of staff to join the business and undertake a Degree Apprenticeship through Wrexham Glyndwr.

For more information about the role, you can visit Comteks website or the Careers Wales website.

The Apprenticeships are open to employers throughout Wales. Help and advice is on hand for any company hoping to develop higher level skills within the workplace through combining academic study with work based learning.

For further details contact enterprise@glyndwr.ac.uk
Weather Alert

...LAKE WIND ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 9 AM THIS MORNING TO 5 PM CDT THIS AFTERNOON... * WHAT...Southwest winds 15 to 25 mph with gusts up to 35 mph expected. * WHERE...Southwest Indiana, southeast Missouri, western Kentucky and southern Illinois. * WHEN...From 9 AM this morning to 5 PM CDT this afternoon. * IMPACTS...Strong winds and rough waves on area lakes will create hazardous conditions for small craft. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... Boaters on area lakes should use extra caution since strong winds and rough waves can overturn small craft. &&
By Trend

Four more rolling stocks, each consisting of five cars, will be purchased for the Baku Metro in 2022, Baku Metro CJSC told Trend.

In the second half of 2021, four new rolling stocks, composed of five cars, were put out on the line, 20 new cars in total (series 81-765B/766 B).

Considering that 40-46 trains are used in service every day, almost half of the fleet has been updated, said the CJSC.
(CNN) -- Europe has a long and bloody history of wars, of borders brutally contested, of nations and empires carving destructive furrows far from home. But a sad harvest of sorrow and loss after the Second World War was followed by decades of relative peace and prosperity, even during a Cold War that did not become hot.

Today that peace is being severely tested by Russian President Vladimir Putin as he masses troops on Ukraine's border and diplomats are raising the alarm in stark terms. The US ambassador to the 57 nation, globe straddling Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe, Michael Carpenter, warned on Thursday that European security is facing a "crisis" and "the drumbeat of war is sounding loud."

Putin, whose nation buried tens of millions of its own in European wars, is unearthing fresh grievances about the post-World War peace, specifically the role of NATO, the transatlantic defensive alliance and counterpoint to Russia's predecessor, the Soviet Union.

Last summer in a 20-page document citing centuries of blood-spattered history, Putin laid claim to Ukraine, which in 1991 regained its independence following the Soviet Union's collapse, stating "Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians are all descendants of Ancient Rus, which was the largest state in Europe."

He concluded "our spiritual, human and civilizational ties formed for centuries have their origins in the same sources ... true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia."

As commander of the world's fifth largest army, and barely halfway through an expected almost four-decade rule, Putin is setting the stage to stake his claim just as his ancestors did, positioning forces on Ukraine's border awaiting his command.

Having already invaded Crimea in 2014, fears Russian troops will again cross the border have never been higher.

The past week of talks -- bilaterally with the US in Geneva Monday, with NATO in Brussels Wednesday and culminating at the OSCE in Vienna on Thursday -- which were meant to ease tensions, seem to have achieved the opposite and entrenched Putin's emissaries in hostile rhetoric.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov set the tone on Monday demanding "ironclad, waterproof, bulletproof, legally binding guarantees, not assurances, not safeguards, guarantees" that NATO deny Ukraine and others membership and roll back to 1997 lines.

Two days later, after NATO talks in Brussels, another deputy foreign minister, Alexander Grushko, threatened force if they don't get what they want. "We have a set of legal military-technical measures that we will apply if we feel a real threat to [our] security, and we already feel [it]," he said.

By Thursday when talks reached the OSCE, whose territory circumnavigates the northern hemisphere from Russia's easternmost frozen tundra to Alaska's icy western tip and where both Russia and Ukraine are members a diplomatic permafrost had formed. Russia's OSCE ambassador, Alexander Lukashevich, warned of "a moment of truth" with "catastrophic consequences" if Russia's "principles are violated."

In Moscow Friday, Putin's long serving Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned "the West got carried away," and tapping into Russian folk law, hinted Putin's diplomacy may have run its course, saying: "We have been harnessing slowly, but now it's time for us to ride."

The same day, Ukrainians woke to a massive cyberattack taking down government websites. Russia hasn't claimed responsibility, but Europe's top diplomat Josep Borrell left little doubt who he thinks was behind the attack, saying, "It's difficult to say [who is behind it]. I can't blame anybody as I have no proof, but we can imagine."

By Russian design or the stuttering effects of stalling diplomacy, the talks are seeding spiraling consequences. Borrell promised counter measures to the cyberattack, "We are going to mobilize all our resources to help Ukraine to tackle this cyberattack. Sadly, we knew it could happen."

In the US, President Joe Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Thursday suggested Putin may have given up on talks with none scheduled in the days ahead, and on Friday the US raised the stakes further, charging that Moscow had "prepositioned a group of operatives" to execute "an operation designed to look like an attack on them or Russian-speaking people in Ukraine" to create a reason for "a potential invasion," according to Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby.

The Kremlin strenuously denied the accusation.

What happens next?

On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky invited Biden and Putin to hold three-way talks to discuss the security situation, according to Ukrainian state media outlet Ukrinform.

Lavrov has stated he believes NATO needs to make the next move, "We are waiting for answers from our colleagues, written answers, put on paper."

But Jens Stoltenberg, NATO's secretary general, told CNN on Wednesday that it's up to Russia to respond to NATO's diplomatic outreach on arms control talks and other reciprocal military agreements. "We are waiting for the answer to our proposal to convene a meeting addressing a wide range of important issues for European security," he said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also indicated the US is waiting on the Russian President. "Is he going to choose the path of diplomacy and dialogue to resolve some of these problems? Or is he going to pursue confrontation and aggression?" the secretary asked Thursday.

The wait is re-awakening uncomfortable memories for Europeans. Denmark's Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod branded Putin's actions "totally unacceptable," saying he is "trying to take us back to the coldest, darkest days of the Cold War."

But with Putin seemingly adamant he will not back down, history's shadow is pressing on the shoulders of leaders across the continent who are becoming increasingly aware that fateful decisions may lie ahead.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "Putin presents a profound threat to peace in Europe as 'drumbeat of war' sounds on Russia-Ukraine border"
Weather Alert

...The National Weather Service in Indianapolis IN has issued a Flood Warning for the following rivers in Indiana... White River at Elliston and Edwardsport. Wabash River at Montezuma. .Multiple rounds of rain over the last few days including today will lead to minor flooding along lower portions of the White River and upper portions on the Wabash River. Additional rainfall later this week should keep portions of the White and Wabash above flood stage through Saturday. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... Motorists should not attempt to drive around barricades or drive cars through flooded areas. Turn around, don't drown when encountering flooded roads. Most flood deaths occur in vehicles. Additional information is available at www.weather.gov/ind. This statement will be updated within the next 12 to 24 hours. && ...FLOOD WARNING IN EFFECT FROM LATE TONIGHT TO SUNDAY EVENING... * WHAT...Minor flooding is forecast. * WHERE...Wabash River at Montezuma. * WHEN...From late tonight to Sunday evening. * IMPACTS...At 18.0 feet, Montezuma agricultural levee is overtopped. Fourteen hundred acres of low bottomlands flood. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS... - At 10:45 AM EDT Tuesday the stage was 9.1 feet. - Forecast...The river will oscillate around flood stage with a maximum value of 16.4 feet early Saturday morning. - Flood stage is 14.0 feet. - http://www.weather.gov/safety/flood &&
Cumberland County saw about 600 new COVID-19 cases each day over the last two days, according to the state Department of Health's Sunday update.

The department said Cumberland County had 1,206 new COVID-19 cases since Friday, and 987 of those were confirmed cases. Though Cumberland County had the second highest number of new cases in the southcentral region - second to York County with 3,331 new cases - it only saw one new death in the last two days.

Dauphin County, however, had seven new deaths - along with 1,073 new cases of COVID-19 over the weekend - while York County had nine new deaths. Perry County also saw a jump of three new deaths, while Adams County had two new deaths reported over the weekend.

Though the number of COVID-19 cases were up, the number of those in the ICU in Cumberland County went down over the weekend. The number of adults in the ICU fell from 28 in Friday's report to 23 in Sunday's report. However, the total number of people hospitalized went up by one to 172 patients, and the number of people on ventilators also went up by one to 24 total patients.

The number of people in the ICU or on ventilators did not change in Franklin County, remaining at 25 in the ICU and 20 on ventilators, but the county did see a jump in total hospitalized patients since Friday. Franklin County now has 148 patients in the hospital with COVID-19, an increase of 12 since Friday.

Like Cumberland County, Dauphin County also saw only a slight rise in hospitalized patients, which rose by one to 250 total in Sunday's update. The number of its patients with severe reactions, however, increased with one more person in the ICU (51) and seven more people on ventilators (42 patients).

Penn State Health cases update (Jan. 10)

Penn State Health lists a COVID-19 dashboard on its website tracking cases at each of its acute care hospitals  Hershey Medical Center, Penn State Health Holy Spirit Medical Center, Hampden Medical Center and Penn State Health St. Joseph Medical Center. The dashboard is updated every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Monday's update shows 230 total cases (216 adults, 14 pediatrics) in the health systems four hospitals, an increase of 33 cases since Jan. 3 and 60 cases since Dec. 27. Of the known-status patients (30 are unknown status), 76 are fully vaccinated (38%) with seven in an ICU and three on a ventilator; 124 are nonvaccinated (62%) with 32 adults in an ICU and 22 adults on ventilators.

There are 14 pediatric patients, with 12 unvaccinated (one in an ICU and one on a ventilator) and one fully vaccinated patient.

Holy Spirit Medical Center in Camp Hill has 47 COVID patients. Nineteen are fully vaccinated adults (one in the ICU and no one on a ventilator) and 28 are unvaccinated adults (one in the ICU and one on a ventilator).

Hampden Medical Center has 13 COVID patients. Nine are unvaccinated (with three in the ICU and two on a ventilator) and four are fully vaccinated (with two in the ICU and one on a ventilator).

Vaccine update

In data updated Saturday evening, the CDC says Cumberland County has 66% of its total population fully vaccinated. The CDC also reported that 69.8% of the population 5 and older are vaccinated, while 73.9% of the population 12 and older are fully vaccinated.

The CDC also began reporting another set of numbers that include booster shots, with 33.6% of the county's total population having received a booster vaccine.

Early Warning Dashboard update (Jan. 7-13)

Cumberland County saw increases in its COVID-19 percent positivity and incidence rate per 100,000 people in the state Health Department's weekly update to its Early Warning Monitoring System Dashboard this weekend.

The county's percent positivity increased to 35.2% for the week of Jan. 7-13, up from 29.7% the previous week. The incidence rate per 100,000 people increased to 828.4, up from 685.6 the previous week.

Lebanon and Dauphin counties lead the Midstate in both categories and ranks in the top 10 in the state.

Lebanon County has the second highest positivity rate in the Midstate at 40.9% (seventh highest in the state), an increase from 37.2% the previous week, and the highest incidence rate in the Midstate at 1,538.9 (sixth highest in the state).

Dauphin County has the highest positivity rate in the Midstate at 41.6% (fifth highest in the state).

Lehigh County has the highest positivity rate in the state at 49.3% and highest incidence rate in the state at 2,488.4.

Forest County had the lowest percent positivity in the state at 10.4%. Warren County had the lowest incidence rate per 100,000 people in the state at 354.7.

School-age children

In its weekly update for the 19th week of the school year, the department reported 262 cases among children aged 5-18 in Cumberland County during the week of Dec. 29-Jan. 4, an increase of 101 cases over the previous week. The total number of cases in Cumberland County for this school year is 2,768.

Statewide, the number of cases among 5- to 18-year-olds saw its largest increase of the school year with 20,456 cases reported during the week of Dec. 29-Jan. 4, compared to 12,518 during the previous week. The state said the total number of cases in that age group for the school year is 156,417.

County numbers in the southcentral region (updated Jan. 16) *2-day totals:

Adams County (pop. 103,009): 568 new cases; 21,615 total cases (18,077 confirmed, 3,538 probable); 45,785 negatives; 300 deaths (+2); 52.5% of county population vaccinated

568 new cases; 21,615 total cases (18,077 confirmed, 3,538 probable); 45,785 negatives; 300 deaths (+2); 52.5% of county population vaccinated Bedford County (pop. 47,888): 184 new cases; 9,605 total cases (6,473 confirmed, 3,132 probable); 13,392 negatives; 236 deaths; 37.6% of county population vaccinated

184 new cases; 9,605 total cases (6,473 confirmed, 3,132 probable); 13,392 negatives; 236 deaths; 37.6% of county population vaccinated Blair County (pop. 121,829): 720 new cases; 25,518 total cases (20,335 confirmed, 5,183 probable); 49,787 negatives; 535 deaths (+3); 50.3% of county population vaccinated

720 new cases; 25,518 total cases (20,335 confirmed, 5,183 probable); 49,787 negatives; 535 deaths (+3); 50.3% of county population vaccinated Cumberland County (pop. 253,370): 1,206 new cases; 43,561 total cases (33,340 confirmed, 10,221 probable); 108,516 negatives; 756 deaths (+1); 66% of county population vaccinated

1,206 new cases; 43,561 total cases (33,340 confirmed, 10,221 probable); 108,516 negatives; 756 deaths (+1); 66% of county population vaccinated Dauphin County (pop. 278,299): 1,073 new cases; 52,472 total cases (44,050 confirmed, 8,422 probable); 133,276 negatives; 811 deaths (+7); 59.6% of county population vaccinated

1,073 new cases; 52,472 total cases (44,050 confirmed, 8,422 probable); 133,276 negatives; 811 deaths (+7); 59.6% of county population vaccinated Franklin County (pop. 155,027): 885 new cases; 34,980 total cases (28,934 confirmed, 6,046 probable); 66,106 negatives; 589 deaths (+1); 47% of county population vaccinated

885 new cases; 34,980 total cases (28,934 confirmed, 6,046 probable); 66,106 negatives; 589 deaths (+1); 47% of county population vaccinated Fulton County (pop. 14,530): 67 new cases; 3,534 total cases (1,797 confirmed, 1,737 probable); 5,192 negatives; 55 deaths; 34.3% of county population vaccinated

67 new cases; 3,534 total cases (1,797 confirmed, 1,737 probable); 5,192 negatives; 55 deaths; 34.3% of county population vaccinated Huntingdon County (pop. 45,144): 218 new cases; 9,544 total cases (7,888 confirmed, 1,656 probable); 22,794 negatives; 212 deaths (+2); 49.2% of county population vaccinated

218 new cases; 9,544 total cases (7,888 confirmed, 1,656 probable); 22,794 negatives; 212 deaths (+2); 49.2% of county population vaccinated Juniata County (pop. 24,763): 59 new cases; 4,152 total cases (3,820 confirmed, 332 probable); 7,044 negatives; 156 deaths (+1); 38.8% of county population vaccinated

59 new cases; 4,152 total cases (3,820 confirmed, 332 probable); 7,044 negatives; 156 deaths (+1); 38.8% of county population vaccinated Lebanon County (pop. 141,793): 931 new cases; 32,768 total cases (28,411 confirmed, 4,357 probable); 64,625 negatives; 427 deaths (+3); 52.2% of county population vaccinated

931 new cases; 32,768 total cases (28,411 confirmed, 4,357 probable); 64,625 negatives; 427 deaths (+3); 52.2% of county population vaccinated Mifflin County (pop. 46,138): 189 new cases; 10,266 total cases (9,745 confirmed, 521 probable); 18,292 negatives; 249 deaths; 47.8% of county population vaccinated

189 new cases; 10,266 total cases (9,745 confirmed, 521 probable); 18,292 negatives; 249 deaths; 47.8% of county population vaccinated Perry County (pop. 46,272): 141 new cases; 7,654 total cases (6,017 confirmed, 1,637 probable); 14,285 negatives; 163 deaths (+3); 46.4% of county population vaccinated

141 new cases; 7,654 total cases (6,017 confirmed, 1,637 probable); 14,285 negatives; 163 deaths (+3); 46.4% of county population vaccinated York County (pop. 449,058): 884 new cases; 100,851 total cases (83,337 confirmed; 17,514 probable); 200,423 negatives; 1,282 deaths (+9); 56.1% of county population vaccinated

ZIP code-level counts (updated Jan. 16):

17013: 5,021 positives, 16,625 negatives - +162 since Jan. 14

17015: 3,032 positives, 8,200 negatives - +70 since Jan. 14

17050: 4,890 positives, 17,708 negatives - +140 since Jan. 14

17055: 5,322 positives, 19,201 negatives - +171 since Jan. 14

17011: 4,906 positives, 16,040 negatives - +122 since Jan. 14

17007: 753 positives, 2,151 negatives - +24 since Jan. 14

17065: 561 positives, 1,436 negatives - +15 since Jan. 14

17324: 639 positives, 1,434 negatives - +20 since Jan. 14

17241: 1,405 positives, 3,575 negatives - +56 since Jan. 14

17257: 3,889 positives, 8,127 negatives - +151 since Jan. 14

17240: 379 positives, 747 negatives - +14 since Jan. 14

17025: 2,293 positives, 6,753 negatives - +65 since Jan. 14

17070: 2,162 positives, 6,224 negatives - +45 since Jan. 14

17043: 734 positives, 2,407 negatives - +20 since Jan. 14

17019: 2,552 positives, 6,337 negatives - +76 since Jan. 14

17266: 50 positives, 149 negatives - +3 since Jan. 14

School district and college case counts (updated Jan. 12)

The Sentinel's case counts for Cumberland County school districts and colleges or universities are updated Fridays. The policy for each school districts reporting is noted in the list below.

Big Spring School District (reports active cases in past 14 days with school exposure): 10 student cases and 3 staff cases being monitored as of Jan. 7.

(reports active cases in past 14 days with school exposure): 10 student cases and 3 staff cases being monitored as of Jan. 7. Camp Hill School District (posts chart that includes total case count): 17 student cases and 2 staff cases within a 14-day period. Chart last updated on Jan. 7.

(posts chart that includes total case count): 17 student cases and 2 staff cases within a 14-day period. Chart last updated on Jan. 7. Carlisle Area School District (reports cases as they occur and updates a chart): 203 cases within the current 14-day rolling count, according to the charts last update on Jan. 13.

(reports cases as they occur and updates a chart): 203 cases within the current 14-day rolling count, according to the charts last update on Jan. 13. Cumberland Valley School District (reports weekly and total number of cases with school exposure): 80 cases in "current week" beginning Jan. 10, as of the charts last update on Jan. 11.

(reports weekly and total number of cases with school exposure): 80 cases in "current week" beginning Jan. 10, as of the charts last update on Jan. 11. Mechanicsburg Area School District (chart lists total cases actively being monitored, updated Tuesday and Friday): 48 positive and presumed positive cases being monitored as of Jan. 11.

(chart lists total cases actively being monitored, updated Tuesday and Friday): 48 positive and presumed positive cases being monitored as of Jan. 11. Shippensburg Area School District (reports weekly and total confirmed case counts involving school exposure): 128 confirmed cases in the last 14 days, as of charts last update on Jan. 11.

(reports weekly and total confirmed case counts involving school exposure): 128 confirmed cases in the last 14 days, as of charts last update on Jan. 11. South Middleton School District (posts notices as cases occur, updates table of case counts weekly on Fridays): 17 confirmed cases in the last 14 days, as of the charts last update on Jan. 7.

(posts notices as cases occur, updates table of case counts weekly on Fridays): 17 confirmed cases in the last 14 days, as of the charts last update on Jan. 7. West Shore School District (reports active cases with school exposure within past 14 days): 136 student cases and 27 staff cases being monitored as of Jan. 11.

(reports active cases with school exposure within past 14 days): 136 student cases and 27 staff cases being monitored as of Jan. 11. Dickinson College : school is not currently in session; 59 student cases and 34 employee cases in the fall semester (started Aug. 30). Chart last updated on Dec. 17.

: school is not currently in session; 59 student cases and 34 employee cases in the fall semester (started Aug. 30). Chart last updated on Dec. 17. Messiah University : 36 student cases and 5 employee cases in the spring semester (starting Dec. 30); 139 student cases and 56 employee cases in the fall semester (started Aug. 7). Chart last updated Jan. 12.

: 36 student cases and 5 employee cases in the spring semester (starting Dec. 30); 139 student cases and 56 employee cases in the fall semester (started Aug. 7). Chart last updated Jan. 12. Shippensburg University: school is not currently in session; 270 student cases and 31 employee cases the fall semester (started Aug. 1). Chart last updated on Dec. 16.

(Counties with a percent positivity above 5% in a week go on the Department of Health's watch list)

Pennsylvania: Percent Positivity - 35.7% last 7 days (33.3% previous 7 days) Incidence Rate per 100,000 people last 7 days - 1,249.2 (1,085.2 previous 7 days)

Adams County: Percent Positivity - 35.5% last 7 days (34.1% previous 7 days) Incidence Rate per 100,000 people last 7 days - 1,235.8 (1,147.5 previous 7 days)

Cumberland County: Percent Positivity - 35.2% last 7 days (29.7% previous 7 days) Incidence Rate per 100,000 people last 7 days - 828.4 (685.6 previous 7 days)

Dauphin County: Percent Positivity - 41.6% last 7 days (36.4% previous 7 days) Incidence Rate per 100,000 people last 7 days - 1,128.3 (968.4 previous 7 days)

Franklin County: Percent Positivity - 37.6% last 7 days (32.6% previous 7 days) Incidence Rate per 100,000 people last 7 days - 1,424.9 (1,042.4 previous 7 days)

Lebanon County: Percent Positivity - 40.9% last 7 days (37.2% previous 7 days) Incidence Rate per 100,000 people last 7 days - 1,538.9 (1,312.5 previous 7 days)

Perry County: Percent Positivity - 36.8% last 7 days (33.4% previous 7 days) Incidence Rate per 100,000 people last 7 days - 635.4 (507.9 previous 7 days)

York County:

Percent Positivity - 39.6% last 7 days (37.9% previous 7 days)

last 7 days (37.9% previous 7 days)

Incidence Rate per 100,000 people last 7 days - 1,481.5 (1,386.9 previous 7 days)
HARRISBURG  You never know what youll see when you walk through a junkyard.

Two years ago, Ethan Hauck walked through weeds in his great uncles junkyard, looked at a rusty 1959 International Harvester tractor and envisioned a beautifully restored piece.

He bought it for $1,000. After two years of hard work and $7,000 in parts, he was looking at a gleaming red tractor that could have come out of the showroom six decades ago.

This tractor was a rusty mess, but it caught my eye because it was unique, said Hauck, a Mifflinburg High School senior. It was gas-powered instead of diesel. It also was Western style with the big rounded fenders that the wheat farmers used out west. Its been a great project.

Hauck brought his restored International 660 tractor to the 106th Pennsylvania Farm Show and competed in the tractor restoration competition on Saturday. He said the tractor looked pretty bad when he first saw it.

It had been used by Mennonites so it had steel wheels welded onto the hubs, he said. The transmission had broken bolts. The motor had a broken crank shaft and was rusted shut. The carburetor was gummed up. The front and back fenders were smashed in.

Hauck, who was living on a 150-acre dairy farmer in New Berlin where his family also grows hay, corn, soybeans and small grains, saw potential. He towed it home three miles and began his research.

He learned that only 104 of the nearly 7,000 tractors in that International Harvester series were gas-powered. They sold new for $6,000 in those days. He then began to look for parts.

I found some in the junkyard and some from an old tractor my dad had, he said. Im very mechanical and was able to do most of the work myself, although some of my friends from ag class did wire brushing and other things.

Hauck started working on the tractor at home. It wasnt easy.

The steel wheel had to be torched off and hammered off, he said. I discovered that it had the wrong motor for this tractor, so I got the right one and rebuilt it. I had to drain fluids out too.

Eventually, he brought the tractor to his high school, where his agriculture classmates helped him with parts of the restoration. Along the way, Hauck learned the fine points of body work and rebuilding carburetors.

He spent several days hammering the smashed-in fenders to straighten them out. He said his favorite part was priming, painting and putting the tractor back together.

Ive been restoring tractors since I was 14, Hauck said, adding that he restored a 1949 tractor back then. So I knew some of what I had to do.

His parents, John and Susan Hauck, expressed pride in their sons abilities.

From the time Ethan could walk, he followed me around in the shop, his father said. This tractor sat outside rusting for about seven years, but Ethan made it new again.

Asked about his future plans, Hauck smiled. I want to farm but also to open a tractor restoration business, he said. Ill take this tractor to shows and parades for five or 10 years, then probably sell it.

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The Charlottesville school division is seeking to wean itself off an infusion of one-time federal money that it used to pay for raises, 17 new full-time positions, and other investments aimed at helping students recover from the ongoing pandemic.

An initial draft of the divisions fiscal year 2023 spending plan would rely on about $2.18 million of that federal stimulus money  down from $4.6 million allocated in the current operating budget.

The school division wants to use that money plus an increase in state and local revenue to give its employees an average 5% raise, cover cost increases with recurring contracts, make the theater teacher at Buford Middle School a full-time position and sustain several new positions that were funded in the current fiscal year.

The division has received $15.7 million in federal stimulus funds since the start of the pandemic, which must be spent by Sept. 30, 2024.

Kim Powell, the divisions assistant superintendent for finance and operations, said this is a key budget cycle for using the federal funds.

Its our last full budget year to sort this out, Powell said. You only have one more shot.

Transitioning away from the federal money and implementing the long-awaited reconfiguration project to put the middle grades under one roof are priorities for the board. The topics will dominate budget discussions, as has already been the case. The division has received $15.7 million in federal stimulus funds since the start of the pandemic, which must be spent by Sept. 30, 2024.

This budget cycle will be the first for schools Superintendent Royal Gurley Jr. who started in the position in early October.

Despite the pay raise and stimulus funds, the division is looking at nearly $1 million in cuts. That includes the reduction of 15 full-time instructional assistant positions, which would occur via attrition. No current employees would lose their job, according to the presentation. Specifics regarding the personnel changes affecting 17 full-time changes would be discussed in closed session, Gurley said.

The division has 82 instructional assistants in its general fund and the state staffing standard calls for nine, according to the presentation.

Board members supported the effort to reduce the use of one-time funds and wanted to see more recommendations for how to cut costs or make other adjustments to continue to do so over the next two budget cycles.

When we get to next year, everything has to be on the table, not just always the [instructional assistants], board member Lashundra Bryson Morsberger said, adding the budget should reflect the school systems values. I dont see the resources going to the places that need it the most.

The spending plan will be formally presented to the school board on Feb. 3. The board will vote on the request Feb. 24 before presenting it to City Council on March 7.

Gurley said that at this point, hes not recommending a cut to any program related to children, but he told board members that theyll have to make tough decisions about personnel who work with children.

Board member Jennifer McKeever said that the city has been clear that there has to be some give in the divisions operating budget in order for reconfiguration to be funded.

This is a good faith effort and I would like to continue that effort by having additional recommendations, she said. So I think it would be helpful for them to see us making these hard choices.

Overall, the initial draft of the proposal is a pared down request compared to previous budgets. New line items for school-based program improvements and support totals $48,800. Last year, the total was $1,854,199 and $475,578 in fiscal year 2020  the last budget before the pandemic.

Typically, budget development conversations in Charlottesville focus on changes and new spending rather than the entire budget, which totaled $94 million for this fiscal year. About 84% of the expenses go toward instructional staff.

Overall, the school division is currently planning to request $4,039,070 from the city. Historically, the city has given the school division 40% of new real estate and property tax revenue, which would be $3.1 million for fiscal year 2023.

The $4 million would cover cost increases in contracts with the city for transportation and maintenance as well as a $15,000 storm water tax. The transportation contract is increasing by $567,062, which would include changes implemented this year to offer retention bonusesThe maintenance contract is increasing by $296,459. Both increases would cover the 6% raises recently approved by city council, Powell said.

Local funding makes up the bulk of the divisions budget. The citys $58,709,632 base allocation to the school division hasnt changed in the last two fiscal years. Last year, the division wouldve received $746,069 via the funding formula but that money was not requested given uncertainty surrounding the citys revenues.

The School Board will discuss the spending proposal with the city council at a joint meeting next month. The board is hoping to meet in-person at Buford Middle School.

For the reconfiguration project, the division is expecting to have about $6.8 million left in federal funds to use for one-time projects.

Powell said construction projects are one option for that money if the Virginia Department of Education signs off on an application.

Before we can submit the application, there needs to be some level of understanding, agreement and trust between elected bodies about how we are going to navigate the next two years, Powell said.

Powell said one option for those funds is to pay for the school divisions non-reconfiguration projects in the citys capital improvement plan, totaling $6.755 million. That would include the remaining renovation projects at Greenbrier, Johnson and Venable elementary schools and replacing the roof at Charlottesville High School.

The school system also received an $808,685 state grant for HVAC related projects. Using the grant and federal funds would leave as much as $7.56 million for the city to use in its capital budget.

About $75 million has been included in the citys capital improvement plan for the first phase of reconfiguration.

This is very exciting to see that we potentially have some money so that we can, in good faith, help, board chairwoman Lisa Larson-Torres said.

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Despite Major League Baseballs deep freeze during the lockout, the Cincinnati Reds are hopeful they added a new star prospect to the organization Saturday.

The Reds signed Ricardo Cabrera, a 17-year-old shortstop from Venezuela, on the first day of the 2021-22 international signing period. Cabrera is rated as the No. 3 overall international free agent by MLB.com, setting high expectations for the face of the Reds' signing class.

Venezuelan shortstop Ricardo Cabrera, second from right, signs his contract with the Cincinnati Reds on Jan. 15, 2022.

Cabrera is the highest-rated international prospect the Reds signed since right-hander Vladimir Gutierrez in 2016, according to the league websites rankings. The difference from when the Reds signed Aroldis Chapman, Raisel Iglesias, Alfredo Rodriguez, Jose Barrero and Gutierrez over the past 12 years is teams werent capped on the amount of money they could spend. The Reds are allotted $5.72 million in bonuses for the 2021-23 class and they prioritized Cabrera.

We started laying eyes on Cabrera probably four years ago, said Trey Hendricks, the Reds director of international scouting. He was one of those players that every time you saw him, he stood out. He was one of the best players on the field and he always hit the ball hard.

Cabrera, a right-handed hitter listed at 5-foot-11, 178 pounds, is a potential five-tool talent, but his bat was always advanced. He played in showcases outside of Venezuela, which allowed more scouts to watch him, and he excelled when he played kids two or three years older.

More: Reds announce new player development coordinators, minor league staffs

Venezuelan shortstop Ricardo Cabrera poses for a picture after signing a contract with the Cincinnati Reds on Jan. 15, 2022. He's rated as the No. 3 overall player in the 2021-22 international signing class by Baseball America.

Baseball America called him one of the most complete players in the class in its scouting report. Hes known for his ability to hit line drives to all fields, showcasing a compact swing with emerging power.

Hes one of the more polished teenage bats Ive seen in Latin America in the last five years, Hendricks said.

The Reds are expected to sign more than a dozen international free agents during this years signing period. Its a high-risk, high-reward area of building an organization because teams are scouting players when they are the equivalent of high school freshmen and sophomores.

Story continues

For subscribers: Finding some potential free-agent fits for the Reds after the lockout

Even in a best-case scenario, Cabrera, an above-average runner and fielder, is several years from contributing at the Major League level. For an organization that traditionally is quiet during free agency, the Reds hope they can help Cabrera reach his All-Star-level ceiling.

The best thing about him is his hit ability, Hendricks said. He controls the strike zone. He recognizes offspeed pitches. Hes not afraid to take his walk, which weve been stressing to him, walks are good. He gets in the box and hes looking to do damage.

The Reds announced 10 signings Saturday, six position players and four pitchers from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Colombia. They've reportedly reached an agreement with Panamanian outfielder Esmith Pineda for $800,000, but not all signings are official on the first day of the signing period.

Heres a breakdown of other notable signees Saturday:

Anthuan Valencia, one of the top shortstops in the class, signing with the Reds https://t.co/ZG8rEgV8vn pic.twitter.com/foLbzut3gt  Ben Badler (@BenBadler) January 15, 2022

 SS Anthuan Valencia, 17, Venezuela  Hes ranked as the 32nd-best player in the international class by MLB.com. He has a reputation as a talented defender who should be able to remain at shortstop or second base as he progresses through the minor leagues. He hits to all fields with more power than expected for a guy listed at 5-foot-8, 177 pounds.

High energy guy, Hendricks said. He plays with that flash and flair that you see a lot of young Latin shortstops play with. He can do the between the legs, turn the double plays behind his back. Just a good baseball player and great kid.

Valencias nickname is El Capitan, a nod to him being a vocal leader. Hes the player who is first to arrive at a field and last to leave, Hendricks said, and typically the first player to run onto the field between innings.

He leads by example, Hendricks said. Hes always encouraging his teammates, hes very vocal on the field and hes a winner. I think that comes through if you see him in games. He wants to win. Thats an important trait to have.

 SS Jesus Correa, 17, Colombia  He trained with former Reds shortstop Orlando Cabrera in Cartagena. Correa, listed at 5-foot-8, 167 pounds, is a switch-hitter who added strength in the past year.

Hes only been playing baseball for four or five years, Hendricks said. He was a soccer player before that, and it really shows with his footwork at shortstop. He can make a lot of plays out there.

 RHP Lisnerkin Lantigua, 17, Dominican Republic  With a three-pitch mix, reaching 93 mph with his fastball, Lantigua is expected to pitch in the starting rotation for the Reds' Dominican Summer League (DSL) team during the upcoming season.

Really competes and pounds the zone, so were excited, Hendricks said. I could see him moving quickly if he does what we think hes going to do.

The @reds have been busy. (L-R) RHP Nelfri Payano

RHP Lisnerkin Lantigua

OF Carlos Sanchez

OF Adrian Reyes@m_sheldon @MLBPipeline pic.twitter.com/Wch8eGIrLE  Jesse Sanchez (@JesseSanchezMLB) January 15, 2022

 RHP Nelfri Payano, 17, Dominican Republic  Another expected starting pitcher for the DSL team next summer, Payano is up to 92-93 mph with his fastball and he has a good command of his curveball.

Lantigua and Payano are both new to pitching. Lantigua was an outfielder until two years ago, Hendricks said, and Payano was a shortstop until about a year ago, switching at the advice of their agents.

Were really excited about both of those guys, just the strike-throwing ability, the now stuff, and the projection, Hendricks said. Both of them have starter traits. Thats what were searching for is starting pitching. It doesnt always work out, but thats what we shoot for.

 RHP Joneiker Arellano, 16, Venezuela  Hes a candidate to start in the DSL rotation with his three-pitch mix, sitting around 88 mph with his fastball. He has a lean frame, but he should gain velocity as he adds more strength.

 OF Adrian Reyes, 17, Dominican Republic  A switch-hitting corner outfielder, Reyes calling card is his power. Hell probably see time in right field, left field and maybe a little first base, Hendricks said, but the bat is the exciting draw with him.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Reds add star Venezuelan shortstops Ricardo Cabrera, Anthuan Valencia
Former Alabama quarterback Jay Barker was arrested in Nashville early Saturday morning after allegedly attempting to hit two people with a vehicle, according to court documents.

Heres what we know so far:

What happened?

Court documents said Barker was arrested in Nashville after allegedly attempting to hit two people with a vehicle early Saturday morning. As the people pulled into the driveway of a home, Barker allegedly reversed his vehicle at a high rate of speed attempting to hit them, but missed, according to the arrest affidavit.

Who is Jay Barker?

Barker led Alabama to the 1992 national championship, including a victory over No. 1-ranked Miami in the Jan. 1, 1993, Sugar Bowl. He is the schools all-time winningest quarterback with a 35-2-1 record as a starter, and won the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award in 1994 as a senior.

Barker was selected in the fifth round of the 1995 NFL draft by the Green Bay Packers but was cut from the roster. He spent time with the New England Patriots and Carolina Panthers as a backup but never played in a regular-season game.

Barker hosts a radio show carried on 100.9 FM in Tuscaloosa.

Sara Evans and Jay Barker on the red carpet at the 53rd Annual CMA Awards at Music City Center Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2019 in Nashville, Tenn.

Who is Sara Evans?

Barker has been married to country music singer and songwriter Sara Evans since 2008, his second marriage. The couple was married in Franklin, Tennessee.

Evans,50, has released eight studio albums. She released her most recent album in 2020 called "Copy That" on her own Born To Fly record label.

The pair separated in April, court records show. Sara Evans, whose legal name is Sara Barker, filed for divorce in August. The divorce complaint listed "irreconcilable differences" and "inappropriate marital conduct" on the part of Jay Barker.

What's next?

Barker faces a felony charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, records show. His bond was set at $10,000 and he was released from the Davidson County jail on Saturday evening, jail records show.

He is scheduled to appear in court for a settlement hearing on March 22.

Story continues

Barker statement

Barker, 49, released a statement over the weekend after he was released from jail.

On Instagram, in a two-slide note, he wrote he's "humbled beyond words by the support I have received from friends, supporters, and so many in the Alabama family."

He also suggests his arrest report and the events leading up to it are incomplete. The note does not go into detail, but he does ask for privacy for his family.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY NETWORK: Ex-Alabama QB Jay Barker charged with felony assault: What We Know
Raphinha has been a shining light in a difficult season (PA Wire)

Marcelo Bielsa believes Leeds have made a great decision by starting talks with star player Raphinha over an improved contract.

Raphinha, Leeds stand-out performer since they returned to the Premier League, has been linked with some of Europes biggest clubs, including Liverpool, Manchester United and Bayern Munich.

The 25-year-old Brazilian signed a four-year contract when joining Leeds from Rennes for 17million in October 2020 and talks between his agent Deco and the Yorkshire club about a better deal are ongoing.

Bielsa, whose side return to West Ham in the Premier League on Sunday, said: I think its a great decision. Raphinha is the best player in the team in all the senses.

Physically hes the best, technically hes at the level of the best, his interpretation of the game is very good, very wise.

Hes in the group of such a powerful nation in Brazil, he shines in the Premier League and he has the attention of all the big clubs in the world.

Raphinhas electrifying form for Leeds has been rewarded with four senior appearances for Brazil. He scored twice on his full debut for Tites side in a 4-1 World Cup qualifying win against Uruguay last autumn.

Bielsa said: All of those things are something you guys know as much as me, nothing that Im saying is new. As a result the decision of the club can only be valued.

Leeds return to the London Stadium seven days after a 2-0 defeat to West Ham saw them exit the FA Cup at the first hurdle for the fourth season running under Bielsa.

They could be boosted by the possible returns of Patrick Bamford (hip), Rodrigo (heel) and Pascal Struijk (foot), but their squad remains threadbare with eight other first-team players ruled out.

Kalvin Phillips, skipper Liam Cooper, Joe Gelhardt, Jamie Shackleton, Charlie Cresswell and Sam Greenwood remain unavailable, while Diego Llorente and Tyler Roberts are suspended. The latter is also nursing a calf strain.

Leeds are eight points clear of the bottom three, while David Moyes high-flying Hammers are bidding to consolidate in the top four.
UPDATE: 2:15 p.m.:

Central Virginia roads are snow covered, slushy and slippery from the main arteries to the interstates, according to Virginia Department of Transportation officials and the agency's website.

Crashes currently close some traffic lanes along Interstate 64 between Afton Mountain and Louisa County, including one eastbound just after the Ivy exit that has blocked the left lane.

"Virginia State Police troopers have responded to 142 traffic crashes and 162 disabled vehicles since 12:01 a.m. Sunday," said Shelby Crouch, of the state police. "The majority of those crashes have involved only damage to vehicles. There have been no reported traffic fatalities during this time period."

Lou Hatter, of VDOT, said travel is expected to only get worse.

"The snow is forecast to change to freezing rain late Sunday afternoon or early evening, coupled with high winds, which could result in downed trees and power lines," he said. "After that, bitterly cold temperatures will result in a refreeze, exacerbating dangerous conditions overnight into Monday morning."

____________

The flakes are moving into Charlottesville and Central Virginia as the second winter storm in two weeks rolls through the region with possible periods of near-blizzard conditions as bands of heavy snowfall meet gusty winds and even ice.

The storm is similar to one that struck the area Jan. 3, toppling thousands of trees, snapping power lines and poles and leaving tens of thousands without power for several days.

That means roads will likely be snow covered, slick and slippery for most of the afternoon and into the evening.

This is expected to be an all-day event, bringing snow, freezing rain, ice, then ending with even more snow, said Len Stevens, of the Virginia Department of Transportation. We also expect winds to pick up this evening and into tomorrow morning, enhancing the risk for downed trees and power lines. Motorists are urged to stay off the roads unless absolutely necessary.

The window for preparations for todays winter storm has closed. Snow is falling across much of Piedmont Virginia and travel is expected to become extremely hazardous Sunday afternoon, evening and overnight. The Virginia Department of Transportation urges drivers to stay off the roads.

Lou Hatter, also of VDOT, said regional road crews pretreated roads and that 650 pieces of equipment are standing by.

Crews are mobilized to plow and treat interstates and primary roads first, then shift to secondary roads and neighborhoods, Hatter said. They will work around the clock, so if you must travel, watch for heavy equipment moving through the area, and crews removing debris from roads.

The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning for most of Central Virginia from the mountains to Interstate 95. The heaviest amounts of snow are expected to fall from the Blue Ridge Mountains and Interstate 81 east to Interstate 95.

The puts a big target on the backs of Central Virginians, again.

The snow is forecast to change to freezing rain late Sunday afternoon or early evening, coupled with high winds, which could result in downed trees and power lines, weather service meteorologists warn. After that, bitterly cold temperatures will result in a refreeze, exacerbating dangerous conditions overnight into Monday morning.

Exactly how much snow may be expected is anyones guess as predictions during the past few days have varied from three to five inches to between seven inches and a foot. As of midday Sunday, weather service prognosticators are predicting four to six inches with about a tenth of an inch of ice.

Winds could gust as high as 40 mph and some snow bands could drop between one and three inches in an hour. That would create near-blizzard conditions, reduce visibility and drift over roads, making them nearly impassable.

City of Charlottesville road crews will begin plowing Sunday evening, having already pretreated the roads Saturday night. Key Recreation Center in downtown Charlottesville has stocked and will open as a warming shelter Monday at 11 a.m.

The Charlottesville High School gym will be a backup location in case Key loses power or power outages become widespread enough to require additional space.

To add insult to the regions injury, the snow could make command repeat performance next weekend, according to the weather service.

There is a slight winter storm threat for early Saturday morning into Saturday night, meteorologists said. If this threat materializes, it may cause travel disruptions. This would put strong winds in the east and moderate to heavy snow. We still have 5 to 6 days until this potential winter storm, so the exact track and intensity could change quite a few times between now and then.
The Mystic Whaler sailed last week into its new home port of Channel Islands Harbor where it will serve as a floating museum.

The replica tall ship will eventually open to the public and show what life was like for sailors in the 1800s. The date for opening has not been set.

Its a really wonderful platform for that, Capt. Christine Healy said Friday of the educational opportunities. Its very hands-on for the kids. Itll get them involved and moving.

The 83-foot-long schooner traveled about 5,400 nautical miles to arrive in Oxnard. Periods of rough weather met the Mystic Whaler as it sailed south from Connecticut to Florida in October.

Once in Fort Lauderdale, the tall ship was hoisted onto a cargo ship on Nov. 28 for its journey through the Panama Canal. The vessel headed north after entering the Pacific Ocean in early December and arrived in Oxnard Jan. 9.

The replica tall ship Mystic Whaler can be seen Friday, Jan. 14, 2022 docked near the Channel Islands Maritime Museum in Channel Islands Harbor in Oxnard.

The vessel was built in 1967 in the style of a late 19th-century coastal cargo schooner, according to a news release from the Ventura County Harbor Department. The 50-passenger boat began offering cruises out of Connecticut where it remained until it was purchased in the fall.

Owners Roger and Sarah Chrisman of Montecito will offer tours and educational programs to teach students and the public about the history and science of sea trade, according to the news release.

Other harbor news: Decaying hotel at Channel Islands Harbor finally coming down

The ship, which will be renamed Mystic Cruzar, will also regularly visit the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum, according to the release. The Chrismans could not be reached for comment.

While in Connecticut, the vessel participated in several maritime festivals, including the Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race. Although the Mystic Whaler didn't win any of the races, Healy said it held its own.

It was at the 118-nautical mile race from Baltimore, Maryland to Norfolk, Virginia that Healy first saw the ship at age 19.

Capt. Christine Healy and her dog Emma stand on the deck of the replica tall ship Mystic Whaler Friday, Jan. 14, 2022 docked at the Channel Islands Harbor near the Channel Islands Maritime Museum.

Now 42, Healy said she would compete in the race almost every year and became acquainted with the ship and its captains.

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It was almost like going home, coming to this boat, Healy said of joining the ship in October.

Michael Tripp, Channel Islands Harbor director, said the vessel will spend the next few months in a public dock while the crew transitions the vessel into its new home.

The Mystic Whaler is currently tied up behind the Channel Islands Maritime Museum where its 110-foot tall sails tower over passing boats.

Brian J. Varela covers Oxnard, Port Hueneme and Camarillo. He can be reached at brian.varela@vcstar.com or 805-477-8014. You can also find him on Twitter @BrianVarela805.

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: A 19th-century replica vessel ties up in Channel Islands Harbor
The FBI on Sunday identified British national Malik Faisal Akram, 44, as the person who took hostages in a standoff at a Texas synagogue.

Two teenagers were also arrested in Britain in connection to the hostage situation, the Greater Manchester Police announced on Twitter. They were arrested Sunday evening, the police said, and remained in custody for questioning as of 7:00 p.m. ET.

The Greater Manchester Police did not name the suspects or whether they faced any charges. FBI Dallas spokeswoman Katie Chaumont referred questions to police in Manchester.

Dallas FBI chief Matthew DeSarno said the investigation involved Britain and Israel, and the assailant was focused on an issue not directly connected to the Jewish community. Londons Metropolitan Police said Akram was from the Lancashire area of northwest England and British counterterrorism police worked with U.S. authorities on the case.

None of the four hostages at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, a city of 26,000 people 15 miles northeast of Fort Worth, was injured. DeSarno did not discuss how Akram died but said in a statement Sunday that the shooting would be reviewed.

The hostages included Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, who said Sunday that the assailant was increasingly belligerent and threatening in the standoffs last hour. Cytron-Walker expressed gratitude to law enforcement for their efforts  and to many others for their prayers.

"I am thankful and filled with appreciation for all of the vigils and prayers and love and support, all of the law enforcement and first responders who cared for us, all of the security training that helped save us," Cytron-Walker wrote in a Facebook post. "I am grateful for my family. I am grateful for the CBI Community, the Jewish Community, the Human Community. I am grateful that we made it out. I am grateful to be alive."

SYNAGOGUES SAFE: All Texas synagogue hostages safe after hourslong standoff

A law enforcement official who spoke to USA TODAY on the condition of anonymity said Akram demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist serving 86 years in a Texas prison for attempting to kill Americans in Afghanistan. Siddiqui is suspected of having ties to al-Qaida. Akram reportedly wanted to speak with Siddiqui, who is housed in a federal prison in Fort Worth.

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Law enforcement and FBI crisis negotiators responded Saturday morning to Congregation Beth Israel. Akram took four hostages, though one man was released, according to the Colleyville Police Department. The standoff ended when an FBI SWAT team stormed the building.

President Joe Biden, visiting a food pantry in Philadelphia on Sunday morning, said the hostage taker purchased weapons on the street and may have recently come to the USA, spending his first night in a homeless shelter. Akrams immigration status and history were not immediately available.

Rest assured, we are focused, Biden said. The attorney general is focused and making sure that we deal with these kinds of acts.

Police respond to a hostage situation at the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue on Jan. 16 in Colleyville, Texas.

Siddiqui was detained in 2008 by Afghan authorities along with handwritten notes that referred to a "mass casualty attack" and listed various locations in the USA, including the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge. Other notes referred to the construction of dirty bombs and reconnaissance drones, underwater bombs and gliders, according to federal prosecutors.

When U.S. officials attempted to interview Siddiqui in Ghazni, Afghanistan, she grabbed an Army officer's M-4 rifle and shot at an officer and other members of the interview team, declaring her intent to kill Americans.

Marwa Elbially, Siddiquis Texas-based lawyer, told USA TODAY that Siddiqui was not involved in the hostage situation and that her only brother, an architect who lives in Houston, confirmed that he had nothing to do with it, either.

John Floyd, chairman of the Houston board of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said his group stood in solidarity against the "antisemitic attack against a house of worship." Floyd, a lawyer for some members of Siddiqui's family, said they strongly condemn the attack.

"Dr. Aafias family has always stood firm in advocating for the release of their sister from incarceration by legal and non-violent means only," Floyd said in a statement, and the attack "directly undermines those of us who are seeking justice for Dr. Aafia."

Saturdays services at Congregation Beth Israel were livestreamed on the synagogues Facebook page. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that an angry man could be heard ranting and talking about religion at times during the livestream, which didnt show what was happening inside the synagogue.

Shortly before 2 p.m., the man said, You got to do something. I dont want to see this guy dead. Moments later, the feed cut out. Meta Platforms, the corporate successor to Facebook, confirmed that Facebook had removed the video.

New York Rabbi Angela Buchdahl said she was brought into the negotiations before the crisis ended. Buchdahl, senior rabbi at Central Synagogue and a leading figure in Reform Judaism, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the gunman called her and she spoke twice to the attacker. Central Synagogue said Buchdahl had no relationship with the gunman and she immediately contacted law enforcement and followed their directions after receiving the first call.

It was a surreal and scary day, Buchdahl told the agency. I am so grateful for the outcome.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said he thanked Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for "the determined action of the law enforcement forces in Texas that brought the event to a peaceful conclusion, for his steadfast stand with the Jewish community, his support for Israel and for his fight against antisemitism."

Contributing: Celina TeboKevin Johnson, Claire Thornton and Josh Meyer, USA TODAY; The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: FBI identifies Malik Faisal Akram as Texas synagogue hostage-taker
Knox County DA Charme Allen speaks during a press conference at the City-County Building in Knoxville, Tenn. on Wednesday, April 21, 2021.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn.  For the second time in a year, Knox County District Attorney Charme Allen has prevented the release of a video showing the death of a Black person during an encounter with police.

Robert Nathaniel Bailey was pulled over early Jan. 6, for driving a car with a broken taillight and was arrested on outstanding warrants, Knoxville police said. While in a Knoxville police transportation vehicle at the jail intake facility, officers report the 41-year-old became unresponsive. He was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is investigating the death, which is typical when someone dies in police custody. Early information shows "foul play was not involved, the TBI has said.

MORE: Knox County prosecutor Charme Allen won't release bodycam video until case is done

Not releasing the video

City attorneys met with the family Thursday to review the video footage of Bailey's arrest and time in custody ahead of a planned release of the video to the public. The family was able to watch the footage except, their attorney Lance Baker said, a 12-minute clip that was inadvertently left out of the viewing.

What the family was shown does not depict any struggle between Bailey and officers, Baker said, but that doesnt mean his arrest was handled properly.

It doesnt always have to be excessive force. What about lack of medical care ... we just have more questions than answers, he told Knox News Friday.

A few hours after the family left, Baker said, a city attorney called to explain they inadvertently failed to show the family the 12-minute video of the end of the transport, after Bailey required assistance. However, the city was now prohibited from showing the video to the family because in the meantime, Allen, the DA, sought and received a court order signed by Judge Steven W. Sword sealing the case.

Early Friday morning, Baker released a statement critical of the decision to withhold the video and of Allen's failure to contact the family about her successful effort to prevent its release.

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Was he assaulted? Did he have a heart attack or other medical emergency? Why is this information being kept a secret? Why cant his own family know what happened? Baker said in the statement.

In a statement to Knox News Friday morning after Baker released his statement, Allen defended sealing the case due to its status as a pending investigation. She also reached out to the family Friday morning, requesting to meet with them to show them all of the videos.

OPINION: As police body cameras have proliferated, there's no reason to sit on video

My office is not prohibited from sharing information with the Bailey family and has no intention of withholding anything from the family at this time or ever, she said.

Mr. Bailey and his family deserve a thorough and impartial investigation. That is why the TBI is investigating the case. The Courts Order prohibits the Mayor of Knoxville and other officials, whose employees are potential subjects of the investigation, from releasing information publicly that could affect the integrity of the investigation. The information will be released to the public at the appropriate time.

In a statement to Knox News Friday, city spokesperson Kristin Farley said as soon as the city realized there was additional footage of Bailey, staff members immediately put a plan in place for Baker to get it to the family. The judge's order, however, axed those plans.

"The order from the Criminal Court interrupted that plan," Farley said. "However, the City still advised the attorney of the additional clip in the name of transparency and clearly not an effort to conceal anything.

"As for the order, clearly city leaders are frustrated, as it was our intention to release this video to the family and the public this week."

Anthony Thompson Jr. video

After a Knoxville police officer shot and killed Anthony Thompson Jr. in an Austin-East Magnet High School bathroom in April 2021, Allens office refused to release the video to the public.

Knoxville media organizations, led by Knox News, joined an effort by Mayor Indya Kincannon to ask a judge to decide whether Kincannon had authority to release the video footage on her own. Kincannon, Knoxville Police Chief Eve Thomas, the Knoxville NAACP and all four of the officers involved in the shooting also pushed for release of the video.

At the time, Allen said the clamor for the video made it more difficult to conduct the work of determining whether police were justified in the fatal shooting. She eventually released the video in a long public presentation, and her office cleared the officers involved, saying they acted in self-defense and the defense of others.

Tyler Whetstone is a Knox News politics reporter focusing on Knoxville and Knox County.

Connect with Tyler: Twitter | Email

Make our community, our society and our republic stronger by supporting robust local journalism. Subscribe online at knoxnews.com/subscribe.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: DA prevents release the video of Robert Bailey's death in custody
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Long weekends mean scoring kicks on mega sale. Step to it! (Photo: Amazon)

Still ramping up to that "I'm gonna get in shape this year!" pledge? Great, but...have you taken a good hard look at your sneakers lately? You'll probably want to  need too  get yourself a new pair, something sturdy but pleasing to the eye. Well, here's the good news: You don't have to sacrifice style for support. If you make the right choice.

Yahoo Life asked New Yorkbased podiatrist Polina Zaydenberg to pick the comfiest shoes she's been coveting as of late  and guess what? They're all available at Amazon, and they're all on sale. The doctor is board-certified by the American Board of Multiple Specialties in Podiatry in the Prevention and Treatment of Diabetic Foot Wounds and in Diabetic Footwear.

A shoe switch-up is an excellent opportunity to tend to those foot problems that longer walks may have revealed. We, with help from the good doctor, have rounded up some smart, and very affordable, choices.

Amazon will give you free shipping on all these items. But if you have Amazon Prime, youll get so much more  from access to new movies to two-day shipping on many items. Not yet a member? No problem. You can sign up for your free 30-day trial here.

Scroll for Dr. Zaydenberg's top picks.

These New Balance sneakers feel like walking on clouds after every step. (Photo: Amazon)

These sporty sneakers are Amazon's No. 1 bestselling cross-training shoes, though they'll serve you well in or out of the gym, too. Available in 12 colors in both regular and wide widths, these sneakers are made for the everyday. Not to mention, they have over 30,700 five-star reviews, including plenty from nurses, teachers, and restaurant workers.

The sole of the toe box is propulsive  meaning the tip is off the ground  which helps you offload the pressure from the ball of your foot.

$55 $65 at Amazon

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These look (and feel) heavy-duty. (Photo: Amazon)

Spent much of these long pandemic months wandering around your home barefoot? The fat pad at the ball of your foot might have taken a beating.

These kicks  available in 20 colors and in both regular and wide widths  help with any pain you might experience there. Explains Dr. Zaydenberg:

If the fat pad on the bottom of the ball of your foot wore off, the platform on these sneakers can help provide relief and can help partially substitute it.

Plus, with over 6,300 five-star reviews, you're sure to be in very good company if you pick up a pair or two.

$60 $70 at Amazon

How cute is that pink ombre heel? (Photo: Amazon)

These sneakers routinely top Amazon bestseller lists, and for good reason: Not only are they stylish (just check out that cool pink gradient!) but they're so comfy for your heels, too. Explains Dr. Zaydenberg:

"The heel lift is great  It helps take the pressure off the posterior and the bottom part of the heel. The texture of the material doesnt contribute to creating pressure in that part of the foot as well.

Grab them in one of over 23 colors!

$55 $65 at Amazon

No one will believe that you paid $44 for these. (Photo: Amazon)

These sneakers boast being both breathable and lightweight  a must for both casual walks, running around completing errands, or even hitting the gym. However, that's not the only reason Dr. Zaydenberg sings their praises:

This is good for people with plantar fasciitis," she explains. "I like to tell my patients to get gel heel cups, but the bubble on the heel is even better because it has a lower density, which provides better shock absorption.

$44 $50 at Amazon

Spoiler: You'll want to wear these everywhere. (Photo: Amazon)

These lightweight kicks come in a rainbow of colors  13 to be exact  plus the slip-resistant sole makes them perfect if you're on your feet all day for either work or play (or just trying to navigate the ice in your driveway). They even have over 2,200 five-star reviews from happy five-star shoppers. They're not on sale right now, but Dr. Zaydenberg is such a fan, we had to include them.

"The toe box is accommodative," she states. "The heel lift helps people with insertional Achilles Tendonitis, as well as those with metatarsalgia (or pain in the ball of your foot)."

$36 at Amazon

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Apple is facing another lawsuit over Powerbeats battery trouble. New York resident Alejandro Vivar has filed a potential class action lawsuit over allegations Powerbeats Pro design defects prevents the wireless earbuds from charging properly. As it's reportedly too easy to lose contact between the buds and their charging case, one of the earpieces either won't charge "consistently" or quickly drain its charge. Apple committed fraud by misrepresenting battery life and failing to address issues it supposedly knew about, the plaintiff said.

Vivar's attorneys suggest a combination of the case design and an insufficiently sturdy ear "gasket" (the piece that goes into your ear) may be responsible. Customers have had to resort to inserting a "wedge" to keep the charging pins in contact, according to the lawsuit. The lawyers also reject Apple's claims the Powerbeats Pro are sweat- and water-resistant, arguing that sweat corrodes the charging contacts.

The lawsuit calls for Apple to "correct" the situation, compensate affected users and pay unspecified damages. If the lawsuit is fully certified as a class action, it would cover both New York customers as well as those in Georgia, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota and Virginia.

We've asked Apple for comment. As with many such lawsuits, there's no certainty it will reach class action status or lead to compensation. And don't expect a windfall even if the case succeeds  with some exceptions, class actions tend to result in small payouts. If anything, the lawsuit may do more to affect design choices than Powerbeats Pro buyers' bank accounts.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP)  An Iranian employee of the British Council detained for more than three years in Iran and sentenced to a decade in prison over widely criticized espionage charges has been freed and returned to the United Kingdom, the organization said Wednesday.

The release of the woman, Aras Amiri, came as world powers, including the U.K., try to revive the tattered 2015 Iran nuclear deal in Vienna. Iranian and Gulf Arab diplomats also travel this week for meetings in China, a key signatory of the nuclear accord.

Amiri won her appeal to Iran's Supreme Court, the British Council announced. She had been arrested during a private trip to visit family in Tehran that did not involve her work at the government-founded cultural organization, it previously said.

We have always refuted the original charges made against Aras, the council said in a statement. We are very proud of her work in our London office as an arts program officer supporting a greater understanding and appreciation of Iranian culture in the U.K.

There was no immediate word on her release from Iranian authorities. But from Tehran, Amiri's lawyer Hojjat Kermani, confirmed her acquittal to The Associated Press, saying that Irans Supreme Court had determined that her earlier espionage conviction in the countrys Revolutionary Court was against Shariah, or Islamic law. He did not elaborate.

Kermani said she flew out of Tehran on Monday but had been free in recent months as she appealed a travel ban.

After holding Amiri for months, Iran in 2019 sentenced the British Council worker to 10 years in prison on charges of spying on cultural activities in Iran. Her arrest highlighted the dangers faced by those with Western ties in Iran after former President Donald Trump abandoned Iran's landmark nuclear deal with world powers and piled crushing sanctions on the country.

A number of dual nationals have landed in Iranian prisons in recent years as tensions between Tehran and the West simmer. Rights groups accuse Iran of holding dual nationals as bargaining chips for money or influence in negotiations with the West, something Tehran denies.

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For over five years a British-Iranian worker for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, has been detained in Iran on internationally refuted spying charges.

After completing her sentence, Zaghari-Ratcliffe walked free from prison last year  only for authorities to sentence her to another year in jail on new propaganda charges. Zaghari-Ratcliffe's family links her imprisonment to a long-running $530 million debt dispute owed to Tehran by London for Chieftain tanks that were never delivered.

Another British-Iranian dual national, Anoush Ashoori, was sentenced to 12 years in prison at the same time as Amiri and remains in detention. A U.N. panel has lambasted what it calls an emerging pattern involving the arbitrary deprivation of liberty of dual nationals in Iran.

Meanwhile, Western negotiators have raised alarm that time is running out to resuscitate Irans collapsed nuclear deal.

After a five-month hiatus in the talks, Iran under recently elected hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi has presented maximalist demands at the negotiating table even as it accelerates its nuclear program. Iran now enriches uranium over 60%  a short step from weapons grade levels  and spins far more advanced centrifuges and more of them than were ever allowed under the accord.

___

Associated Press writer Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.
Gov. Brian Kemp has declared a state of emergency ahead of a winter storm that is moving across north central and northeast Georgia on Saturday evening and Sunday. All counties north of Interstate 20 are included.

The National Weather Service put out a Winter Storm Watch starting Saturday night. It is predicting heavy sleet, two-to-four inches of snow in some areas, wind gusts of up to 35 mph and black ice. Power outages are considered likely, according to the National Weather Service. Most of the storm's impact is expected to take place north of LaGrange and east of Macon, according to an NWS Atlanta special weather briefing posted on Twitter.

Here is the best ESTIMATE of when the wintry precipitation **WILL START* across north Georgia, this could change. Current thinking is the wintry precip will start in NE Georgia on Saturday night, slowly progressing SW through the night into Sunday as the cool air funnels in. pic.twitter.com/98aUNJbpqz  NWS Atlanta (@NWSAtlanta) January 14, 2022

Kemp's emergency declaration calls for up to 1,000 Georgia National Guard troops to be called to active duty as needed and prohibits price gouging. The declaration takes effect Saturday, Jan. 15, at 11:59 p.m. and includes Burke, Clarke, Columbia, Jackson, Jefferson, Jenkins, Madison, McDuffie, Ogelthorpe, Richmond, Screven, Taliaferro, Warren, Washington and others.

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Gov. Brian Kemp declares state of emergency ahead of GA winter storm
Canada urges avoiding non-essential travel to Ukraine due to 'Russian aggression' Ukraine's biggest national flag on the country's highest flagpole is seen at a compound of the World War II museum in Kyiv

By Kanishka Singh

(Reuters) - The Canadian government is urging its citizens to avoid non-essential travel to Ukraine, in a new advisory citing "Russian aggression."

Moscow has stationed more than 100,000 troops near the border with Ukraine, and the United States said on Friday it feared Russia was preparing a pretext to invade if diplomacy failed to meet its objectives.

"We have changed the risk level for Ukraine to avoid non-essential travel due to ongoing Russian aggression and military buildup in and around the country," the Canadian government said in a travel advisory https://bit.ly/34Xs81Z issued late Saturday.

Canada, with a sizeable and politically influential population of Ukrainian descent, has taken a hard line with Russia since its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly is to visit Kyiv next week to reaffirm Canada's support for Ukrainian sovereignty and reinforce efforts to deter "aggressive actions" by Russia, Ottawa said earlier.

Joly will meet Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal and travel to the west of the country to speak to a 200-strong Canadian training mission that has been there since 2015.

Canadian Deputy Foreign Minister Marta Morgan and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman spoke on Friday and pledged continued close coordination to deter further Russian aggression against Ukraine and called for Russian de-escalation, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said on Saturday.

In an interview with Canadian broadcaster CBC published https://bit.ly/3ftlB0T Sunday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg described Russia as "the aggressor." He told CBC News it was up to Russia to de-escalate and that NATO was willing to sit down again and listen to Moscow's concerns.

Russia denies plans to attack Ukraine, but says it could take unspecified military action unless its demands - including a promise by the NATO alliance never to admit Kyiv - are met.

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After talks between the United States, its European allies and Russia ended last week, U.S. officials warned that the risk of a Russian invasion of Ukraine remained high.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Tuesday and "emphasized that any military incursion into Ukraine would have serious consequences, including coordinated sanctions."

Canada has imposed punitive measures on more than 440 individuals and entities over the annexation of Crimea.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Leslie Adler)
JEFFERSON CITY  A Missouri lawmaker is proposing a bill that would allow members of school boards to be recalled by voters.

Legislation sponsored by Rep. Chuck Basye, a Rocheport Republican, would also open districts to litigation from parents and taxpayers relating to "the willful neglect or refusal of a public official" to perform certain duties. A similar bill, also sponsored by Basye, passed out of a House committee last session but did not come up for floor debate. He presented this year's version, House Bill 1747, to the House education committee Tuesday.

"There's examples that I think most of us are aware of where we've passed legislation and school districts are just ignoring the law," Basye claimed, pointing to the state's Course Access Program as "the most recent example."

Under the bill, a school board member can be put on the ballot for recall if a petition is signed by 10 percent of the amount of voters who cast a ballot in the most recent election for that district. In the April 2021 board election for Springfield Public Schools, the largest district in the state, the highest vote-getter earned 9,374 votes.

The 10 percent mark is lower than last year's version of the bill, which set the threshold at 25 percent; Basye said the change was because "where I've heard the most complaints from mainly parents has been in the larger districts," where he said that 25 percent mark "would be very difficult" to achieve.

Education in Missouri: Lawmakers weigh intervening on race and equity curriculum

The bill lists a number of reasons that can be used as grounds for recall of a board member, including "conduct that relates to and adversely affects the rights and interests of the public," "breach of public trust" and "lack of responsiveness to concerns raised by the public or staff."

Any lawsuits against districts under the bill due to "willful neglect" by officials would potentially put those districts on the hook for damages and legal fees.

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The Missouri School Boards Association opposes the bill, outreach director Shawn Rhoads told lawmakers, citing the fact that board members are up for re-election every year on a rolling schedule.

Basye has been among the most vocal critics of public education in recent months within the legislature; he has accused Columbia Public Schools of using an "inappropriate curriculum" and called on the district's superintendent to resign.

The district says it does not teach elements of critical race theory, about which Basye requested district documents. A state survey last year determined that only one Missouri district, Kansas City Public Schools, uses elements of the academic framework in its curriculum.

Basye is not alone in challenging districts on curriculum and governance, which has ballooned into a national issue for Republicans in recent months. Rep. Craig Fishel, a Springfield Republican, also requested documents on race and equity training for SPS teachers. Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who is running for U.S. Senate, sued the district, alleging it had violated the Sunshine Law. The district has maintained it did not act out of line with the law, calling the lawsuit a "distraction" shortly after it was filed.

Galen Bacharier covers Missouri politics & government for the News-Leader. Contact him at gbacharier@news-leader.com, (573) 219-7440 or on Twitter @galenbacharier.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Missouri lawmaker wants to implement school board recall process
Colleyville police car ANDY JACOBSOHN/AFP via Getty Images

An FBI hostage rescue team stormed a Texas synagogue Saturday night, ending an almost 11-hour standoff with a hostage-taker who claimed to have a bomb and may have ties to al-Qaeda, CNN reports. The suspect was shot and killed.

According to CNN, four people, including the congregation's rabbi, were held hostage Saturday at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas. The suspect released one hostage around 5:00 p.m., and the other three were freed following the FBI raid, which started around 10:00 p.m.

According to FBI spokeswoman Katie Chaumont, police were called to the synagogue at around 11:00 a.m., The Associated Press reported.

Services were being livestreamed at the time, and the hostage-taker could be heard ranting about America and Islam. He also referred to himself as "the guy with the bomb" before the feed cut out.

The hostage-taker demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist convicted in 2010 of attempting to kill U.S. service members in Afghanistan and now serving an 86-year sentence in a Texas prison. Siddiqui's attorney told CNN "she has absolutely no involvement with" with the attack.

According to FBI Dallas Special Agent in Charge Matthew DeSarno, the suspect has been identified, but authorities are not yet ready to reveal his name. DeSarno also confirmed that the FBI's offices in London and Tel Aviv are participating in the ongoing investigation.

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The gunman who had taken hostages at a synagogue in Texas and was demanding the release of a convicted murderer known as Lady Al-Qaeda from a US prison, is dead.

Police in Colleyville, on the outskirts of Fort Worth, were called to the Congregation Beth Israel at 10.41am on Saturday and several hours later all hostages were out alive and safe, Texas governor Greg Abbott tweeted.

According to reports, the gunman was demanding the release of Aafia Siddiqui, an alleged terrorist from Pakistan serving 86 years in a Texas prison for attempting to kill US soldiers in Afghanistan. He took four hostages, including Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker.

SWAT teams were on the scene along with agents from the FBI, while the White House and the governor of Texas said they were monitoring the situation. Police said no one had been injured as of 5pm.

The Colleyville Police Department said: On Saturday 15 January 2022, at approximately 10.41am, the Colleyville Police Department received a call for service in the 6100 block of Pleasant Run Roads.

Officers arrived on the scene and observed an emergency situation that warranted evacuation of the surrounding areas, and an external perimeter was established...

Law enforcement has confirmed that there are others inside but no injuries have been reported. FBI crisis negotiators are in communication with the subject. It remains an active operational and investigative scene.

Photos of the scene showed law enforcement vehicles, officers in combat gear, and an armoured van outside the front portico of the synagogue.

The incident began while a service was being live streamed on Facebook, leading remote congregants to hear the attacker speaking on the phone, seemingly to to hostage negotiators, for more than eight minutes.

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In a recording of the live stream posted by Heavy, a news site, the hostage taker says: I've got hostages and I'm surrounded and I'm going to die, okay? This is the situation, yeah? These are the stakes. You've got hostages in a synagogue. He's asked for a prisoner to be released, and hes gonna die, okay?

At another point, he berates the person on the phone by saying: Man up, man up! Dont cry on the f***ing phone with me, okay? I left six beautiful kids. I didnt cry. My heart has become stone!

According to the Daily Mail, he also vowed: If anyone tries to enter this building, Im telling you everyone will die.

Marwa Elbially, Aafia Siddiquis lawyer, told The Independent that she has no idea who the hostage taker is and that he has no connection to the Siddiqui family.

He has no relation to the family, no relation to the supporters, nothing, Ms Elbially said. We have no idea where this guy came from.... we dont know who he is and why he decided to do the irrational thing hes doing now.

Though she has not spoken to Aafia Siddiqui since the attack began, she said her client would condemn this and not support this in any way and had always maintained that no violence should be done in her name. She said her client maintains her innocence.

The lawyer of Muhammad Siddiqui  brother of Aafia  told numerous news agencies that Muhammad is not the man currently holding hostages in the Colleyville, Texas synagogue.  Tamar Uriel-Beeri (@TamarUrielBeeri) January 15, 2022

An initial report from ABC News on Saturday said the suspect was claiming to be Siddiquis brother Muhammad and said he had bombs in unknown locations, citing a US government official briefed on the matter.

In the live stream, he repeatedly refers to the prisoner as his sister, telling the other person: I care about her, that's why I'm doing it. Later he asks: Are you going to get my sister on the phone or not?

However, activists campaigning for Aafia Siddiquis release said that they were in contact with her actual brother, an architect who lives in Houston, and that he had nothing to do with the attack, which they condemned as wicked and antisemitic.

We want to make it very well known that the hostage-taker is NOT Dr Aafia Siddiquis brother, who is not even in the same region where this horrible incident is taking place, said a joint statement from the Free Dr Afia campaign and the Houston branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair).

The Jerusalem Post also reported that Muhammad Siddiquis lawyer has insisted he is not the man who took hostages Colleyville. The attackers reference to his sister could be a generic term for someone he believes shares his ideals, equivalent to comrade.

This story was updated at 02.19am GMT on Sunday 16 January 2022 to include a statement from Marwa Elbially, and throughout Saturday to include new details as they emerged.
Victorias Secrets direct-to-consumer transformation began long before the lingerie giant decided to update its image. It started around 2014, when the brand  then part of L Brands, which is now Bath & Body Works, Inc.  decided to accelerate its global reach beyond the U.S. market.

Our catalogue heritage allowed us to get brand residence significantly overseas, Ishan Patel, chief operating officer of Victorias Secret digital, said Sunday at the National Retail Federations Big Show in New York. We were shipping to over 200 countries long before we were online, but it was a very U.S.-centric experience: U.S. dollars, in English, payment types were only really present in the U.S.  Visa, Mastercard and Amex at the time  and we were shipping out of Ohio. But in 2014, we really started to think about this . We moved into five markets where we really tried to create the [same] experience with language, currency and merchandising [abroad]: Canada, Australia, U.K., France, Germany, and then later Spain. And then, we really started to gain more understanding of those markets.

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The efforts have led to an international expansion that today spans more than 60 countries  most recently entering locales like Milan, Israel and India  40 currencies and 20 payment types, along with multiple franchise partners. And while the firm has lost market share in recent years domestically (down from 32 percent of the U.S. womens intimate apparel market in 2015 to roughly 20 percent in 2021, according to The NPD Groups consumer-tracking service) before its spin-off from Bath & Body Works last year, Victorias Secrets international revenues are still sizable. In the most recent quarter, Victorias Secrets international business generated $114 million in revenues, prompting the company to issue a positive outlook ahead of the all-important holiday shopping season.

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But Patel cautioned other retailers that expansion is no easy task. There are nuances to moving into new markets and its not a one-size-fits-all proposition.

There is no country called international, he said. Its a country-by-country, market-by-market assessment; its breaking through that mind-set to understand that in each distinct market there will be variables and synergies and distortions from your home market that you need to understand. We have different areas of distortion within our own core categories and assortment that we really need to understand. And in doing so, were actually meeting the consumer where she is. Were meeting the consumer relative to whats relevant and important to her.

Shoppers outside of a Victorias Secret store in Beijing. Patel told attendees at the NRFs Big Show in New York that its important to understand how the different ways your brand resonates in each local market abroad. - Credit: AP

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And it goes so much more than brand language. [Its] considering the touch points, Patel continued. Moving into a new market, its a bit daunting. One of the [other] things that weve learned along the way is just spending the time, making sense of the market, understanding the consumer; speaking to a lot of people [locally]. The partners that you do have in maybe your own market that youre operating that maybe have the experience overseas, speaking to local agencies, speaking to suppliers who have experience [there] with the consumer itself. And as you build up that picture of [a] brand, how well your brand resonates, that is your flying star. Its understanding the cost of entry, the competition. All the research that is super important.

Its an infinite game, he added. There is no end point. Youre constantly striving to understand where the market is going to be, what the consumer mind-set is going to be, whats happening with the competition and what are the adjustments that we need to make.

The executive said another question retailers should ask is if expansion is even worth the effort in particular locations.

One thing that you have to understand is the size of your client [base], Patel said. Some markets  based on your path, your segment, your specialism  are much more lucrative than others.

In addition, things like creating trust during the checkout process (no hidden fees and clear delivery dates), providing a variety of secure payment methods and the option to return are essential in creating loyalty among new customers.

It doesnt matter how amazing your brand is or your assortment is, if you get right down to that checkout and then you have friction there thats a bad move there, Patel said. That local ability to return quickly, to ensure that her credit is applied as quickly as possible, that convenience factor is really important so that she has one less reason to say no [to the brand]. It reduces the barrier of entry to the brand.

The big thing for us as a retailer, and for anyone here as a brand, is understanding [that] you have obligations, too. And I think, understanding how to ensure those obligations relative to the security of your clients, Patel continued. [You built trust] by constantly fulfilling on that commitment and that promise and every time that promise is not fulfilled someone will comment on that. Theyre going to comment in reviews; theyre going to comment in a social media post. [Consumers] are engaging in that. Theyre getting their trust from other consumers; its not just what the brand is saying. Theyre getting that trust from others who have had experiences [with the brand.] So you [as the brand] are building on that trust. Youre building that relationship by constantly delivering that promise.

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A pickup truck is partially submerged in Santa Cruz, Calif., early Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022, as the surge from a tsunami created by an underwater volcano near Tonga inundated a parking lot at the Upper Harbor. Moments later all the water receded from the lot before flooding it again shortly thereafter. (Shmuel Thaler/The Santa Cruz Sentinel via AP)
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Former Secretary of State George Shultz once said, Americans, being a moral people, want their foreign policy to reflect the values we espouse as a nation. But, being a practical people, we also want our foreign policy to be effective.

Americans certainly support improved political and economic rights for the Cuban people. But we cannot overlook the hard fact that six decades of our ever-tightening sanctions have contributed to the hardships of the Cuban people and done nothing to alter Cubas internal politics.

There is no other communist country in the world where we prohibit U.S. citizens from traveling, trading or investing. Shaping our Cuban policy to please one part of the Cuban American community does not serve our broad national interest, and it limits our presence and influence, and strengthens the leverage of countries whose ideals run contrary to our own.

One attainable goal of President Joe Bidens policy should be to focus on solving the food crisis in Cuba. This can help not only the nearly 20% of Cubas workforce employed in agriculture, but each of the more than 11 million Cubans who depend on a healthy and sufficient food supply.

Biden should empower the Department of Agriculture to work with U.S. farmers, private organizations, nongovernmental organizations and universities to engage with Cuban counterparts to increase local production and reduce post-harvest loss.

This collaboration could also address shared concerns of climate change, plant and animal health, and natural disaster preparedness. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack should meet his Cuban counterparts, as he did during the Obama administration, to encourage the Cuban reforms that are essential to any improvement in production.

And with Cuba now allowing its private sector to import and export and also inviting foreign investment in private farm cooperatives, Washington should ensure that our policies facilitate American engagement to help this private sector grow.

Even during the Trump administration, the U.S. potato industry led the way in creating a program to promote U.S. exports and to improve Cubas potato production.

Once health and safety standards for seed potato exports were agreed, U.S. seed was shipped to Cuba. A second year of trials was about to begin.

The process encouraged dialogue and built confidence that can serve to advance other agricultural projects.

Throughout history, agricultural trade has been a bridge to foster cooperation, and to improve the lives of people.

It is no different today where improving U.S. agricultural relations with Cuba is supported across the country from Republicans and Democrats, in rural and urban America.

As difficult as the political landscape is between the U.S. and Cuba, it is easy to find broad support for a new policy that focuses on helping reduce the pain of average Cubans and resolving their present food crisis.

Its a policy that Americans can support not only because it is morally right but will prove to be effective as well.
As 2022 begins, many may view with relief recent verdicts and actions in the U.S. justice system that may at long last signal a shift toward equal justice.

The sentencing of the three men convicted of the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, including two sentences of life without the possibility of parole, adds to the news of the recent conviction of former police Officer Kim Potter in Minnesota on manslaughter charges in the death of Daunte Wright.

But injustice still exists in courtrooms and classrooms across the country and across history with roots in the juvenile justice system.

A recent expose of a Tennessee judge, Donna Scott Davenport, reveals she has been taking Black youths out of school and sentencing them to jail for more than 20 years. She still sits in her courtroom.

Ive locked up one 7-year-old in 13 years, and that was a heartbreak, Davenport said in 2012. But 8- and 9-year-olds, and older, are very common now.

Davenport has been in her elected judicial position for more than two decades, despite her record and the public outcry at her treatment of Black children. The recent investigation only adds to the evidence that the juvenile justice system nationwide has a shockingly consistent history of arresting children  primarily Black  for noncriminal offenses.

As a leader in an Equity or Else movement, with community groups from numerous states including Illinois, which recognize the critical need to address the racism embedded in virtually every U.S. institution, I see this recent expose as emblematic of the epidemic of racism.

That epidemic has left in its wake a nationwide education and juvenile justice system that has created and feeds a school-to-prison pipeline, disproportionately ensnaring Black, brown and Indigenous children in a trap that can last a lifetime.

Adolescents who attend schools with high suspension rates are more likely to be arrested and jailed as adults, according to the fall 2021 issue of the journal Education Next. Researchers found that Black male students are more than three times as likely to be suspended from school as white male students.

There is, in fact, a school-to-prison pipeline, the researchers concluded. We find that the negative impacts from strict disciplinary environments are largest for minorities and males, suggesting that suspension policies expand preexisting gaps in educational attainment and incarceration.

These environments are punctuated by so-called school resource officers  police stationed in school buildings. More than 1.5 million Black, brown and Indigenous K-12 students are attending schools that have a resource officer but no counselor, guaranteeing that many of these students will be left behind. The violence inflicted upon Black and brown children by school resource officers nationwide must stop. They dont make our schools safer, and their presence means schools lose precious resources that could be used for counseling and social services.

White-majority schools have always offered much more in core curricular classes, Advanced Placement opportunities, after-school programs, guidance counselors and student supports. Some examples from the Journey for Justice Alliances Failing: Brown v. Board report elucidate what equity would mean for students of color:

At Marshall High School in Milwaukee, nonwhite students make up 94% of the student body. The school has basic English courses for only freshmen and sophomores and only two other classes. Menomonee Falls High School in a nearby suburb has 21% nonwhite students. It offers 10 English classes.

In Dallas, 39% of Centennial Highs students are nonwhite, compared with 100% of the students at South Oak Cliff High. Yet Centennial offers twice as many language classes, has three times the number of Advanced Placement courses and 23 career path offerings, compared to three at South Oak Cliff.

In Denver, 96% of Manuel High students are minorities. They can choose from five art classes, seven AP classes and only one foreign language, Spanish. At Cherry Creek High, 33% of the students are Black or students of color. They have 27 AP classes, six foreign languages and 21 classes in the arts.

The report concludes: This is racism in action.

The Equity or Else campaigns major goal is sustainable community schools. The 2022 federal budget would allocate $440 million to establish such schools, reversing the trend of privatizing public education through charter schools. The movement for equity in public education aims to make American schools more welcoming and truly safe spaces for all children where they can look forward to learning.

Culturally relevant and challenging curriculum, supports for high-quality teaching, wraparound supports for every child, a student-centered school climate, and meaningful parent and community engagement make for the types of schools all children deserve.

In an America where many claim to care about racial justice, it is past time to require zero tolerance for racism toward Black, brown and Indigenous children and communities.
The united opposition plans to spend an extra 1,200 billion forints (EUR 3.4bn) in four years on Hungarian health care, its prime ministerial candidate told a forum.

The extra funding would reform health care in line with European market methods rather than operating a centralised communist system, Peter Marki-Zay told a press conference in front a district health clinic in Budapest.



He accused the Fidesz government of regarding health care purely as a business and running public health care into the ground so that the only option remaining to the sick would be to use hospitals owned by Fidesz oligarchs.



The politician vowed to revamp Hungarys health care and to fund it through a single national insurance model. He said patients waiting more than six months for surgery would be referred to a private provider and the state would pick up the bill.



Marki-Zay claimed to be in possession of inside information suggesting that Fidesz planned to privatise health care after the election. He said Hungarians currently pay 30% of their health-care costs out of their own pocket, which, he added, was the highest rate in the EU.



Funding for Hungarys health-care system, he said, would increase to 7% of gross national product  the EU average  from 4.5% last year in four years. Marki-Zay also promised health professionals a significant salary increase.





MTI Photo: Peter Komka
Hungarians are significantly more satisfied with their governments pandemic measures than other Europeans are with theirs, Szazadveg Foundation said on Friday, citing a survey based on interviews with 30,000 European residents.

The survey dubbed Szazadveg Europa Projekt 2021 covering 30 European countries showed that in a minority of countries, including Hungary, respondents said they were basically satisfied with vaccination and job-protection measures, while in the majority of countries people were generally discontented with government measures to soften the economic consequences of the pandemic.



Some 82% of European residents considered the coronavirus pandemic a cause for concern, and only 5% said concerns were exaggerated.



Top of the list were southern countries including Portugal (92%), Malta (90%) and Spain (89%), while the other end of the list included some central and eastern European countries such as Latvia (61%), Czech Republic (66%) and Slovenia (69%). Hungary was near the middle, with 79% saying they were more or less concerned about coronavirus and 7% saying fears were exaggerated.



Hungary was in the top third of European countries in terms of public satisfaction with the vaccination drive.



The country led the European list, with 44% of those saying they had maximum satisfaction with the vaccination drive, followed by the UK and Malta. Some 47% of Europeans said they were dissatisfied with the government handling of economic consequences.



At the same time, 58% of Hungarians said they were basically satisfied with government measures to soften economic damage, and nearly a third said they were fully satisfied, which was the highest figure in Europe.



At the same time, a relatively high proportion of 22% said they were not satisfied with the measures.
New Delhi: Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd (ABFRL) is facing a data breach on its portal, and the company is investing the incident. Meanwhile, the company has assured that it will have no operational or business impact on its operations.

The company has engaged forensic security experts to investigate the data breach incident where over 5.4 million email addresses were released online from the portal of the Aditya Birla Group-owned company.

"ABFRL is investigating an information security incident that entailed unauthorised access to its e-commerce database," said an ABFRL spokesperson while confirming the incident.

However, he also added that there has been no operational or business impact. "As a pro-active measure, the company has reset passwords of all customers and enabled OTP based authentication and taken further steps to secure access to customer and employee information," he said.

According to the reports, ABFRL's database has been made public by a hacker group known as ShinyHunters.

Cyber security expert Rajshekhar Rajaharia has also shared information on this.

"#ShinyHunters allegedly made public 700 GB of data of #AdityaBirlaFashion including 5.4Mn emails, phone. It seems New Year Data Breaches season started in India. Time to change work email's password," he tweeted.

The database includes personal customer information such as names, phone numbers, addresses, dates of births, order histories, credit card details, and passwords stored as Message-Digest algorithm 5 (MD5) hashes, the reports added.

The data breach also includes details of employees, including salary details, religion, and marital status.

ABFRL, which had a revenue of Rs 5,181.14 crore in FY21, is the country's largest pure-play fashion powerhouse with an elegant bouquet of leading fashion brands and retail formats.

As of September 30, 2021, the company has a network of 3,264 stores across approximately 26,841 multi-brand outlets.

It has a repertoire of leading brands, such as Louis Philippe, Van Heusen, Allen Solly and Peter England, along with India's largest value fashion retail brand Pantaloons.

While its international brand portfolio includes - The Collective, India's largest multi-brand retailer of international brands, Simon Carter and select mono-brands such as Forever 21, American Eagle, Ralph Lauren, Hackett London, Ted Baker and Fred Perry.

Last week, it had announced to acquire a 51 per cent majority shareholding in popular and contemporary brand Masaba, promoted by the leading designer Masaba Gupta for a cash consideration of Rs 90 crore. Also Read: Apple directed to allow dating apps to accept 3rd party payments, tech giant to appeal in higher court

Additionally, ABFL has also made a foray into branded ethnic wear through the acquisition of the Jaypore brand and partnerships with India's leading designers Shantanu and Nikhil, Tarun Tahiliani and Sabyasachi. Also Read: EPFO Withdrawal: Heres how to cash out money twice from your PF account

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New Delhi: The pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline said Saturday it has rejected an unsolicited 50 billion-pound ($68.4 billion) bid from Unilever for its consumer healthcare goods unit, a joint venture it controls in a partnership with Pfizer.

The London-based company said in a statement posted to its website that a series of three bids made by Unilever last year the last on December 20 were all rejected on the basis that they fundamentally undervalued the unit and its future prospects.

Both GlaxoSmithKline and Unilever confirmed that an acquisition offer was made following a report in Britain's Sunday Times. In a brief statement on its website, Unilever said GSK Consumer Healthcare is a leader in the attractive consumer health space and would be a strong strategic fit as Unilever continues to re-shape its portfolio. There can be no certainty that any agreement will be reached.

GSK has been planning to spin off the unit known for products including the painkiller Advil, Sensodyne toothpaste and Tums in mid-2022. After integrating the consumer health businesses of Novartis (2015) and Pfizer (2019), GSK said it attained annual sales of 9.6 billion pounds ($13.1 billion) in 2021. Also Read: Vedanta plans investments in mineral sector in Saudi Arabia

Consumer goods conglomerate Unilever sells a wide assortment of consumer products from Hellmann's mayonnaise to Lipton tea and Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Its best-known personal care brands include Dove soap and Rexona deodorant. Also Read: Insurance companies want 'waiting period' for Covid-infected patients

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New Delhi: The government could consider in the upcoming Budget levying TDS/TCS on sale and purchase of cryptocurrencies above a certain threshold and such transactions should be brought within the ambit of specified transactions for the purpose of reporting to income tax authorities, Nangia Andersen LLP Tax Leader Aravind Srivatsan said.

Also, a higher tax rate of 30 per cent should be levied on the income arising from the sale of cryptocurrency, similar to winnings from lottery, game shows, puzzle, etc, he said.

Speaking to PTI on what the Budget 2022-23, to be unveiled by the government on February 1, could have in store for the crypto industry in India, Srivatsan said currently, India has the highest number of crypto owners globally, at 10.07 crore and as per a report it is expected that the investment by Indians in cryptocurrency could touch USD 241 million by 2030.

"A bill was expected to be presented during Winter Session of Parliament to regulate cryptocurrencies. However, it was not introduced, and it is now expected that the government may take up this bill in the Budget Session. If the government does not prohibit Indians from dealing in cryptocurrencies, we expect that the government could introduce a regressive tax regime for cryptocurrencies," he noted.

He said considering the size of the market, the amount involved, and the risk coupled with cryptocurrencies, certain changes may be brought in the taxation of cryptocurrencies like bringing them under the provisions of tax deducted at source (TDS) and tax collected at source (TCS) above a threshold limit which will help the government get the "footprints of the investors".

Both sale and purchase of cryptocurrencies should be brought under the ambit of reporting in the Statement of Financial Transactions(SFT).

The trading companies already do similar reporting of sale and purchase of shares and units of mutual funds, he said.

To keep a watch on high value transactions undertaken by the taxpayer, the Income-tax law has the concept of SFT or reportable account.

This helps tax authorities to collect information on certain prescribed high value transactions undertaken by any person during the year.

Financial institutions, companies and stock market intermediaries fall within the purview of SFT reporting. Srivatsan said similar to winnings from lottery, game shows, puzzle, etc., a higher tax rate of 30 per cent should be levied on the income arising from the sale of cryptocurrency.

Ahead of the winter session of Parliament which ended of December 23, the government had listed for introduction a bill on regulating cryptocurrencies. The bill comes amid concerns over such currencies being allegedly used for luring investors with misleading claims.

Currently, there is no regulation or any ban on use of cryptocurrencies in the country.

The 'Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill' is now expected to be introduced in the Budget session of Parliament beginning January 31. Also Read: Aditya Birla Fashion faces data breach, over 5.4 million email IDs compromised

Separately, the government is mulling changes in income tax laws to bring cryptocurrencies under the tax net, and some changes that could form part of the 2022-23 Budget. Also Read: Amazon Great Republic Day Sale live: Check OnePlus 9 Pro 5G, smartphones, electronics deals

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New Delhi: The fintech industry has urged Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to further liberalise the tax regime for financial sector startups in the forthcoming Budget, arguing that it has an immense potential to promote financial inclusion and generate significant employment opportunities.

The finance minister is scheduled to present Union Budget 2022-23 in Parliament on February 1. On expectations of the fintech industry from the Budget, Gaurav Jalan, CEO and Founder, mPokket said all startups, including fintech firms, extensively use stock option to attract and retain talent.

However, employees of such fintech companies exercising their ESOP (employee stock ownership plan) option would not only have to arrange the funds to buy the same but also pay around 35 per cent tax as well since the allotted shares are considered part of their package, he said.

"Tax collection at the time of sale of such shares, instead of collection on the employee's notional income, would resolve cash flow issues of employees and greatly help fintechs continue to attract and retain talent, thereby helping in the industry's overall growth," suggested Jalan.

Shruti Aggarwal, Co-founder, Stashfin said the government's digital push has opened the doors for financial inclusion and the fintech revolution.

"I'd like for the Budget to have a dedicated focus on driving the fintech ecosystem in the country. Fintech industry has the ability to help propel the Indian economy to the place it rightly deserves," she said.

Just as priority sector lending helped priority sectors of the economy that may require credit and financial assistance from NBFCs, it will be beneficial for fintech startups if more segments are included that drive financial inclusion for citizens with limited credit footprint, Aggarwal said.

She further said currently the onlending by banks to NBFCs is allowed up to an overall limit of five per cent of individual bank's total priority lending.

"If this gets increased to 7 per cent, it will further boost the economy," Aggarwal said.

Anil Pinapala, CEO & Founder of Vivifi India Finance, said, In the upcoming union budget, I hope to see a strong mandate for financial inclusion and assistance from the GoI for start-ups attempting to bring in credit for all transcending language, literacy, location, livelihood like FlexPay. Relaxation in norms and assistance with liquidity to lending NBFC fintechs who are attempting to offer credit to the under-served and unserved would be a welcome move. I also hope that non-prime lending could be brought under priority sector so that NBFCs can truly work to bring credit to all.

Rakesh Kaul, CEO Clix Capital, said As an important funding avenue for those ineligible for finance from mainstream lenders, NBFCs can play a pivotal role in facilitating faster economic recovery.

But lower rated NBFCs face major liquidity challenges because funding by banks is predominantly directed towards top rated or government backed NBFCs.

"Accordingly, the Finance Minister could announce bold moves encouraging banks to resume funding to NBFCs, particularly small and mid-sized players," Kaul said.

He further said the authorities should also facilitate co-lending origination between banks and fintech firms, which ascertains both share the risks.

This, Kaul said would ensure that banks also receive the priority sector benefit for such loans.

Nitya Sharma, Co-Founder & CEO, Simpl was of the view that the fintech industry, especially the digital payments space, has already proved its mettle as a stable growth avenue even during the thick of the pandemic and fully supported the Centre in furthering the digital economy.

"To ensure the benefits of financial technology and digital payments percolate to customers in rural India, the government could focus on expanding digital infrastructure, i.E., payments touchpoints and 5G Internet connectivity in remote areas. This will facilitate speedy transactions and augment the real-time payments system," he said.

Sharma further said digital payments that deploy cutting-edge technology, such as machine learning, data analytics and more, play a crucial role in building a cashless,

digital-first economy. Also Read: iPhone 14 Models to have THIS 'Advance' Display Tech

"We welcome support from the government towards technology skill-building initiatives in startups that can go a long way in creating a viable fintech ecosystem," he said.

India has over 60,000 startups with 42 unicorns. The government has been decided to celebrate January 16 as National Startup Day so that this culture of startups reaches the far-flung parts of the country. Also Read: Realme 9i to launch on January 18: Check top features, specs, expected price

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New Delhi: Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution and Textiles Piyush Goyal has assured leaders of Indias top IT companies that the Modi Govt will give full support to the sector to accelerate growth and help Indias services exports soar to $1 trillion in a decade.

Minister said India was on track to achieve its merchandise exports target of $400 billion this year, while services exports were likely to be about $240 billion to $250 billion, which is much lower, but can grow rapidly to catch up with merchandise exports.

When I look at the trajectory of these  I personally believe this is going to be a race to the top. We can converge $1 trillion. That should be the ambition, mission. You have a little bit of catching up to do. Ill be delighted if you cross $1 trillion faster than them, the minister told IT industry leaders.

Piyush Goyal welcomed the IT industrys proposal to start IT hubs in tier-2 and tier-3 towns, which would create numerous jobs and help develop the regions. He said the IT industry should identify the towns, and the Centre would assist them in providing all the necessary infrastructure and facilities.

He said the IT industry can make a big contribution to services exports by focusing on new technology and products that can make India a bigger global players in the sector.

In the virtual meeting over the weekend, the minister told leaders of the IT industry that they should focus on high-tech products, for which the Central government would provide any assistance needed by the industry.

He lauded the IT industrys proposal to create IT hubs in tier-2 and tier-3 towns across the country and said the Central government would go all out to help the industry get top-class facilities.

He said the IT industry had grown spectacularly on its own and many of the top companies grew at a time when India did not focus on creating a favourable ecosystem for startups. Shri Goyal said the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) will provide any assistance needed by the IT industry to help it grow rapidly and contribute to Indias export of services.

The virtual meeting was attended by Nasscom President Debjani Ghosh, Infosys CEO Salil Parekh, Tech Mahindra CEO & MD C.P. Gurnani; Srikanth Velamakanni, co-founder and CEO of artificial intelligence technology startup Fractal Analytics; Mphasis CEO Nitin Rakesh; Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji; Genpact CEO N.V. Tyagrajan; WNS Global Services Group CEO Keshav R Murugesh; Mastek CEO Hiral Chandrana; Krishnan Ramanujam, President and Head of Business & Technology Services at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

IT industry leaders said the sector had seen strong growth last year, and in the past week, strong earnings reported by companies has set a positive tone for the years ahead

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New Delhi: As exams across the country have been scrapped in view of the surging Covid-19 cases, the CBSE Board and the Union Ministry of Education are all set to conduct Term 2 of the 10th and 12th board examinations, the first phase of which were held in November-December, 2021 and the second phase is scheduled to be conducted in March-April.

The chances of the second term of the board examination getting cancelled this year are very slim, as health experts had earlier mentioned that the third wave is under control.

However, students who decide to skip the exams will be graded on the basis of their first term`s test results.

The duration of the second phase of exams will be of two hours and the questions will be subjective.

Dr. Joseph Emmanuel, Academic Director of CBSE, told IANS: "The sample question papers and the marking schemes for Term 2 examinations of Class 10 and 12 have been released on the website and the schools affiliated to CBSE Board have been alerted too."

Sanyam Bhardwaj, CBSE`s controller of examinations, said: "If the situation gets worse, only then the second term of examinations will not be held. Marks obtained in the first phase will be considered final and based on them, the results will be prepared. But if such a situation does not arise and the second term is held successfully, the final result will be decided on the basis of 50-50 per cent marks of these two terms."

Both the Union Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health are paying special attention to the vaccination of students between the 15-18 years of age group so that they can appear for the board exams safely.

Pankaj Rathore, principal of Seth Jaipuria School, said: "The preparation for the exam and the Covid situation has made children used to the hybrid mode of learning. School`s new method of evaluation will help us move beyond the traditional notions of assessment. Schools must keep up with the situation and ensure that students are well prepared for pre board and board exams.

He added: "Offline classes are being planned for these children after immunisation of the 15-18 years age group is complete. Vaccination camps within the school premises will help the children feel at home. It is important to observe the students for a few days after vaccination as their health is our top priority."

Talking about the children`s health being the first priority, the Ministry of Education said that the CBSE Board exams will be held while strictly adhering to all the Covid protocols. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is soon going to do a show called `Pariksha Pe Charcha` for which more and more students, teachers and parents are being encouraged to register.

According to the Ministry, this year the format of this programme has been proposed to be kept online like last year. An online creative writing competition on various topics is being organised from December 28 to January 20 to select the participants. The questions asked by the selected winners will be included in the `Pariksha Pe Charcha` programme.

School students, teachers and parents of Classes 9-12 students will be selected through an online competition.

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New Delhi: The Indian Army on Saturday (January 15, 2022) unveiled a new combat uniform that is comfortable, climate friendly and features a digital disruptive pattern.

A contingent of commandos of Parachute regiment, wearing the new uniforms, took part in the Army Day parade that was conducted at the Cariappa ground.

Here are some of the interesting facts about the new uniform:

- The uniform, which features a mix of colours including olive and earthen, has been designed taking into considerations aspects like areas of deployment of the troops and climatic conditions in which they operate.

- The new uniform has been designed after analysing combat uniforms of armies of various other countries, in association with National Institute of Fashion Technology, sources said.

- This uniform is more comfortable and it would be worn in all types of terrains, they said.

- The digital disruptive pattern is designed with help of computer aid, they said.

- The shirt in the new uniform does not have to be tucked in the trouser, the sources said. The shirt in the old uniform had to be tucked in.

- The sources said the new uniforms would not be available in the open market.

Take a look at the Indian Army's new uniform:

#WATCH | Delhi: Indian Armys Parachute Regiment commandos marching during the Army Day Parade in the new digital combat uniform of the Indian Army. This is the first time that the uniform has been unveiled in public. pic.twitter.com/j9D18kNP8B  ANI (@ANI) January 15, 2022

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New Delhi: On Sunday (January 16), India has completed one year of its vaccination drive against Covid-19 during which it has given over 156 crore vaccine doses.

The country had begun administering vaccine doses on this day last year to its health care and frontline workers. The vaccination drive was then expanded to those above the age of 60 years and those with co-morbidities in the 45-60 year age group on March 1.

On April 1, all above the age of 45 years became eligible to take the jab and on May 1, it was extended to 18+.

The vaccination drive for administering the precautionary doses to the healthcare workers, frontline workers and sixty plus individuals then commenced on January 10 this year.

India administered more than 57 lakh vaccine doses on Saturday (January 15) and cumulatively, 90,68,44,414 first doses and 65,51,95,703 second doses have been administered so far.

A total of 52,40,53,061 first doses have been given to individuals in the 18-44 age group across states and union territories and 36,73,83,765 second doses have been given since the start of phase-3 of the vaccination drive.

In the 15-18 age group, 3,36,09,191 vaccine doses have been administered, the ministry said.

More than 42,69,993 'precaution' doses for the identified categories of beneficiaries for Covid-19 vaccination have been administered so far.

#LargestVaccineDrive Indias cumulative vaccination coverage achieves 156 crore landmark milestone More than 57 lakh Vaccine doses administered today till 7 pmhttps://t.co/5Up0q2tBHb pic.twitter.com/bdjdi4e1P7  Ministry of Health (@MoHFW_INDIA) January 15, 2022

Meanwhile, the Centre is all set to issue a postal stamp to mark the completion of one year of vaccination drive against Covid-19. Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya will issue the postal stamp and address a programme virtually.

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New Delhi: Amid a surge in Covid-19 cases, the Jharkhand government on Saturday (January 15, 2022) announced that the present coronavirus-related restrictions are being extended in the state till January 31.

According to the announcement, the existing COVID-19 restrictions which are in place in the state since January 3 will continue further.

Jharkhand Government extends present COVID 19 related restrictions in the state till January 31.  ANI (@ANI) January 15, 2022

Here's complete list of restrictions:

- All educational institutions will remain closed but official work will be allowed with 50 per cent capacity.

- Parks, swimming pools, gymnasiums, zoos, places of tourist interest and stadiums shall remain closed till January 31.

- A maximum of 100 people are allowed in gatherings for weddings and funerals.

- Cinema halls, restaurants, bars and shopping malls shall remain open till 8 PM with 50 per cent capacity.

- Markets will be shut down at 8 pm. Chemist shops, restaurants and bars are allowed to remain open.

- Government and private offices shall function with 50 per cent attendance.

- Religious places will remain open.

Meanwhile, Jharkhand reported 3,258 new cases, 3,351 recoveries and 7 deaths on Saturday. The state also reported 14 new cases of the Omicron variant.

"14 cases of Omicron variant found in Jharkhand today. 87 samples had been sent to Bhubaneswar for genome sequencing. Out of 87, 14 are confirmed cases of Omicron and 1 Delta variant detected," said Arun Kumar Singh, Additional Chief Secretary.

14 cases of Omicron variant found in #Jharkhand today. 87 samples had been sent to Bhubaneswar for genome sequencing. Out of 87, 14 are confirmed cases of Omicron and 1 Delta variant detected: Arun Kumar Singh, Additional Chief Secretary  ANI (@ANI) January 15, 2022

(With agency inputs)

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New Delhi: Amid the unprecedented surge in the Covid-19 cases, the Mumbai Police on Saturday (January 15, 2022) informed that over 81 policemen tested positive for Covid-19 in the past 24 hours. With this, the tally of positive police personnel rose to 1,312 in the city.

The Mumbai police also informed that a total of 126 personnel have died from the infection so far.

Maharashtra | 81 police personnel tested positive for COVID in the last 24 hours. Total 126 personnel died so far; Active cases 1,312: Mumbai Police  ANI (@ANI) January 15, 2022

In other parts of Maharashtra, like Pune, 31 police personnel also tested Covid-19 positive on Saturday, taking the number of infected police personnel in the city to 465.

31 more police personnel test COVID19 positive today in Pune city. The number of infected police personnel in the city rises to 465: Pune Police  ANI (@ANI) January 15, 2022

Meanwhile, Mumbai reported 10,661 new cases and 11 deaths on Saturday. There were 73,518 active cases in the city, according to the state health department.

On the other hand, Maharashtra reported 42,462 new cases and 23 deaths in the last 24 hours, the state health department informed on Saturday. The active caseload stands at 2,64,441 in the state.

The state also reported 125 Omicron infections, taking the case tally of the coronavirus variant to 1,730.

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Pune: Expressing concern over the rise in COVID-19 cases in Pune and the rest of Maharashtra, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Saturday said that as of now no new restrictions will be brought in but a decision will be taken next week depending upon the scenario.

Pawar was speaking to reporters after attending a COVID-19 review meeting here.

The meeting was attended by officials of the Pune district administration, Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) and the Zilla Parishad representatives.

"Coronavirus cases are rising every passing day. But in today's meeting, we decided not to bring in further restrictions. At the same time, existing curbs will not be relaxed soon. But, if needed, a decision will be taken in the next week," he said.

The Maharashtra government had recently imposed new restrictions on the movement of people. As per the new guidelines, the movement of people in groups of five or more has been restricted from 5 am to 11 pm and no movement has been allowed from 11 pm to 5 am, except for essential services.

Pawar said the cases rose rapidly because people are not following COVID-19 norms.

"Recently, many people returned from foreign countries. At the same time, no norms were followed in public events, especially in marriages that were attended by people coming from other states. If we have to control the spread of infection, we must follow rules,? he added.

The deputy CM said the case positivity rate jumped to 17 per cent from six per cent last week. He said the pace of vaccination for the 15-18 age group has been good in the Pune district.

He also said that medical stores selling COVID-19 test kits should write down the contact numbers of persons buying these products.

"Government teams will contact such people about the status of the test result," he added.

FDA joint commissioner (Pune division), S B Patil, has issued a notification, directing all the retail as well as wholesale chemists and pharmacists in Pune to keep a record of customers buying the COVID home test kits.

Responding to a query, Pawar said he was of the view that the exams for classes 10 and 12 be held offline.

Maharashtra records 42,462 new COVID-19 cases, 23 deaths

Maharashtra on Saturday recorded 42,462 new coronavirus infections, 749 less than Friday, besides 23 deaths. The number of recovered cases surged to 67,60,514 after 39,646 patients were discharged during the day.

Of 42,462 new COVID-19 cases and 23 deaths reported on Saturday, 10,661 infections and 11 fatalities were reported from Mumbai city alone. The tally of active coronavirus cases has now increased to 2,64,441.

The overall caseload now stands at 71,70,483 and the death toll at 1,41,779.

125 new Omicron cases also came to light in the state during the day, raising the tally of such infections to 1,730.

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New Delhi: Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel on Sunday (January 16) kickstarted Congress door-to-door campaign in Noida in the wake of upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.

Slamming the Opposition, senior observer for the Assembly elections in UP, Baghel said only the grand old party is talking about common people while others are busy playing 'religion politics'. Others are either politicising in the name of caste or playing 'religion politics', but no one is talking about common people, except Congress. From youth, farmers, women to backward communities we are taking everyone along, ANI quoted the Chhattisgarh CM as saying.

Congress leader & Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Bagehl participated in a door-to-door campaign in Noida, ahead of UP Assembly elections. pic.twitter.com/OsjWcJidBm  ANI (@ANI) January 16, 2022

He also distributed Ladki Hoon Lad Sakti Hoon wrist bands in Noida during the campaign. The Ladki Hoon Lad Sakti Hoon campaign was started by Congress General secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra last year to woo women voters in the state. Congress had also released a separate manifesto for women.

On January 13, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had released Congress party's first list of 125 candidates, out of which 50 are women, for UP polls.

Congress is facing a tough battle in UP with the party being out of power in the state for over 30 years. In the 2017 UP Assembly elections, the BJP had bagged 312 seats, while the Samajwadi Party (SP) won 47 seats, BSP 19 and Congress could manage to win only seven seats.

Meanwhile, elections in Uttar Pradesh for the 403 assembly constituencies will be held in seven phases starting February 10, 2022. The poll dates in the state are February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27 and March 3 and 7. The counting of votes will take place on March 10.

(With agency inputs)

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New Delhi: As India completed one year of its COVID-19 vaccination drive on Sunday (January 16, 2022), Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed each and every person associated with it in a series of tweets.

Taking it to Twitter, PM Modi wrote, Today we mark #1YearOfVaccineDrive. I salute each and every individual who is associated with the vaccination drive. Our vaccination programme has added great strength to the fight against COVID-19. It has led to saving lives and thus protecting livelihoods.

Today we mark #1YearOfVaccineDrive. I salute each and every individual who is associated with the vaccination drive. Our vaccination programme has added great strength to the fight against COVID-19. It has led to saving lives and thus protecting livelihoods. https://t.co/7ch0CAarIf  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 16, 2022

The prime minister hailed the efforts of the doctors, nurses and healthcare workers during these challenging times and called it exceptional.

At the same time, the role of our doctors, nurses and healthcare workers is exceptional. When we see glimpses of people being vaccinated in remote areas, or our healthcare workers taking the vaccines there, our hearts and minds are filled with pride, PM Modi said in the tweet.

Indias approach to fighting the pandemic will always remain science based. We are also augmenting health infrastructure to ensure our fellow citizens get proper care. Let us keep following all COVID-19 related protocols and overcome the pandemic. #1YearOfVaccineDrive  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 16, 2022

Additionally, BJP president J P Nadda said the task of jabbing the country's huge population seemed impossible but was made possible under the ''stellar leadership'' of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with over 92 per cent of population having received the first dose.

He tweeted, ''India has so far administered 156 crore vaccine doses, of which 99 crore doses have been given in rural India. 70% of our adult population is fully vaccinated. More than 3 crore children have got their first dose since the program began. India has led the fight against COVID-19.''

Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya called Indias Covid-19 vaccination drive "the most successful in the world". The Union Health Minister also extended greetings to the health workers, scientists and citizens as the country completed one year of its COVID-19 vaccination drive.

Taking to Twitter, Mansukh Mandaviya wrote, "Today the world`s largest vaccination campaign completes one year. Started under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi, with everyone`s efforts, today, it is the most successful vaccination campaign in the world. I congratulate all the health workers, scientists and countrymen."

Notably, India`s cumulative COVID-19 vaccination coverage has exceeded 156.76 crore in a span of an year.

It is interesting to look at the nation`s vaccination journey. India commenced its nationwide COVID vaccination drive on January 16, 2021.

Starting initially by inoculating vaccines to healthcare workers, it was then expanded to frontline workers, followed by people above 60 years of age and those above 45 years with comorbidities. Later it was also expanded to all above 45 years of age and then those above 18 years of age.

The vaccination drive for those between the age group 15-18 was started on January 3, 2022 and for administering the precautionary doses to the healthcare workers, frontline workers and sixty plus individuals then commenced on January 10 this year.

As per Union Health Ministry, 1,56,76,15,454 vaccine doses have been administered to eligible beneficiaries, as per provisional reports till 7 am on Sunday. In the last 24 hours, more than 66 lakh vaccine doses were administered.

(With ANI inputs)

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New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will deliver a 'State of the World' special address at the World Economic Forum's Davos Agenda on Monday (January 17) via video conference, his office said.

The virtual event will be held from January 17 to 21 and will also be addressed by several Heads of State including Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, European Commission President Ursua von der Leyen, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Chinese President Xi Jinping, among others.

Prime Minister Modi will deliver the 'State of the World' special address at the World Economic Forum's Davos Agenda on January 17, 2022 at 8:30 PM IST via video conferencing, the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement.

The event will also witness participation of top industry leaders, international organizations and civil society, who will deliberate on critical challenges being faced by the world today and discuss how to address them, it said.

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The Rajasthan government on Sunday has decided to hand over the Alwar deaf and dumb minor girl rape case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

A recommendation in this matter shall be sent to the Central government soon by the state government, the Chief Minister's Office said in a press release.

The decision was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Sunday via video conferencing. The meeting was attended by senior officials and doctors.

A 14-year-old deaf and dumb girl was found in a bleeding condition in Alwar. The passers-by informed the police and she rushed by the police personnel to a hospital. Later, considering her serious condition, she was rushed to the JK Lon Hospital in Jaipur.

A team of seven doctors performed surgery for three hours.

Meanwhile, Alwar SP Tejaswini Gautam on Saturday said that the girl was probably not raped. The BJP took objection to the statement and demanded a CBI probe into the matter.

However, on Sunday, the Alwar SP took a U-turn on her statement and said that she gave a statement on medical report basis. "Police are investigating on different grounds and exploring each angle. Nothing has been concluded as of now," she added.

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Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government on Sunday (January 16) declared holiday till January 31 for school students of standards 10-12 too in the wake of surging COVID cases.

Examinations scheduled from January 19 for students of classes 10 and 12 have been postponed, the government said.

While holiday has already been declared for students of classes 1 to 9, physical classes are held in schools only for those in the 10-12 grades.

However, considering the welfare of students against the background of rising virus cases, an official release here said "holiday is declared for students of all classes including those in grades 10, 11 and 12 till January 31." Fresh dates for the examinations would be announced later for classes 10 and 12, the release added.

On January 5, announcing fresh curbs to tackle the virus spread, the government had barred physical classes for students of classes 1 to 9 in all schools across the state and had permitted it for only those in 10-12 standards.

Tamil Nadu on Saturday (January 15) recorded 23,989 new cases and 11 fatalities. This took the total number of cases reported so far to 29,15,948 and the death toll to 36,967.

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Hyderabad: In the wake of rising Covid-19 cases, the Telangana government on Sunday extended vacations for all educational institutions till January 30.

"It has been decided to extend the vacation of all educational institutions in Telangana till January 30, 2022," the office of Telangana Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar said.

Earlier, the State government had declared holidays for all educational institutions from January 8 to 16.

A cabinet meeting will also be held on Monday at 2 pm in Pragathi Bhavan under Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, to discuss COVID-related matters, the Chief Minister`s office said.

Telangana on Saturday had reported 1,963 new COVID-19 cases taking the cumulative tally to 7,07,162. There are currently 22,017 active coronavirus cases in the state.

The cumulative recoveries registered in Telangana is at 6,81,091 and the death toll is 4,054. The recovery rate in the state is at 96.31 per cent and case fatality rate is 0.57 per cent.

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New Delhi: Last year on January 16, India commenced the world`s largest vaccination drive to vaccinate its massive population of around 1.38 billion against the COVID-19 infection. In the year since the country`s vaccination drive began, the country has administered 1,56,76,15,454 doses of COVID-19 vaccines.

The country has also started administering the `precautionary doses` to the healthcare workers, frontline workers and beneficiaries above the age of 60 years.

India kicked off the world`s largest vaccination drive by initially inoculating vaccines to healthcare and frontline workers and now it is vaccinating the beneficiaries aged between 15 to 18 against the COVID-19.

#WATCH| "As a result of country's solidarity & PM Modi's commitment during #COVID19, India not only manufactured vaccines but also vaccinated large part of population in short time," tweeted Union Health Minister Dr Mansukh Madaviya (Video source: Dr Mansukh Madaviya's twitter) pic.twitter.com/C3IwfvjAwy  ANI (@ANI) January 16, 2022

A lot has happened since the first vaccine dose was administered on January 16, 2021. The country has battled vaccine hesitancy and vaccine shortage.

The timeline of the "world`s largest vaccination drive"

January 16, 2021: Vaccination drive began for healthcare workers

February 2, 2021: Vaccination drive began for frontline workers

March 1, 2021: Vaccination drive began for beneficiaries aged above 60 years and those with co-morbidities in the 45-60 years age group

April 1, 2021: All beneficiaries aged above 45 years became eligible for COVID-19 vaccination

May 1, 2021: All beneficiaries aged above 18 years became eligible for COVID-19 vaccination

October 21, 2021: India reached the milestone of administering 100 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses

January 3, 2022: Beneficiaries in the age group of 15-18 years became eligible for COVID vaccination

January 10, 2022: Administration of precautionary dose began for frontline workers and vulnerable people above the age of 60 years.

To inoculate the country`s huge population, the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) gave the green light to Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine--Covishield (manufactured under license by Serum Institute of India) and Covaxin (India`s indigenous vaccine developed locally by Bharat Biotech), on January 3.

India has also granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to three other vaccines by Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and Zydus Cadila.

On October 12, the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) of the drug regulator also recommended granting an emergency use authorization to Bharat Biotech`s Covaxin for children aged between 2-18 years as well.

As India faces the third wave of COVID-19, the vaccination drive will continue to play a decisive role in the battle against the pandemic.



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New Delhi: Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap has called out a fake casting profile on social media, which talked about casting for `Sacred Games` Season 3.

Taking to his Instagram handle on Sunday, Anurag shared a screengrab of the Instagram Story of the `scamster` and requested his followers to report him.

He wrote, "This man rajbeer_casting is a scamster. Pls report him. There is no season 3 of Scared games happening. I am filing an FIR against this person."

In the screenshot shared, the fake casting call mentioned the requirement of "female" actors of different age groups who "must be ok with bold scenes".

Meanwhile, the Second season of `Sacred Games` was released in August 2019 and the first season of the hit series was unveiled in July 2018.
Washington: American rapper and songwriter Kanye West has admitted to punching a man after he was accused of battery this week. According to People magazine, the 22-time Grammy Award winner detailed his side of the altercation that took place early on Thursday morning in downtown Los Angeles in his upcoming episode of Hollywood Unlocked.

"So as far as the paparazzi goes, it wasn't a fan," he claimed, as per a sneak peek.

"It was 3 a.m. in front of the Warehouse. Im saying, `You don't know what I'm dealing with right now.` I just finished these two songs, I came from the studio," West said.

He added, "And this dude, he just had this real attitude, like, `What you gonna do? And see that?` Imma just tell you, that blue COVID mask aint stop that knockout, you know what Im saying?"

West was named as a suspect in a battery report from Thursdays altercation, an LAPD source previously confirmed to People magazine, saying West jumped out of his car outside Soho Warehouse and punched a man who approached him for an autograph, knocking him to the ground.

The rapper said that the man wasn't a fan, but was "taking autographs to make money on them," noting: "This is the same as the paparazzi, this is not a fan. This is someone who is using your image, who probably never listened to your songs."

In a video of the incident obtained by TMZ, West could be seen screaming "get away from me" at a woman who told him, "I am your family," as a man lay on the sidewalk nearby.

"No! No, you were supposed to talk to her," West shouted back at her.

The Donda artist explained that the woman was his cousin, who had just returned from attempting to speak to his estranged wife Kim Kardashian about personal parenting matters.

He continued, "So I end up getting into an altercation with the guy that wanted to make money off of my autographs, then my cousin pulls up and she's talking to me. I say, `Give me a breather. Get away from me.` She is not taking accountability for the fact that she did not do what she was supposed to do, and that added to me being in a mood where I was like, `I am not going to have this.`"

The alleged altercation came after a night on the town with his girlfriend Julia Fox, Madonna, Antonio Brown, Floyd Mayweather, Evan Ross and others at Delilah.

"They all had dinner in the private dining room. They came separately but just ended up having dinner together. Kanye and Julia wouldn't leave each others sides," a source told People magazine.

In 2014, the rapper was arrested for "assaulting" a photographer at Los Angeles International Airport. At the time, he was sentenced to 250 hours of community service, two years probation and 24 anger management sessions.

Similarly, West was arrested in 2008 for vandalism and battery over an altercation with photographers at the same airport, where he allegedly damaged a camera.

He was later released on USD 20,000 bail, and the case was dismissed after he paid for the photographers` broken equipment attended anger management counseling, as per People magazine.
New Delhi: Miami rapper Wavy Navy Pooh was killed in an ambush shooting as he drove with two young children, local media reported.

According to Fox News, the 28-year-old rapper, whose real name was Shandler Beaubien, was stopped at a light on Friday evening when a car pulled alongside and someone inside opened fire, killing him, reported a news outlet.

Two children, ages 5 and 1, and a woman were also in his car but they were not hurt. Police have not released the victim's name, but Quality Control, the rapper's record label, confirmed it was him. No arrests have been made.

Beaubien is best known for his song 'M.I.A.M.I. (Murder is a Major Issue)'. Its video shows him waving a handgun, a staged murder scene and footage of police officers at actual shooting scenes.

As per Fox News, reports suggest that Beaubien was wounded in the leg during a drive-by shooting while driving two years ago.
Mumbai: An unseemly row has erupted between a retired NRI from the US, Ketan Kakkad and his neighbour Bollywood megastar Salman Khan over a plot of land in the picturesque environs of Raigad.

Taking strong umbrage at Kakkad's recent social media outbursts, the actor has hit back with a civil defamation suit against his next-door neighbour, besides Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other social platform content creators.

The matter pertains to the mid-1990s when the young NRI Kakkad planned to buy a tiny plot of land in Raigad to build his retirement nest, and the seller company introduced him to the legendary Bollywood writer, Salim Khan.

The celeb Khans assured Kakkad that the locality was good and they would love to have him as their neighbour instead of some other snoopy types as the hilly plot - eyed by the NRI - overlooks the family's 100-acre Arpita Farms.

Convinced, the pleased Kakkad bought the 2.50-acre plot in 1996 and later built a tiny eco-friendly Lord Ganesh Temple on it, and years later, even an environment-friendly 120-square feet thatched hut to occasionally go and get a breather there.

The two neighbours got along jovially for over two decades and whenever the Kakkads visited their tiny property, they were accorded a warm welcome by the Khan clan, with refreshments and beverages, at the Arpita Farms - where Salman Khan was bitten by a non-venomous snake on December 26, 2021, on the eve of his 56th birthday, giving palpitations to the whole nation.

In 2014, Kakkad retired and returned to India, eager to build a small cottage along with wife Anita, and probably an 'ashram' in the future, and meditate before their tiny temple.

Kakkad claimed that in December 2019, the Khan family -- which is renowned for worshipping the elephant-headed God during Ganeshotsav every year -- suddenly barred his entry to his property.

"Despite repeated pleas, we are not allowed to go there... The local officials of the Forest and Revenue departments are also not helping us out," rued Kakkad.

Left with no options, Kakkad resorted to venting his ire via social media and even gave some interviews on YouTube, raising the hackles of the "Bajrangi Bhaijaan" superstar.

Khan hit back with a stern Short Cause Suit on January 8, against Kakkad and the others, accusing them of "malafide intentions" to damage his goodwill and reputation by hurling "absolutely baseless, false and unwarranted allegations", through the law firm, DSK Legal, of lawyer Anand Desai and his team.

The matter came up before Additional Sessions Judge Anil Laddhad who adjourned it to January 21 on a plea for time by Kakkad's lawyers Abha Singh and Aditya Pratap.

Khan also charged the social media giants of continuously "loading/uploading, posting and publishing various malicious and defamatory content" against him and his family causing "grave and irreparable harm, loss and injury" with the "provocative, unsubstantiated" content without a shred of truth arising out of personal vendetta and ill-will.

The actor contended that Kakkad's plot was reportedly cancelled by the Maharashtra government as "illegal", for which he blamed the Khan family, alleged that the superstar harboured underworld links with the 'D-Company' (the absconder mafia don Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar), and that illegal/criminal activities were going on at Arpita Farms.

Taking objection to certain utterances by Kakkad, the megastar pointed out that the insinuation that he had illegally usurped/grabbed the Lord Ganesh Temple "inter-alia intends to cause communal violence in society".

In the suit, Khan sought a permanent order to bar Kakkad and the other defendants from directly/indirectly loading/uploading, posting/reposting, tweeting/retweeting, giving media interviews, corresponding, communicating, hosting, issuing, printing, publishing, disseminating, circulating further, in any manner vide any medium, such defamatory, malicious or scandalous content.

Khan urged the court to direct the social media players "to forthwith withdraw and/or recall, take down, block/restrict/disable, all content defamatory to him in the present case, from all other mediums where they are hosted or exist.

He demanded that Kakkad, and three others -- Sandeep Phogat, Paras Bhat and Ujjwal Narain -- must tender an unconditional apology via their media and cough out the legal suit costs.

Kakkad denied the superstar's contentions and said "there is a misunderstanding" which will be sorted out, and expressed his keenness to go to his land and build his small dream house there.

"Presently, Anita and I are cooped up in this one room-kitchen flat in Malad, both suffer from comorbidities so cannot step out much and long for our open-to-sky plot We have absolutely no animosity against the Khans or anybody and shall await the legal outcome," said Kakkad.
NEW DELHI: Actor Tanushree Dutta has expressed her discontent with her Wikipedia profile description and she is unable to change it.

Taking to her Instagram handle on Sunday, the actor shared how the profile describes her only as an "Indian Model".

She wrote, "Hey Guys...there's something that's been bothering me for a while. It's the Wikipedia profile on me. So it's got a lot totally wrong about me and calling me just an "Indian Model" and diminishing my credentials. I tried changing but it keeps coming back to the same stuff."

She detailed her accomplishments and expressed her dissatisfaction with her profile.

"I'm a Miss India Universe & Bollywood actress/star so dunno why it says " Indian Model". It's the first thing people check when they google a public figure for work/awards etc & mine is all weird & shit. Imagine after doing so much in just one life I can't even have a straightforward, uplifting & accurate Wikipedia presentation," she wrote.

She concluded by asking if anyone could help her out to fix it.

She wrote, "Maybe the scriptures are right & my rewards & recognition are going to be in Heaven after all. Anyways I've renounced losing my shit with this kind of weird stuff coz looks like I can't do much about it! If anyone can help pls do...btw...I think great & amazing stuff is going to happen for me in 2022..."

The actor, who spearheaded India's #MeToo movement in 2018, had to move out of the film industry in India after the alleged harassment incident post which she tried to establish herself in the US.

Meanwhile, as per her Instagram posts, the actor might make her Bollywood comeback soon.
Pune: Days after noted Marathi actor Kiran Mane was ousted from a popular television show allegedly due to his political views on social media, the sarpanch of a village in Satara district, where the serial is being shot, issued a letter to the production house asking it to stop the shoot.

The show - 'Mulgi Zali Ho' - a Marathi-language TV drama, which airs on 'Star Pravah' channel, featured Mane in the role of Vilas Patil.

Mane on Friday alleged that he was officially conveyed to not report to sets and they (makers) did not officially inform him of the reason behind this decision. "However, off the record, someone from the show said that it has happened because of the comments that I make on social media," he had told PTI.

The shooting of the Marathi serial is underway at a wada (traditional mansion) in Gulumb village in Wai tehsil of western Maharashtra's Satara district.

The woman sarpanch, who signed the letter written to the show's production house could not be contacted for her comment, but the coordinator of the production crew on Sunday claimed that the letter was issued "inadvertently" and the shooting at the village is still on without any problem.

The letter, signed by village sarpanch Swati Mane, is going viral on social media. It condemns the Marathi film industry "for removing an actor who expressed his political views".

The letter said that the crew of the serial should not forget that in Maharashtra, democracy still runs on the ideology of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj, Mahatma Phule and Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar.

It stated that the gram panchayat refuses the permission given to the shooting of the serial which is going on at Gulumb village.

Line producer and crew coordinator of the production house, Sachin Sasane, however, said that the letter was issued "inadvertently" and claimed that the local body of the village is of the opinion that the shooting of the serial should continue.

He claimed that as the shooting has given a source of earning and employment opportunities to the villagers.

"How is it justifiable to stop the medium of employment and earning of locals for one man, who was not removed due to his political views, but due to his misbehaviour," he said.

Sasane claimed that the letter was signed without hearing their (production house) side, but when the gram panchayat was presented the other side, the shooting resumed.

Meanwhile, Mahadev Mhaskar, former vice president of Satara Zilla Parishad and a resident of Gulumb village said, "The issue is between the actor and the production house. The local residents are not related to the matter and we have asked the gram panchayat members and the sarpanch to convene a meeting and issue a clarification on this."

The shooting has generated employment in the village and the serial also spreads a positive message about girl child, he said.

Despite repeated attempts, the sarpanch could not be reached for her comment.
New Delhi: Malayalam superstar Mammootty on Sunday said he has tested positive for COVID-19 and is currently under home quarantine.

The 70-year-old actor said he contracted the virus despite taking precautions but was feeling "fine".

Mammootty, who was reportedly shooting for his upcoming film "CBI 5" when he tested positive, took to Twitter to update his fans about his health.

"Despite taking all the necessary precautions I have tested Covid Positive yesterday. Besides a light fever I am otherwise fine. I am self isolating at home as per the directions of the concerned authorities," Mammootty wrote.

"I wish for all of you to stay safe. Mask at all times and take care," he added.

The veteran actor was last seen in the political drama "One" and has a packed slate of films lined up for release, including gangster drama "Bheeshma Parvam", crime thriller "Puzhu" and "Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam", directed by Lijo Jose Pellissery of "Jallikattu" fame.

According to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Sunday, India added 2,71,202 new coronavirus infections, taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 3,71,22,164, including 7,743 cases of the Omicron variant.
New Delhi: Apple will require retail and corporate employees to provide proof of a COVID-19 booster shot, The Verge reported on Saturday, citing an internal email. Starting January 24, unvaccinated employees or those who havent submitted proof of vaccination will need negative COVID-19 tests to enter Apple workplaces, the report said. The Verge said it was not immediately clear if the testing requirement applies to both corporate and retail employees.

Due to waning efficacy of the primary series of COVID-19 vaccines and the emergence of highly transmissible variants such as Omicron, a booster shot is now part of staying up to date with your COVID-19 vaccination to protect against severe disease," the memo read, according to The Verge.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Many companies in the US have been strengthening their COVID-19 rules, mandating vaccination and delaying back-to-office plans as the Omicron variant increases infections across the country. This week, Facebook parent Meta Platforms mandated COVID-19 booster shots for all workers returning to offices. It also delayed US office reopenings to March 28, from an earlier plan of January 31.

Alphabet Incs Google on Friday said it was temporarily mandating weekly COVID-19 tests for people entering its US office. A report by The Information said Amazon Inc has offered its US warehouse workers $40 to get a booster shot.

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New Delhi: The advent of cryptocurrencies has given hackers the opportunity to take advantage of blockchain flaws and defraud millions of people all around the world. If the online crypto sector continues to draw new users at an unprecedented rate, the number of hacking incidents will rise in the next days and weeks. Between January and July of 2021, large cryptocurrency thefts, hacks, and fraud are estimated to have cost more than $650 million. Many more are still to be reported due to a variety of factors, including a lack of sufficient technological understanding.

Cryptocurrency, like any other industry, is susceptible to fraud and theft. On the other hand, advise investors to thoroughly comprehend the risks associated with dealing in digital assets. The best thing a trader can do to protect their capital is to become aware of potential hazards and typical blunders committed by others.

Here are a few tips:

1) Research thoroughly

Whenever possible, investors should devote time to thoroughly investigating the cryptocurrency or other digital asset they wish to invest in. They might begin by visiting the official website of the cryptocurrency initiative. Find out more about the company's founders, developers, and current backers. Find out where you can purchase the project. These should provide an early sense of whether or not the project is viable.

2) Imposter websites

Do not be fooled by fake websites. A surprising number of imposter websites that look just like the official website are created on a regular basis. Amateur investors frequently fail to distinguish between legitimate and phoney investments. If you're unsure, ask individuals who have worked in the sector for a while. Phishing emails should be avoided at all costs.

3) Fake mobile apps

Another line of defence is to only download crypto trading or exchange apps from trusted sites. Scammers frequently use bogus apps to deceive investors. Despite the fact that phoney apps are swiftly recognised and banned, they are not going away anytime soon. Look for glaring spelling errors in the copy or the app's name. Consider whether the branding is fragile or whether the logo is wrong.

4) Pay attention to smart contracts

Smart contracts are codes on the blockchain that carry out a set of instructions. Although they are technical, they usually aid in the understanding of a crypto project's overall potential. There could be flaws in the project if there is a problem with the smart contract.

5) Keep your wallet safe

Finally, take care of your pocketbook. Every wallet has two keys: a private and a public key. Under no circumstances should the private key be shared with the public. Wallets, however, have hazards, and cold wallets are usually the safest way to keep private keys.

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New Delhi: Newly unredacted documents from a state-led antitrust lawsuit against Google accuse the search giant of colluding with rival Facebook to manipulate online advertising sales. The CEOs of both companies were aware of the deal and signed off on it, the lawsuit alleges.

The original, redacted lawsuit, filed in December 2021, accused Google of anti-competitive conduct and of teaming up with the social networking giant. But the unredacted version offers details on the involvement of Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in approving the deal. Facebook has since renamed itself Meta.

According to the lawsuit, Facebook's chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, was explicit that this is a big deal strategically'" in a 2018 email thread about the deal that included Facebook's CEO.

While the names of the Facebook executives are still redacted in the suit, their titles are visible.

When the two sides hammered out the terms of the agreement, the team sent an email addressed directly to CEO Zuckerberg, the lawsuit states.

We're nearly ready to sign and need your approval to move forward, the email read, according to the complaint. Zuckerberg wanted to meet with Sandberg and his other executives before making a decision, the complaint states.

In a statement, Google spokesperson Peter Schottenfels said the lawsuit is full of inaccuracies and lacks legal merit.

In September 2018, the complaint says, the two companies signed the agreement. Sandberg, who was once the head of Google's ad business, and Pichai personally signed off on the deal, per the states' complaint.

Meta spokesperson Chris Sgro said Friday that the company's ad bidding agreement with Google and similar agreements it has with other bidding platforms have helped to increase competition for ad placements.

These business relationships enable Meta to deliver more value to advertisers while fairly compensating publishers, resulting in better outcomes for all, Sgro said.

Internally, Google used the code phrase Jedi Blue to refer to the 2018 agreement, according to the lawsuit. Google kept this code phrase secret.

Google's Schottenfels said the lawsuit's allegation that Pichai approved the deal with Facebook "isn't accurate.

We sign hundreds of agreements every year that don't require CEO approval, and this was no different, he said, adding that the agreement was never a secret.

The lawsuit is led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and was joined by the attorneys general of Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah.

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Kabul: ATM services have become operational in Afghanistan from Saturday, for the first time since the Taliban`s return to power.

Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB), Central Bank of Afghanistan in a statement on Thursday had said that the ATM services by commercial banks in the country will be resumed.

The decision was made after a series of talks with commercial banks and the union of banks, said DAB.

"Da Afghanistan Bank is striving to return banking system and services to normal," said the statement, adding, "Reactivating ATMs will bring further facilities to the people."

ATM services, notably, were stalled after the Taliban gained power in August last year.

ATMs of commercial banks will be available in specific areas to facilitate people. However, the bank has not mentioned the limit of withdrawal amount as restriction of withdrawing a specific amount is still in place. A person can only withdraw USD 200 per week or 20,000 Afghani, as per the new policy.

Meanwhile, the Taliban have called on Afghan citizens to pay their taxes on time.

Abdul Salam Hanafi, the Second Deputy Prime Minister, on Saturday said that those Afghans who owe taxes should pay to help tackle the current challenges in Afghanistan. He made the remarks at a gathering held with the title "Finance Week" in Kabul, where other senior members of the Islamic Emirate also participated.

"Those who are able to pay taxes should pay taxes properly, so funds can be spent in the education and health sectors," Hanafi said.

The acting Minister of Finance, Hidayatullah Badri, said the taxes would be invested in the country`s affairs for economic development.

"The Finance Ministry has the responsibility for economic development and the management of humanitarian aid," he said.

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London: Prince Harry has said that his family is unsafe in England and has threatened to take legal action against the British government if it does not provide security for him while he is there.

According to Page Six, Harry claimed he offered to pay for the arrangement. He stepped down from his royal duties in 2020 and moved to North America with his family amid tensions with Buckingham Palace.

The Duke of Sussex pays for a private security team, but lawyers claim more protection is needed in his homeland, as his family "has been subjected to well-documented neo-Nazi and extremist threats," according to a statement.

Lawyers put the Queen`s Bench Division of the High Court on notice in September that his legal team will seek a judicial review if the government does not provide security for the prince, wife Meghan Markle, and children Archie and Lilibet, sources said.

"The Duke first offered to pay personally for UK police protection for himself and his family in January of 2020 at Sandringham. That offer was dismissed. He remains willing to cover the cost of security, as not to impose on the British taxpayer," the statement read.

Prince Harry`s security "was compromised due to the absence of police protection" during his last visit to the UK in July, lawyers said, as per Page Six.

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New Delhi: Social media has got a strong retentive memory as data stored over servers have a long shelf life. The magnitude of users and their ability to consume and store content complements it at the same time.

An example of this virtue of social media was seen in a recent global campaign that was observed on January 14 and 15 to celebrate the second anniversary of the (in)famous tweet made by the WHO, supporting the claims of the Chinese government that no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel Coronavirus.

On January 14, 2020, the WHO had tweeted - Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China.

Just after two months of tweeting this, the WHO declared Covid-19 a global pandemic and began receiving criticism from health experts and global leadership for its failure to contain the pandemic and assisting China to ensure deniability.

According to a story titled Exclusive | Coronavirus: Chinas first confirmed Covid-19 case traced back to November 17 by South China Morning Post, the Chinese Communist Party government knew about the spread of the disease and its nature of human to human transmission - weeks or months before the tweet was made by the WHO.

Additionally, several doctors and whistleblowers from China later came out in public to make revelations about Chinas role in spreading the pandemic and launching disinformation campaigns to shield itself. Talking to the US press, prominent virologist Li-Meng Yan revealed that China knew about the virus and deliberately misguided the world on origins and nature of the virus. Yan, who was also one of the first doctors to work on the pandemic, was pressurised by her seniors at her University/WHO Reference Lab, as well as the Chinese Communist Party authorities against disclosing the findings of the research. Later, she had to flee her country.

On the second anniversary of the tweet, a couple of prominent policy makers and leaders across the world attacked the WHO and asked Twitter to flag it as a tweet promoting misinformation. Former Special Assistant to the U.S. President, Chad Gilmartin (@ChadGilmartinCA), tweeted - Two years ago today, China/WHO was promoting the LIE that there is no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of covid. This tweet is not flagged as misinformation. However, Twitter is yet to take action on it.

The campaign gained momentum in India as well. Several handles including a few of prominent personalities quoted the tweet and questioned the WHO for its allegiance to China. To quote an example, Major General (Retd.) Harsha Kakar (@kakar_harsha) raised questions about Chinas intentions and criticised its disinformation campaigns. Quoting WHOs tweet, the veteran commented - China lied, people died. The Chinese philosophy of lying has not changed. @globaltimesnews , @SpokespersonCHN @HuXijin_GT are China's most experienced liars.

China lied, people died. The Chinese philosophy of lying has not changed. @globaltimesnews , @SpokespersonCHN @HuXijin_GT are China's most experienced liars pic.twitter.com/3f6H6I9YA8  Maj Gen Harsha Kakar (@kakar_harsha) January 15, 2022

Human rights defenders from India and all over the world joined the chorus and took on the WHO for being soft over China and playing into its hands to force the world into the pandemic. A human rights activist Steve Grasha (@RealSteveGrasha), shared WHOs tweet and commented - 2 years ago today: WHO's most infamous tweet, saying China found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of coronavirus.

Similarly, the Chinese dissidents and members of persecuted communities in China also joined in the protest campaign against WHO for failing to hold China accountable. Many members from Uyghur, Tibetan and other persecuted communities took on the WHO. Quoting WHOs tweet, an Uyghur human rights activist and a Ph.D. student Dolan Oghli (@DolanOghli) tweeted - I think #China forgot to order #WHO to delete this tweet.

It was not only the Global North, but WHOs soft stance on China over Covid-19 pandemic was condemned by several Twitter users from the Global South as well. Twitter users successfully trended a couple of hashtags, including #WuhanVirus #ChinaVirus #China, besides several others - many of which users have been trending since the beginning of the pandemic.

As per some experts, the institution that was supposed to act as the global guardian for securing the right to health to every human being on the planet has failed to hold China accountable over the pandemics outbreak.

Out of all, the role of WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has been questioned the most. When asked about the criticism by the then U.S. President Donald Trump for failing to manage the Covid-19 crisis, Tedros did not give a clear answer, and giving it a turn he alleged that trolls from Taiwan have been attacking him. He also tried to play the victim card and gain sympathy through his racial identity. He commented, Three months ago, this attack came from Taiwan. We need to be honest. I will be straight today. From Taiwan And Taiwan, the Foreign Ministry also, they know the campaign. They didnt disassociate themselves. They even started criticizing me in the middle of all that insult and slur, but I didnt care.

Taiwan, which is yet to become a part of the United Nations, could not utilise the global platform to respond to the allegations made by him. However, the Taiwanese government termed the allegations as baseless and demanded an apology from him. Talking to social media, the countrys President Tsai Ing-wen said, Taiwan has always opposed all forms of discrimination. The President also invited him to make a visit to Taiwan.

Moreover, the Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement and said - Dr. Tedross unwarranted charges, made without any attempt at verification, are contrary to the facts and have caused serious damage to the government and people of Taiwan. Such slander is irresponsible, and the government of Taiwan demands that the Director-General immediately correct his trumped-up claims, issue a clarification, and apologize to the people of Taiwan.

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International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC), which has financing transaction volume of over $5.23 billion, tops the Bloomberg 2021 Islamic Financing League Tables as the Global leader as Bookrunner and Mandated Lead Arranger (MLA).

ITFC recorded financing transaction volumes covering a market share of 21.2% as Bookrunner and 18.6% as MLA.

The 2021 Global Islamic Financing League Tables released by Bloomberg showed that ITFC is the top Bookrunner and MLA ahead of International and Regional Banks.

The assessment recognises the Corporations leading role in mobilising resources globally from a wide range of investors and financial institutions for the financing needs of Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member countries and demonstrates the market impact potential of the ITFC financing model.

Commenting on the ranking, the CEO of ITFC, Eng. Hani Salem Sonbol said: We are honored to be ranked top of the Bloomberg 2021 Islamic Finance League Table as leading Bookrunner and Mandated Lead Arranger. These rankings demonstrate the ITFC teams commitment to be a catalyst for trade development among OIC member countries. Nurturing and financing trade development ultimately contributes to ITFCs overarching goal of improving socioeconomic conditions of people across the world.

Given how much of a challenging year 2021 was for the global economy, we are extremely pleased that ITFC continued to provide significant strategic support for our member countries in this difficult environment and we look forward to 2022 with a lot of optimism. For this milestone I would like to express my sincere thanks and appreciation to our syndicate partners for their continued confidence and trust in ITFCs role in leading these many syndicated financing deals.

The Bloomberg League Tables  published quarterly and annually  rank banks and financial institutions, in different categories, namely arrangers, bookrunners, administrative agents and advisors across diverse transactions, which include loans, bonds, and M&A activities.-- TradeArabia News Service
Welcome to The Denver Gazettes Metro Moves. Youll get the latest metro Denver openings, closings, hiring and promotion briefs here. To submit your companys news, drop an email to dennis.huspeni@gazette.com.

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Two new coffee retailers opened at Denver International Airport in recent weeks.

On Thursday, minority and women-owned Kabod Coffee started serving locally roasted, single-source Ethiopian coffee, Colorado baked goods, and grab-and-go food, according to a news release.

We know our passengers and employees enjoy coffee day and night and Kabod Coffee has made a commitment to operate 24 hours a day, which is remarkable given the challenges businesses are experiencing today, airport CEO Phil Washington said in the release.

Owner Muluye Hailemariam has been part of the airport's concessions community since joining the kiosk program and the Airport Concessions Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program in 2011.

Coffee is culture in Ethiopia, said Hailemariam. I am honored to bring my heritage and the finest unblended organic coffee to the thousands of daily travelers through DEN.

Kabod joins Caribou Coffee, which opened last month, the first concession built as part of phase one of the Great Hall renovations. It serves handcrafted beverages including hot and iced teas, nitro cold brew coffee on tap, ice cream and all-day food items, according to the release.

Coming soon

Chicago-based Brennan Investment Group started moving dirt on the 18-acre, three-building Centennial Business Center near East Arapahoe Road and South Peoria Street, according to a news release from real estate company CBRE.

Its the groups fourth development in metro Denver since 2018. At full build-out, it will include 219,956 square feet of industrial space at 7194 S. Revere Parkway, Centennial. The first building has 47,578 square feet and is already pre-leased, though officials have not disclosed the name of the tenant.

Denvers Southeast market expects to see healthy, long-term demand for industrial space as companies continue to modify their supply chains to serve concentrated populations with short-term delivery, John Torp, vice president of Brennan Investment Group, said in the release. Centennial Business Center will sit in proximity to a sophisticated labor force and high-end customer base, as well as immediate access to Centennial Airport, the second busiest private airport in the nation.

Todd Witty and Daniel Close are the CBRE brokers marketing the property, expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2022.
Six of the 24 beds in the emergency department at Childrens Hospital Colorado in Colorado Springs are dedicated to mental health patients, but with increasing demand, regular medical beds are sometimes used for mental health cases.
Some festive cheer is missing in major cities and industrial hubs, with scant to no Tet (Lunar New Year) bonus being paid to workers because of pandemic impacts.

With less than two weeks to go for Tet, the nation's most important festival, the number of enterprises reporting bonus payments is extremely small compared to the number of business registrations, reports from provinces and cities show.

For the previous Lunar New Year, more than 30,000 businesses nationwide reported Tet bonuses, with workers receiving an average at VND6.36 million, down 5 percent compared to the previous year, as the country struggled with the first year of Covid.

This year, the ministry has not officially revealed the official Tet bonus figures, although the deadline for localities to report was December 29, 2021.

HCMC, the country's largest economic hub and for long the epicenter of fourth, ongoing Covid-19 wave, has more than 200,000 businesses operating, only 1,000 or so, about 0.5 percent, have reported payment of Tet bonuses to 175,000 workers.

According to a study by the HCMC Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, the average Tet bonus paid to workers this year is VND8.8 million ($386.76), the same as last year. The highest bonus was VND1.3 billion, given by a foreign-invested enterprise.

More than 500 enterprises, accounting for half of the total number of units reporting Tet bonuses, have been struggling to pay them because of reduced orders and stagnant production.

The study found that the highest bonuses will be paid in the power, electronics, finance, insurance and banking sectors. Most small-scale firms will pay out lower bonuses than last year.

The southern province of Dong Nai, home to 1.2 million workers, was also heavily affected by the fourth coronavirus wave. Around 1,000 enterprises, accounting for half of total operating businesses, have reported Tet bonuses that are the same or lower than last year.

The highest bonus paid out in the province was VND800 million  to the CEO of a foreign-invested firm, and the lowest was VND1.75 million.

Last week, around 16,000 workers at a factory of Taiwanese-invested footwear maker Pou Chen Vietnam in Dong Nai Province went on strike to protest the companys Tet bonus cuts.

The company announced that employees who have worked for it a full year or more will be given bonuses of 1-1.54 months salary  around VND5 million ($217) to nearly VND20 million. The highest bonus in 2021 was 1.87 months salary, and in previous years, 2.2 months.

After negotiations between the leaders of the company and the labor union, the Tet bonus was kept the same as last year and workers returned to work Wednesday.

Though northern localities have been less affected than their southern counterparts by the fourth coronavirus wave, Hanoi has recorded a slight decrease in Tet bonus payments compared to the previous year.

Hanoi has nearly 318,000 businesses registered to operate with more than 4.17 million employees but only 6,200 enterprises, or nearly 2 percent, have reported Tet bonus payments.

The average bonus paid by Hanoi firms ranges from VND3.2 to 4.2 million; with the highest one of VND400 million paid by a private enterprise.

Industrial hub Bac Giang, a major coronavirus hotspot last year, has completely restored production. Nearly 280 businesses out of a total of more than 400 operating in the province have reported Tet bonus payments  the highest of nearly VND228 million given by a FDI enterprise and the lowest at just VND100,000.

In Bac Ninh, home to tech giants such as Samsung, employees have received average Tet bonuses of VND5.45 million with the highest of VND212 million paid by a foreign invested firm.

In Da Nang, usually considered the third most important city in Vietnam, the highest bonus was over VND1.4 billion, given by a tech firm, 11 times higher than last year.

In Vietnam, bonuses are based on agreements between employers and employees. The government encourages firms to reward employees based on performance.

The law says bonus payments depend on performance and are not mandatory, but it is considered the biggest and most anticipated reward for workers and a major factor in employees deciding to remain at a company or quit.

Le Van Thanh, Deputy Minister of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, has said that the Tet bonus for the Year of Tiger is likely to be equal or even lower than the previous year. After two years of the pandemic, the backup sources of many businesses are almost exhausted, he said.

Many business units have recorded losses or insignificant profits, but still have to manage to pay full wages for employees, so paying Tet bonus has become even more stressful, he added.

In addition to Tet bonuses, businesses need to be flexible with their policies to retain employees and make them return to work after the holiday. They generally motivate workers to return with plane or train tickets as well as "lucky money."

Thanh said his ministry is considering several programs to revive the labor market. These will cover many areas including provision of minimum living expenses, travel and healthcare expenses, direct cash support and even provision of temporary accommodation to attract migrant workers back to major cities.
The frequency of regular flights between Vietnam and several destinations is being increased starting Sunday to accommodate higher travel demand as Tet (Lunar New Year) draws near.

The Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam (CAAV) has agreed to 14 weekly flights on routes between Hanoi, HCMC and Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei and Singapore; and to 10 weekly flights to and from Bangkok and Phnom Penh.

Vietnam Airlines, Vietjet Air 4, Bamboo Airways and Pacific Airlines will be providing the services.

Regular flights to San Francisco, operated by Vietnam Airlines, would be doubled to four flights a week.

After the government approved a two-week first phase of resumption of international flights to nine destinations starting Jan. 1, the CAAV granted flight slots for domestic carriers to seven of them: Bangkok, Phnom Penh, San Francisco, Seoul, Singapore, Taipei and Tokyo.

Domestic airlines were only allowed to operate a maximum of four flights a week on each of these routes, except San Francisco, which was restricted to two a week.

Regular flights between Vietnam and Australia were also allowed to resume from Saturday at 10 return flights a week. Vietnam Airlines started selling tickets Saturday for flights between Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and Sydney.

The CAAV has also proposed to the Ministry of Transport that regular commercial flights are resumed between Vietnam and France, Germany, Russia and the U.K. at 10 return flights a week. The agency is awaiting the ministry's approval to grant flight slots on these routes.

The CAAV estimates around 140,000 overseas Vietnamese wish to return home to celebrate Tet, the first day of which falls on Feb. 1 this year. The number of passengers flying to Vietnam would exceed 30,000 a week in the run up to Tet, it s estimated.

Tet, Vietnams biggest and most important holiday, often sees millions of migrant workers and overseas Vietnamese return to their homes for family reunions.

Under current regulations, fully vaccinated people and those who have recovered from Covid-19 arriving in Vietnam only need to self-isolate for three days.

Everyone, except children below two, must have tested negative for the novel coronavirus using the PCR method within 72 hours before departure.However, due to the emergence of the new Omicron variant of Covid-19, passengers are also required to undergo a rapid test on landing at Noi Bai and Tan Son Nhat international airports.
On the third Monday of each January, Americans honor the memory of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King was a Baptist minister from the southern state of Alabama, and a leader in the fight against racial inequality in the United States. On January 15th, he would have celebrated his 93rd birthday.

At a time of rampant violence against African Americans who sought to change a system of virtual apartheid in some regions of the United States, Dr. King led a civil rights movement that focused on nonviolent protest. Heavily influenced by Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. King developed a set of six principles that guided the actions of civil rights protestors as they staged mass-action boycotts, sit-ins, peaceful marches and other non-violent acts of civil disobedience. He detailed them in his book, Stride Toward Freedom.

The first states that nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people and a resistance to evil.

Second, nonviolence seeks to win friendship and understanding and engenders redemption and reconciliation.

Next, nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice, not people, since it recognizes that evildoers are not evil people but are also victims.

The fourth principle holds that suffering can educate and transform, and accepts suffering without retaliation. When unearned, suffering has educational and transforming possibilities.

According to the fifth principle, nonviolence chooses love instead of hate.

The sixth principle on nonviolence posits that the universe is on the side of justice. Less than a week before his death he proclaimed that We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.

Dr. Kings, and the Civil Rights Movements greatest achievement came in 1964, with the passage of the Civil Rights Act which outlawed segregation in public places, as well as employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, gender or national origin.

Dr. King was thirty-nine years old when he died by an assassin's bullet on April 4th, 1968. But his legacy lives on. Within a decade, segregationist laws were repealed, and today discrimination is a reviled and legally punishable offence.

Dr. Martin Luther Kings life may be assessed through the lens of his own proclamation that The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

He will not be found wanting.
Martin Luther King Day: What is it? When is it held?

Held on the third Monday of January every year, Martin Luther King Day - also referred to as MLK Day - is a US federal holiday that marks the birthday of Baptist reverend and activist Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, who was a leading figure in the American civil rights movement from the mid-1950s until his assassination in 1968.

Officially designated as a federal holiday by US President Ronald Reagan in 1983, Martin Luther King Day was first observed in 1986. It is also known as a day of service - "a day on, not a day off" - on which Americans are urged to volunteer for charitable organisations to help their communities.

MLK Day is one of only two federal holidays to take place on someone's birthday, with the other being the observance of George Washingtons birthday.

Martin Luther King, Jr: who was he and what did he do?

Born on 15 January 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr played a crucial role in bringing an end to racial segregation laws in the US and in advancing the rights of black Americans.

He rose to national prominence in 1955, after leading a bus boycott by African Americans in Montgomery, Alabama, which came about after Rosa Parks, the secretary of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger.

After going on to co-found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a civil rights group devoted to achieving equality for African Americans through non-violent protest, King helped to organise the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful rally aimed at drawing attention to racial discrimination in the US.

During the historic March on Washington, which drew a gathering of around 250,000 people, King gave his iconic "I have a dream" speech - an address which spelled out his vision for equality and social justice in the US and is considered a defining moment of the civil rights movement.

The following year, President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964 - landmark legislation which, according to the US government, "prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin". King was also influential in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed racial discrimination in voting.

Kings contribution to the civil rights movement saw him named 'Man of the Year' by TIME magazine in 1963. A year later, he was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize.

Martin Luther King's assassination in Memphis

On 4 April 1968, having already survived an assassination attempt a decade earlier, King was shot dead on the balcony of his hotel in Memphis, where he had travelled to show his support for a sanitation workers' strike.

James Earl Ray, a known racist who had escaped from jail just under a year before Kings assassination, pleaded guilty to the murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. Ray later recanted his confession, making unproven claims that he had been framed as part of a conspiracy behind Kings killing. He died in 1998, at the age of 70.

The Lorraine Motel, the hotel where Kings murder took place, was later converted into part of the site of the National Civil Rights Museum, which opened in 1991.
UAE-based Al Ghurair Properties, the real estate development arm of Al Ghurair Investment, has announced a strategic partnership with global technology major Siemens for implementing its world-leading patented Siemens Demand Flow Solution technology along with digital services at its key development in Dubai.

Siemens Demand Flow Solution optimises both chilled water and air distribution systems without compromising on the comfort of the cooling services.

It is designed to deliver immediate results through automated technology, and its built-in analytics alleviate constraints on customers internal resources and extend equipment life.

The partnership aims to accelerate the Emirati group's objectives in the areas of innovation, digitalisation, and sustainability at the Al Ghurair Centre.

The technology provided by Siemens will optimise the performance of the malls systems, enabling the monitoring and controlling of the buildings operations and functions, including air conditioning and energy usage, said the statement for the company.

Siemens solution will help reduce carbon emissions, conserve energy, and lower operating costs. It aims to generate potential energy savings of up to 2.7M kWh annually, which will curb carbon emissions by 1,400 MT each year.

Additionally, the technology will allow Al Ghurair Centre to operate on a cloud platform to enable smart operations such as providing live updates of the malls energy consumption and CO2 impact, as well embedding an interactive dashboard to demonstrate consumption across any time period.

As 2021 marks the 40th year since Al Ghurair Centre was established as the countrys first mall, this is apt testament to the business future direction and its commitment to elevating corporate citizenship, said a top official.

"We are delighted to enter this new partnership with Siemens, a global leader in providing innovative solutions, to accelerate our transformation journey and support our digitalisation and sustainability objectives," stated Al Ghurair Properties CEO Sultan Al Ghurair.

He was speaking during the signing ceremony held virtually in the presence of Franco Atassi, CEO Smart Infrastructure, Siemens Middle East and other Al Ghurair Properties and Siemens Middle East executives.

"Through the implementation of smart technology at Al Ghurair Centre, we aim to accelerate our sustainability targets and reduce the malls carbon footprint. Furthermore, this agreement is testament to our commitment to supporting the countrys leadership to turn the UAE into one of the most smart and sustainable countries in the world," he added.

Atassi said: "We are honoured to be a trusted partner of Al Ghurair Properties in their digitalization journey."

"Buildings are becoming highly connected and data-rich environments, and the technology that Siemens is delivering will enable Al Ghurair Centre to become a smart facility thats sustainable, efficient, safe and comfortable," he added.-TradeArabia News Service




President Nguyen Xuan Phuc at Military Region 5 (Photo: VNA)

President Nguyen Xuan Phuc praised efforts made by the Military Region 5, especially in assisting localities in socio-economic development and ensuring national defence-security.

He asked the Party Committee and High Command of the Military Region 5 to offer a warm Tet to soldiers, policy beneficiaries and poor households, especially those in mountainous, border and island areas.

Officers and soldiers of the Military Region 5 were also required to pay further attention to building and consolidating self-defence militia and all-people defence posture.

Synchronous measures must be adopted to build a politically strong force, with attention being given to political and ideological education, he said, adding that they must well perform defence external work and build a borderline of friendship, peace and cooperation between Vietnam and its neighbouring Laos and Cambodia.

The same day, the State leader had a meeting with retired senior officials in the central region./.
Visitors to Hanoi (Source: hanoimoi.com.vn)

In 2021, Hanoi came second in Trip Advisors top 25 popular destinations in Asia and sixth in the worlds list, reported VNA.

The worlds largest travel site wrote Hanoi has aged well, preserving the Old Quarter, monuments and colonial architecture, while making room for modern developments alongside.

Hanoi ranked first among the 10 cheapest cities to live in the world selected by the USs World Packers. It is described as a multicultural and historical city known for architecture, street food, nightlife, and vast history.

Hoan Kiem lake in Hanoi (Source: hanoimoi.com.vn)

Together with Ho Chi Minh City and Phu Quoc Island, Hanoi was listed among the worlds 100 greatest places to explore on earth in 2021 by the USs Time Magazine.

The city was also on the list of the Best Cities for a Workation released by the UK travel website Holidu, ranking 18th among the 147 cities globally, and named among the top 50 cities responding the best to the COVID-19 pandemic by the UKs Deep Knowledge Analytics.

During the previous year, the city has taken numerous measures to revitalise tourism, launch many new tourism products that suited the new normal and improve COVID-19 safety so as to attract more visitors.

Injured fishermen rescued in Truong Sa

VNA reported the saying of The High Command of Navy Region 4 that on January 15 that military medical staff have provided emergency treatment for a fisherman whose right hand was crushed while working at sea.

The fisherman whose right hand was crushed while working at sea underwent a surgery at the medical centre on Song Tu Tay island, Truong Sa district, Khanh Hoa province. (Photo: VNA)

Nguyen Van Tay, 39, from Tam Nam Quan ward, Hoai Nhon township, the south-central province of Binh Dinh, underwent a surgery at the medical centre on Song Tu Tay island, Truong Sa district, Khanh Hoa province.

The fisherman was then allowed to return to his boat for further care.

On January 13, Truong Sas health centre also provided emergency aid for another fisherman from Tuy Hoa city, Phu Yen province, who also met an occupational accident.

Vietnamese coffee exports to Germany anticipated to see recovery

Vietnams coffee exports to Germany are expected to rebound this year following the implementation of COVID-19 containment efforts and advantages gained from the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA).

Vietnamese coffee exports to Germany anticipated to see recovery (Source: VOV)

Statistics compiled by the International Trade Center (ITC) indicate that Germany imported 1,020 million tonnes of coffee worth US$3.34 billion last year, representing a rise of 0.8% in volume and up 13.2% in value against the same period from 2020, reported VOV.

The average import price of coffee within the German market during the 10-month period last year surged by 12.3% to US$3,256 per tonne.

The countrys coffee exports to Germany faced hurdles last year due to the complicated nature of developments relating to the COVID-19 pandemic

Throughout the reviewed period, Germany imported 175,000 tonnes of coffee worth over US$312 million from the Vietnamese market, representing a fall of 15.8% in volume and 6.0% in value against the same period from 2020.

Most notably, the market share of Vietnamese coffee as part of Germany's total imports dropped from 20.42% during the ten-month period from 2020 to 17.05% in 2021.

According to experts, the enforcement of the EVFTA will contribute to helping the Vietnamese coffee industry boost exports to the German market in the year ahead.

Despite these optimistic signs, Vietnamese coffee exporters have been advised to grasp German coffee consumption tastes in a bid to improve its value and increase its overall market share within the demanding market.

Experts pointed out that Arabica coffee is viewed as being the fastest growing segment and is forecast to enjoy an increase in imports during the 2020 to 2025 period, especially as German consumers increasingly prefer specialty coffee.

Moreover, with ground coffee making up a large market share due to its convenience in consumption, local firms are expected to make use of the huge opportunities to boost exports of the coffee product to the demanding market moving forward.

Painting exhibition shows French artists love for Vietnam

An exhibition by Vietnamese-French painter Vincent Monluc is underway in Ho Chi Minh City, featuring art paintings depicting Vietnamese nature, people and daily life, reported VOV.

A painting on Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica of Saigon in Ho Chi Minh City by Vincent Monluc, which is on display at the exhibition "Dream." (Photo: dantri.com.vn)

The exhibition named Dream will be running through January 20 at Ngo Art Gallery at 21 Vo Truong Toan Street in Thu Duc City.

On display are 95 watercolour and oil paintings created by the 70-year-old artist over the last five years, through which he conveyed his deep love for his homeland Vietnam. Some of them describe the beauty of natural landscapes in Vietnam while others depict daily life of urban Vietnamese.

Monluc was born in Vietnam in 1952. He and his family left Vietnam to live in France when he was just 12 years old. He graduated from the French National School of Decorative Arts (Ecole nationale superieure des Arts Decoratifs) with a degree in cinema.

He returned to Vietnam to establish a company for animation production in HCM City in 1994 and decided to settle down in his motherland in 2019.


A medical staff at the door of a house with COVID-19 infected residents in the northern province of Bac Ninh to give medicine and collect samples for testing. (Photo: VNA)



The capital city of Hanoi detected the highest number of 2,982 cases. It was followed by the central city of Da Nang and the central province Khanh Hoa, with 888 and 680, respectively.

The new infections brought the countrys total caseload to 2,023,546, ranking 28th among 224 countries and territories across the world. Among the cases, 68 were infected with the Omicron variant, all imported and quarantined right upon arrival.

Also on January 16, up to 9,326 patients were declared to be free from the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, lifting the total number of recoveries to 1,727,290.

Meanwhile, 129 new fatalities were reported on the day, raising the death toll to 35,609, equivalent to 1.8 percent of the total infections.

As many as 168,003,163 doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in Vietnam so far, including 78,595,722 first, 72,319,574 second, and 17,087,867 third shots.

More capital flows come to economic, industrial parks in 2021

Economic and industrial parks nationwide drew 539 foreign-invested and 615 domestic projects with a total registered capital of 12.8 billion USD last year despite COVID-19 pandemic, up 15 percent annually, reported Vietnam News Agency according to statistics from the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MoPI).

At Vietnam - Singapore IP in Hai Phong (Photo: VNA)

The additional capital reached 236.2 trillion VND, equivalent to that in 2020.

The ministrys Department of Economic Zones Department said as of late 2021, the country was home to 564 IPs under planning with a total area of 211,700ha, 398 established IPs covering 123,500ha, 292 of them have been put into operation and 108 under construction.

Among 292 IPs under operation, 265 have been equipped with concentrated wastewater treatment plants capable of processing a maximum of 1.24 million cu.m each day, or 91 percent  meeting the target assigned by the National Assembly. Occupancy rate at IPs reached 52.5 percent while that in the operational ones was nearly 71 percent.

At present, there are 18 coastal economic zones in 17 cities and provinces with a total land and water surface area of 871,500ha.

So far, IPs and economic zones have attracted 10,331 foreign and 10,288 domestic projects worth 231.6 billion USD and 2.54 quadrillion VND (11.04 billion USD), respectively. The disbursed capital reached around 69 percent and 46.5 percent of the total registered capital.

Illustrative photo (Source: baodauthau.vn)

The department also reported that the Prime Minister approved the construction, expansion and adjustment of infrastructure in IPs with a total area of roughly 11,231ha last year. As many as 17 IPs in the northern provinces of Bac Giang, Vinh Phuc, Thai Binh, Hai Duong, Hung Yen and Thai Nguyen covering 4,151ha have been approved by the PM for additional planning.

Due to the pandemic, the total revenue of IPs and economic zones neared 182 billion USD last year, down 27 percent year-on-year. They earned some 132 billion USD from exports, or 59 percent of the countrys total, down 11 percent annually, and contributed approximately 121 trillion VND to the State budget, down 7.5 percent.

Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc said over the past time, the Government, ministries, agencies and localities have adopted measures to cut input costs incurred by firms in IPs while accelerating vaccination and taking flexible pandemic prevention and control measures.

A number of initiatives have been launched in IPs, hi-tech and industrial clusters, such as three on-site,  one route  two destinations to fill orders, seek the supply of materials and cut operating costs.

Former Director of the MoPIs Foreign Investment Agency Phan Huu Thang suggested the Government issue policies to draw large-scale projects to IPs, thus forming large-scale production clusters with high connectivity between firms in IPs and economic zones, and between domestic and foreign enterprises.

In particular, further attention should be paid to ecological, industrial-urban-service, support, hi-tech agriculture IPs with synchronous infrastructure, making it easier to lure quality capital, he added.

Hanoi Red Cross Society supports poor, AO victims ahead of Tet

The Red Cross Society of Hanoi held a humanitarian fair in response to the campaign Tet (Lunar New Year) for the poor and Agent Orange victims on January 16, reported Vietnam News Agency.

At the event (Photo: VNA)

Via the event, gifts were presented to over 200 locals living with disabilities and disadvantaged teachers and students in Dong Da district.

On the occasion, 21 scholarship, each worth 1.8 million VND, were granted to orphans. Twenty gifts, each valued at 1 million VND, were offered to teachers and 20 bicycles to students, together with 26 Tet packages to poor families and AO victims. Aid for repair of a Red Cross house in Dong Da district was also provided.

At the event, 200 vouchers worth over 140 million VND were distributed to visitors to exchange for goods on display.

This year, the municipal Red Cross Society and its chapters will present nearly 90,600 Tet gifts to poor, policy beneficiary families, AO and COVID-19-hit victims in the city.

Proposal made to reopen regular flights to France, Germany, UK and Russia

The frequency of regular international routes to France, Germany, the UK, and Russia could be expanded to 10 flights per week for one-way tickets applicable to all airlines of each side for each respective market, reported the Voice of Vietnam.

This is the latest proposal being made by the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) regarding the expansion of the scope and frequency of regular international flights.

Most notably, the CAAV has requested that the Ministry of Transport grant permission to notify the aviation authorities of France, Germany, the UK, and Russia that airlines could potentially reopen regular international flights between Vietnam and these countries.

The CAAV also made the suggestion of working with other countries and territories to decide on the operational frequency on the basis of market demand and in line with aviation agreements signed between Vietnam and other countries and territories.

According to the initial assessment, travel demand to Vietnam from the European region will go through the gateways of France (Paris), Germany (Frankfurt), UK (London), and Russia (Moscow).

Passengers traveling from the European region to Vietnam will still have to fly through gateways that have direct flights. Therefore, the resumption of direct flights from this region to the nation can be considered necessary.

According to CAAV leaders, the expansion of destinations and frequencies mentioned above is essential and is in line with the travel needs of passengers, thereby creating conditions for all Vietnamese airlines to exploit the international aviation market. This can be used as a means of overcoming difficulties in order to stand firm for the cause of greater development.

During the opening week of the year, Vietnamese airlines launched 16 regular commercial flights from the United States, Japan, Thailand, Cambodia, and Taipei (China), with the total number of passengers arriving in the nation reaching approximately 1,000.

The CAAV estimates that there are roughly 140,000 overseas Vietnamese who are wishing to return to their hometowns for Tet celebrations. It is anticipated that the number of passengers returning to the country will therefore exceed 30,000 passengers per week, including Vietnamese citizens, overseas Vietnamese and foreigners, including diplomats, officials, experts, and investors./.




The book on Vietnam-Thailand trade and investment released in Bangkok. (Photo: VNA)

The book was jointly complied by the Commercial Affairs Office at the Vietnamese Embassy in Thailand, and the Thailand-Vietnam Business Council.

In his remarks at the ceremony, Sanan Angubolkul, Chairman of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, said Thailand has now become Vietnams biggest partner in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

I am confident that we will not only continue to be productive in our partnership, but we will take our relationship to new heights of progress, development and the achievement of the goals we have set before us, said Sanan, who is also Chairman of the Thailand  Vietnam Business Council and Chairman of the Thailand  Vietnam Friendship Association.

For his part, Vietnamese Ambassador to Thailand Phan Chi Thanh said 2021 was an important milestone celebrating the 45th founding anniversary of diplomatic relationship between the two countries.

In the long and comprehensive establishment, the two countries have achieved many successes in three key pillars: political-security, economic and socio-culture on the firm basis of the enhanced strategic partnership, he said.

In terms of economic cooperation, Vietnam-Thailand is among a few success stories in the region and beyond, celebrating a blooming cooperation in the past decades, according to the diplomat.

Thailand is Vietnams largest trading partner in ASEAN and the ninth largest FDI investor, while Vietnam is Thailands fifth largest trading partner in the world.

The two countries are also members of many international trade agreements such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement (ATIGA) and the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA).

These strong foundations helped pave the way to further strengthen economic cooperation, allowing businesses to explore various trade and investment opportunities.

I believe that with strong determination and joint efforts, Vietnam and Thailand will complete the target of 25 billion USD in two-way trade in 2025, the ambassador said.

Vietnamese Trade Counsellor in Thailand Tran Thi Thanh My told the Vietnam News Agency (VNA)s correspondents that the book would serve as a useful reference for businesses and readers who are looking for cooperation opportunities in the two countries./.
Statistics compiled by the International Trade Center (ITC) indicate that Germany imported 1,020 million tonnes of coffee worth USD3.34 billion last year, representing a rise of 0.8% in volume and up 13.2% in value against the same period from 2020.



The average import price of coffee within the German market during the 10-month period last year surged by 12.3% to USD3,256 per tonne.

The countrys coffee exports to Germany faced hurdles last year due to the complicated nature of developments relating to the COVID-19 pandemic

Throughout the reviewed period, Germany imported 175,000 tonnes of coffee worth over USD312 million from the Vietnamese market, representing a fall of 15.8% in volume and 6.0% in value against the same period from 2020.

Most notably, the market share of Vietnamese coffee as part of Germany's total imports dropped from 20.42% during the ten-month period from 2020 to 17.05% in 2021.

According to experts, the enforcement of the EVFTA will contribute to helping the Vietnamese coffee industry boost exports to the German market in the year ahead.

Despite these optimistic signs, Vietnamese coffee exporters have been advised to grasp German coffee consumption tastes in a bid to improve its value and increase its overall market share within the demanding market.

Experts pointed out that Arabica coffee is viewed as being the fastest growing segment and is forecast to enjoy an increase in imports during the 2020 to 2025 period, especially as German consumers increasingly prefer specialty coffee.

Moreover, with ground coffee making up a large market share due to its convenience in consumption, local firms are expected to make use of the huge opportunities to boost exports of the coffee product to the demanding market moving forward./.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has issued pardons for 986 male and female prison inmates on the occasion of Eid El-Fitr, the Ministry of Interior announced on Tuesday.
Egyptian authorities succeeded in releasing 20 Egyptian sailors who were held in Yemen over the past several days reportedly over charges of trespassing into Yemeni territorial waters without a permit.
Algerian Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra said Algeria is keen that the relations between Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia are not defined by dangers that they are better off avoiding

Algerian Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra said on Saturday that his country is keen that Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia reach satisfying solutions to the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) issue that preserves their rights.

His remarks came in a joint press conference with his Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Shoukry, during his visit to Cairo. Lamamras tour also included Sudan and Ethiopia.

We believe that the relations between the three countries are passing through a critical stage, Lamamra said during the presser, noting that Algeria is keen to form a complete image of the issue.

Lamamra said Algeria is keen that the relations between the three countries are not defined by these dangers that we are better off avoiding.

Lamamra called for satisfying solutions that achieve for each party its rights and duties  so that absolute transparency is reached in this relation.

He said he was keen during his visits to Sudan, Ethiopia, and Egypt to be briefed on all the information about the issue, adding that he agreed with Shoukry to maintain a dialogue on the crisis.

Algeria is always keen, whenever the circumstances are available and when the climate is suitable, to be part of the solution to these big and existential issues, Lamamra said.

The Algerian FM affirmed that the GERD dispute has attracted international attention, including the convening of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) earlier this month.

Earlier on Saturday, Sudan welcomed an Algerian initiative inviting the leaders of the three countries to hold a direct meeting to reach a solution to the GERD dispute.

Egypt did not immediately respond to the Algerian call and FM Shoukry did not comment on the GERD issue during the presser.

Concerning the situation in Tunisia, Shoukry said Egypt is following with great interest the incidents in the Arab country and hopes that the measures currently taken lead to achieving stability and conforms to the peoples will.

Lamamra voiced his countrys full support to Tunisia so that its institutions are put on the right track.

The top Algerian diplomat said the current incidents in Tunisia is an internal affair, expressing full appreciation of Tunisian sovereignty and solidarity with its people.

On Lebanon, Shoukry affirmed that the current developments in Lebanon are a domestic affair, noting that Egypt aims to contribute to helping Lebanon end its current crisis due to its firm relations with the Lebanese people.

The top Egyptian diplomat expressed hope that the Lebanese political leadership can achieve the aspiration of the people, especially amid challenges including the coronavirus pandemic and the economic situation.

Shoukry also expressed hope that the new Lebanese Prime Minister-designate, Najib Mikati, quickly form a government that is able to get the country out of its political and economic crisis.

Shoukry voiced Egypts full support to Lebanon so that the Arab country achieves stability, security, and prosperity.

Shoukry and Lamamra spoke about their stance towards the situation in Libya.

The Algerian FM said both Egypt and Algeria have decided to shoulder their solidarity-related responsibilities towards Libya, urging the need for vigilance and support to Libyan legitimacy so that the country can end its crisis.

Lamamra affirmed continuous coordination with Egypt and Libyas neighbours, voicing keenness to support the positive developments in the country and open new horizons of progress.

Shoukry said Egypt and Algeria have been concerned about the challenges facing Libyan people and are keen that Libyan solutions be reached to restore the stability in the country.

The Egyptian FM said his country is optimistic that Libya will end its crisis and implement its election entitlement on 24 December, as scheduled, so that a government that represents the Libyan people and achieve security and stability is formed.

Shoukry also affirmed the need for the exit of foreign forces from Libya.

Lamamra said he conveyed during his meeting with Shoukry before the presser Algerian President Abdel-Madjid Tebbounes message to his Egyptian counterpart, President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi.

It is a message of love, a message of brotherhood, a message of renewing commitment to this special kind of relations between the two countries, Lamamra said.

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In a phone call with Lamamra, Shoukry re-extended Egypts condolences to Algeria and its people

Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry stressed to his Algerian counterpart Ramtane Lamamra on Sunday Egypts full solidarity with Algeria amid the wildfires that killed dozens and injured scores of people north of the country throughout the week.

In a phone call with Lamamra, Shoukry re-extended Egypts condolences to Algeria and its people, especially to the families of the victims of the fires that have raged in many Algerian provinces, a statement by the Egyptian foreign ministry read.

Shoukry wished a speedy recovery for the injured.

Algerian authorities estimate the number of deaths at 90, including many soldiers, as firefighters, civilians, and the army have been battling dozens of blazes that have ravaged the country's north since 9 August.

France, Spain, and Russia dispatched helicopters to help Algeria beat the blaze.

Wildfires have also been raging in other Mediterranean countries amid the blistering heat wave.

The Algerian government blames the fires on arsons as well.

President Abdelmadjid Tebboune announced the arrest of 22 suspects for arsons.

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Algerias Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra announced on Tuesday the cessation of his countrys diplomatic relations with Morocco, saying that history has proven time and again Moroccos constant hostilities against Algeria

Secretary-General of the Arab League (AL) Ahmed Abul Gheit and the Arab Parliament on Tuesday urged Algeria and Morocco to exercise self-restraint after Algerian authorities cut diplomatic relations with Rabat.

Algerias Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra announced on Tuesday the cessation of his countrys diplomatic relations with Morocco, saying that history has proven time and again Moroccos constant hostilities against Algeria.

In the wake of Algerias announcement, Morocco expressed its regret for this decision, which is completely unjustified yet expected given the logic of escalation that has been recognised over the recent weeks.

The Moroccan foreign ministry added in a statement that the kingdom will remain trustful and sincere to the Algerian people and will continue to work with wisdom and responsibility in order to develop sound and constructive relations with Algeria.

In a statement by the Arab League, Abul Gheit voiced his deep regret for the heightened tensions between Algeria and Morocco, urging both Arab countries to avoid further escalation.

Both Algeria and Morocco are essential for joint Arab action, an official from the AL general secretariat said in the statement, hoping that they will restore their good relations to maintain stability in the region.

The Arab Parliament also voiced its utmost concern over the developments in the relations between the two countries.

In a statement, the Arab Parliament called on both countries to prioritise their brotherly ties and work to serve the interests of their peoples.

The Arab Parliament called on the two sides to exercise self-restraint and avert further escalation that could harm bilateral relations.

It urged Algeria and Morocco to engage in constructive dialogue to deescalate tensions and discuss controversial issues within a brotherly and Arab framework.

Algeria and Morocco are both heavyweights in the Arab and regional system and should continue to bear the responsibility of enhancing Arab solidarity and overcoming differences and schisms, the statement continued.

The Arab Parliament said it is fully confident in the wise leaderships of the two countries and their ability to ride out the current crisis as soon as possible.

The Algerian move to cut ties with Morocco comes after Algeria said it would review its relations with Rabat last week after accusing it of being complicit regarding the deadly forest fires that have been ravaging the Algerian north.

The forest fires in Algeria, which broke out on August 9 amid a blistering heatwave, burned tens of thousands of hectares of forest and killed at least 90 people, including more than 30 soldiers, according to the AFP.

Algerias foreign minister on Tuesday also accused Moroccos leaders of being responsible for repeated crises and behaviour that has led to conflict instead of integration in North Africa.

Lamamras statement, read out on behalf of Algerias President Abdel-Madjid Tebboune, said Moroccos unfriendly, hostile, and despicable acts against his country have started since Algerias independence, citing incidents in 1963 and 1976.

Lamamras statement also accused Moroccan security and propaganda services of launching a vile and widespread media war against Algeria and Algerian people and leaders by weaving fictional scenarios, creating rumors, and spreading malicious information.

The Algerian FM also referred to a dangerous and irresponsible deviation committed by a Moroccan envoy by addressing what he called the right of self-determination for the brave tribal people who have been subjected to the longest foreign occupation.

Algeria demanded clarification from the Moroccan authorities following this incident, Lamamra said, however, the silence of the Moroccan side in this regard, which has continued since July 16 [2021], clearly reflects the political support [provided] by the highest Moroccan authority for this act.

The deviation in question  that has triggered the current course of action  was a statement given by Moroccos envoy to the United Nations Omar Hilale in July expressing support for the right to self-determination for Algerias traditionally restless Kabylie region, a stronghold of the countrys Amazigh (Berber) minority.

At the time, Algerias foreign ministry said Morocco had thus publicly and explicitly supported an alleged right to self-determination of the Kabyle people.

Hilales comments sparked anger among Algerias political class and on social media, with Algerians defending the countrys territorial unity.

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RTHK: North Korea fires railway-borne missiles

North Korea fired two railway-borne tactical guided missiles, state media reported on Saturday, the country's third weapons test this month despite a volley of new United States sanctions.

South Korea's military said it had detected the launch of two short-range ballistic missiles on Friday afternoon, just hours after Pyongyang accused the United States of "provocation" over fresh sanctions.

The tests were held to "check and judge the proficiency in the action procedures of the railway-borne regiment," Pyongyang's official KCNA news agency said.

North Korea test fired missiles from a train for the first time in September 2021.

Friday's launch "demonstrated high manoeuvrability and rate of hits," KCNA said.

Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said Friday's launches flew a distance of 430 kilometres at an altitude of 36 kilometres.

It was Pyongyang's third weapons test this month, following what it called two successful tests of hypersonic missiles on January 5 and 11.

In response, the United States imposed new sanctions on Pyongyang this week, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying North Korea was likely "trying to get attention" with the string of missile launches.

Dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang remains stalled, and impoverished North Korea is also under a rigid self-imposed coronavirus blockade that has hammered its economy.

At a key meeting of North Korea's ruling party last month, leader Kim Jong Un vowed to continue building up the country's defence capabilities.

In response to the newly imposed sanctions, Pyongyang accused Washington of "intentionally escalating" the situation, saying it had a "legitimate right" to self-defence, a foreign ministry spokesman told state media. (AFP)

This story has been published on: 2022-01-16. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has announced the opening of Infinity Bridge, a key component of the Al Shindagha Corridor Project, spanning 13 km along Sheikh Rashid Street, Al Mina Street, Al Khaleej Street and Cairo Street, which has been built at an investment of AED5.3 billion ($1.4 billion).

Consisting of six lanes in each direction, the Infinity Bridge has an architectural arch shaped in the form of the infinity symbol. The bridges iconic structural design is inspired by the infinity concept, which symbolises Dubais unlimited ambitions.

Infinity Bridge supports development needs and improves the link between Deira and Bur Dubai by raising the total number of lanes crossing Dubai Creek from 48 to 60. It can accommodate 24,000 vehicles per hour in both directions and features a combined 3-metre-wide track for pedestrians and cyclists.

Al Shindagha Corridor is a key strategic project undertaken by RTA that consists of 11 phases.

Construction works for the project started in 2016 and will be completed by 2027 according to the urban development plan of the area.

Currently, there are two circular roads to ease traffic flow and support economic activity in the city. The first is an external road that constitutes an extension of Sheikh Rashid Street and passes along Al Mina Street, Al Khaleej Street, Cairo Street and Al Ittihad Street, said the statement from RTA.

The second is an internal road that constitutes an extension of Sheikh Rashid Street and passes along Al Mina Street, Al Khaleej Street, Abu Bakr Al Siddique Street and Umm Hurair Street, it added.

HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, visited the newly constructed bridge accompanied by Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of The Executive Council of Dubai, and Sheikh Mansoor bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Chairman of the Dubai Council for Border Crossing Points Security.

He reiterated Dubais continued commitment to infrastructure development, saying it was one of the vital pillars of the emirates comprehensive plan for economic and social advancement.

"The roads and transport sector is critical not only to accelerating economic growth but also enhancing the wellbeing of the community. The rapid development of Dubais roads and transport network, with investments exceeding AED140 billion over the past fifteen years, reflects our belief in the role a strong infrastructure base plays in enhancing our global competitiveness, creating new growth opportunities, providing a supportive environment for business and ensuring the highest possible quality of life for citizens, residents and visitors to the emirate," he added.

Sheikh Mohammed was briefed by Mattar Mohammed Al Tayer, RTA Director-General and Chairman on the ongoing implementation of infrastructure projects in Dubai, especially in the roads and transport sector.

Over the past few decades, Dubais rapid development as a global commercial hub has been catalysed by world-class mega road and transport projects like Dubai Metro, Dubai Tram, Business Bay Crossing, road projects leading to Expo 2020 Dubai, the expansion of the Al Khail Road and the Al Khawaneej axis and other projects, he stated.

The current section of Al Shindagha Corridor Project encompasses the construction of 15 junctions with a total length of 13 km.

Due to its immense scope, the project is being built in five phases. The completion rate in the entire section of the project has now reached 85% and is expected to be completed in the second half of this year.

The Corridor serves Deira and Bur Dubai in addition to several development projects such as Deira Islands, Dubai Seafront, Dubai Maritime City and Port Rashid, and is expected to serve one million persons. It will slash travel time from 104 minutes to just 16 minutes by 2030, and the time saved over 20 years will be worth about AED45 billion.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has reiterated on Tuesday his call for the participation of the private sector in new projects with the public sector.

In a televised talk during his inspection of Kima Ammonia and Urea Complex in Aswan, El-Sisi lauded progress in the complex, yet warned of a return to a deterioration of factories due to a failure of management.

He set pricing, management and governance as elements of success for new projects, stressing that past management in the past 40 years by public enterprise companies has proven inefficient.

The private sector is welcome to contribute in new projects and factories. I repeat [my invitation] for the fourth time. We need the private sector. We have been proven incompetent in management in the last 40 years, he said.

He added that new factories would collapse again if the same course of borrowing for development continues.

We do not want to return to devastation, El-Sisi said, referring to the states conditions in the past in 2011.

He said the country was only saved by God from the devastation and destruction, stressing that Egyptians should never forget [what happened] in 2011.

He vowed the inviolability of workers rights during the reform process in public enterprise companies, adding that the state Is bearing the burdens of reforms being implemented in the companies.

El-Sisi's statements came during his inspection of Kimas Ammonia and Urea Complex in Aswan as part of an extensive inspection tour since the start of the week to Upper Egypts developmental projects.

The EGP 12 billion mega plant has a production capacity of 1,200 tonnes and 1,575 tonnes per day of ammonia and urea respectively.

It aims to fill the gap in the ammonia market, and establish an integrated industrial city in Aswan.

Public enterprise minister Hisham Tawfik said Egypts the sixth biggest producer and fifth biggest exporter of urea, with production estimated at 6.7 million tons of urea annually, with local consumption set at 2.9 million tons and exports at 3.8 million tons.

He said local production of ammonium nitrate was estimated at 1.1 million tons in 2020, with consumption of 1 million tons locally.

Egypts exports of fertilizers is estimated at approximately nine percent of total exports, he said.

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Egypt reported 1,101 new coronavirus infections on Saturday as the cases continue to rise bringing the total infection toll up to 398,879 since the outbreak began in February 2020, the health ministry said.

The ministry also reported 26 new deaths in the past 24 hours nationwide, bringing the total fatalities nationwide to 22,123.

The statement added that 924 patients have been discharged from hospitals after recovering from the virus, bringing the total number of recoveries to 332,531

So far, Egypt has secured around 129 million doses of different coronavirus vaccines, Acting Health Minister Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar told media on Friday.

Egypt has administered around 36 million first vaccine shots, 24 million second shots, and half a million booster shots, Abdel-Ghaffar added.

In a statement on Saturday, Egypts health ministry urged citizens to take the coronavirus vaccine, affirming that unvaccinated people are at higher risk of developing severe symptoms and being hospitalised if they contracted the virus.

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Egypt received a shipment of 3 million doses of coronavirus Pfizer vaccine on Sunday as a donation from the United States via the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) program, and in cooperation with the Vaccine Alliance (GAVI), the health ministry announced.

According to the US Embassy in Cairo, the US has so far delivered 19.5 million doses of coronavirus vaccines to Egypt.

Since August, Egypt has received shipments comprising millions of the US-made Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer jabs. The country received its first Pfizer vaccine shipment from the US in late September.

The shipments are part of 500 million Pfizer vaccine doses donated by the US to the African Union countries through COVAX.

Egypt has used the Pfizer vaccine in its mass vaccination campaign along with several other vaccines, but has been also dedicated the jab for inoculating children aged 12-18.

According to Egypts acting Health Minister Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar on Friday, Egypt has secured around 129 million doses of different coronavirus vaccines.

Abdel-Ghaffar added in media statements that Egypt has administered around 36 million first vaccine shots, 24 million second shots, and half a million booster shots.

So far, Egypt tops Africa in its coronavirus vaccine stock from Sinopharm, Sinovac, AstraZeneca, Sputnik V, Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

Egypt has recently seen a rise in the number of cases infected with the new coronavirus variant Omicron.

On Saturday, the health ministry urged people suffering from common cold symptoms to consider that they may have contracted COVID-19 and, therefore, to self-isolate and make sure to stop sharing personal tools with family members.

During the weekend, Egypt has been witnessing above the 1,000 case-mark per day for the first times since May, and has so far detected 398,879 cases including 22,123 deaths and 332,531 recoveries.

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British former prime minister Tony Blair said Sunday his leadership should be remembered for more than the Iraq war as he rejected fierce criticism over his receipt of a knighthood.

The Labour party's most successful leader, who won three successive general elections, was made Sir Tony in Queen Elizabeth II's New Year's Honours list.

The announcement was defended by the Conservative government, but several online petitions want it rescinded. One on change.org, accusing Blair of "war crimes", has drawn more than one million signatories.

Blair said he had accepted not just for himself but for the "dedicated, committed people" who had worked with him in government and "provided a lot of change to the country".

"And of course there would be people who object to it strongly. That's to be expected," he told Times Radio.

"There are some people who want to say the only thing the government did was Iraq and ignore all the rest of the things we do," Blair added.

But he stressed "you don't occupy a position of leadership and take decisions without arousing a lot of opposition, and so it didn't surprise me".

The Queen personally appointed Blair as "Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter", the most senior order of knighthood.

She previously knighted former Conservative prime minister John Major in this way in 2005.

Blair, now 68, defeated Major with a landslide Labour victory in 1997 and spent a decade in office.

His successes included securing peace in Northern Ireland, investments in health and education, and expanding gay rights. But he was widely reviled at home for his support for the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

Senior Conservative minister Michael Gove, while noting their political differences, said this week that Blair was an "outstanding statesman and performer".

Current Labour leader Keir Starmer said Blair had earned his knighthood, arguing he "made Britain a better country".

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Egypts Senate rejected on Sunday a proposal by an MP to give a paid paternal leave of seven days to fathers to care for their newly born babies in the first six months during a debate of women labour-related-articles in the new draft labour law.

MP Mohamed Farid from the Coordination Committee of Party Youth and Politicians (CPYP), who presented the proposal, said during the discussion that many Arab and foreign countries adopt paternal leaves to care for the newly born.

Nevertheless, the proposal did not receive the consent of most of the members of Senate, the consultative Upper House.

Senate Speaker Abdel-Wahab Abdel-Razek commented on the proposal that it was a fine idea, but every society has its own circumstance.

The Manpower Ministrys representative, who attended the session, revealed that the National Council for Woman presented a similar suggestion, adding that the government can take it into consideration later.

The Senate discussed on Sunday article 50 from the Labour draft law that stipulates that female workers have the right to take a paid maternity leave for a period of four months including the period preceding and following delivery, provided that period of such leave shall not be less than 45 days on the condition she submits medical certificate indicating the likely date of the delivery.

The article adds that women workers shall not have this leave for more than three times throughout her work career.

During the session, several MPs proposed to reduce the number of paternal leaves allowed from three to two times in the law but the suggestion was rejected.

The Senate also agreed on article 56 from the draft law that stipulates that work owners who hire 100 women workers or more must establish a daycare center in work or assigned a daycare center for the workers children in accordance with the Child law

The article added that work establishments located in one area and employ less than one hundred women workers shall participate in establishing in one daycare center or assign a daycare center for their workers in accordance with the terms and conditions of the Child law.

The Senate will convene Monday to resume discussions over the articles of the country's new labour law following a two-week holiday.

The discussions kicked off on Saturday and continued on Sunday.

The Senate, which gave a preliminary approval of the law on 2 January, finished discussing and passing 38 articles out of a total 267 on Saturday.
Scott McDonald, the chief executive of the British Council, made his first visit to Egypt since his appointment on 11 January to review the British Councils work in the country.

The British Councils activities in Egypt include ensuring greater access to the English language and UK education, qualifications, arts, and culture.

McDonald also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Al-Azhar and the British Council.

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McDonald made an auspicious start to his three-day visit by meeting with the Grand Imam Ahmed El-Tayeb to discuss future cooperation between the British Council and Al-Azhar, where the grand imam emphasised the importance of this long-term partnership that began in 2007.

Towards the end of the meeting, the British Council and Al-Azhars academic co-operation was renewed by signing a new three-year MoU between the two parties, which aims to strengthen existing areas of work in addition to addressing other emerging needs related to teachers English language proficiency, climate education and English as a medium of instruction.

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McDonald then had the chance to visit the British Council in Egypts offices, the oldest British Council office overseas and the largest teaching centre.

He also got the opportunity to see how exams are delivered and the integrity of the processes in place to deliver UK exams to a very high standard. British Council Egypt delivers nearly 150,000 exams annually.

Furthermore, he reviewed how the British Councils teaching centres served tens of thousands of students per year, and how it is developing the English language competency of students with disabilities as part of wider CSR programmes.

This is an inspiring country with inspiring people, and some fantastic work is happening between Egypt and the UK. It is my first time in Egypt, and Im already captivated by the country and people and the Pyramids! The British Council in Egypt has been open since 1938 and has a long history of building trust between the UK and Egypt, said McDonald.

Despite the obstacles created by the pandemic, its been wonderful to see during my visit that we are still able to connect with millions of students, educators, academics, creators, and entrepreneurs  often in new and innovative ways  and build links with the UK for the benefit of all.

Ive seen first-hand how our focus here in Egypt on providing opportunities for young people, especially women and girls, supports them to achieve the education, qualifications and skills needed to reach their potential in future careers and life, he added.

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During McDonalds visit, he also met with a diverse group of British Council partners and beneficiaries, where he got the opportunity to talk to inspiring young people, entrepreneurs, scholars, artists, and scientists, and understand how the opportunities provided by the British Council and their cultural programmes with the UK add value to both the UK and Egypt in terms of connecting people, developing mutual understanding, and building trust between the two countries.

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The event  Cairo's Contribution to the Enrichment of Islamic Culture: Architecture, Calligraphy, and Antiquities  included an exhibition of photographs illustrating the architecture of mosques, Arabic calligraphy and Islamic art, and documentaries about the Museum of Islamic Art.

Egypts embassy in Belgrade organised the event on Saturday, which was hosted by the Islamic Community of Serbia.

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In his opening speech, Egyptian Ambassador to Serbia Amr Aljowaily highlighted Egypt's contribution to the Islamic World Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO), which hosted its general conference in Cairo in December 2021.

During the conference, ISESCO named Cairo the capital of Islamic culture for 2022.

The ambassador also touted Egypts contribution to the Arab Organization for Education, Culture and Science (ALECSO), which declared Luxor the capital of Arab culture for 2017.

Aljowaily said that the celebration included an exhibition of three collections composed of 60 photographs offered by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture illustrating the masterpieces of mosque architecture, Arabic calligraphy and Islamic art, in addition to documentaries about the Museum of Islamic Art in Old Cairo.

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Sheikh Mustafa Jusufspahic, the mufti of Belgrade, gave a speech praising the leading cultural role of Egypt in the Arab and Islamic world, and welcoming the opportunity to host this first event of its kind in the Bajrakli Mosque, one of the oldest mosques in Serbia.

He also confirmed continued cooperation with the embassy, which includes receiving Quran reciters from Egypt during the holy month of Ramadan.

Ambassador Aljowaily also referred to the ongoing coordination in his speech, referencing the sending of professors from Al-Azhar University specialized in Arabic language and Islamic jurisprudence, and the extending of university scholarships.

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Baghdad has repatriated almost 4,000 of its citizens stuck on the Belarus borders with European Union members Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia in recent weeks, Iraq's foreign minister said Sunday.

Since November 18, the Iraqi government has organized "10 flights from Baghdad to Belarus" to repatriate its citizens, Fuad Hussein told a press conference in Baghdad with his Lithuanian counterpart.

"We have been able to repatriate around 4,000 Iraqis who were stuck on the Belarus borders with Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia," he said.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Fouad Hussein, right, and visiting Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, hold a news conference following their meeting, in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, Jan 16, 2022. AP

Foreign ministry spokesman Ahmed al-Sahaf later told AFP that "3,817 Iraqi migrants have been repatriated from Belarus and 112 from Lithuania".

The flights have generally arrived in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, where many of the would-be migrants are from, before continuing to Baghdad.

Sahaf said some Iraqis were still stuck in Belarus, but that "the difficult weather and complex environment do not allow rescuers to determine their numbers".

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, who also met with Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi, said he wanted "to bring in new cooperation ideas" with Iraq.

A handout picture released by Iraq's Prime Minister's Media Office shows Premier Mustafa al-Kadhemi (R) during a meeting with Lithuania's foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, in Baghdad, on January 16, 2022, to discuss the issue of Iraqi refugees in Europe. AFP

Since last summer, thousands of migrants, many from the Middle East and Iraq in particular, had been camped on the Belarus-EU border, often in bitter conditions, trying to enter the bloc.

The West has accused Belarus of luring the migrants to the border as revenge for sanctions against President Alexander Lukashenko's regime.

Belarus has denied the claim and criticized the EU for not taking in the migrants.

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Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sameh Shoukry and his Algerian counterpart, Ramtane Lamamra, affirmed the need for backing an internal solution to the Libyan crisis and stopping all forms of foreign interference in Libyas affairs in a meeting held on Sunday in Cairo.

The meeting also discussed bilateral relations as well as regional and Arab issues of mutual concern, a statement by the Egyptian foreign ministry read.

The top diplomats highlighted the necessity of the exit of all foreign forces as well as mercenaries and foreign fighters from Libyan territories.

This should meet the aspirations of the brotherly Libyan people in achieving security, stability, and prosperity, the ministers affirmed.

Libya was unable to meet the deadline to hold parliamentary and presidential elections on 24 December, which was part of a roadmap adopted by the United Nations-sponsored Libyan Political Dialogue Forum.

The Libyan Higher National Elections Commission (HNEC) proposed 24 January as an alternative date, citing force majeure" behind the postponement of the polls.

Libya has been mired in political turbulence since the toppling of former President Muammar Al-Qaddafi in 2011.

Joint African and Arab work

The ministers also called for intensifying coordination within the framework of joint African work in a way that enhances the efforts of achieving security, stability, and prosperity in Africa.

This comes especially in light of the various security challenges posed by the consecutive developments in the region, the statement said.

Furthermore, Shoukry and Lamamra underscored the need to continue coordination to boost joint Arab work under the League of Arab States.

Additionally, the meeting discussed developments in Sudan, Mali, and the Sahara-Sahel region, the statement read.

The two top diplomats agreed to continue coordination and consultations around regional issues and matters of mutual concern.

The also agreed to maintain Egyptian-Algerian cooperation in various fields and work on strengthening their economic relations.

Lastly, they expressed their keenness to prepare for the next session of the Supreme Joint Committee between the two countries.

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Egypt's Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly denied that the relations between Egypt and Joe Biden's administration are "lukewarm," saying the Egyptian-US strategic partnership has been maintained over the past decades.

Madbouly made the remarks in an interview with BBC News Arabic's Bela Hodoud (No Limits) program broadcast on Sunday, where he also spoke about the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) crisis with Ethiopia along with other topics.

Related Sisi reiterates call for participation of private sector in new projects

The premier also explained plans to list the companies belonging to the government and the Armed Forces on the Egyptian Exchange (EGX) and commented on the situation of human rights and freedom of expression in Egypt.

The interview was conducted on the sidelines of the fourth edition of the World Youth Forum that ran from 10 to 13 January in the Red Sea resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh.

Egyptian-US relations

Egypt and the US have shared a strategic partnership since mid-1970s and the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty in Washington, Madbouly said.

The partnership linking the two countries have continued through consecutive US and Egyptian administrations in light of the two countries' keenness to continue and enhance those ties, Madbouly added.

"Relations between any two states pass through phases of convergence and apathy based on the visions of some administrations," Madbouly said.

However, he denied that the US and Egypt are in a current period of "lukewarm" relations.

Madbouly said, although it is commonly reported that Egypt shared better relations with the former US administration of President Donald Trump, the two countries held their Strategic Dialogue for the first time [since 2015] last November during Biden's tenure.

The US-Egypt Strategic Dialogue "had not been held even during the tenure of the former administration," the premier said.

Listing of government, army companies

Madbouly highlighted Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi's earlier remarks regarding plans to list the companies belonging to the Egyptian Armed Forces or the government on the stock exchange and enabling partnerships with the private sector in all national projects.

Egypt seeks to list many public and Armed Forces' companies on the Egyptian stock exchange (EGX) during the coming year, Madbouly said, affirming that Egypt already started to list public sector and government companies on EGX.

Late in 2020, Egypt's Planning Minister Hala El-Saeed revealed national plans to offer the National Company for Producing and Bottling Water (Safi) and Wataniya Petroleum for private sector investment.

Madbouly said some of the public sector and Armed Forces companies are being restructured so that they become ready for listing.

The Armed Forces institutions in Egypt account for less than one percent of the Egyptian economy, Madbouly said, stressing that the economy will always depend on the private sector.

These companies have contributed to sectors that saw weak or no presence of the private sector, Madbouly said, adding that infrastructure projects accounted for over 50 percent of the national spending over the past period.

"We were importing heavily and paying with hard currency in some industries because the private sector only covered 10-20 percent of these sectors," the premier said.

Human rights, freedom of speech

Madbouly reiterated that Egypt has adopted a comprehensive concept of human rights that include social, economic, environmental and political dimensions.

He added that standards of human rights in developed countries do not necessarily apply to that of developing states, noting that many organisations that criticise Egypt's human rights and freedom of expression situation depend in their analysis on "individual cases."

"The real problem is that most of these organisations work out their reports based on individual cases that cannot be generalised to describe the general situation in the Egyptian state," Madbouly said.

He asserted that the Egyptian media platforms have the space for different opinions, even those criticising the political leadership, saying that space for freedom of expression in Egypt is "far larger than that in many countries in the Middle East."

Madbouly revealed that the state is using media platforms that it owns or supervises to explain the "real situation" given the presence of "a multitude of anti-Egyptian state media platforms."

"We are trying as much as we can to make a balance and explain the real situation because there are a multitude of media platforms that are all directed against the Egyptian state," Madbouly said.

Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam

Madbouly commented on the dispute between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia regarding the massive dam Ethiopia is constructing on the Blue Nile, saying Egypt has called for dialogue to resolve the crisis.

"Egypt has always affirmed that we are not against any development in any of the Nile Basin countries and informed the Ethiopian side that we are keen to partake in establishing this dam," Madbouly said.

He affirmed that these projects, however, should not cause any harm to Egypt's rights in Nile water.

"We have always called that Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia reach a consensus on a legal, binding agreement that regulates the development and the rights of all these countries in benefitting from the River Nile."

Madbouly affirmed that conflict and dispute over Nile are not in the benefit of any of the peoples of the three countries.

Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia have all expressed their readiness to resume the African Union-sponsored talks on GERD, which stalled in April last year over Ethiopias intransigence, according to the two downstream countries.

In September, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) issued a presidential statement encouraging the three countries to resume negotiations, under the auspices of the AU.

The statement urged the countries to finalise expeditiously the text of [a] mutually acceptable and binding agreement on the filling and operation of the GERD.

Egypt and Sudan have continued to demand that a legally-binding agreement is reached on GERD to guarantee their water interests and the right of their peoples to the Nile water and prevent any harms to Sudanese dams.

Despite warnings from Egypt and Sudan about any unilateral steps regarding GERD before said agreement is reached, Ethiopia implemented the second phase of filling the dam in July without the two countries consent.

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With ships expected to instal an approved ballast water treatment system (BWTS) well in time before the IMO Regulation D2 takes effect, Northstar Technology said its 3D Scanning Bureau can provide essential services to companies that are under pressure to undertake BWTS retrofitting.

Invasive aquatic species present in the ship's ballast water is one of the consistent problems in the offshore industry, as it leads to increased bio-invasion, posing a threat to the marine ecosystem, said Keith Bernard, NorthStar Technology Project Manager ( [email protected] )

In accordance with the IMO Regulation D2, which comes into effect on September 8, 2024, all ships are expected to undertake Ballast Water Exchange and instal an approved ballast water treatment system.

For nearly all merchant vessels, this involves installing and retrofitting of BWTS. Regulations have resulted in an increased number of BWTS being installed in both new and old vessels, but this can be a challenge due to several factors, including (and once again) space constraints, he explained.

At Northstar Technology, our 3D Scanning Bureau has many years experience with 3D laser scanning and modelling conversion, in support for BWTS retrofitting companies. By scanning and modelling all the related locations on the ships, including tie-in and cable locations, we will be able to export them into clear 2D drawings and 3D models to aid in the retrofitting, saving time and reducing chances of error, stated Bernard.

The service can be carried out on behalf of the owners while the vessel is berthed in Bahrain or any of the Gulf ports, he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Egypts Prosecutor-General Hamada El-Sawy opened an urgent investigation into the death of veteran journalist and TV host Wael El-Ebrashy, who died last week due to coronavirus complications.

In a statement on Saturday, the prosecution said it took its decision after El-Ebrashys widow filed a complaint with the prosecution accusing a doctor of causing El-Ebrashys death.

Renowned lawyer Samir Sabry, representative of widow Sahar Abdou, filed the complaint last week against doctor Sherif Abbas, who treated El-Ebrashy during the early stages of his illness.

Sabry said El-Ebrashy was the victim of a full-fledged murder committed by the doctor.

Wael El-Ebrashy, the former presenter of the Al-Tasea (9 o'clock) program on national TV, contracted the coronavirus in late 2020 and was admitted to the intensive care unit of a quarantine hospital in Giza.

However, he left the hospital in March of last year after his health improved, but continued to receive treatment at home after developing pulmonary fibrosis due to the coronavirus.

This disease prevented him from returning to TV screens, despite frequent reports that he had almost recovered.

Abdou complained that the doctor persuaded El-Ebrashy to undergo treatment at home and take unknown pills that he claimed were effective against coronavirus, the prosecutions statement said.

The widow also complained that the doctor smoked heavily in El-Ebrashys bedroom while treating him at home, despite the smokes negative impact, the statement added.

Although El-Ebrashy was diagnosed with lung inflammation and fibrosis, the doctor insisted on continuing to treat him with the same drug, which he claimed to have invented, the widow said in the complaint.

The widow said El-Ebrashy then contacted other doctors and was admitted to the hospital with a critical case of pulmonary fibrosis, according to the prosecution.

The doctors treated El-Ebrashy for over a year until he died as a result of the diseases complications, the widow added.

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Egypts Ministry of Health has urged people suffering from common cold symptoms to consider that they may have contracted COVID-19 and, therefore to self-isolate and make sure to stop sharing personal tools with family members.

In a statement on Saturday, the ministry updated its health advice to people in Egypt on how to deal with cold symptoms or suspected coronavirus infection so that they can avoid developing severe symptoms and passing infection to others.

The advice comes a day after Egypts Acting Health Minister Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar confirmed to media that Egypt is witnessing a rise in the number of cases infected with the new coronavirus variant Omicron.

Different data worldwide suggest that the Omicron may mimic common cold and flu symptoms, including runny nose, sore throat, headache, sneezing, and fatigue.

In its Saturday statement, the ministry urged citizens to take the coronavirus vaccine as the first line of defence that protects society from the negative impacts of coronavirus.

The vaccines also decrease the possibility of developing severe coronavirus symptoms, hospitalisation, and admission to ICUs, the ministry affirmed.

Separately, the ministry warned that Omicron is spreading quickly and can cause unvaccinated people to develop severe symptoms.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Wednesday that although Omicron is less severe than the Delta strain but it still poses a danger, especially for unvaccinated people.

In the current wave of the pandemic in Egypt, unvaccinated people were 65 times more likely to be hospitalised due to COVID-19 compared to those who received two vaccine shots and 260 times more likely to be hospitalised compared to those who received a booster shot, according to data released by the health ministry on Saturday.

So far, Egypt has secured around 129 million doses of different coronavirus vaccines, Abdel-Ghaffar told media on Friday.

Egypt has administered around 36 million first vaccine shots, 24 million second shots, and half a million booster shots, Abdel-Ghaffar added.

Egypt has started sending text notifications to fully vaccinated individuals detailing appointment slots for booster shots of the coronavirus vaccine last month.

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AstraZeneca announced on Sunday that the Egyptian Drug Authority (EDA) has granted AstraZenecas Evusheld an emergency use authorisation (EUA).

The EUA follows a recent procurement agreement for Evusheld inked in December 2021 by AstraZeneca and the EDA for unified procurement, medical supply, and technology management for the Ministry of Health and Population.

Evusheld is tixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab, a long-acting antibody combination for pre-exposure prevention of COVID-19.

AstraZeneca said that the first doses of the drug are expected to become available in Egypt in the coming weeks.

It added that Evusheld is meant to protect vulnerable populations who may be unable to mount an adequate immune response following a COVID-19 vaccination due to pre-existing medical conditions such as blood cancers, patients receiving chemotherapy, those on hemodialysis, and other conditions causing immunosuppression.

On 14 December, the EDA and AstraZeneca signed a procurement agreement for unified procurement, medical supply, and technology management (UPA) for the recently authorised long-acting antibody (LAAB) combination, Evusheld.

Egypt is one of the first countries to sign a procurement agreement for doses of our new long-acting antibody medicine. Evusheld will play a critical role in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic to prevent virus symptoms and provide long-lasting protection, said Hatem Werdany, AstraZenecas country president for Egypt.

The company noted that the primary data supporting the Evusheld EUA is from the ongoing PROVENT trial, which demonstrated an 83 percent reduction in the risk of developing symptomatic COVID-19, with protection from the virus continuing for at least six months.

Additionally, in the TACKLE outpatient treatment trial, Evusheld reduced the risk of developing severe COVID-19 or death by 88 percent when administered to non-hospitalised patients with mild to moderate COVID-19 within three days, according to the company.

Two independent studies from University College Oxford and Washington University School of Medicine have also shown that Evusheld retains neutralising activity against the Omicron variant.

These tests are in line with previous results from tests conducted by the US Food and Drug Administration and add to the growing body of evidence demonstrating that Evusheld retains activity against all tested SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern to date.

As part of its global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, AstraZeneca has also supplied to date over 16.7 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to Egypt.

Also in December, Egypt received 347,460 doses of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine under the umbrella of the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Initiative (COVAX).

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Mali's former president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who led the West African country from 2013 until he was ousted in a coup in 2020, died at the age of 76 in the capital Bamako on Sunday, his family said.

"President IBK died this morning at 0900 GMT in his home" in Bamako, a family member told AFP using the ex-leader's initials, with several other family members confirming his passing.

The cause of Keita's death was not given.

Keita was two years into his second five-year term when he was toppled by the military in 2020.

In the weeks before the coup, he had been struggling with protests fuelled by his handling of a jihadist insurgency and failure to turn around Mali's floundering economy.

Keita was forced out of office on August 18, 2020 by young military officers who staged an uprising at a base near Bamako before heading into the city, where they seized Keita and other leaders.

Under pressure from the West African bloc ECOWAS, the junta that emerged from the rebellion released Keita on August 27 and returned him to his residence in Bamako, under surveillance.

He suffered a mini-stroke the following month, and was sent to United Arab Emirates for treatment.

The ruling junta would stage another coup in May 2021.

ECOWAS this month agreed to sanction Mali after the junta proposed it would to stay in power for up to five years before staging elections -- despite international demands that it respect a promise to hold the vote in February.

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Twitter said it had permanently suspended an account linked to Iran's supreme leader that posted a video calling for revenge for a top general's assassination against former US president Donald Trump.

"The account referenced has been permanently suspended for violating our ban evasion policy," a Twitter spokesperson told AFP.

The account, @KhameneiSite, this week posted an animated video showing an unmanned aircraft targeting Trump, who ordered a drone strike in Baghdad two years ago that killed top Iranian commander General Qassem Soleimani.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's main accounts in various languages remain active. Last year, another similar account was suspended by Twitter over a post also appearing to reference revenge against Trump.

The recent video, titled "Revenge is Definite", was also posted on Khamenei's official website.

According to Twitter, the company's top priority is keeping people safe and protecting the health of the conversation on the platform.

The social media giant says it has clear policies around abusive behavior and will take action when violations are identified.

As head of the Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Soleimani was the architect of its strategy in the Middle East.

He and his Iraqi lieutenant were killed by a US drone strike outside Baghdad airport on January 3, 2020.

Khamenei has repeatedly promised to avenge his death.

On January 3, the second anniversary of the strike, the supreme leader and ultraconservative President Ebrahim Raisi once again threatened the US with revenge.

Trump's supporters regularly denounce the banning of the Republican billionaire from Twitter, underscoring that accounts of several leaders considered authoritarian by the United States are allowed to post on the platform.

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Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian on Sunday called for resolving the refugee issues and anti-Syrian embargoes as means to help settle Syria's crisis, according to Iran's Foreign Ministry.

"Without considering the issue of refugees and the sanctions imposed on Syria, (resolving) the crisis in this country cannot be directed in the right direction," Amir Abdollahian said at a meeting with the visiting UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen.

Amir Abdollahian thanked the special envoy for helping the national dialogue, peace, and stability in Syria, emphasizing Iran's efforts in helping him succeed in restoring peace and stability in Syria.

Underlining Iran's view on the political solution to the Syrian crisis from the beginning of conflicts, he said that the United Nations has been considered, by Iran, as a part of the pursuit of a political solution in Syria.

He blamed the "illegal presence of US forces as well as the Israeli attacks on the Arab country for disrupting the political settlement of conflicts in Syria," and stressed the need for the international community and the United Nations to pay attention to it.

For his part, Pedersen described the situation in Syria as stable, noting that under the current situation, no involved party is talking about regime change in Damascus.

He also stressed the preservation of national sovereignty, the political establishment, and the territorial integrity of Syria.

Iran has been a major ally of the Syrian government in its fight against the armed rebels since 2011.

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All four people taken hostage in a more than 10-hour standoff at a Texas synagogue have been freed unharmed, police said late Saturday, and their suspected captor is dead.

The hostage siege in the small Texas town of Colleyville -- in which the suspect was apparently demanding the release of a convicted terrorist -- had sparked an outpouring of concern from US Jewish organizations as well as from the Israeli government.

Colleyville police chief Michael Miller told a news conference that a "rescue team breached the synagogue" Saturday evening and rescued the three remaining hostages being held inside. A first hostage had been released unharmed a few hours earlier.

"The suspect is deceased," Miller told reporters.

FBI Dallas Special Agent Matt DeSarno said the four hostages -- who included a much-loved local rabbi, Charlie Cytron-Walker, were not in need of medical attention, would soon be reunited with their families.

"He did not harm them in any way," he said.

There were reports from journalists at the scene of a loud explosion and gunshots at the synagogue shortly before the press conference.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott had announced that the remaining hostages were "out alive and safe" at 9:30 pm (0330 Sunday GMT).

That was more than 10 hours after police were alerted to the emergency at the Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, some 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of Dallas.

ABC News reported that the hostage-taker was armed and had claimed to have bombs in unknown locations. That was not confirmed by police although Miller said that "bomb techs are clearing the scene."

Quoting a US official briefed on the matter, ABC reported the man was demanding the release of Aafia Siddiqui, who has been dubbed "Lady Qaeda" by US tabloids.

DeSarno told the news conference the suspect had been identified but did not disclose his identity.

The FBI special agent did not confirm the suspect's demands, but said they were "focused on one issue that was not specifically threatening to the Jewish community" -- and that he did not believe there was an ongoing threat.

ABC initially said the man claimed to be Siddiqui's brother, but later clarified her brother is in Houston -- while other experts said the word the man used in Arabic was more figurative and meant "sister" in the Islamic faith.

Aafia Siddiqui's lawyer said she "has absolutely no involvement" in the hostage situation in a statement to CNN. The lawyer confirmed that the man was not Siddiqui's brother and said she condemned his actions.

Siddiqui, a former Pakistani scientist, was in 2010 sentenced by a New York court to 86 years in prison for attempted murder of US officers in Afghanistan. The high-profile case sparked outrage in Pakistan.

She is currently being held at Federal Medical Center (FMC) prison in Fort Worth, Texas.

'Horrifying'

A live stream of the congregation's Shabbat morning service, available on Facebook for around four hours during the standoff, appeared to capture audio of a man talking loudly -- although it did not show the scene inside the building.

In it, he could be heard saying, "You get my sister on the phone," and "I am gonna die."

He was also heard saying: "There's something wrong with America."

Beth Israel congregation member Ellen Smith, who grew up going to the synagogue, described the situation as "shocking and horrifying" in a CNN interview.

She said the congregation was a "tight" community, and the rabbi in particular was "the best human I think anyone could ever meet."

But she said it was "not shocking" the crisis occurred in a Jewish community.

"Cases of anti-Semitism have risen lately, but since Jews were first walking the Earth, we have been persecuted," she said. "It feels almost hopeless."

Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Herzog, said he was "grateful" all the hostages had been released safely.

"No one should ever be afraid to assemble in their place of worship," the Jewish Community Relations Council said in a statement.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the hostage situation and said it was in contact with Colleyville Jewish leaders to "provide any assistance possible."

Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, the executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis, said he was grateful to have received calls from people of all religious backgrounds expressing concern and hope for a peaceful outcome.

But he warned that the violence would not stop with the synagogue.

"The person who hates me today is going to hate you tomorrow. So it may start with Jews. It doesn't stop with Jews," he told CNN.

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Several hundred migrants who had departed from the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula in hopes of reaching the United States entered Guatemalan territory where they were intercepted by authorities who began talks on returning them to their homelands.

Some 300 migrants, mainly Hondurans and Nicaraguans, arrived in Corinto, Honduras Saturday afternoon and crossed into the Guatemalan border province of Izabal, where they were met by hundreds of anti-riot agents from the national police and army.

The Guatemalan Migration Institute said it was in talks with the migrants on returning them to their countries of origin. Those who wish to remain in Guatemala must present their personal identification document, vaccination card and a negative test for the coronavirus.

``People are being returned, everything in order, humanely,'' said institute general director Carlos Emilio Morales. ``We are protecting our borders; we are protecting the health of all Guatemalans.''

Guatemala's government said 36 people were deported to Honduras because they did not meet the requirements and a group of 10 who met immigration and health requirements were allowed to continue.

The migrants had begun their journey toward the U.S. from San Pedro Sula shortly after dawn Saturday, walking to the Guatemalan border in hopes that travelling in a group would be safer or cheaper than trying to hire smugglers or trying on their own. They were joined by a second smaller group.

Fabricio Ordonez, a young Honduran laborer, said he had joined the group in hopes of ``giving a new life to my family.''

``The dream is to be in the United States to be able to do many things in Honduras,'' he said, adding he was pessimistic that left-leaning President-elect Xiomara Castro, who takes office on Jan. 27, would be able to quickly solve the Central American nation's economic and social problems after 12 years of conservative administrations plagued by scandal.

``They have looted everything,'' he said. ``It is going to be very hard for this government to improve things.''

Nicaraguan marcher Ubaldo Lopez expressed hope that local officials would not try to hinder this group, as they have in the past.

``We know this is a very hard road and we ask God and the Honduran government to please accompany us to the border with Guatemala and not put more roadblocks,'' he said.

He said he hoped that Guatemala and Mexico also would allow the group to pass and that the U.S. government ``will open the doors to us'' _ despite repeated recent examples of regional governments, often under U.S. pressure, trying to halt such caravans.

The caravan, which is the first to be registered this year, originally had about 600 members but divided into several groups to try to evade the control of the Guatemalan authorities and go through the different border crossings and illegal routes.

Large numbers of migrants, many from Central America and Haiti, have reached the U.S. border over the past year, creating a headache for the administration of President Joe Biden.

In December, 56 migrants died when a truck carrying more than a hundred foreigners overturned on a highway in southern Mexico.

The U.S. Border Patrol has said it had more than 1.6 million encounters with migrants along the Mexican border between September 2020 and the same month in 2021 _ more than four times the total of the previous fiscal year.

Biden has backed proposals for $7 billion in aid to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras in hopes improved economic conditions will slow migration.

At the end of last year, the U.S. government reactivated an immigration policy that forced asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their hearings. Mexico's foreign ministry confirmed the reactivation of the U.S. program and said it would temporarily not return migrants to their countries of origin for humanitarian reasons.

The government of Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has indicated that Washington has accepted its humanitarian concerns with the program, including the need for ``greater resources for shelters and international organizations, protection for vulnerable groups, consideration of local security conditions`` as well as vaccines and anti-COVID-19 measures from migrants.

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Britain's foreign minister Liz Truss on Sunday condemned a hostage-taking at a synagogue in Texas as an "act of terrorism and antisemitism".

"My thoughts are with the Jewish community and all those affected by the appalling act in Texas," Foreign Secretary Truss posted on Twitter.

"We stand with the US in defending the rights and freedoms of our citizens against those who spread hate," she added.

US authorities have launched an investigation with "global reach" into a 44-year-old British man named as Malik Faisal Akram who was killed after holding four people hostage at the synagogue.

He was reportedly calling for the release of a convicted terrorist known as "Lady Al-Qaeda".

The four hostages -- including a respected local rabbi, Charlie Cytron-Walker -- were all released unharmed Saturday night. After the incident, the Jewish community and President Joe Biden renewed calls to fight anti-Semitism.

Police did not say whether the assault team killed the man or whether he killed himself.

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The Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation (APICORP), an energy-focused multilateral development financial institution, and the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) have established the Infra Initiative, a $1 billion private sector-focused infrastructure financing initiative, according to IsDB.

The initiatives funds will be utilised to finance strategic utility projects that contribute to human and economic development in the two multilateral financial institutions member countries, including Egypt, and their respective national development strategies.

Accordingly, the two institutions will jointly identify and deliver structured finance facilities to utilities projects with limited access to international financing.

Moreover, funds will be dedicated to electricity generation and transmission projects which utilise renewable energy or natural gas, as well as water and waste management facilities.

The involvement of the private sector at the local, regional, and international levels will also be a priority in the project selection process, IsDB said.

The two institutions will address low private sector participation in funding energy projects by incentivising public-private partnerships (PPPs) to bridge the estimated $200 billion investment gap in such projects in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member countries, including Egypt, under the initiative.

Additionally, the initiative aims to mobilise other financing avenues from commercial banks, multilateral development banks, development agencies and capital markets.

We recognise that quality infrastructure is key to economic and social development. Hence, addressing the infrastructure needs of our member countries is one of IsDBs foremost priorities. Our cooperation with APICORP on the Infra Initiative is in this spirit. It is intended to amplify our impact by combining our two institutions resources, skill sets and market knowledge. It also supports our respective commitments to the Sustainable Development Goals  particularly goals six, seven and nine, said IsDBs President Muhammad Al Jasser.

On his side APICORPs CEO Ahmed Ali Attiga mentioned that increasing private sector investments in the energy sector is a key area of focus for his corporation as part of its strategy to fund the energy transition in the Arab region.

It is an objective we shared with our partner, IsDB. Indeed, APICORP has significantly raised the size of its financing and investments in pioneering companies and strategic projects which are shaping tomorrows energy landscape, he added.

APICORPs 2021-2025 MENA Energy Investment Outlook report projected the share of private investments in regional energy projects to hit 27 percent by 2025, a threefold increase, up from the 8.5 percent in the 2020-2024 outlook.

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Moro Hub (Data Hub Integrated Solutions), a subsidiary of Digital Dewa, will provide its Integrated Physical Security Platform (IPSP) customers with valuable insights to perform smooth operations.

For this Moro Hub has announced a partnership with BriefCam to be one of its technology providers.

The signing ceremony between Moro Hub and BriefCam was in the presence of Mohammad Bin Sulaiman, CEO of Moro Hub and Oren Zvulun - Managing Director - EMEA Region, BriefCam.

As part of the new partnership, BriefCam will empower Moro Hubs IPSP with accurate, flexible, and a comprehensive video analytic solution that will deliver valuable insights for Moro Hubs clients to accelerate investigations, increase situational awareness and enhance operational intelligence.

Mohammad Bin Sulaiman, CEO of Moro Hub, said: This partnership with BriefCam is our commitment to support businesses in the region with a centralised platform for Integrated Physical security that includes analytics and real-time alert notifications for smooth operations. In todays time, having a video surveillance system is not enough. Businesses need technology to increase the probability of detecting key details in real-time and on-demand while also using the data for long term trend analysis, operational decision making, and more. We are confident that BriefCams expertise and advanced technologies will accelerate our IPSP to offer unmatched accuracy, superior performance and flexible architecture to businesses in the region.

While most organisations traditionally rely on video surveillance for security purposes, maximising these existing investments with advanced solutions, business units can leverage video intelligence in new and impactful ways. From accelerating post-event investigations and proactively responding to security incidents, deriving visitor demographic profiles, behavioural patterns, and operational inefficiencies, varied aspects of business operations can be easily tackled with Moro Hubs IPSP.

Oren Zvulun, Managing Director, EMEA Region, BriefCam said: We are positive that our comprehensive approach to video content analytics will enable Moro Hubs clientele to realise the full value of video surveillance investments by making video searchable, actionable, and quantifiable.

Given the rapid acceleration of digital transformation, IPSP provides the breadth of intelligence needed to bolster security, customer experiences, business operations and most importantly revenues. -- TradeArabia News Service
KYODO NEWS - Jan 16, 2022 - 17:32 | World, All

A freight train from North Korea arrived in China's border city of Dandong on Sunday after a long interval caused by the coronavirus pandemic, sources close to the matter said, but it remains uncertain whether the two countries will resume trade in a full-fledged manner anytime soon.

North Korea, which claims no COVID-19 cases have been found in the country, has cut off land traffic to and from China due to worries that the virus, first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, could enter its territory.

The customs office in Dandong near the Yalu River has been effectively closed as North Korea has banned its citizens from visiting China. To date, the suspension of a train link between them was believed to have continued more than a year.

Restaurants and shops run by Koreans in the Chinese border city have been shuttered, as trade with the neighboring country has been choked off.

The traffic restrictions have stifled North Korea's trade with China, dealing a crushing blow to the broader economy. The latest resumption of freight train operations may be aimed at providing essential products to North Korea in a limited fashion.

In addition to a plunge in trade with China, agricultural devastation by powerful typhoons and flooding has sparked concern that North Korean citizens might not be receiving adequate food and other daily necessities.

China is North Korea's closest and most influential ally in economic terms, accounting for more than 90 percent of its trade.

North Korea is seen to be vulnerable to infectious diseases against a backdrop of chronic shortages of food and medical equipment triggered by international economic sanctions designed to thwart its nuclear and ballistic missile ambitions.

Previously, North Korea barred foreigners from crossing its borders during the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, and the Ebola epidemic in West Africa in 2014.

Early last year, expectations briefly grew that North Korea and China would restart land transportation in the not-so-distant future, but Pyongyang has tightened security along the border river as the Delta variant of the virus was confirmed in China in May 2021.

Recently, community infections with the highly contagious Omicron variant have been expanding in China, which could make North Korean leader Kim Jong Un more reluctant to let down his guard against the virus.

North Korea said earlier this month it has decided not to participate in the upcoming Beijing Olympics and Paralympics, saying the global COVID-19 spread has motivated the country to skip the sporting events.

Related coverage:

North Korea says Jan. 14 launch was drill for railway-borne missile troops

U.S. sanctions North Koreans aiding weapons programs after missile tests

North Korea will not participate in Beijing Winter Olympics, blames U.S.
HEFEI, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- East China's Anhui Province saw its foreign trade grow by 26.9 percent year on year to 692.02 billion yuan (about 109 billion U.S. dollars) in 2021, according to local customs authorities.

Of the total, Anhui's export volume hit nearly 409.5 billion yuan in 2021, up 29.5 percent year on year, while imports totaled about 282.5 billion yuan, up 23.4 percent, Xin Jianming, with the customs of Hefei, the provincial capital, told a press conference on Friday.

The province also witnessed the rapid development of the China-Europe freight trains during the period, with the number of trips surging by more than 17.6 percent year on year to 668 in 2021.

"We will further develop the pilot free trade zone and foster new momentum to promote the high-quality development of foreign trade in 2022," Xin said. 
-- As the first country to propose the COVID-19 vaccine as a global public good and to advocate global vaccine cooperation, China has provided over 2 billion doses of vaccines to more than 120 countries and organizations by the end of 2021.



-- Amid the rise of unilateralism and protectionism, China has been advancing economic globalization with openness as a hallmark and shared prosperity as a vision.

-- Since 1990, China has dispatched over 50,000 peacekeepers to nearly 30 UN peacekeeping missions. Now it is the second largest funding contributor to UN peacekeeping operations.

BEIJING, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Some 25 km away from Belarus' capital of Minsk is where the "Great Stone," a Chinese-Belarusian industrial park, is situated.

Since the two countries signed an agreement on the construction of the park in 2011, it has grown into a modern facility with the operation of more than 80 enterprises from 10-plus countries. Its industrial production maintained an upward trend even amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

That is just one of the many examples of how the vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping was turned into reality.

Today, in a world affected by combined major changes and a pandemic unseen in a century, the flagship vision not only embodies the common values of mankind and conforms to the trend of the times, but also carries far-reaching influence for the prosperity and progress of mankind.

Photo taken on Oct. 19, 2021 shows the "Great Stone", a Chinese-Belarusian industrial park 25 km away from Minsk, capital of Belarus. (Industrial Park Development Company CJSC/Handout via Xinhua)





VISION TO ACTION

Xi first presented the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind to the world during his visit to Russia in 2013. Since then, he has expounded the idea on multiple occasions.

During his speech at the UN Office in Geneva in 2017, Xi placed priority on partnership, security, growth, inter-civilization exchanges and a sound ecosystem in building such a community.

"The fact that President Xi Jinping came out with such a vision is to be greeted and saluted because it is a very positive attitude towards the future and towards multilateralism and cooperation" said Jean-Jacques de Dardel, former Swiss ambassador to China who had accompanied Xi during his visit to Switzerland five years ago told Xinhua recently in a virtual interview.

Reflecting the hope of people from all countries for a better world, the notion has been enriched to include building a shared future with neighboring countries, with Asia-Pacific partners, with African and Latin American countries, and building a maritime shared future, a shared future in cyberspace and a community of common health for mankind.

The first China-Europe freight train bound for Tilburg from Nanjing, capital city of east China's Jiangsu Province, arrives in Tilburg, the Netherlands, June 4, 2021. (Xinhua/Zheng Huansong)

"Today, the concept has developed into a comprehensive system of scientific theories, which constitutes an important part of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy," Zhang Qingmin, professor and chair of the Department of Diplomacy at Peking University, said recently.

Through contributing to the global COVID-19 response among others, China has been transforming the concept into action.

Photo taken on March 6, 2021 shows a container of COVID-19 vaccines from Chinese company Sinovac at the El Dorado International Airport in Bogota, Colombia. (Colombian Presidential Office/Handout via Xinhua)

As the first country to propose the COVID-19 vaccine as a global public good and to advocate global vaccine cooperation, China has provided over 2 billion doses of vaccines to more than 120 countries and organizations by the end of 2021, demonstrating its sense of responsibility as a major country.

China, alongside more than 30 countries, also launched an Initiative for Belt and Road Partnership on COVID-19 Vaccines Cooperation, to promote the fair distribution of vaccines and enhance vaccine accessibility and affordability in developing countries.





Photo taken on Sept. 6, 2021 shows COVID-19 vaccines on the production line of a factory of the Egyptian Holding Company for Biological Products and Vaccines (VACSERA) in Giza, Egypt. (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa)

In the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, China set the example of how a major country can lead in the building of a better world for all mankind, said Herman Tiu Laurel, founder of Philippine BRICS Strategic Studies.





COMMON DEVELOPMENT

The past year marked the 20th anniversary of China's entry into the World Trade Organization, the 30th anniversary of China's joining the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, a manifestation of China's integration into the global economy.

Amid the rise of unilateralism and protectionism, China has been advancing economic globalization with openness as a hallmark and shared prosperity as a vision.

Aerial photo taken on Feb. 15, 2019 shows the COSCO Shipping Pisces approaching Piraeus port, Greece. (Xinhua/Wu Lu)

As the only major economy to register positive growth in foreign trade in goods in 2020, China has made important contributions to keeping global industrial and supply chains stable and boosting world economic recovery.

Over the years, the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has become a popular international public product and the world's largest international cooperation platform, with 141 countries and 32 international organizations having signed relevant cooperation documents with China.

From the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to China-Laos Railway, from the China-Europe freight train service to the Port of Piraeus, from the Mombasa-Nairobi Railway to the Chinese-Belarusian industrial park, progress has been made in an array of key projects that stretch across continents and brought substantial benefits to local people.

The Lane Xang electric multiple unit train passes by the China-Laos borderline inside a tunnel, Oct. 15, 2021. The 1,035-km China-Laos Railway started operation on Dec. 3, 2021. (Photo by Cao Anning/Xinhua)

By 2020, China's trade with BRI partner countries exceeded 9.2 trillion U.S. dollars, and its aggregated direct investment in these countries reached nearly 140 billion dollars.

"China has, by far, the most experience in designing and building infrastructure in recent decades and its commitment to work with the developing world is a major step in redressing deep global imbalances," Robert Lawrence Kuhn, a public intellectual and chairman of the Kuhn Foundation, told Xinhua.

To facilitate more balanced and sustainable post-pandemic global development, China has put forward the Global Development Initiative, which has won the endorsement and support of multiple international organizations including UN agencies and nearly 100 countries.

Photo taken on Feb. 4, 2021 shows the Lahore converter station of the 660kV Matiari-Lahore high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission project under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in Pakistan's eastern Punjab Province. (SGCC/Handout via Xinhua)

Besides, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership's entry into force on Jan. 1, a historic step forward in economic globalization, will allow the region and the whole world to better share China's development opportunities.

"We must take a people-centered approach and make global development more equitable, effective and inclusive, so that no country will be left behind," Xi stressed at 16th G20 Leaders' Summit via video link in October 2021.





UPHOLDING MULTILATERISM

Shortly after Xi's 2017 speech, the concept of building a community with a shared future for mankind was incorporated into a number of UN resolutions.

Committed to a vision of global governance featuring extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, Xi has called on all countries to uphold the authority and standing of the United Nations, and work together to practice true multilateralism.

Since 1990, China has dispatched over 50,000 peacekeepers to nearly 30 UN peacekeeping missions. Now it is the second largest funding contributor to UN peacekeeping operations.

Chinese peacekeepers clear the ruins of the port explosions in Beirut, Lebanon, Sept. 30, 2020. (Photo by Zhao Wenhuan/Xinhua)

Ever since China's restoration of its lawful seat in the United Nations, "it has championed multilateralism in all aspects and in its dealing with all regions of the world," said Laurel.

Such multilateral approach has helped China achieve cooperation towards commonly beneficial goals and projects, he added.

A firm believer in honoring its words with actions, China has also been promoting international cooperation against such major threats as climate change and pledged to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.

A sub-forum themed "Towards a Carbon Neutral Future: Synergy between Climate Change and Biodiversity" is held during the Ecological Civilization Forum of the first part of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) in Kunming, southwest China's Yunnan Province, on Oct. 14, 2021. (Xinhua/Chen Yehua)

It has also announced the launch of a 1.5 billion yuan (233 million dollars) fund to support biodiversity protection in developing countries, a commitment which builds hope for "living in harmony with nature."

"China has clearly moved from a production and consumption country to an innovation country. President Xi's global vision of green and low carbon development will complete the progress into a sustainable country. More importantly, the commitment will continue in our efforts to balance humanity with nature," said Lawrence Loh, director of the Center for Governance and Sustainability at National University of Singapore.

(Xinhua correspondents Han liang and Chen Shan in Beijing also contributed to the story.) (Video reporters: Chen Binjie, Chen Junxia, Jiang Xuelan, Nie Xiaoyang, Zhang Dailei, Xu Feng, Zhao Xiaona, Hu Yousong; video editors: Li Ziwei, Yin Le.)
Staff members clean train carriages at a service garage in Hengyang, central China's Hunan Province, Jan. 16, 2022. The Spring Festival travel rush, China's largest annual travel rush, will last from Jan. 17 to Feb. 25 this year. During the 40-day travel season, also known as chunyun, many Chinese people will travel to meet their families for the Chinese Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, which will fall on Feb. 1, 2022. (Photo by Cao Zhengping/Xinhua)

Aerial photo taken on Jan. 16, 2022 shows staff members cleaning train carriages at a service garage in Hengyang, central China's Hunan Province. The Spring Festival travel rush, China's largest annual travel rush, will last from Jan. 17 to Feb. 25 this year. During the 40-day travel season, also known as chunyun, many Chinese people will travel to meet their families for the Chinese Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, which will fall on Feb. 1, 2022. (Photo by Cao Zhengping/Xinhua)

Crew members prepare epidemic prevention kits on train G1724 in east China's Shanghai, Jan. 16, 2022. The Spring Festival travel rush, China's largest annual travel rush, will last from Jan. 17 to Feb. 25 this year. During the 40-day travel season, also known as chunyun, many Chinese people will travel to meet their families for the Chinese Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, which will fall on Feb. 1, 2022. (Xinhua/Chen Fei)

A crew member distributes epidemic prevention pamphlets on train G1724 in east China's Shanghai, Jan. 16, 2022. The Spring Festival travel rush, China's largest annual travel rush, will last from Jan. 17 to Feb. 25 this year. During the 40-day travel season, also known as chunyun, many Chinese people will travel to meet their families for the Chinese Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, which will fall on Feb. 1, 2022. (Xinhua/Chen Fei)

Crew members place disinfection notices on train G1724 in east China's Shanghai, Jan. 16, 2022. The Spring Festival travel rush, China's largest annual travel rush, will last from Jan. 17 to Feb. 25 this year. During the 40-day travel season, also known as chunyun, many Chinese people will travel to meet their families for the Chinese Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, which will fall on Feb. 1, 2022. (Xinhua/Chen Fei)

Crew members guide a passenger to board train G1724 at Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station in east China's Shanghai, Jan. 16, 2022. The Spring Festival travel rush, China's largest annual travel rush, will last from Jan. 17 to Feb. 25 this year. During the 40-day travel season, also known as chunyun, many Chinese people will travel to meet their families for the Chinese Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, which will fall on Feb. 1, 2022. (Xinhua/Chen Fei)

Staff members make hand heart gestures at Xi'an North Railway Station in Xi'an, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Jan. 16, 2022. The Spring Festival travel rush, China's largest annual travel rush, will last from Jan. 17 to Feb. 25 this year. During the 40-day travel season, also known as chunyun, many Chinese people will travel to meet their families for the Chinese Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, which will fall on Feb. 1, 2022. (Xinhua/Tao Ming)

A staff member works at Xi'an North Railway Station in Xi'an, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Jan. 16, 2022. The Spring Festival travel rush, China's largest annual travel rush, will last from Jan. 17 to Feb. 25 this year. During the 40-day travel season, also known as chunyun, many Chinese people will travel to meet their families for the Chinese Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, which will fall on Feb. 1, 2022. (Xinhua/Tao Ming)

Staff members spray disinfectants on the platform of Xi'an North Railway Station in Xi'an, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Jan. 16, 2022. The Spring Festival travel rush, China's largest annual travel rush, will last from Jan. 17 to Feb. 25 this year. During the 40-day travel season, also known as chunyun, many Chinese people will travel to meet their families for the Chinese Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, which will fall on Feb. 1, 2022. (Xinhua/Tao Ming)
KIEV, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese embassy in Ukraine on Saturday began handing out Chinese new year packages to members of the Chinese community living in the country.

The packages, containing medical masks, spring festival couplets, paper cuttings, chocolate and a congratulatory letter from the embassy, were designed to provide the Chinese community a sense of the Lunar New Year amid the long-lasting COVID-19 pandemic.

The embassy plans to hand out 3,000 packages to members of the community, including expatriates and students in the country.

At the ceremony, Chinese Ambassador to Ukraine Fan Xianrong said that last year pragmatic cooperation between China and Ukraine proved fruitful, adding that this year the two countries are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties.

Wishing the Chinese community a happy festival, the ambassador also called on the community to uphold friendly cooperation between China and Ukraine.

Li Xuegang, head of the group Chinese Diaspora in Ukraine, expressed gratitude to the embassy for the gifts and caring they embody, saying that the overseas Chinese residing in Ukraine feel loved and are deeply proud of the achievements of their motherland. 
PHNOM PENH, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- China has been playing a major role in promoting global peace, public health and common development, Cambodian official and experts said.

Cambodian government chief spokesman Phay Siphan said China has been unwaveringly upholding multilateralism and free trade and opposing unilateralism and protectionism.

"China has always promoted rules-based global economic governance in order to build an open world economy," he told Xinhua.

As a major engine of global economic growth and recovery, China's peaceful development is a boon for the world, Siphan said, adding that "China always adheres to the principle of non-interference in other countries' internal affairs, opposes hegemony and treats all countries equally regardless of small or big."

To date, China has provided 2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines to over 120 countries and international organizations.

"Chinese vaccines have saved millions of people's lives across the world," he said.

In terms of poverty alleviation, Siphan said China's experience in poverty eradication was very helpful to other countries, especially developing countries like Cambodia.

Joseph Matthews, senior professor at the BELTEI International University in Phnom Penh, said China has always shared its knowledge, technology, and wealth with poor and developing countries around the world.

The BRI has been connecting the world as a community of shared future for mankind, and China's development fruits have been shared and reached out to all countries around the globe, he said.

Matthews said China is a strong advocate of multilateralism, which is the key to addressing global challenges such as COVID-19 and climate change. "Collaboration and a multinational approach are the keys to tackling these issues."

Thong Mengdavid, a research fellow at the Phnom Penh-based Asian Vision Institute, said China is a global development partner that has provided tremendous support and assistance to the international community through both bilateral and multilateral development frameworks.

"China's domestic development model can be served as the model for developing countries with a people-centric philosophy," he told Xinhua, noting that the BRI enhances socio-economic development across the region and stimulates cooperation in capacity building, knowledge sharing, human resources development and interconnectivity.

"Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, China remains a key driving force for global economic recovery and a development partner based on win-win mentality and the reciprocal interests of the 'south' developing world," he said. 
A man receives the COVID-19 vaccine at a drive-through COVID-19 vaccination site in Gaborone, Botswana, Oct. 12, 2021. (Xinhua/Tshekiso Tebalo)

Botswana will start offering booster shots of five different COVID-19 vaccines from Monday, Botswana's Ministry of Health and Wellness announced in a statement.

GABORONE, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Botswana will start offering booster shots of five different COVID-19 vaccines from Monday, Botswana's Ministry of Health and Wellness announced in a statement.

Those who have received their last dose at least two months prior and ideally within six months of their original shot automatically qualify for booster shots of Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca/COVISHIELD and Sinovac, read the statement released Friday.

People are seen at a drive-through COVID-19 vaccination site in Gaborone, Botswana, on Oct. 12, 2021. (Xinhua/Tshekiso Tebalo)

According to the statement, this follows the approval of the booster shots of all the five different COVID-19 vaccines by the southern African country's medicinal regulator, Botswana Medicines Regulatory Authority (BoMRA).

Shirley Mukamambo, the principal public relations officer with Botswana's Ministry of Health and Wellness, told Xinhua in a telephone interview Sunday that everyone who has been fully vaccinated "must get a booster dose of a vaccine which he or she was vaccinated with."

"Booster doses are meant to increase immunity that in case one is infected by COVID-19 or variant must not suffer severe symptoms that may lead to hospitalization or death," said Mukamambo.

Botswana has recorded 237,678 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 2,514 related deaths since the first detection of the pandemic in March 2020, according to the ministry.

By the end of December 2021, at least 1.03 million people of the country had been fully vaccinated, exceeding the targeted population, said Makumambo. 
NEW YORK, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Vox, an American news and opinion website, on Friday published an essay criticizing U.S. health agencies and their officials for their failure to effectively communicate with the public over the COVID-19 pandemic, all the way through its raging course.

"The fierce backlash to the CDC's (the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) recent decision to shorten the recommended isolation period for people who test positive for COVID-19 was the latest in a series of communications blunders so severe that they have now become a meme," it said.

America's public health institutions have failed to communicate effectively with the U.S. public throughout the pandemic for two reasons: either they have been left trying to defend poor policies, or the messaging has taken the place of creating any kind of coherent policy at all, according to the article.

"I don't think any federal or state agency has done a great job communicating policy during the pandemic," Briana Mezuk, co-director of the Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, was quoted as saying. "The CDC should have been setting the example, and I guess in a way it did: a less-than-great example."

INCONSISTENCY

Communication is an essential part of any public health response, but U.S. health agencies have struggled with it since the very beginning of the pandemic, when government officials initially advised against wearing masks in early 2020 before reversing themselves to recommend nearly universal masking, said the author Dylan Scott, who is a policy reporter at Vox.

It appeared the initial guidance may have been issued in order to preserve enough masks for health care workers. Government officials were warning at the time that hospitals' supplies could be depleted at a critical moment if there was a run on masks. It was the first of the pandemic's "noble lies," according to the essay.

A year after the first masking flip-flop, the CDC stumbled on masks again. In April 2021, the agency urged vaccinated people to continue wearing masks in most indoor settings to reduce transmission before reversing itself and saying that vaccinated people could feel free not to wear masks indoors unless it was required by a local or state government.

"Many public health experts believed the decision to relax the masking guidance for vaccinated people was premature and, just a few months later when the delta variant drove up cases, the CDC changed course again and recommended everyone, including vaccinated people, wear masks when indoors in public," added the article.

SKEPTICISM

"The problem of unsound or indecisive policy creating bad messaging has been repeated over and over again throughout the pandemic, which has deepened skepticism about the agency's recommendations and created a fertile environment for disinformation to flourish," said the essay titled "The Most Consistently Botched Part of the U.S. Pandemic Response."

"Public health authorities faced serious obstacles to communicating effectively with the public," it said. The American people are divided, consuming different information from different sources, motivated by different ideologies.

Some of the confusion that has undermined the American response was avoidable. Prevailing attitudes inside the medical establishment prior to COVID-19 and specific mistakes made during the pandemic itself have contributed to the disconnect between public health authorities and the public they are trying to protect, according to the article.

"Our institutions are failing us with the lack of coordination, the lack of clarity," Scott Ratzan, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Health Communication: International Perspectives and a lecturer at the City University of New York, was quoted as saying. "This is a case clearly that shows our 21st-century institutions are not prepared." 
New Delhi:

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday said Article 370 and Article 35A were the gateway of terrorism into Jammu and Kashmir which was closed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi by abrogating them. Shah also said Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's unfulfilled dream of integrating Jammu and Kashmir with the rest of the country was accomplished on August 5 when Article 370 and 35A were repealed.

"Article 370 and 35A were the gateway of terrorism in India. Prime Minister Modi has closed this gate by repealing them," he said while flagging off a run to commemorate the 144th birth anniversary of Patel.

Shah, who moved the resolution for abrogation of Article 370 and Article 35A in both Houses of Parliament in August, said when India attained independence, there were more than 550 princely states and everyone thought that even though India got independence, the country would be disintegrated.

At that time, Mahatma Gandhi had entrusted Patel the task of integrating the princely states into the Union of India which he completed with distinction, he said.

But one thing remained to be completed and that was the complete integration of Jammu and Kashmir into the Union of India, he said.

"Article 370 and 35A became a problem in this integration process and no one touched on these subjects. The unfulfilled dream of Patel was realised on August 5 when these two were repealed and the full integration of Jammu and Kashmir with the Union of India was completed," he said amidst applause of the gathering comprising several thousand people.

Shah said the decision to abrogate Article 370 and Article 35A was taken after the Narendra Modi government got a massive mandate in 2019 general elections.

The home minister said for many years, Patel did not get the respect he deserved, he was ignored and there were even attempts to forget him.

"Patel was not given Bharat Ratna for many years, his proper statue was not installed, nor his portrait was allowed to be put up," he said.

When Modi became the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Shah said, he (Modi) started the process of giving due honour to Patel.

Referring to the 'Statue of Unity' of Patel located in Gujarat's Kevadia, he said Modi sourced iron pieces from the farmers, soil from every village of Gujarat and water from various rivers to pay a humble tribute to the man who unified India.

He said the map of India, as it is seen today, is because of the efforts made by Patel to unify more than 550 princely states of the country.

"A unified India came into existence due to Sardar Patel and we humbly remember him today", he said.

The home minister also administered a unity pledge to the participants of the run.

People wearing white T-shirts bearing Patel's photo assembled at the National Stadium and the India Gate roundabout here for the run.

In his address, Shah also remembered former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as Thursday is her death anniversary.

Shah flagged off the 'Run for Unity' in the presence of Union ministers Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank', Hardeep Singh Puri, R K Singh, Kiren Rijiju and Union Home Secretary Ajay K Bhalla among others.

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New Delhi:

Jammu and Kashmir transitioned into its new identity as Girish Chandra Murmu took oath as the first lieutenant governor on Thursday. With Murmu's swearing-in, the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir officialy came into existance following the bifurcation of the Jammu and Kashmir state into two union territories. The oath of office to Murmu, who will turn 60 next month, was administered by Jammu and Kashmir Chief Justice Gita Mittal at a simple function held at Raj Bhawan at the foothills of the Zaberwan range. Hours earlier, Mittal has administered a similar oath to RK Mathur in Leh- as the first lieutenant governor of Ladakh.

Earlier, at midnight, Jammu and Kashmir transitioned from a state into two union territories. President Ram Nath Kovind revoked President's rule imposed in the restive state, long the centre of global attention, and took over control of the administration of the two new union territories, Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.

This is the first time that a state is being downsized into union territories, the two new entities taking the total number of UTs to nine and bringing down the number of states in India to 28. This was in accordance with the government's August 5 announcement withdrawing the state's special status under Article 370 and bifurcating the state into union territories.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at the Statue of Unity in Kevadiya in Gujarat where he paid glowing tributes to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on his 144th birth anniversary, defended the abrogation of Article 370 saying the special status provisions only generated terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir.

"The new system in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh is not meant to draw a line on the land (to draw a boundary) but to build a strong link of trust," the prime minister said.

Meanwhile, addressing a gathering in the national capital, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said Article 370 and Article 35A were the gateway of terrorism into Jammu and Kashmir. Modi closed the gateway by repealing them, he said.

In the Kashmir Valley, however, it was another day of shutdowns and tension with markets shut, deserted roads and children staying away from school. For the third consecutive day, no vendors set up stalls on the TRC Chowk-Lal Chowk road, the officials said. The roadside vendors, who had regularly set up their stalls over the past two months, have not been turning up for business since Tuesday when a delegation of EU parliamentarians landed for a two-day visit to assess the situation.

Landline and post-paid mobile phone services have been restored across the valley, but all internet services continued to remain suspended since the night of August 4.

Most top-level and second-rung separatist politicians have been taken into preventive custody while mainstream leaders, including two former chief ministers - Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti - have been either detained or placed under house arrest. Lok Sabha MP from Srinagar Farooq Abdullah has been arrested under the controversial Public Safety act, a law enacted by his father and National Conference founder Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah in 1978 when he was the chief minister.

ALSO READ: RK Mathur Takes Oath As First Lt Governor Of Union Territory Of Ladakh

In a late night notification on Wednesday, the Home Ministry replaced the state of Jammu and Kashmir with the "union territory of Jammu and Kashmir" and announced omission of "permanent residents or hereditary state subjects". The ministry's Jammu and Kashmir division announced a slew of measures, including application of central laws to the state.

(With PTI Inputs)

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The World Future Energy Summit 2022 (WFES) will highlight innovative technology that can spur sustainable development and help solve climate change challenges, offering an in-person business, innovation and knowledge exchange programme.



Hosted by Masdar as part of Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, and in partnership with the Abu Dhabi Department of Energy and NEOM Energy & Water, and organised by RX Middle East, the event runs from January 17  19 2022 at Adnec Abu Dhabi.



The event will showcase top sustainable development innovations from around the world that have the potential to revolutionise key industries of urban mobility, clean energy, agritech and food security, and artificial intelligence.



These innovations are part of the Innovate, a global Masdar City initiative that provides a platform for innovation-focused companies from around the world to showcase their technologies to international investors and grants their companies exclusive access to the dynamic Abu Dhabi technology ecosystem.



The Innovate initiative by Masdar showcases more than 18 new technologies and those on display at the World Future Energy Summit2022include:



 Circa Biotechs agritech solution upcycles food waste into high-quality animal feed, using industrial farming of an insect indigenous to UAE - the Black Soldier Fly.

 FortyGuard cools cities by understanding data to control outdoor temperatures. It provides predictive analytics and modelling services for outdoor cooling scenarios.

 Manhat is a deep technology start-up with patented technologies delivering sustainable solutions for water production, irrigation, and transportation.

 Tenderd operates the largest online heavy equipment management and rental marketplace in the UAE and KSA. It is the Uber for equipment rentals.

 QS Monitor is a platform for food and water safety. It minimises loss, monitors and tracks safety measures using technologically advanced models that are environmentally friendly.

 Volts UAE produces and supplies energy storage devices and IT solutions that power smart homes.



Grant Tuchten, Group Event Director at World Future Energy Summit, said: We are extremely proud to provide a platform to present cutting-edge global technology and innovation that helps accelerate the transition to clean energy, the adoption of circular economy, water security for arid regions. The World Future Energy Summit provides an unparalleled in-person experience for business, networking and knowledge exchange that addresses some of the biggest climate change challenges of today and of the future.



Thought-leadership forums that focus on future energy and sustainability will feature industry leaders discussing how to leverage the latest technology and innovation. These forums include:



 Solar & Clean Energy Forum: Improving long-term efficiency in solar facilities through digitalisation

 EcoWASTE: Connected equipment and automation. Where tech meets waste management

 Water Forum: Innovation highway: Advanced tech approached to wastewater

 Smart Cities Forum: Digital Twins

 Climate & Environment Forum: Circular Economy. From CO2 to valuable product  TradeArabia News Service
New Delhi:

India on Thursday hit back at China over its statement on the bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories, saying the reorganisation is entirely its internal affair and it does not expect other countries to comment on such matters. India also said that China continues to be in occupation of a large tract of area in the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.

It has also illegally acquired Indian territories from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) under the so-called China-Pakistan Boundary Agreement of 1963, a statement quoted Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar as saying.

It (China) has illegally acquired Indian territories from PoK under so called China-Pakistan boundary agreement of 1963, says @MEAIndia pic.twitter.com/npZJ12BsXu  News Nation (@NewsNationTV) October 31, 2019

Jammu and Kashmir was bifurcated on Thursday into two union territoriesJammu and Kashmir and Ladakhin accordance with the governments August 5 announcement revoking the states special status under Article 370.

Chinas Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told the media in Beijing on Thursday that India unilaterally changed its domestic laws and administrative division challenging Chinas sovereignty.

This is unlawful and void and this is not effective in any way and will not change the fact that the area is under Chinese actual control, he said.

Reacting to Chinas statement, Kumar said China is well aware of Indias consistent and clear position on this issue.

The matter of reorganisation of the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir into the Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh is entirely an internal affair of India, he said.

We do not expect other countries, including China, to comment on the matters which are internal to India, just as India refrains from commenting on internal issues of other countries, Kumar said.

Asserting that the Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh are integral part of India, he said India expects other countries to respect its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

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Washington:

Infection by the measles virus causes long-term damage to the immune system, and makes people vulnerable to other infections, according to a study that cautions parents to vaccinate their children against the highly contagious airborne disease. The researchers, including those from the Howard Hughes Medical Centre in the US, analysed blood from 77 unvaccinated children from the Netherlands before and after a measles outbreak swept through their community.

The results of the study, published in the journal Science, revealed that the virus erased the memory of previous pathogens from the children's immune system. The researchers said that the virus had eliminated between 11 and 73 per cent of the children's protective antibodies - the proteins in the blood that remembered past encounters with viruses, and helped the body avoid repeat infections.

Children lose much of their immune defences and become vulnerable to viruses they'd already met and conquered, the study noted. When the researchers repeated the experiment in four macaque monkeys, collecting blood samples before and up to five months after infection, they found that the monkeys lost about 40 to 60 percent of the antibodies that could protect them from other pathogens.

"The virus is much more deleterious than we realised, which means the vaccine is that much more valuable," said study co-author Stephen Elledge from the Howard Hughes Medical Centre.

According to the researchers, the measles virus resets the immune system to an immature state that can only make a limited variety of antibodies against disease. They said measles makes it difficult for the immune system to respond to any new infections increasing the risk of secondary diseases in the future.

In some children, the researchers said that the effect was so strong it was similar to being given a powerful dose of immunosuppressive drugs.

"Our study has huge implications for vaccination and public health as we show that not only does measles vaccination protect people from measles, but also protects from other infectious diseases," said Colin Russel co-author of the study from the University of Amsterdam.
New Delhi:

The ISIS confirmed the death of its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and named his replacement as Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Quraishi, said a statement released Thursday."We mourn you... commander of the faithful," an audio statement read by Abu Hamza al-Quraishi, presented as the jihadist group's spokesman, said.

Baghdadi, who led ISIS since 2014 and was the world's most wanted man, was killed in a US special forces raid in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib on Sunday.

The group also confirmed the killing in another raid the following day of the group's previous spokesman Abu Hassan al-Muhajir. The statement said that the terror group's legislative and consultative body convened after the 48-year-old Iraqi-born ISIS chief's death.

"The Islamic State shura council convened immediately after confirming the martyrdom of Sheikh Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and the elders of the holy warriors agreed" on a replacement, said the seven-minute message.

The ISIS spokesman also issued a stark warning to the United States, whose President Donald Trump announced Baghdadi's death in a televised address from the White House.

"He died after running into a dead-end tunnel, whimpering and crying and screaming all the way," Trump said on Sunday, adding that Baghdad "died like a dog".

In the new audio message, the ISIS spokesman described Trump as "a crazy old man" and warned the US its supporters would avenge Baghdadi's death.

"Do not rejoice America," he warned, "the new chosen one will make you forget the horror you have beholden... and make the achievements of the Baghdadi days taste sweet".

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New Delhi:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is on a two-day visit to India, on Friday said that the situation in Kashmir must improve, reported Reuters. "The situation for the people there is currently not sustainable and must improve," Merkel was quoted as saying by the news agency.

She told this to reporters accompanying her on a trip to New Delhi.

Meanwhile, Merkel on Friday undertook a guided tour of Gandhi Smriti in the national capital with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The prime minister received the German Chancellor in front of the statue of Mahatma Gandhi sculpted by renowned artist Ram Sutar.

Explaining the significance of the place, Modi informed Merkel that the memorial is located at the site where Mahatma Gandhi spent the last few months of his life and was assassinated on January 30, 1948.

"Took Chancellor Merkel to Gandhi Smriti in Delhi. The thoughts and principles of Mahatma Gandhi reverberate in Germany and inspire its citizens," the prime minister tweeted.

He also posted pictures of the visit.

The two then visited the museum and saw sketches and paintings made by renowned artist Upendra Maharathi and Indo-Hungarian painter Elizabeth Brunner, a student of Nandalal Bose of Santiniketan.

They walked through a digital gallery curated by Birad Rajaram Yajnik, based on the twin themes of 'ahimsa' (non-violence) and 'satyagraha' (passive political resistance).

The leaders later visited various digital installations in the museum, including the audio testimonial to Mahatma Gandhi by Albert Einstein and the interactive kiosk displaying the rendition of the song 'Vaishnava Jana To', sung in 107 countries.

Prime Minister Modi and Chancellor Merkel then paid homage to Mahatma Gandhi at the Martyr's Column and offered floral tributes, a statement later issued by the Prime Minister's Office said.

Earlier in the day, Merkel referred to Mahatma Gandhi in a joint statement with Modi.

"Mahatma Gandhi was born 150 years ago. I was able to lay wreath this morning...His peaceful revolution inspired so many people all across the globe. The fact that I am standing before you today is linked to the fact that on 9th of November 30 years ago, a wall came down in Berlin...after a peaceful process and that shows us the traditions that Germans and Indians can be proud of," she said.

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Mumbai:

Maharashtra may head for President's rule if the new government in the state is not in place by November 7, Finance Minister and BJP leader Sudhir Mungantiwar said on Friday. His comments came even as there appeared no headway in government formation eight days after results of the October 21 Assembly elections.

The tenure of the existing Legislative Assembly ends on November 8.

He told a TV channel that the delay in talks between BJP and Sena was due to the Diwali festival, adding parleys will start in a day or two.

"People of Maharashtra have given mandate not to any party but to the Mahayuti (alliance comprising BJP, Shiv Sena and other parties)," he said.

"Out alliance is stronger than Fevicol or Ambuja Cement," he said.

Mungantiwar expressed confidence that the formation of a new government will take place soon.

"A new government will have to be in place within the stipulated time, or else the President will have to intervene. President's rule will be imposed if the government formation doesnt happen in the given time," Mungantiwar said.

He said the main hurdle in government formation was the Sena's demand for chief minister's post for 2.5 years. Asked if the BJP would accept the demand, Mungantiwar said, "We have already named Devendra Fadnavis."

Admitting that there was a deadlock, he said, "We at the state level will sit together to find a way to resolve the deadlock. If necessary, the central leadership of BJP will intervene."

BJP will take the lead in resolving the deadlock over formation of the new government, he said.

Reacting to Sena leader Sanjay Raut's comments on government formation, Mungantiwar said, "just like the BJP, the Sena also wants the government to be formed at the earliest. We fought the election as an alliance. The issue here is not of Sena or BJP, but the people of Maharashtra."
New Delhi:

The National Testing Agency (NTA) has begun the CMAT 2020 Application process from today i.e. November 1, 2019. Common Management Aptitude Test or CMAT MBA entrance exam will be conducted by NTA this year for students taking admission to AICTE approved MBA colleges in India. Candidates who are interested in appearing for CMAT 2020 exam can register by logging onto the official website cmat.nta.nic.in.

The application process will end on November 30, 2019. The CMAT 2020 Exam will be held on January 24, 2020 and the result is expected to be announced on February 03, 2020.

CMAT 2020  Important Dates

Candidates must note down CMAT 2020 important dates listed below and ensure that they dont miss out on any activity or event for the entrance exam:

CMAT 2020 Application Process Begins - 1st November 2019



CMAT 2020 Application Process Ends - 30th November 2019



CMAT 2020 Admit Card Release Date - 24th December 2019



CMAT 2020 Exam Date - 28th January 2020



CMAT 2020 Result Date - 3rd February 2020

CMAT 2020  Eligibility



 Applicant must be an Indian citizen

 Applicants must have a valid graduation degree in any discipline

 Those who are in the final year of their graduation can apply for CMAT 2020.

CMAT 2020 - Exam Fee

NTA has hiked the exam fee for all the category of students while also introducing an additional category of Transgender students. The CMAT 2020 application fee is as follows:

Student Category CMAT 2019 Fee CMAT 2020 Fee General Category Rs 1000/- Rs 1600/- Gen-EWS/OBC (NCL) Rs 1000/- Rs 1000/- SC/ ST/ PwD Rs 700/- Rs 800/- Transgender NA Rs 700/-



How to register for CMAT 2020 Exam?

Step 1: Visit the official website of NTA CMAT 2020 exam  nta.ac.in

Step 2: Register yourself on the portal

Step 3: You will be provided your new login details for the NTA CMAT 2020 website

Step 4: Login the CMAT 2020 portal using your new login credentials

Step 5: Fill the online application form displayed on the screen

Step 6: Upload the necessary documents including your passport size photograh and signature

Step 7: Pay the requisite amount of CMAT 2020 application fee

Step 8: Submit the Application Form on the website

Step 9: Download application submission confirmation page in PDF format

Step 10: Take printout for future reference

About CMAT

The Common Management Admission Test (CMAT) is a national level entrance examination for entry into management programmes.
New Delhi:

A bag with suspected explosives was found at Delhi's Terminal 3 airport in the early hours of Friday, leading to passenger movement being restricted for a few hours and roads outside the high-security complex blocked, officials said. The black bag, which could contain RDX according to preliminary assessment, was found in the arrival area of Terminal 3 and has been kept in a cooling pit. The bag was detected around 1 am by a Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel.

"The bag was removed with the help of CISF and shifted to another place. It has not been opened yet. It seems like there are some electric wires inside it. We have increased the security of the airport premises," said Sanjay Bhatia, deputy commissioner of police (Airport).

Preliminary inputs suggested the contents of the bag could be RDX, sources said. It was checked by an explosive detector and a sniffer dog. The exact nature of the explosive is being ascertained, the sources added.

CISF Special Director General (airports sector) M A Ganapathy, however, said it was "premature" to say the explosive is RDX grade. "It can be any material and the initial inputs can be false. To say it is RDX at this point of time is highly premature. We should wait for the final assessment report," Ganapathy told PTI.

Research Department Explosive, acronymed RDX, is a deadly non-smelly explosive and has been used by terrorist elements in the past to create mass casualties. Sources said the suspected explosive has been put under observation for the next 24 hours and something certain can be said only after that.

It could be an explosive or an improvised explosive device (IED), they added. In July this year, a piece of cargo at the Vadodara airport was suspected to containing RDX. It later turned out to be a consignment of pellets and air guns, an official in the security establishment said.?

Giving details of Friday's incident, Delhi Police officials said a call was received around 1 am, following which the bag was found at arrival gate number two of the terminal. The discovery of the bag caused panic among passengers who were not allowed to exit the terminal for sometime, sources at some airlines said.

Officials said a personnel of the CISF and the Delhi Police conducted a complete anti-sabotage check of the Indira Gandhi International Airport after which passenger movement was allowed around 4 am. CISF and police have stepped up security at the facility in accordance with standard procedure, they said.

Delhi airport has three terminals and domestic as well as international flights operate from the Terminal-3.
New Delhi:

Republican Party of India leader Ramdas Athawale has extended his support to Devendra Fadnavis as Maharashtra chief minister. He also called for one chief minister for the full five-year term.

"The 'mahayuti' (BJP-Shiv Sena alliance) has got a clear majority. Yesterday Devendra Fadnavis was elected BJP legislative leader. We have decided to support his name for chief minister as he is the only front runner for us," Athawale said after meeting of smaller parties of who were part of BJP-Shiv Sena alliance.

Athawale also said that Shiv Sena has the key to the government however it should settle for a "compromise" on its role in the coalition government because it does not have "strong" alternatives to its alliance partner, the BJP.

"Shiv Sena has the state's 'kundali' in its hand right now. They have to decide which way they want to go, and I think they should decide quickly," Ramdas Athawale told ANI. His remarks come after senior Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut earlier on Wednesday said,"Maharashtra ki kundali mein jab sarkar banna likha hoga, tab sarkar banegi (What will be, will be, according to Maharashtra's fate)."

RPI also demanded four ministerial berths in the next cabinet to other allies of BJP and Shiv Sena. Athawale demanded one cabinet post for his own party.

BJP-Shiv Sena alliance won a majority in the Maharashtra Assembly polls, with the former emerging as the single-largest party with 105 seats. The Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena bagged 56 seats in the elections. The alliance is yet to sort out their differences over the power equation for the state government formation.
Ballia:

Controversial BJP MLA Surendra Singh on Thursday said Mughal and British era history should not be taught at the primary and high school level as it reminded one about the days of slavery. Singh said instead, the history of Shivaji, Rana Pratap, Lord Rama and Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, founding Sarsanghachalak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), should be taught so that the children can get inspiration from their lives.

"The Mughal and British era history of foreign invaders being taught in schools reminds one of the days of slavery. It could be incorporated in the syllabus at the graduation or post graduation level but it is not good to teach it at the primary to high school level," Singh told reporters.

He said, "Instead, history of Shivaji, Rana Pratap, Lord Rama and Lord Krishna as also that of K B Hedgewar and M S Golwalkar should be taught so that children could get inspiration from their lives and learn dedication towards the nation."

The BJP MLA is known for making controversial statements. According to media reports, he had earlier termed doctors as "demons" and journalists as "brokers".

To a question on the post-election developments in Maharashtra, he advised Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray to do politics for the good of people.

"Uddhav Thackeray is the son of a 'rashtrabhakt' father. The aim of both Shiv Sena and BJP are the same," he said.

After the results of the assembly elections were declared, the Shiv Sena has been aggressively pushing for rotational chief ministership and a 50:50 power-sharing formula, demands rejected by the BJP.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

The Delhi High Court directed the AIIMS chief to form a medical board on Thursday itself to give opinion on the health of former finance minister P Chidambaram, who is suffering from Crohn's disease. Hyderabad-based gastroenterologist Nageshwara Redy will be part of the board to give his opinion on Chidambaram's medical condition. The senior Congress leader is currently lodged in Tihar Jail. The AIIMS board has been ordered to give its report by Friday. The order came during the hearing where Chidambaram had sought interim bail in the INX media money laundering case on medical grounds, saying his condition is deteriorating and he needs to be in a sterile environment.

Justice Suresh Kait said the board will sit today to discuss Chidambaram's medical condition and the report be placed before the court which will hear the matter on Friday.

Earlier on Wednesday, a Delhi court sent Chidambaram to judicial custody till November 13 in the INX Media money laundering case. Special judge Ajay Kumar Kuhar dismissed the plea of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for one day custodial interrogation of Chidambaram.

The court directed Tihar authorities to provide Chidambaram with medicines, western toilet, security and separate cell. It also said the senior Congress leader may be allowed to have home-cooked food considering his medical condition.

Chidambaram was arrested by the CBI on August 21 in the INX Media corruption case and is currently in the ED custody in a related money laundering matter.

The CBI had registered an FIR on May 15, 2017 alleging irregularities in a Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance granted to the INX Media group for receiving overseas funds of Rs 305 crore in 2007, during Chidambaram's tenure as finance minister.

Thereafter, the ED lodged a money-laundering case in this regard in 2017. The ED had taken him in to custody on October 16 this year.

Crohn's disease is a type of inflammatory bowel disease that may affect any segment of the gastrointestinal tract from the mouth to the anus. Symptoms often include abdominal pain, diarrhoea (which may be bloody if inflammation is severe), fever, and weight loss. Bowel obstruction may also occur as a complication of chronic inflammation. Diagnosis is based on a number of findings including biopsy and appearance of the bowel wall, medical imaging and description of the disease.

(With agency inputs)

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Kuwait-based low-cost carrier Jazeera Airways said its share was upgraded today (January 16) to the Premier Market of Boursa Kuwait, after exceeding the minimum requirements for liquidity and market capitalization in the two previous consecutive years.

Jazeera is the only listed company to receive an upgrade.

It has announced an ambitious growth plan to increase its fleet from 17 aircraft today to over 35 by 2025 to support its network expansion.

Chairman Marwan Boodai expressed delight at seeing Jazeera Airways listed among the largest Kuwaiti companies at Boursa Kuwait.

"As the only company at Boursa Kuwait to offer investors access to the growing travel and aviation sector, the upgrade confirms the success of the companys strategy and business model which positively contributes to the local economy," he noted.

At the end of 2021, the airline had completed an order with Airbus for 28 new aircraft: twenty A320neos and eight A321neos. The order is valued in excess of $3.3 billion at list prices.

Boodai attributed Jazeeras continued growth to its team of experienced professionals who have been successful at overcoming regional and global challenges over the past years.

"As we continue to move forward, the Board and Executive Management remain focused at creating value investment opportunities that attract local and foreign investors," he stated.

In 2020, Jazeeras liquidity exceeded the minimum requirement of KD216.0 thousand by Boursa Kuwait, reaching KD 235.5 thousand. In 2021, the companys liquidity reached KD402.8 thousand, exceeding the KD281.0 thousand benchmark set by Boursa Kuwait for the year.

As for the market capitalization, Jazeeras market capitalization stood at KD157.3 million in 2020, twice the minimum requirement of KD78 million for companies listed on the Premier Market at Boursa Kuwait.

In 2021, the companys market capitalization increased to KD283.8 million, over four times the minimum requirement by Boursa Kuwait.-TradeArabia News Service
New Delhi:

Two celebrations of two contradicting beliefs, All Saints Day and Halloween or Samhain (a Celtic harvest festival) outrightly believed to be pagan, celebrated in order of two days, what could be the relation between these two festivals, one must ask. To know the relation between All Saint's Day and the day of spookiness, it is worth noting that many Halloween traditions originated from ancient Celtic harvest festivals, particularly the Gaelic festival Samhain which is believed to have pagan roots and that Samhain itself was Christianized as Halloween by the early Church.

Debate on Halloween origin however, still remains a divided topic. Some believe that it is solely a Christian holiday while debate that its roots can be traced to Parentalia, the Roman festival of the dead. The most commonly stronghold belief however, has itself to do with Samahain origin, which is celebrated to mark the end of the harvest season and the onset of the cold darkness of winter. In between Samhain being Christianized and the fear of its celebration lost, the fear led to the development of customs to keep the spirits at bay, lighting huge fires and making sacrificial offerings.

Halloween in fact, is derived from the old English 'holy' or 'sacred,' so Hallows' Eve or Halloween meaning "the evening of holy persons" and refers to the evening before All Saints' Day.

So, the day we don on the spookiest costumes, go treat or trick treating and light Jack-lanterns at the porch to ward off evil spirits is a mixture of Celtic religious ideas and Christian martyrology.

It is hence safe to say that All Saints Day is a stretch of the Halloween celebration, this day, however is for the saints and martyrs throughout Christian history. In Eastern Orthodox and associated Eastern Catholic churches, All Saints' Day is observed on the first Sunday following Pentecost.

So, Why do Christians celebrate All Saints Day?

Celebrated mostly in parts of the UK and European countries like Italy, Germany, Poland and Sweden, All Saints' Day has been a Christian tradition since the 4th century AD. It was however only in the 609Ads that Pope Boniface IV decided to remember all martyrs. Today, we celebrate the day to remember the loved ones gone by laying flowers and light candles on their graves.

Originally the Feast of All Holy Martyrs, as it was then known, was celebrated on May 13. Other beliefs also state that the day was commemorated in April in the mid-9th Century, but was eventually changed to 1 November as we know and celebrate today.

In Catholic tradition, the holiday honours those who have passed on to the Kingdom of Heaven. While in the Methodist tradition, the day is celebrated to give gratitude to God for the lives and deaths of the saints that were, is put on this earth.

Stressing the importance of All Saints Day, Pope John Paul II in 2003 said, We celebrate today the solemnity of All Saints. This invites us to turn out gaze to the immense multitude of those who have already reached the blessed land, and points us on the path that will lead us to that destination.

For all the Latest Lifestyle News, Religion News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

The AIIMS medical board on Friday said that there was no need to hospitalise for Union Minister P Chidambaram, who has been jailed in the INX media case. Disposing the interim plea, Delhi Court gave direction to Tihar Jail Superintendent to keep Chidambaram's cell clean and provide mineral water, protection against mosquitoes and he should be provided a face mask.

On Thursday, the Delhi High Court had directed the AIIMS chief to form a medical board to give opinion on the health of former finance minister P Chidambaram, who is suffering from Crohn's disease. Hyderabad-based gastroenterologist Nageshwara Redy will be part of the board to give his opinion on Chidambaram's medical condition. The senior Congress leader is currently lodged in Tihar Jail. The AIIMS board was been ordered to give its report by Friday. The order came during the hearing where Chidambaram had sought interim bail in the INX media money laundering case on medical grounds, saying his condition is deteriorating and he needs to be in a sterile environment.

Justice Suresh Kait said the board will sit today to discuss Chidambaram's medical condition and the report be placed before the court which will hear the matter on Friday.

Earlier on Wednesday, a Delhi court sent Chidambaram to judicial custody till November 13 in the INX Media money laundering case. Special judge Ajay Kumar Kuhar dismissed the plea of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for one day custodial interrogation of Chidambaram.

The court directed Tihar authorities to provide Chidambaram with medicines, western toilet, security and separate cell. It also said the senior Congress leader may be allowed to have home-cooked food considering his medical condition.

Chidambaram was arrested by the CBI on August 21 in the INX Media corruption case and is currently in the ED custody in a related money laundering matter.

The CBI had registered an FIR on May 15, 2017 alleging irregularities in a Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance granted to the INX Media group for receiving overseas funds of Rs 305 crore in 2007, during Chidambaram's tenure as finance minister.

Thereafter, the ED lodged a money-laundering case in this regard in 2017. The ED had taken him in to custody on October 16 this year.

Crohn's disease is a type of inflammatory bowel disease that may affect any segment of the gastrointestinal tract from the mouth to the anus. Symptoms often include abdominal pain, diarrhoea (which may be bloody if inflammation is severe), fever, and weight loss. Bowel obstruction may also occur as a complication of chronic inflammation. Diagnosis is based on a number of findings including biopsy and appearance of the bowel wall, medical imaging and description of the disease.

(With agency inputs)

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

The nation remembered former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on her 35th death anniversary on Thursday. Mrs Gandhi was assassinated by her bodyguards just outside her New Delhi residence on October 31st, 1984. Indias first and so far only Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi was at helm of affairs between January 1966 and March 1977. Later, she came back to power in 1980 and remained in the office until her assassination in 1984. Congress top brass including party interim chief and Indira Gandhis daughter-in-law Sonia Gandhi, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, former President Pranab Mukherjee and ex-vice president Hamid Ansari paid their tributes to the Iron Lady of India at her memorial Shakti Sthal in New Delhi on Thursday.

Her grandson and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi took to Twitter to post an emotional message in her remembrance. My tributes to my grandmother & former PM, Smt Indira Gandhi Ji on the anniversary of her martyrdom, Gandhi tweeted. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also paid his heartfelt tribute to Indira Gandhi on her death anniversary. Indira Gandhis death anniversary is also observed as Sankalp Diwas.

Today we honour the incredible will & sacrifice of India's first female PM, Indira Gandhi. As PM, Mrs Gandhi made immense contributions to our nation's national security, economy, democracy & foreign policy. She will always be remembered for her love for all Indians #IndiasIndira, the party said on micro-blogging site.

The death anniversary of Indira Gandhi is marked as Rashtriya Sankalp Diwas or National Pledge Day. The occasion is dedicated to Indira Gandhi and her service to India. On this day, people take a pledge for a unified India. This came after Operation Bluestar was executed at Amritsar's Golden Temple, wherein Indira Gandhi had ordered the Indian Army to confront Sikh separatists who had taken shelter in the holy shrine.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

Private sector Yes Bank on Thursday said it has received a binding offer for a USD 1.2-billion (approximately Rs 8,500 crore) funding from an overseas investor through fresh issuance of equity shares. The fund raise is subject to regulatory approvals and bank's board and shareholders approvals, it said in a regulatory filing.

"The bank also continues to be in advanced discussions with other global and domestic investors," it said.

Last month, the bank had informed stock exchanges that it had received strong interest from multiple foreign as well as domestic private equity and strategic investors for the capital raise and remains firmly on course to raising growth capital subject to necessary approvals.

"The bank would like to inform that it has now received a binding offer from a global investor for an investment of USD 1.2 billion in the bank through fresh issuance of equity shares," it said on Thursday.

The troubled private sector lender had said that it was looking for capital either from a private equity investor or a strategic investor or family office.

Earlier in August, the bank had raised Rs 1,930.46 crore through qualified institutional placement to fund its business expansion.

Stock of Yes Bank shot up by 22.62 per cent on BSE to Rs 69.65.

For all the Latest Business News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

Amid ongoing tussle between the BJP and Shiv Sena over Chief Ministership in Maharashtra, there are reports coming in that the Congress and the NCP are likely to take a call on backing Uddhav Thackerays party for government formation in the state. NCP chief Sharad Pawar and Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi will meet in New Delhi on Monday (November 4). The leaders are likely to decided whether their parties would back Shiv Sena or not. It should be noted that on Friday Pawar had said that the public had given NCP the mandate to sit in the Opposition.

Speaking to reporters in Nashik, he also termed as "childish" the tussle between the BJP and its ally Shiv Sena over sharing of the chief minister's post. Asked about the possibility of the Shiv Sena forming government with the support of the NCP and the Congress, Pawar said there was no discussion in his party in this regard. While the Congress maintains that it will follow the wait and watch policy in Maharashtra, the Pawar-Gandhi meeting may change the couse of event in the state.

In the October 24 verdict, the BJP won 105 seats, while Shiv Sena won 56 seats. The simple majority mark in the house of 288 is 145. In case the Pawar-Gandhi meeting turns into an alliance, all three parties will have the magic figure to form the government. The math is simple - Shiv Sena (56), NCP (54) and Congress (44) as alliance partners can easily cross the majority mark.

Earlier on Thursday, Shiv Senas Sanjay Raut had met NCP chief Sharad Pawar at his residence. Raut confirmed after the meeting that the politics in Maharashtra were discussed between the two leaders. "Met Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar at his residence today. I had come to wish him on the occasion of Diwali. We also discussed the politics in Maharashtra," the Shiv Sena MP said. Sena has asked the BJP to follow the '50:50 power-sharing formula', claiming that it had been agreed to before the 2019 Lok Sabha election. However, Chief Minister Fadnavis has said that there was no agreement on the 50:50 formula.

While Sena is seeking the chief ministers post, the BJP has said that it would not compromise on the top executive job in the state. The meeting comes hours after Raut described as rumours reports that his party has softened its stand on the issue of sharing power in Maharashtra with ruling alliance partner BJP.
Wibowo believes that the Southeast Asian country would be able to withstand the third wave of viral onslaught as long as the number of patients requiring treatment does not exceed hospital beds and medical teams.

"The first and second waves of the broadcast taught us a lot," Wibowo told the journalists.

Several precautions have been made, including the delivery of tens of thousands of oxygen concentrators and other medical supplies. For coronavirus patients, there are 83,609 beds in 1,011 hospitals, with the number rising if the outbreak continues.

In mid-February, the Health Ministry predicted a high of around 60,000 new cases each day, although fewer people would be admitted to hospitals.

"We changed our strategy. Patients with mild to severe symptoms would be kept in their homes and isolated "Budi Gunadi Sadikin, the Minister of Health, said. The government has partnered with 17 telemedicine sites, allowing people who are self-isolated at home to consult with doctors and obtain medications and vitamins online.

Libya's Presidency Council commitment to backing elections

Children under 5 years old in Israel will be vaccinated in April

Imp GK: When did the centenary celebrations of the historic event of Chauri Chaura begin?
Recently a prominent leader from South Koreas ruling Democratic Party Lee Jae-myung, said he will resume tourism to North Koreas Mount Kumgang as soon as possible if hes elected in the March 9 polls.

He made the commitment during a visit to Goseong, a border county 466 kilometres northeast of Seoul, alluding to a programme that was halted in 2008 after a South Korean tourist was killed by a North Korean guard on the mountain. At an observatory overlooking the mountain range, Lee declared, "I will reopen the doors of tourism to Mount Kumgang as soon as feasible."

He also promised to create a unique international tourism zone straddling the border and promote an ecotourism programme within the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two Koreas. Lee also promised to create a unique international tourism zone straddling the border and to fight for an ecotourism programme within the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two Koreas.

"I would pursue inter-Korean cooperation through practical North Korea measures that benefit both the South and the North," he stated, starting with nonpolitical exchanges like as tourism and sports.

S. Koreans may close their businesses due to pandemic, say 40% of are self-employed

North Korean cargo train arrives in Chinese city

Volcano erupts in sea, Tsunami to hit these countries
Description

Back by popular demand, we reintroduce The Chocolate Makery at the Jewish Childrens Museum.

A mouthwatering experience where children will gain a wealth of knowledge on this exciting journey.

Children will join in the fun as they harvest the cocoa pods, grind and roast the beans to molding their very own delicious chocolate creation!

The Chocolate Makery Experience will be running January 16  February 10, at the Jewish Childrens Museum at 792 Eastern Pkwy, Brooklyn NY, 11213 Visit our website, https://www.jcm.museum/upcoming-programs/, for more information.
Attorney Kareem Johnson (center) stands to speak on behalf of his client Pete Musico (right) in front of Judge Thomas D. Wilson at the Jackson County Courthouse in Jackson on Monday, December 20, 2021 for Musico's role in an alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

Three men accused of supporting others in an alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer were slated to try to get their cases tossed Monday, but the agenda took a turn when a defense attorney raised concerns about one of the FBI agents in the case.

Pete Musico, 44; his son-in-law, Joseph Morrison, 27; and Paul Bellar, 23, appeared Monday morning in Jackson Countys 4th Circuit Court to argue  among a slew of motions  their stance that they were entrapped by the FBI and an informant. Meanwhile, the Attorney Generals Office sought to add the charge of making a threat of terrorism to the men's cases  one a lower court judge previously threw out.

However, Bellar's attorney, Andrew Kirkpatrick, requested that the entrapment motion be pushed back, citing news that federal prosecutors said in a filing Friday that they don't intend to call FBI Special Agent Henrik Impola to testify in their portion of the case; 14 men total are charged across the state and federal level.

Federal prosecutors, in the filing, ask that the defense attorneys in the federal matter be kept from introducing at trial allegations by an attorney in an unrelated case that Impola committed perjury. Federal prosecutors say the allegations are unfounded.

Paul Bellar talks with his attorney Andrew Kirkpatrick (right) while in front of Judge Thomas D. Wilson at the Jackson County Courthouse in Jackson on Monday, December 20, 2021 for his role in the plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

But Kirkpatrick on Monday raised alarms that Impola is key to the entrapment case, having directed an informant, Dan, in the men's Wolverine Watchmen group ahead of the men's arrests.

Kirkpatrick asked the judge for more time to investigate the claim, as it could be crucial to the entrapment matter and that without further information, he would be at a disadvantage if Impola took the stand Monday.

"The problem is I'm not going to be able to get into it because I don't have the discovery necessary for me to properly ask the questions, Kirkpatrick said.

Assistant Attorney General Sunita Doddamani argued against the delay on a few levels, namely that the allegations against Impola were known in March, but also because the parties were ready to go and defense attorney actions in the federal matter shouldn't impact the case on the local level.

Story continues

Assistant Attorney General Sunita Doddamani speaks in front of Judge Thomas D. Wilson at the Jackson County Courthouse in Jackson on Monday, December 20, 2021 during a hearing in an alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

This is an allegation from a case that was, I think, 2015, judge, and the same attorneys filed the same allegation every single year since," she said. "And at this point, judge, they have exactly what we have, which is an allegation of perjury, where no investigation has been concluded, no finding has been made, she said.

Further information on the allegation was not immediately available. Ultimately, Circuit Judge Thomas Wilson chose to push the entrapment motion arguments to February, and after trying to make the Attorney General's Office turn over the FBI investigation, Kirkpatrick said he would subpoena the details.

Up next in the spree of motions slated for Monday was a motion to quash the bindover of the cases from district court to circuit court  a motion to find that there wasn't probable cause to do so.

On that account, after more than 40 minutes with Kirkpatrick, Musicos attorney Kareem Johnson, Morrisons attorney Nicholas Somberg and Assistant Attorney General John Pallas rearguing key points from the multiday preliminary examination in March, Wilson gave an exasperated OK and walked through his response, finding the bindover was proper.

The Attorney General's Office also tried its hand at rehashing the choices made by District Judge Michael Klaeren in March.

Klaeren ruled back then that there was not enough probable cause to send forward the charge of making a threat of terrorism for Morrison and Musico, and declined to add it for Bellar.

Wilson stuck with that choice Monday, and denied a motion by Johnson to toss a charge of providing material support to a terrorist act.

Wilson did, however, grant Morrison a substantially lower bond, down to $5,000 cash or surety instead of $150,000.

Morrison will be on a GPS tether, unable to go more than 50 feet outside his house once bond is posted, the judge said.

Morrison told his attorney, Somberg, he was holding back tears, Somberg told the Free Press on Monday as Morrison, still in an orange jumpsuit, looked out from the courthouse elevator.

"I mean, he's been incarcerated for 438 days, he's the only state-charged defendant that has been in jail. ... He's gonna be home for Christmas," Somberg said.

Wilson also agreed to let Bellar go out-of-state to be the best man in his brothers wedding.

Somberg thought the hearing went as expected otherwise and reiterated concerns Kirkpatrick raised that the federal case shows more text messages than theyd had between the FBI agent and the informant.

Doddamani had said during the hearing that defense attorneys had everything.

Johnson, after the hearing, reiterated his stance that there was no support of a terrorist act.

We preserved the status quo, he said. We didn't come up in any worse position. That's always the plan.

His client, Musico, declined to speak in the courtroom hallway, as did Bellar, with Kirkpatrick saying he and his client wouldnt speak with the case ongoing.

Pete Musico talks with Paul Bellar after appearing in front of Judge Thomas D. Wilson at the Jackson County Courthouse in Jackson on Monday, December 20, 2021 for their role in the alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

The three arent accused of attempting to carry out the kidnapping, but face charges of providing material support to a terrorist act, charges connected to gang membership, and charges of carrying a firearm in the commission of a felony.

Musico and Morrison are accused of allowing trainings on the Munith property where they lived, for those accused of direct ties to the plot. Officials have also argued Bellar was one of those who involved with training and have argued all three men discussed the kidnapping.

The defense attorneys have repeatedly fought the allegations, pointing to Bellar living out of state until his arrest, the informant training the group, Musico being excluded from group chats, Morrison raising concerns with the man accused of being the plot ringleader, Adam Fox, and all the men talking smack, not threatening real violence.

Except for the weapons charge, each count is punishable by up to 20 years in prison upon conviction. The weapons charge is punishable by two years in prison upon conviction for a first offense.

Staff writer Tresa Baldas contributed to this report.

Darcie Moran is a breaking news reporter and podcaster for the Detroit Free Press. She's served as an investigative reporter and covered justice issues, crime, protests, wildfires and government affairs. Contact Moran: dmoran@freepress.com. Twitter: @darciegmoran.

Become a subscriber here.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Allegation with Whitmer plot FBI agent delays battle on entrapment
Brandon Bell / Getty Images

The feds on Sunday identified the gunman who was shot dead after taking four hostages in a dramatic 10-hour standoff at a Texas synagogue as 44-year-old Malik Faisal Akram.

On Saturday morning, the British national held four people captive at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, at one point demanding the release of Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui, who was convicted and imprisoned for trying to kill U.S. Army officers in Afghanistan. The standoff ended hours later, around 9 p.m., when an elite FBI SWAT team stormed the synagogue, killing Akram. All four hostagesincluding the congregations rabbi, Charlie Cytron-Walkermade it out safely.

It remains unclear why Akram, originally from Blackburn, Lancashire, targeted the synagogue, but President Joe Bidendecrying the siege as an act of terrorsaid hed only spent a couple weeks in the U.S. and slept in a homeless shelter on his first night in the country. Biden added that he allegedly bought the gun used in the attack on the street.

On Sunday morning, the Blackburn Muslim Community shared a statement from Akrams brother, identified as Gulbar Akram, who said his sibling suffered from mental health issues. He added that his family had been working with the feds and hostage negotiators as the crisis unfolded.

We would like to say that we as a family do not condone any of his actions and would like to sincerely apologize wholeheartedly to all the victims involved in the unfortunate incident, he wrote.

In a statement released on Sunday through a spokesperson, Cytron-Walker said Akram had become increasingly belligerent and threatening in the last hour of the crisis, and he was grateful for the multiple security courses his congregation has completed.

Without the instruction we received, we would not have been prepared to act and flee when the situation presented itself, he said.

Hostages Freed, Suspect Dead in Synagogue Siege

Hours before the FBI revealed Akrams identity, a spokesperson for the British Foreign Office said they were aware of the death of a British man in Texas and are in contact with the local authorities.

Story continues

The FBIs Evidence Response Team (ERT) will continue processing evidence at the synagogue, the FBI wrote in its release. At this time, there is no indication that other individuals are involved. The FBIs North Texas Joint Terrorism Task Force (NTJTTF), which includes member agencies from across the region, will continue to follow investigative leads. An FBI Shooting Incident Review Team (SIRT) will conduct a thorough, factual, and objective investigation of the events.

Hostages leaving #Colleyville synagogue after the 12 hour standoff pic.twitter.com/Ma2Wf90VR8  Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) January 16, 2022

In his statement, Gulbar said his family was liaising with Faisal, the negotiators, FBI until the early hours of the morning. And although my brother was suffering from mental health issues we were confident that he would not harm the hostages, he wrote. At around 3 a.m. the first person was released then an hour later he released the other 3 people through the fire door unharmed.

A few minutes later a firefight has taken place and he was shot and killed There was nothing we could have said to him or done that would have convinced him to surrender, he added.

BREAKING: FBI identifies hostage taker as Malik Faisal Akram, 44. pic.twitter.com/25KlWqHbYz  Jessika Harkay (@JessikaHarkay) January 16, 2022

During the siege, Akram repeatedly asked to speak to his sister, leading some to mistakenly believe he was Aafia Siddiquis brother, architect Muhammad Siddiqui. Through their lawyers, both Siddiqi and her actual brother condemned and distanced themselves from Akrams actions.

In his statement, Cytron-Walker called the incident a traumatic experiencebut insisted his resilient community would recover.

We appreciate all the love, prayers and support from our local community and through the world, he said. We are grateful for the outcome. We are resilient and we will recover.

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A version of this post was originally published on TKer.co.

Lets talk about the CAPE ratio. Its one of the most widely-followed stock market valuation and investing metrics. Its being talked about more as investors wonder whether stocks are poised to lose ground in 2022. Unfortunately, the signal of doom it supposedly sends is a myth.

CAPE, or cyclically adjusted price-earnings, was popularized by Nobel prize-winning economist Robert Shiller. Its calculated by taking the price of the S&P 500 and dividing it by the average of 10 years worth of earnings. When CAPE is above its long-term average, the stock market is thought to be expensive.

Many market watchers use above-average CAPE readings as a signal that stocks should underperform or even fall as it reverts back to its long-term mean.

But CAPEs mean doesnt actually have much pull.

Bull and bear, symbols for successful and bad investing are seen in front of the German stock exchange (Deutsche Boerse) in Frankfurt, Germany, March 25, 2020. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski

While valuations feature importantly in our toolbox to estimate forward equity returns, we should dispel an oft-repeated myth that equity valuations are mean-reverting, Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in a new note to clients.

The analysts began their discussion by noting that the problematic assumption that a mean exists for metrics like CAPE to revert to.

Mean reversion assumes that market valuation metrics  are stationary and their long-term means do not change, they wrote.

In recent decades, valuation metrics have been persistently high, which have actually forced these long-term means to move higher. Not long ago, GMOs Jeremy Grantham made this observation to argue that valuations were in a new normal at elevated levels.

Jeremy Grantham, Co-founder and Chief Investment Strategist of GMO, takes notes during an Oxford-style debate on financial innovation hosted by "The Economist" magazine at Pace University in New York October 16, 2009. REUTERS/Nicholas Roberts

We have not found any statistical evidence of mean reversion

At any rate, the case for mean-reversion is weak.

We have not found any statistical evidence of mean reversion, the Goldman Sachs analysts wrote. Equity valuations are a bounded time series: there is some upper bound since valuations cannot reach infinity, and there is a lower bound since valuations cannot go below zero. However, having upper and lower bounds does not imply valuations are stationary and revert to the same long-term mean.

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The Goldman analysts did the math, and the key metric to look at in the chart below is the statistical significance.

The statistical significance over the full sample is 26%. This means that there is only 26% confidence that the Shiller CAPE is mean-reverting, and 74% confidence that it is not. The traditional threshold to consider a relationship statistically significant is 95%.

(Chart: Goldman Sachs)

In other words, you cant rely on CAPE to gravitate toward any mean.

The Goldman analysts, however, werent done busting the myth and took issue with the concept of the CAPE ratio in general.

Even if we ignored this threshold, the time between valuations crossing into their 10th decile and reverting to their long-term average is beyond a reasonable investment horizon for a tactical decision, they said. For example, the Shiller CAPE entered its 10th decile in August 1989 but did not revert to its long-term mean for 13 years.

In other words, trading based on the assumption CAPE will mean-revert could lead to indeterminate years of getting smoked by the market.

Its worth repeating

Theres not much new here. The Goldman analysts have addressed this myth in reports published in 2013, 2014, 2018, and 2019.

They note that this isnt just a CAPE-specific issue but an issue with many valuation metrics, including valuation metrics applied to non-US stock markets.

Ive flagged this problem recently here and here. Ive written about it at Yahoo Finance here and at Business Insider here and here.

Prominent folks have been sounding off on CAPE issues for years, including veteran Wall Street strategist Sean Darby, finance professor Jeremy Siegel, legendary investors Warren Buffett, and blogger extraordinaire Michael Batnick.

Even Shiller himself has warned about CAPEs reliability.

Still, a simple Google search for CAPE ratio will return years of articles about how the market is about to crash. As you can see, its being talked about now as stocks have had a bumpy ride to start the year.

Robert Shiller, one of three American scientists who won the 2013 economics Nobel prize, attends a press conference in New Haven, Connecticut October 14, 2013. REUTERS/Michelle McLoughlin

The big picture

We want to emphasize that valuations alone are not sufficient measures for underweighting equities, the Goldman analysts wrote. High valuations do not reach some magical target and then revert to some stable mean; furthermore, the time period for valuations to reach some long-term average is highly variable and therefore uncertain.

Valuation metrics like CAPE and forward P/E arent totally worthless. By definition, they offer a simple way of estimating the premium an investor pays for a companys earnings.

However, they simply dont do a great job of telling you what stock prices will do in the coming days, months, or even years.

A version of this post was originally published on TKer.co.

Sam Ro is the author of TKer.co. Follow him on Twitter at @SamRo.

Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance

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Photo credit: Gravity Industries/YouTube

A recent viral video depicts a man boarding a warship with a jetpack.

The video is real, but the man is a Royal Marine boarding a Royal Navy warship, not a U.S. Marine.

The jetpack was also recently used in a NATO search-and-rescue exercise.

A video from last springdepicting a Royal Marine using a jetpack to launch himself from a moving boat to land on a nearby patrol boatstarted to spread like wildfire across social media this week, leaving people to wonder if any of it was real. It turns out that a number of western armies are experimenting with the very same jetpack, which also made an appearance in a recent NATO exercise.

The video was reposted dozens of times on social media, in some cases dubbed over with terrible music that made it seem even less legit. But the footage is actually real. It illustrates a maritime boarding exercise that saw a Royal Marine taking off from a rigid-hull inflatable boat (RHIB) and landing on the stern of the offshore patrol vessel HMS Tamar.

Don't miss our best-in-class military and defense coverage. Join our squadron.

You can watch the full video (above) courtesy of the jetpack's maker, United Kingdom-based Gravity Industries.

A number of western armies are experimenting with the Gravity Industries jetpack, including the United Kingdom's Royal Marines . The Royal Marines, at 8,000 personnel, are considerably smaller than their American counterparts, but training is longer and more grueling. The Royal Marines try to embrace new technologies and tactics to make up for a lack of numbers, hence their interest in the jetpack.

Gravity Industries' founder, Richard Browning, is a former Royal Marines reservist:



The HMS Tamar boarding incident is eight months old, as the video dates back to May 2021, but a more recent use of the jetpack took place at the NATO Mountain Warfare Center for Excellence in the mountains of Slovenia. The CASEVAC (casualty evacuation) scenario involved a missing person located in a gorge, and rescuers needed blood plasma to keep him alive. Participants used the jetpack to quickly bring lifesaving plasma to the rescue team.

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The Gravity Industries jetpack is powered by a system of five micro turbine engines: two per arm and one on the pilot's back. The turbines generate a theoretical total of 1,050 horsepower, giving the pilot a top speed of 56 miles per hour. Browning says the company is working on electric and winged versions, too.

Gravity Industries' publicity comes at a time when the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is investigating single-person aircraft for short hops across the battlefield. The system could take the form of a jetpack, but it could also be something else, like a powered glider. Gravity's jetpack, which satisfies the five-kilometer flight requirement, appears to have the edge over competitors. If so, we could eventually see U.S. Marines strapping on those jetpacks, too.

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Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued nine executive orders and two executive directives on Saturday. Among other things, the actions end statewide mask mandates in public schools, rescind the statewide COVID vaccine mandate for state workers and curtail how schools can teach students about racism.

Executive Order 1: Directs state education officials to end use of inherently divisive concepts, including Critical Race Theory, a term some Republicans use broadly to refer to lessons on systemic racism and its role in U.S. history. The order says political indoctrination has no place in our classrooms. It directs Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow to review and end or remove state education policies, practices or materials that promote or endorse divisive or inherently racist concepts.

Executive Order 2: Rescinds the statewide mask mandate for public school students and says parents may exempt their children from local school systems mask mandates.

Executive Order 3: Fires members of the Virginia Parole Board and names five new members: Circuit Court Judge Chadwick Dotson of Wise County as chair; Tracy Banks of Charlottesville; Cheryl Nici-OConnell of Chesterfield County; Montgomery County Sheriff Hank Partin; and Carmen Williams of Chesterfield. In 1984, Nici-OConnell was a 24-year-old Richmond police officer, working off duty outside the Richmond Marriott, when Kenneth Wayne Woodfin shot her in the head in a crime rampage. Nici-OConnell recently led an effort to block Woodfin from being released on parole. Executive Order 3 also directs the secretary of public safety to review the parole boards duties, procedures and administration.

Executive Order 4: Authorizes Attorney General Jason Miyares to investigate Loudoun Countys public schools, where a teenage student committed sexual assaults at two schools. Youngkins directive asserts that Loudouns School Board and school administrators withheld key details and knowingly lied to parents.

Executive Order 5: Directs Chief Transformation Officer Eric Moeller to initiate reviews of the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Virginia Employment Commission.

Executive Order 6: Directs the Safety and Health Codes Board to convene an emergency meeting to discuss whether there is a continued need for employer COVID-19 standards. Former Gov. Ralph Northams administration issued the workplace standards that set down rules for how business should prevent the spread of COVID.

Executive Order 7: Sets up a commission to prevent human trafficking and provide support to victims.

Executive Order 8: Establishes a commission to combat antisemitism, noting that Virginia is the home of Thomas Jeffersons Statute for Religious Freedom and that our nation and our commonwealth have seen an intolerable rise in antisemitism in recent years.

Executive Order 9: Takes steps to withdraw Virginia from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which is designed to reduce emissions from power plants. Youngkin has called it a tax on electricity ratepayers.

Executive Directive 1: Directs Executive Branch entities under Youngkins authority to cut by 25% regulations not mandated by federal or state law.

Executive Directive 2: Rescinds the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all state employees.

VIDEOS: Inauguration of Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin Watch videos from the inauguration of Gov. Glenn Youngkin, including behind the scenes with Richmond Times-Dispatch photographer Bob Brown.

acain@timesdispatch.com (804) 649-6645 Twitter: @AndrewCainRTD Staff writer Mel Leonor contributed to this report.
Monday, Jan. 17, is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. On this holiday, we celebrate one of the great civil rights leaders of the 20th century. The Rev. King challenged Americans to uphold the Declaration of Independences promise that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

The quiz below, from the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University, provides an opportunity for you to test your knowledge of King and his efforts to further civil rights in America.

1. King became pastor of which Georgia church in 1960?

A. Wheat Street Baptist Church

B. Milestone Baptist Church

C. Ebenezer Baptist Church

D. Zion Baptist Church

2. Which leader inspired Kings belief in nonviolent resistance and, according to King, provided the method for social reform that I had been seeking?

A. Nelson Mandela

B. Dalai Lama

C. Eleanor Roosevelt

D. Mahatma Gandhi

3. King said in an interview that if he were marooned on a desert island with only one book other than the Bible, he would choose what book?

A. Platos The Republic

B. John Stuart Mills On Liberty

C. Ralph Waldo Emersons Essays by RW Emerson

D. James Baldwins Notes of a Native Son

4. After which civil rights victory did King become a recognized national leader of the civil rights movement?

A. Civil Rights Act of 1964

B. Montgomery Bus Boycott

C. Birmingham Campaign of 1963

D. School integration in Little Rock

5. In what city in 1968 was King assassinated?

A. Memphis, Tenn.

B. Jackson, Miss.

C. Little Rock, Ark.

D. Selma, Ala.

6. Before his famous I Have a Dream speech, King gave another speech from the Lincoln Memorial. What was the topic of that speech?

A. Vietnam War

B. Importance of nonviolence

C. Economic equality

D. African American voting rights

7. In 1964, King received what important award?

A. United Nations Human Rights Award

B. Nobel Peace Prize

C. Presidential Medal of Freedom

D. Congressional Medal of Honor

8. Which other civil rights leader did King work closely with before his death?

A. Ralph Abernathy

B. Jesse Jackson

C. Benjamin Mays

D. All of the above

9. What was the name of the speech King gave the day before his assassination?

A. Ive Been to the Mountaintop

B. The Three Evils of Society

C. Our God Is Marching On

D. The Other America

10. Which president signed legislation designating Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday?

A. Barack Obama

B. Jimmy Carter

C. Ronald Reagan

D. George Bush

Peter C. Myers is a member of the faculty at the Ashbrook Center, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, and curator of Ashbrooks newly released collection Race and Civil Rights: Core Documents. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.

Answers: 1-C, 2-D, 3-A, 4-B, 5-A, 6-D, 7-B, 8-D, 9-A, 10-C
REC must do better on communicating

Last Mondays winter storm exposed some serious issues with Rappahannock Electric Cooperative. As I write this, we are eight days out from the storm, and I still have no power. I have a downed power line lying on the ground in my front yard. REC is aware of this.

To make matters worse, REC will not give an ETA on when power will be restored.

You cannot have customers go that long without power and not give them any sort of ETA. In my case, I need to have an ETA because I am running a kerosene heater 24/7. Im almost out of kerosene. Do I need to go get more? I dont know because I have no idea how much longer I will be without power.

Heres another example: I am thinking about booking a hotel for the night to get a break. Do I go ahead and book it? What if REC arrives after I book the hotel? Im out $100.

I understand that big storms can bring extended power outages. But three or four days after the storm, the electric company should start providing general time frames to their customers. I have followed their outage map and spoken to multiple employees and practically begged for an ETA. They refuse to provide one.

At this point, power has been restored to about 95 percent of REC customers affected by the storm. They still refuse to provide an ETA. They have provided no instruction on the downed power line. Is it live? I have no idea.

REC needs to do better with communication with their customers. This lack of communication in a crisis is inexcusable.

Patty King

Spotsylvania
Snow started falling over Danville early Sunday morning quickly coating mostly deserted roadways with a layer of light powder.

About 1 to 3 inches could accumulate before switching to a mix of sleet and freezing rain by afternoon. The ice along with wind gusts up to 35 mph may spark power outages, forecasters at the National Weather Service in Blacksburg noted.

The region remained under a winter storm warning until 7 a.m. Monday.

"Power outages and tree damage are possible due to the ice," forecasters wrote in the warning. "Travel conditions will deteriorate and could quickly become very difficult."

Snowplow operations started at about 9:15 a.m. in Danville, city spokesperson Arnold Hendrix reported.

Crews started scraping the major roads and will continue until the snow stops falling. Then they'll make one final pass and move to collector streets.

"Both primary and secondary streets are now slick," Hendrix said Sunday morning.

The Danville Police Department asked residents to avoid travel. The Danville Regional Airport also closed Sunday morning.

"Because of the snow, it has been determined that the airfield pavement braking action is insufficient to support safe operations," Hendrix reported.

The large system was spreading winter weather of some form over a majority of Virginia. On Friday, then-Gov. Ralph Northam declared a state of emergency to put in places resources as needed.

The complex system perplexed forecasters with an almost last-minute shift to more ice which lowered earlier snowfall forecasts. Drawing moisture from the Atlantic Ocean, the warm air in the upper levels of the atmosphere will cause the snow to change to sleet and freezing rain.

"The situation becomes more complex as the morning ... as the low pressure begins to shift northeast, with a new center of low pressure forming and rapidly deepening during the afternoon across coastal South Carolina," forecasters wrote in discussion. "This low will push a layer of warm air from off the ocean across the mountains."

Areas toward the mountains were in line to get the most snow, but even those totals were lowered Sunday morning when more sleet emerged into the forecast picture.

"Warmer air aloft is deeper across the Piedmont and the layer of cold air hugging the surface is thinner," forecasters explained. "This will make for lighter amounts of snow and sleet during the morning, with a transition to freezing rain during generally the afternoon."
At school board meetings across the country in 2021, parents engaged in physical altercations, shouted at school board members and threatened them as well.

Our September 2021 article in Educational Policy explains that the short-term conflicts that generate media attention  such as about critical race theory across the nation  are part of long-standing ideological debates about education. These conflicts are about issues such as who deserves academic opportunity, what the parameters of public education are and whether schools and universities ought to promote a positive image of the U.S. or explore its shortcomings.

As researchers who study conflicts in education, we see clashes like these continuing into 2022.

1. Virtual education

In 2022, expect conflicts over virtual school offerings to intensify, especially as the omicron variant surges and as some states push toward vaccine mandates for all students. At stake is whether parents should have control over how public funds are spent on educating their children, and the potential effects of diverting those funds away from traditional public schools.

In fall 2021, U.S. school leaders largely shifted their services back to in-person instruction after shutdowns and remote instruction dominated the initial response to the coronavirus pandemic.

However, demand for home-schooling and virtual schooling has risen, as some parents discover that these forms of education offer greater flexibility in scheduling, control over curriculum and safety from the coronavirus. In Washington state, for example, enrollments in publicly funded virtual schools operated by for-profit companies have increased dramatically, such as Washington Virtual Academies, which expanded enrollments by an estimated 85% between the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 school years. Similar trends happened in school districts across the country.

Enrollment data for the 2021-2022 school year are still emerging, but some school choice experts have argued that parental demand for virtual education is here to stay. However, in another research project, one of us found that students who switch to online schools experience substantial learning losses in reading and math during each of the three years after switching. That evidence has forced policymakers to consider greater regulation of online schools, even as more parents consider taking their children out of traditional public schools and putting them in virtual ones.

2. Affirmative action

Affirmative action and similar policies in college admissions have always generated controversy, and 2022 will likely be no different. This year, a case that began in 2014 will reach the U.S. Supreme Court. That case, Students for Fair Admissions vs. Harvard University, alleges that Harvards race-conscious admissions policies discriminate against Asian applicants.

The case has worked its way through the court system with a national roster of affluent plaintiffs. This group has filed multiple unsuccessful lawsuits across the U.S., including an October 2021 loss in a similar case over admissions at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Similar lawsuits have also sprung up in San Francisco and Boston over school districts efforts to make access to academically selective public schools more representative of student populations. These suits reflect broader ideological tensions over who deserves a well-funded, elite education and the governments responsibility to protect that access.

3. Teachers unions

In 2022, look to teachers unions to continue to assert themselves in the face of ongoing efforts by parent and advocacy groups to limit their power.

Over the past year teachers unions effectively negotiated the implementation of health safeguards against the spread of COVID-19 in Chicago, New York City and Los Angeles. These unions secured protective measures such as virtual instruction, priority vaccine access for teachers, medical and personal leave related to COVID-19, explicit metrics to determine when schools would close, district-provided personal protective equipment for teachers and classroom air filtration systems.

While the pandemic dominates union activity at present, and many unions have not negotiated significant concessions, these wins signal unions strategic and legal capacity to negotiate around issues such as compensation and working conditions. Given current shortages of qualified teachers, unions negotiation power may intensify.

4. Gifted programs

In 2022, gifted education may become a national debate. So far it has been prominent in New York City, but that may spread.

Mayor Eric Adams said he intends to keep gifted programs in place. Gifted programs offer accelerated learning opportunities for students who score at the top of their class on standardized tests. Critics, such as the School Diversity Advisory Group commissioned by former Mayor Bill de Blasio, argue that gifted programs segregate students by race, since research has shown that students of color are underrepresented in these programs.

In California, policymakers have unveiled a plan to address this issue by grouping students of different mathematical ability in the same classrooms until their junior year. Only then will students be able to select advanced math courses, such as calculus or statistics.

This move may revive the 1980s so-called tracking wars, an intense debate over whether students should be offered different levels of curriculum based on their test scores. As other states and districts consider overhauling their own gifted programs, these short-term conflicts will likely add energy to the existing national fight concerning what role the education system should play in addressing inequality in the United States.

In all of these conflicts, be prepared in 2022 for policy advocates to use both conventional and unconventional strategies to advance their efforts. Further, expect those advocates to include politically and economically powerful actors as well as those who rarely have a voice in policy conversations.

Joseph J. Ferrare has received funding from the National Science Foundation, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Spencer Foundation, and U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences.

Kate Phillippo has received funding from the Spencer Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

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British counterterrorism agents are coordinating with U.S. authorities after a hostage taker later identified as a U.K. citizen was shot dead following an hours-long standoff at a synagogue in Texas in what U.S. President Joe Biden called "an act of terror."

The man, named by the FBI as 44-year-old Malik Faisal Akram, was killed in a "shooting incident" after the FBI entered the building at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, near Dallas, on January 15.

All four hostages were unharmed during the incident, which lasted for about 10 hours.

Britain's Foreign Office confirmed the hostage taker was British and the Metropolitan Police said counterterrorism officers were in contact with U.S. authorities and colleagues from the FBI.

Biden, on a visit to Philadelphia, said on January 16 that the incident was "an act of terror."



British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss also condemned the "act of terrorism and anti-Semitism," while the British ambassador to the United States, Karen Pierce, said British authorities are providing "full support to Texas and U.S. law enforcement agencies."

"We stand with U.S. in defending the rights and freedoms of our citizens against those who spread hate," Truss said on Twitter.

Akram is said to have demanded the release of Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui, suspected of having ties to Al-Qaeda, who is in prison in Texas after being convicted of trying to kill U.S. Army officers in Afghanistan.

A brother of Akram issued a statement apologizing to those taken hostage and claiming Akram had been suffering from "mental health issues."

Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, who was among the four people held hostage, told the media on January 16 that the hostage taker had become increasingly belligerent and threatening toward the end of the standoff.

With reporting by Reuters, AFP, CNN, The New York Times, and AP
Aaron Burris and his family have been going to the stock yards nearly every year since moving to Denver six years ago.
You couldnt wipe the grin off cadet John Stanley if you tried.

The Air Force Academy sophomore from Chanute, Kan., let out a celebratory scream following his first free fall and solo parachute jump earlier this month during a week-long airmanship course.

It was absolutely amazing, Stanley said, while stuffing a bright yellow parachute into a bag. The class was a lot more intense than I expected but given what they just had us do, Im kind of happy it was.

Three days of intensive classroom instruction followed by five jumps each over two days earns cadets their jump wings.

They had us doing repetitive movements over and over, Stanley said. We had to memorize them down to a T. They would string us up on these hooks and spin us around and they would give commands and wed have to give responses within five seconds. And wed have to do it perfectly. Im glad that they did it as hard as they did.

The computer science and applied mathematics double major is also studying Arabic at the Academy and would like to go into intelligence. Stanley said he loves the language and would like to work with it daily.

Fellow computer science major Danny Kennedy of North Kingstown, R.I., was also all smiles after completing his first jump.

Im an adrenaline junky and when I heard I could jump out of a plane by myself, I had to jump on that, Kennedy said. It was everything Id imagined. I left the plane and was totally free. It is the coolest thing Ive ever done in my life.

After graduation, Kennedy wants to be a combat rescue officer so he can help people.

Some junior and senior cadets who have proven themselves amongst the best become members of the Wings of Blue, whose primary role is running the basic freefall parachuting course, Airmanship 490.

The cadet-led class attracts roughly 75% of all cadets and is the only certified jump program in the world where students first jump is solo.

Free fall is very unique, but we try to make it as familiar as possible for our students, said Corey Eisert-Wlodarczyk, a senior from Erie, Penn., who would like to be an intelligence officer.

Part of the training includes wearing virtual reality headsets to get the perspective of free falling, being suspended from a harness to learn how it feels being under canopy and visiting a wind tunnel in Denver to experience the amount of airflow.

Eisert-Wlodarczyk understands that most cadets wont be parachuting much during their military careers.

The goal of this program is not to make you a good skydiver  its to get you to stand in the door, to do something that you dont want to do," he said. "But because there are other people relying on you and you have to be brave in that moment, you have to have a clear mind, rely on your training and overcome that fear. Thats the whole point.

Cadets who began parachuting in 1962 without the Academys approval or knowledge ended up winning a national gold medal in a skydiving competition. As a result, a campus club started in May 1964 and the first parachuting course began the spring of 1967, according to the Academy website.

More than 50 years later, there has never been a fatality

We have a pretty impeccable safety record, said Lt. Col. Matthew Amig, director of the Academys parachute team.

Each year the school hosts as many as 24,000 jumps, according to Amig. That's most in the Air Force.

Cadets at the Academy jump from any of three UV-18 Twin Otter aircraft, which have a large square opening for easy exits.

The Wings of Blue has both a demonstration team and competition team. Both show off their skills at events throughout the world.

The demonstration team is scheduled to perform Saturday, July 31 as Colorado Springs celebrates its 150th birthday with an 11 a.m. parade on Tejon Street downtown followed by a festival from noon to 8 p.m. on Vermijo Avenue between the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum and the Pioneers Museum. Look skyward for them as the parade begins.

The Wings of Blue competition team competes against other schools and civilian teams.

We are the most decorated collegiate team in history, Eisert-Wlodarczyk said.

The team trains three days per week with jumps scheduled from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Some of the smartest people I know are here on the team, Eisert-Wlodarczyk said. I think the rigor of it and the intensity of the team definitely attracts a certain type of people. This type of opportunity is unbeatable.
Three Colorado lawmakers have voiced concern over Russias Nov. 15 anti-satellite missile test that endangered astronauts and created thousands of pieces of space debris the Colorado Springs-based U.S. Space Command is now responsible to track.

Colorado Springs Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn and Democratic U.S. senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper  like many leaders throughout the world  have criticized Russia for launching a missile that destroyed Cosmos 1408, a defunct Soviet reconnaissance satellite, blasting roughly 1,500 trackable pieces of debris into Earths orbit at a speed of approximately 17,500 mph.

"Russia's destructive test is contrary to international norms and poses a dangerous threat," Bennet told The Gazette on Wednesday.

Hickenlooper, chair of the Commerce Subcommittee on Space and Science, agreed completely.

"Russias missile test is alarming. Orbital debris endangered the lives of ISS (International Space Station) astronauts and threatens satellites used for national defense and everyday technology like GPS and weather forecasting," Hickenlooper said.

Days after the test, Hickenlooper introduced a bipartisan amendment to the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act  the militarys budget  condemning the missile test and reaffirming responsible behavior in space. Hickenlooper is also leading a letter to Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the National Space Councils first meeting next week to express the urgent need of developing international rules for behavior in space.

Russia warned on State TV this week that its new Star Warrior technology could destroy 32 NATO satellites, blinding missiles, planes, ships and ground forces.

Lamborn stated that if that were to happen, it would be an act of war.

The Russian test as well as the Chinese hypersonic glide vehicle test some weeks earlier shows that these two countries are doing everything that they can to match or exceed our capabilities in space, Lamborn said. Its a serious threat and when we face these kinds of threats its not prudent to pick up Space Command and move it somewhere else. In fact, it would be disruptive, expensive and waste valuable time.

Lamborn added an amendment to the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act that prevents any work on the planned move of U.S. Space Command and its 1,400 troops from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Ala., until after the Government Accountability Office and the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General complete their reviews of the decision.

Results of the GAO review, currently underway, are expected to be released in March, Chuck Young, managing director of public affairs for the agency, told The Gazette.

Shortly before leaving office, President Donald Trump announced in January the decision to move Space Command. It is currently scheduled to remain in Colorado Springs until 2026. Trump said on a radio show in August that he "single-handedly" picked Alabama as the new home for U.S. Space Command, confirming a January report by The Gazette.

Trumps decision has drawn fire from Colorado politicians who claimed the choice was politically motivated.

The last administrations decision to move Space Command ... I believe was not made in the national security interests of the United States but ... for political reasons that are not the reasons these decisions should be made, Bennet said last month outside a gate at Peterson Space Force Base, where the command, which oversees all American military missions in orbit, is located.

Congress brought Space Command back to life in 2019 after an earlier version was shuttered in 2001 amid post-Cold War budget cuts. The Pentagon picked Colorado Springs as the provisional home of the recreated command, putting it back where it originally was founded in 1985.

Receiving the command would be a financial bonanza for Alabama and a big blow to Colorado Springs, because it will be backed by thousands of civilian workers and billions of dollars in military contracts. Any state housing the command would also potentially woo a bigger piece of the booming civilian space industry, which has again shattered records for the number of commercial satellite launches in 2021.

Gen. John Jay Raymond, Space Force chief of space operations, said during the Space Symposium in August at The Broadmoor that the number of active satellites had grown from 2,100 to about 4,900 in the previous two years.

Improving safety and security of satellites and sharing information between allies were top concerns and priorities addressed at the symposium.

In every warfighting domain, there are rules on professional behavior," Raymond said in August. We dont have that here. It is the wild, wild west.

Space fuels our way of life and our way of war. Our adversaries understand that and are developing weapons purpose-built to degrade our space capabilities.

In the past several years, Raymond said China and Russia have continued to build satellites that could pose a threat to American spacecraft.

Both have reversible jammers, Raymond said. Both have ground-based laser systems capable of blinding or damaging satellites. Both have ground-based missiles capable of destroying satellites on orbit.
Colorado Springs, which boasted the nation's most popular ZIP code this year for single-family home sales, also will be one of the country's hottest areas for housing in 2022.

A forecast released this week by Realtor.com, the California-based online real estate service, estimates that the Springs will have the 14th best housing market next year out of the 100 most populous U.S. metro areas.

Colorado Springs and other cities were ranked based on the pace of home sales and home price appreciation that Realtor.com estimates will take place in each area next year.

The Springs will see a 10.3% increase in sales in 2022 compared with 2021, Realtor.com estimates. Prices, meanwhile, are expected to rise 5.2% on a year-over-year basis. That's a combined percentage change of 15.5%, according to the Realtor.com forecast.

"With strong home sales and price growth expected in 2022, Colorado Springs is expected to see a strong real estate market in the year ahead," according to Realtor.com. "Its affordability relative to nearby Denver and its own healthy jobs markets are expected to be key drivers of the real estate market. With a high share of tech jobs and above-average share of younger households, the area is expected to see household growth that will mean rising home sales and modest home price growth on top of 2021's record highs."

Salt Lake City, with an estimated sales and price increase of 23.7%, ranked No. 1 in the forecast, followed in the top five by Boise, Idaho, 20.8%; Spokane, Wash., 20.5%; Indianapolis, 20.4%; and Columbus, Ohio, 20%.

Still, some local real estate agents wonder if Realtor.com's forecast underestimates how much home prices will climb next year in Colorado Springs.

Based on sale and price information that he tracks for the Springs market, Eddie Hurt of ERA Shields Real Estate said local single-family home prices have increased 18.5% this year compared with 2020.

Because the demand for housing remains strong, and the supply of homes for sale is tight, expect another double-digit percentage gain in housing prices in 2022, he said.

"A 5% increase in prices sounds very low," Hurt said of Realtor.com's forecast. "I think it will be closer to 10% to 12%. (That) would be my forecast for next year."

When it comes to the forecast of home sales in Colorado Springs, Hurt suggests Realtor.com is too high on its projected increase.

Why? Because there simply aren't enough properties available for purchase, he said.

Monthly inventories of homes for sale have been at historically low levels for much of 2021, according to Pikes Peak Association of Realtors figures and data compiled by The Gazette.

Through November, Springs-area home sales totaled 16,716 for the year, according to last month's Pikes Peak Association of Realtors market trends report.

And though home sales are on pace for a record year in 2021, they're only running 4.7% ahead of the same period last year.

In general, Colorado Springs' ranking on the Realtor.com list of top housing markets in 2022 is another plus for the area  though it also could mean the region is about to become even more crowded, Hurt said.

"Anytime you make it on any kind of list like that, people just automatically assume that's good," Hurt said. "And so, I think for the most part, that means it is good. It shines a positive light on Colorado Springs and that it's a great place to live, which it is.

"But you could also argue," Hurt said, "that it means more people are going to be like, 'wow, that looks like a nice place to live. Maybe I should be moving there, too.'"

Realtor.com's 2022 housing forecast followed its August report that tabbed Colorado Springs' 80916 ZIP code on the southeast side as the nation's No. 1 area for home sales in 2021.

That No. 1 ranking followed Realtor.com's selection of nearby 80911, which covers unincorporated Security-Widefield, as the nation's hottest ZIP code in 2020.
Some Colorado hospitals are already enacting tenets of the state's crisis standards of care amid a crush of patients and a shortage of providers, and emergency physicians have now called on Gov. Jared Polis to officially enact the plan for the first time.
Dr. Brenda Dickhoner is President and CEO of Ready Colorado. Ready Colorado is an education reform advocacy organization that believes all children have a right to a high-quality education.
It's a first look at what Boulder County deputies saw as the Marshall Fire raced through Louisville and Superior  newly released body camera 
If you've driven on 12th Street Northeast in Mason City in the past few days, you've likely noticed the construction work taking place in the Winnebago River.

That's because earlier this month, work on the river's low-head dam project began, according to Mason City Operations and Maintenance Manager Bill Stangler.

In the Mason City Council meeting on July 6, 2021, the city unanimously approved the construction project, which is based immediately south of the 12th Street Northeast bridge.

The purpose of the dam project is two-fold, according to Stangler. The first goal is to make that area of the river safer, as currently it's a safety hazard to the public. The second goal is to make that part of the Winnebago River useable for recreational activities.

"It'll be a pretty substantial improvement," Stangler said.

Stangler also noted that the dam project will create a fish passage over the dam. To accomplish this, the city has to make serious modifications to the current state of the dam.

"They're basically taking the undertow of the dam out and filling it up," Stangler said. "This is so that everything can pass through there and make it a safe operation."

There will also be a wave feature in the river added to improve recreational activities like kayaking and tubing.

In a previous interview the the Globe Gazette about the project, Iowa DNR fisheries biologist Scott Grummer said that recreationally, all of the mitigation work will mean that kayakers won't have to get out for stretches and portage their vessels.

The total cost of the project is estimated to be $854,724, the bulk of which will be offset by received three sperate grants from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources for $312,500, $96,210 and $100,730, respectively. The remaining $345,284 will be paid for by city funds.

The contract for the work was awarded to Beemer Construction out of Fairmont, Minnesota.

The project kicked off construction earlier this month, and Stangler estimates it will be complete in February. However, with the work on the project heavily dependent on weather and the water level of the river, Stangler said that February is a loose estimate.

The entirety of the project won't be complete in this window, however, as the replacing and resurfacing of the asphalt for the trails along the river won't be ready in time due to asphalt plants not opening until April or May, according to Stangler.

The Winnebago River low-head dam project is just one part of the city's and Iowa Department of Natural Resources' (DNR) efforts to improve the safety of that section of the river, with work in the area dating back as far as 2020.

Previous work on the project includes mitigation of other dams in sections of the river running through the city, to improve recreation in the same way as the section currently under repair, and the relocation of rare mussels in the section of the river near East Park.

Zach Dupont's five faves for 2021 It's tough, as a newbie in Mason City, to select five top stories from a year that you've on

Zachary Dupont covers politics and business development for the Globe Gazette. You can reach him at 641-421-0533 or zachary.dupont@globegazette.com. Follow Zachary on Twitter at @ZachNDupont

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Iowa Senate President Jake Chapman, R-Adel, and Judiciary Chairman Brad Zaun, R-Urbandale, support a plan that would, in effect, allow the state Legislature to determine what books would be appropriate for classroom learning and for school libraries.

In fact, the proposed legislation would allow criminal felony charges to be brought against teachers and librarians who go against what the Legislature deems as inappropriate.

It has become increasingly evident that we live in a world in which many, including our media, wish to confuse, misguide and deceive us, calling good evil and evil good, said Chapman on the opening day of the Legislature

The attack on our children is no longer hidden. Some teachers are disguising sexually obscene material as desired subject matter and profess it has artistic and literary value, he said.

Clearly, this is a cause in search of a constituency. It is the radical right accusing the radical left without providing any evidence to back up its claims. And even if it was true, do we really want the government to tell us what we can and cant read or what we can or cant teach?

The solution is local control with decisions being made by local school boards and school administrations with healthy, helpful input from parents.

Republicans have always been the party advocating less government regulation, not more. So this is a real reversal of philosophy. Sometimes thats called hypocrisy.

So lets stop this nonsense before it gets out of hand. And it can get out of hand. The Oklahoma Legislature this year will consider a bill in which lawmakers will determine appropriateness of school and library books  and issue fines of $10,000 a day for non-compliance.

In Iowa, State Rep. Sharon Steckman, D-Mason City, a former longtime school teacher, said procedures are already in place for school officials to review and approve or disapprove of reading materials. She said the system is working.

I think we need to leave it the way it has been, said Steckman.

House Speaker Pat Grassley, R-New Hartford, who controls the path of much legislation, thinks fellow Republicans Chapman and Zaun may have gone to extremes in their proposed legislation.

I think we feel very strongly, obviously, that pornography shouldnt be distributed amongst a school. However, how do we do that in a way in which the local school boards are the ones that are making sure that its being addressed? said Grassley, grandson of U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley.

I was reading a book the other day that was full of violence, prostitution, infidelity and worshiping of idols, In the broadest sense, it would be the kind of book that Chapman and fellow Republicans would want to keep out of the hands of children. The book is the Old Testament of the Bible.

Is the Bible obscene? Of course not. Is the "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" obscene? Of course not. Is "Uncle Toms Cabin" obscene? Of course not.

If parents in a community have a problem with what books their children are required to read or that are available at their public library, there are local procedures for handling those complaints. And what meets a community standard in Davenport might not be acceptable in Council Bluffs. Thats what local control is all about.

The Legislature should concern itself with properly funding our schools, paying good money for good teachers and facilities and, after that, pretty much mind its own business.

John Skipper retired from the Globe Gazette in February 2018 after 52 years in newspapers, most of that in Mason City covering North Iowa government and politics.

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Once or twice each week, every week, Joseph Mullineaux, 99, slides on his bowling shoes at Mount Airy Bowling Lanes and does his best to throw some strikes.

Joe Mullineaux fist bumps Neil Jenkins, a fellow bowler in the Friday Morning Seniors after bowling a 105 at Mount Airy Lanes Friday, Jan 14, 2022. Mullineaux, a WWII veteran, has been bowling with the group for the past seven years. (Dylan Slagle)

On Friday morning about 40 members of his senior bowling league celebrated their friends birthday with a surprise cake covered in chocolate and vanilla frosting, as well as kind words.

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As his daughter, Jeannie Rainer, brought out the cake, a big smile grew on Mullineauxs face.

He was definitely surprised, Rainer said. Everybody came around and sang happy birthday.

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Mullineax started bowling in his retirement and regularly gets in about three games a week.

I was bowling in the womens league, so he decided to join the senior league, Rainer said. He really enjoys getting out and seeing people.

His average score is 88, pretty good, according to his daughter.

Alyson Rineer, operations director at Mount Airy Bowling Lanes, said shes happy to see Mullineaux actively bowling on a regular basis.

He still gets up there like he would if he was 20 years old, she said. We enjoy having him very much.

Born and raised in Damascus, Mullineaux moved from Texas to live with his daughter in Maryland about seven years ago. They live in Montgomery County, about 10 miles from the bowling alley in Mount Airy.

Rainer said although her father doesnt hear very well, hes in pretty good shape physically. He is currently the oldest person who participates in Mount Airys senior bowling league.

Hes been fit all his life, partly from serving in the Army during World War II, she noted.

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Mullineaux stays active in the community in a number of ways, including regularly attending church and playing bingo at the American Legion Post 191 on Thursday nights.

A lot of people know him, Rainer said. The COVID-19 pandemic was rough on him since he was pretty isolated for a while.

The virus kept him from bowling for almost a whole year.

In 2016 Mullineaux wrote an autobiographical booklet titled 93 Years of Living and Learning.

I learned at an early age to be self-reliant, he wrote. I was the middle child in a family of six.

Rainer said at 99 years old, her father has outlived all his brothers and sisters and even some of his nieces and nephews.

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No one believes his age because he looks so young, she said.
Re: Although trained in Sweden, the renowned doctor has spent most of her [ #permalink

A humble request  Please give KUDOS if you like the response.

Let us first dissect the sentence.

Although trained in Sweden, This is the dependent clause

the renowned doctor has spent most of her life in Africa, - This is the independent clause. This is in present perfect tense.

grew up in Kenya as the eldest of a missionary couples six children, - This is in simple past tense.

attended prep school in Namibia, - This is in simple past tense.

and after college and medical school in Sweden,

did graduate work in the Congo and Zimbabwe. - This is in simple past tense.

This is a list of activities and the tenses are being tested in this SC question.





(A) grew up in Kenya as the eldest of a missionary couples six children, attended prep school in Namibia, and after college and medical school in Sweden, did

All tenses are in past tense an hence is incorrect choice we need something in present tense.



(B) has grown up in Kenya as the eldest of a missionary couples six children, has attended prep school in Namibia, and after college and medical school in Sweden, did

this sentence has present perfect tense, present perfect tense and past tense. Hence incorrect.



(C) having grown up in Kenya as the eldest of a missionary couples six children, attended prep school in Namibia, and after college and medical school in Sweden, having done

simple present, simple past and simple present. Hence incorrect

If you are still reading my post please hit the KUDOS button.



(D) growing up in Kenya as the eldest of a missionary couples six children, attending prep school in Namibia, and, after college and medical school in Sweden, doing

Present continuous tense for all three list had been used. This is the correct choice. All the tenses are in the same form.



(E) growing up in Kenya as the eldest of a missionary couples six children, attending prep school in Namibia, and, after college and medical school in Sweden, she did

Present continuous tense, Present continuous tense and past tense has been used. Hence incorrect.

Thank you for reading the post. Request you to please hit the KUDOS button.

Answer is D.
I have been reviewing the results of a DNA test I did almost four years ago. It was before I went to a class about family history at church and learned to compare DNA testing to a bowl of marbles.

For instance, everyone who has sent in a DNA test is like a bowl of marbles with marbles representing their DNA. So if youve always thought your ancestry was, say, German, but no one from Germany has put in a marble, your DNA wont include that.

Of course, as more people do DNA tests, there are more marbles in both variety and number.

According to the test results, Im 46.4% Irish, Scottish and Welsh; 35.1% Northern and Western European, 7.3% Scandinavian, 7.2% English and 4% of more.

My maternal line was named Donahoe, so I believe the Irish lineage. My grandfather told me the name used to be ODonahoe, but I havent been able to find that yet. And I have a written family history from my paternal British side, so that sounds good.

At times I hope it turns out I am of British royal lineage, but with all the trouble the royal family stays in, mostly I hope Im not. Although if many more royals leave the family, perhaps I could wind up being the queen. I think I would be a brilliant monarch, and I would love wearing a cute hat every day.

According to the map that came with my DNA results, the other DNA comes from the Steppes of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Now thats a lineage worth exploring. I voice googled Navigate me to Uzbekistan, but that seemed too much for even Google.

The results were how to say husband in Spanish, an article about how attention disorders can take a toll on marriage and one on the downside of marriage.

I tried again and was directed to How to know if a Pakistani man is in love with you and wants to marry you.

I gave up. In fact, Google usually puts our home on a road with a similar name that is across the creek on our property, so I doubt it can get me to Uzbekistan for a family reunion. I cant even imagine how some DNA made the trip.

Google did know how to say Hello. You are my cousin 50 times removed in Urbek, one of the two main languages in Uzbekistan. If you are also my cousin and need to know one day, it is Salom. Siz mening amakivachchamsiz 50 marta olib tashlangan.

Besides somehow figuring out how to travel to Uzbekistan, there is good and bad in knowing your DNA results.

The dubious good is that you keep getting emails telling you who is related to you. I have known none of them, and they live all over the United States. All of them seem to be third or fifth cousins. I dont even see all of my first cousins, so I cant imagine ever buying Christmas presents for all these third to fifth cousins.

Some of them, however, have been from Australia. That is really cool, although Ive never had a desire to fly more than four hours anywhere, which is the length of time a Xanax lasts.

The downside of getting DNA matches is the feeling of panic that I get every time I open one of the emails. It is residual panic from when I opened the first one and thought, Oh no, what happens if I find I have a missing child I have never met?

Apparently, I have watched too many crime shows on TV. After a few deep breaths, I convinced myself that could not be possible. I remember distinctly (well, some better than others) being there for seven births and coming home with seven babies. I know where all the adult versions are.

There is no unknown adult in Uzbekistan who is going to find out I am the mother he or she has never known. Repeat 50 times before next email.

I think I have failed DNA testing. Maybe when everyone in the world throws all their marbles into the bowl, I will spit in a little tube again. Maybe. Or maybe Ill be partying on the Steppes of Uzbekistan with my cousins.

Elzey is a freelance writer with the Register & Bee. She can be reached at susanelzey@yahoo.com or 434-791-7991.
GRANITE FALLS, N.C.  Authorities in North Carolina say deputies shot and killed a man who held two women hostage after he allegedly killed his brother-in-law.

WBTV-TV reported that the Caldwell County Sheriffs Office was called to a home in Granite Falls Friday evening for an unknown trouble call.

The sheriff's office said in a news release that before deputies arrived, Troy Lee Carter, 56, attacked his brother-in-law, Timothy Lewis Davis, 46. Davis was pronounced dead at the scene after being found outside the home with gunshot and stab wounds.

Carter was wanted for two counts of domestic criminal trespassing, one count of injury to real property and one count of second-degree arson for previous incidents at the property.

The sheriff's office said that when deputies arrived at the home Friday, they found Carter armed with a knife and gun and holding two women hostage. The sheriff's office said in the news release that deputies shot Carter after he failed to obey verbal commands. He died at the scene. No one else was injured.

The case has been turned over to the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation. The deputies involved have been placed on paid administrative leave pending review by the District Attorneys Office.
EDEN

Shortly after moving to northern Virginia in 1967, Susie Prior met a deaf person, and the encounter prompted her interest in sign language.

The interest was so strong, in fact, that Prior and two friends enrolled at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., one of the worlds premiere institutions for the deaf where students learn through American Sign Language, or ASL. At Gallaudet, where Prior was among a select number of hearing students allowed to attend, Prior ended up taking everything they had to offer in continuing education program.

Those courses led to a career as an International Sign Language, or ISL, interpreter that led the Missouri native to translate for presidents and other top-ranking government administrators.

It was amazing, Prior said, noting she interpreted for the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate and for a number of cabinet members. She even had the occasion to sign several times for the late Bishop Desmond Tutu and the late famed poet Maya Angelou.

An Eden resident since 2009, Prior is active in First Baptist Church here and the We-CARE senior program.

From the Ozarks to D.C.

But her path to the White House began in the little town of Nevada, Mo., right in the middle of the Ozarks, Prior said, giving her license to claim herself an Ozark hillbilly.

After graduating from high school, she earned a bachelors degree in music education in 1963 from the College of Fine Arts and Education at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee, where she focused on the organ. During summer breaks, Prior worked as a music therapist.

Her first full-time position has her teaching music for nearly three years Wellston, Ok., near Shawnee.

Next, she moved back to her hometown and became a social worker, first in the welfare department and then at the state mental hospital.

One of her chief responsibilities was finding group homes or nursing facilities for patients as there was a strong movement to transfer patients out of mental hospitals, she said.

Although she had never been east of the Mississippi, Prior set off in the mid-60s for northern Virginia and would end up working for three psychiatrists in the nations capital.

It was during that time that she began her continuing education at Gallaudet where she was blessed with American Sign Language teacher Bob Seremeth, who was deaf, she said.

While there, I was meeting more deaf people and was casually signing for them, doing things like accompanying them to buy cars, Prior said.

This was before schools had interpreting programs, so Prior attended night classes and workshops to study sign language for more than three years. She also took tests to earn her American Sign Language interpreting certification.

Signing in the schools, for the police, and doctors

In her first job as an interpreter for a junior high school student, she accompanied him to classes for several years. And sometimes Prior interpreted for multiple students.

As word spread about her abilities, Prior eventually became a freelance interpreter, which had her interpreting for high school and college classes, as well as for medical professionals.

But during the 1960s and 1970s, there were not enough deaf schools available for students or student teachers, so they were often paired with a teacher in a hearing class and an interpreter.

Although Prior was certified to work in the justice system as an interpreter, she preferred working on medical cases, she said. I loved medical. I was on call and carried a pager for about 13 years to be on call with police and hospitals throughout the area, she said.

Often, she got as many as three or four calls a night. Eventually, Prior referred officials to other interpreters to lighten her load. I would be calling these interpreters to find one to go, and if I couldnt, then I had to go.

Sitting in to sign for psychotherapy sessions was fascinating, Prior said. She once did a long series of sessions with a very quiet therapist, a teenage deaf student and an angry father, signing screaming matches between father and son and the therapist quietly calming them down.

It was like having three roles in a play all at the same time, Prior said. My mind literally was like spaghetti at the end of each session.

She also did a lot of inner city assignments at medical clinics, homeless shelters, prisons, and even helped sort out domestic violence cases by meeting police at victims homes  something she said she would not do today.

Prior also helped sign for patients in 28-day drug programs.

I really felt like I was making more of a difference, Prior said.

The medical student

When a fourth-year medical student began losing his hearing after contracting meningitis, Prior was hired as his medical school interpreter.

He lip read and didnt sign, Prior said of the native of El Salvador. So he lip read in Spanish better than English, and I didnt know Spanish,  Prior said. We had to learn how to communicate with one another. It wasnt a typical signing, she said. He wasnt deaf, (but) was having to learn signing.

Prior found herself accompanying the med student to classes from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. for medical lectures and autopsies at Prince George Hospital in Maryland, even working Christmas, she said.

It was a very interesting year, she said, adding that she was required to interpret a death during the first week. I was in the middle of all of it. It was very thrilling for me.

A reputation that led her to The White House

At her Alexandria, Va., church, Prior not only taught deaf Sunday School classes but became director of a deaf ministry. She also was a sign language instructor for several years at Northern Virginia Community College.

Prior served as president of Northern Virginia Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf for a number of years, as well. Although members numbered about 500, not all were interpreters. When temp agencies opened in the area, the interpreters were on their lists.

People knew me, Prior said. I grew a reputation, and they began to know they could trust my skills and confidentiality. They began to call me independently. In the beginning it was almost all word of mouth to build my reputation.

At The White House, Prior interpreted for presidents Carter, Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush, Clinton and George W. Bush. She also interpreted for first ladies Rosalind Carter, Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush and Michelle Obama.

Prior said she was most impressed with President Reagan, calling him amazing.

Because of her interpreting skills, Prior was a guest at lots of White House and Capitol events, including the lighting of the Christmas tree, and she described the Easter Egg Roll on the White House lawn as one of the fun things she did.

Department of Agriculture

At the end of 1992, Prior took a full-time job as an interpreter with the Department of Agriculture, which had 110,000 employees with over 10,000 in the DC area.

They had a lot of deaf people throughout the country and no program set up at the time, she said. It quickly became obvious they needed a program nationwide.

So, Prior developed and set up a network of accommodations for deaf people, including interpreting, growing and managing the program and teaching numerous sign-language courses.

And because she was almost always on call and never knew when she would be called to the White House, Prior had to wear a suit and heels every day.

If the secretary or the White House called , I had to run  in my heels! Thats why my feet hurt so much today, she said, laughing.

On the personal side, Prior became a foster mother while in Alexandria, caring for 10 teenage boys over five years.

Meeting Paul Prewitt

While playing the organ at a small Fairfax County, Va., church, Prior met Paul Prewitt and his wife who died in 2004. After two years as a widower, Prewitt asked Prior to dinner.

He often said that was the biggest mistake of his life because he couldnt get rid of me, Prior joked.

Nearing retirement and having been in Washington for 42 years, Prior prayed about moving to a smaller community, she said.

One day while driving home from Georgia, Prior got lost and ended up at Bunnies Flowers in Eden. She asked Bunnie Slaughter about the town and she just raved about Eden.

As Prior was leaving, Slaughter said she didnt know if Prior was a woman of faith or not and she handed me a little brochure. I started crying because I knew God had brought me here.

Back in Washington, Prior told Prewitt she had found Eden. He said,  If you go to North Carolina, Im going with you. 

Prior retired in 2009 after the couple bought a house in Eden. However, she could not quit work until she sold her home in Washington so she freelanced and commuted, visiting Eden on weekends from October until the end of February 2010.

Prewitt became a well-known figure in Rockingham County. In 2020, the World War II veteran was knighted with Frances National Order of the Legion of Honor for his service there during the war. He was further honored by N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper with membership in North Carolinas Order of the Long Leaf Pine.

Before his death on Aug. 30, Prewitt was able to celebrate his 101st birthday in 2021 with a COVID-19-era drive-thru party. Prior helped organize the fete that had a procession of cars parade in front of the couples home so that Prewitt could wave to friends from a chair on his lawn.

Since Pauls death, Eden friends often ask Prior if she is moving back to DC or Missouri.

Without hesitation, she says, This is home. Yall are stuck with me.
GREENSBORO  Local rabbis reacted Saturday night to a hostage situation at a Texas synagogue.

This is the worst nightmare of any clergy, of any Rabbi, the rabbis at Temple Emanuel in Greensboro said in a prepared statement ahead of a livestream on Facebook. We are particularly sensitive to this because of attacks at the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC, The Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh, so many others, and now Beth Israel in Texas. We are horrified that this could happen anywhere, but especially in a holy place on the Sabbath.

The statement by Rabbis Andy Koren, Libby Fisher and Fred Guttman followed news of the hostage situation at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, northeast of Fort Worth.

Authorities said a man took hostages Saturday during services at the synagogue where the suspect could be heard ranting in a livestream and demanding the release of a Pakistani neuroscientist who was convicted of trying to kill U.S. Army officers in Afghanistan.

The Colleyville Police Department tweeted Saturday afternoon that it was conducting SWAT operations at the address of Congregation Beth Israel, northeast of Fort Worth.

At least four hostages were believed to be inside the synagogue, according to two law enforcement officials who were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation and who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. The synagogues rabbi was believed to be among the hostages, one of the officials said.

The trio of Greensboro rabbis offered their support for Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker. They also said a prayer for the redemption of those held captive in Texas.

Authorities were still trying late Saturday to discern a precise motive for the attack. The hostage-taker was heard demanding the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist suspected of having ties to al-Qaeda, who was convicted of trying to kill U.S. military officers while in custody in Afghanistan, the officials said. He also said he wanted to be able to speak with her, according to the officials. Siddiqui is in federal prison in Texas.

The officials said investigators have not positively identified the man and cautioned that the information was based on a preliminary investigation as the situation was still rapidly developing.

FBI Dallas spokeswoman Katie Chaumont said an FBI SWAT team was also at the scene and that crisis negotiators had been communicating with someone inside the synagogue. But she could not say whether the person was armed and she declined to describe what the person had said to authorities, citing operational sensitivity.

Police were first called to the synagogue around 11 a.m. and people were evacuated from the surrounding neighborhood soon after that, Chaumont said.

There have been no reported injuries, Chaumont said.

News & Record staff writer Jennifer Fernandez contributed.
RALEIGH  Wayne Goodwin, who once led the state Department of Insurance and later the state Democratic Party, has been chosen the new commissioner of the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles.

Goodwin replaces former DMV Commissioner Torre Jessup, who stepped down in November to become chief operating officer of the state Department of Information Technology.

Goodwin, a lawyer, served two four-year terms as insurance commissioner, an elected office, before losing to Mike Causey in 2016. He was elected chairman of the Democratic Party in early 2017 and served two two-year terms before declining to seek a third last year.

He lost a rematch with Causey for the insurance commissioners job in 2020.

The N.C. Department of Transportation announced Goodwins new job late Friday.

Wayne is a distinguished public servant who understands how to manage a customer-facing agency and the need to deliver results, Transportation Secretary Eric Boyette said in a written statement. Waynes background as an attorney and knowledge of motor vehicle statutes will be invaluable to our agency.

Goodwin, 54, grew up in Hamlet and attended UNC-Chapel Hill as a Morehead Scholar and later as a law student. Starting in 1997, he served eight years in the state House, representing rural counties east of Charlotte.

Goodwin lives in Raleigh with his two children; his wife, former state Rep. Melanie Wade Goodwin, died of cancer in 2020.

He begins his new job Tuesday.

Jessup became DMV commissioner in 2017 and steered the agency through a tumultuous time.

Like licensing agencies across the country, the DMV found itself overwhelmed in 2018 by people seeking a REAL ID, a new type of drivers license that satisfies identification requirements mandated by Congress in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Jessup instituted a series of reforms meant to reduce wait times and improve customer service at drivers license offices.

The federal government later put off the requirements that prompted the REAL ID until May 2023.

Jessup also oversaw the relocation of the DMV headquarters from Raleigh to Rocky Mount, starting in fall 2020. The General Assembly required the agency to leave its long-time home on New Bern Avenue and seek leased space elsewhere in Wake or an adjoining county.

The Rocky Mount site, once headquarters to the Hardees restaurant chain, was chosen because it met the DMVs needs at the lowest price. Many workers chose not to remain with the agency, forcing it to fill vacancies that climbed to more than one in four jobs.

Then there was COVID-19. The pandemic prompted DMV to close many of its drivers license offices, creating a backlog that lasted into 2021.
South Korea has expressed concern over the fast growth in COVID-19 cases among U.S. servicemen in the country.





Produced by Xinhua Global Service
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is greeted along a parade down Baltimore's Gay Street at the height of his popularity on Oct. 31, 1964 as he campaigns on behalf of Lyndon Baines Johnson. Just two weeks earlier, it was announced that he had won the Nobel Peace Prize. (Leonard Freed/Magnum Photos). (Leonard Freed/Magnum Photos, Inc.)

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was not a frequent visitor to Baltimore during his 39 years of life but his impact remains strongly felt in a city still struggling with racial inequality. When the famed civil rights leader was assassinated in 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee, this newspaper recalled at least three official visits by Dr. King to Marylands largest city, the last an appearance in 1966 on behalf of the Congress of Racial Equality or CORE, the nonviolent group famous for the Freedom Rides through the South. The most noteworthy appearance, however, was in 1964 when the Baptist minister flew to Charm City to campaign on behalf of President Lyndon Johnson against his Republican rival, Barry Goldwater. By that time, Dr. Kings place in history had already been well assured, not only by historic speeches like his I Have A Dream address presented at the Lincoln Memorial one year earlier but with the announcement just two weeks before that he had won the Nobel Peace Prize becoming its youngest-ever recipient.

Luckily, those hours spent in Baltimore on Oct. 31, 1964 were captured on film and one photograph in particular of Dr. King has proven transcendent. It shows him sitting in the back seat of a dark convertible during a parade down Gay Street leaning out to shake outstretched hands. The adulation of the people lining the parade route is apparent. It is more than the passing novelty of a celebrity newsmaker in their midst. You see in the eyes of these onlookers, mostly women, gratitude and respect. This was their chance to reach out and touch history. The photograph by Leonard Freed is still widely displayed in venues from the Museum of Modern Art in New York to the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Words are inadequate to describe the emotional reaction of the moment, this outpouring of love for this one impactful man who had shaken the world for the better. Try to look at it and not be moved.

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Yet on this celebration of Dr. King two days after his actual Jan. 15 birthday (the federal holiday falling on the third Monday of January for convenience sake since it was first observed in 1986), it is tempting to wonder: Can we muster the same level of excitement, the same respect, the same appreciation for those who still labor for civil rights? Surely, there is no equivalent to Dr. King today but there are legions from clergy to elected leaders, from activists to authors who remain engaged in the good fight. As doors are opened and ground is broken  Adrienne A. Jones, the first woman and first African American is elected in 2019 to lead the Maryland House of Delegates, for example  do we appreciate their significance? What of corporate executives? University presidents? Nonprofit leaders? Are we even paying attention to this generations progress aside from perhaps Barack Obamas two terms in the White House?

The ongoing fight in the U.S. Senate over voting rights and the likelihood that red states will prevail in their efforts to restrict access to the polls  under the fraudulent claims of widespread fraud or nationalized elections which sounds so suspiciously like the states rights arguments against civil rights of Dr. Kings era  suggests inadequate attention has been paid. Not just to the rise of white nationalism in recent years but to the other side of the ledger, to the average people who fight their own good fight from single parents working hard to create a better life for their children to people like the late Keona Holley, the city police officer laid to rest Tuesday in Windsor Mill. Before she became famous for being ambushed in the line of duty, Officer Holley was quietly trying to make her native Baltimore  and its Black community, in particular  a better place.

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So please let us take a moment on this most important of holidays to sing the praises of the unheralded who are not destined to win a Nobel, nor to have a street named after them nor even to get a parade down Gay Street but who see discrimination and prejudice, who recognize that the United States of 2022 has not yet achieved the grace that Dr. King envisioned, who want to make the nation, or at least their neighborhood, the street, their home, a better place. As Dr. King so famously observed, human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. The struggle must continue and those selflessly laboring for equality  in ways both big and small  deserve our respect and thanks.

Baltimore Sun editorial writers offer opinions and analysis on news and issues relevant to readers. They operate separately from the newsroom.
From tight living quarters to high rates of chronic illnesses to no sick leave protections, immigrant farmworkers have found themselves in particularly vulnerable positions as the COVID-19 pandemic spread throughout North Carolina.

During the summer of 2020, hundreds of farmworkers fell ill at more than 30 farms as COVID-19 ripped through the greater community. Farmworker advocates issued numerous calls to Gov. Roy Cooper, demanding he and other state officials implement policies to better protect workers. Cooper seemed likely to meet the demands, though eventually, he changed course.

The states Department of Health and Human Services does not track COVID-19 infections by profession. At the start, the department tracked farmworker housing with outbreaks, as it does with other congregate living settings such as nursing homes and adult care facilities. But by summer 2020, the department changed its record keeping.

It moved migrant farmworker housing to the more general other category, which also includes homeless shelters. Instead of the name of the farm, only the cross streets are listed.

NCDHHS said the change was made to be more precise.

In the former display, a business/farm was named even though the outbreak might have occurred at a housing site several miles away, said NCDHHS spokesperson Catie Armstrong, adding that the precise address of the outbreak was removed as an acknowledgement that marginalized populations reside in both settings and those settings/residents are at-risk for acts of discrimination and harassment.

General infection data do show that since March 2020, 17% of COVID-18 cases in North Carolina have been among Hispanic residents, despite the group accounting for 10% of the population (about 94% of farmworkers speak Spanish as their native language).

To put it mildly, the pandemic has been rough for immigrant farm laborers. As vaccines have rolled out, though, many have finally found some relief and protection.

As of mid-December 2021, health care workers had administered 28,702 vaccine doses to farmworkers at centralized vaccination sites targeting the population, according to NCDHHS.

The total population of migrant and seasonal farm laborers in North Carolina is estimated to be around 150,000, including undocumented workers, those in the U.S. on H-2A temporary agricultural worker visas, along with U.S. citizens and permanent residents.

The number of vaccine doses given to the group is almost definitely an undercount since these workers  like everyone else  can get their vaccine at any location that administers them. If a farmworker went to a nearby pharmacy for a vaccine, rather than waiting for the vaccine pop-up at the labor camp, they wouldnt be counted in the number of vaccines administered to farmworkers specifically.

AMEXCAN, a Latino advocacy group based in Greenville, recently conducted a survey of nearly 100 immigrant farmworkers to gauge their knowledge about COVID-19 and the vaccine.

Among the findings: more than 80% of the immigrant farmworkers surveyed said they knew where they could go to get a COVID-19 vaccine, a significant feat considering the language and transportation barriers the community often faces. Survey respondents primarily lived in Nash, Wilson and Harnett counties, rural areas in the eastern and central parts of the state.

Gaps to more general support remain for immigrant farmworkers. In the survey, workers said they needed help accessing other types of medical care, including mental health care. They also expressed needing clothes, masks, other personal protective equipment and food.

Perhaps most significantly, workers said they needed access to the internet.

At this day in time, this is the way that we can communicate with our own communities, said AMEXCANs executive director Juvencio Rocha-Peralta. These communities or these individuals, they really live in a very remote area, so there's some room in there for us to advocate more for connectivity, for access to services.

Internet unreliable

State agencies have also taken note of this critical need. Natalie Rivera coordinates the Farmworker Health Internet Connectivity Project within the N.C. Farmworker Health Program, an organization that acts as a liaison between clinics and farmworkers.

We look for areas in North Carolina where there's a large density of farmworkers, but maybe not a lot of health services, Rivera said. Outreach workers go out into the community, go into farms, visit farmworkers where they're living and do health outreach to better connect them with the clinic services that are available to them.

When COVID-19 arrived, the organization considered switching to a virtual model to better protect farmworkers, community health workers, and to limit physical appointments with doctors. But, they immediately ran into a problem: internet and cell service at most migrant housing ranges from poor to nonexistent.

I knew that this issue existed, Rivera said. She used to be an outreach worker, and she remembers having to go out to farms to deliver health information  a blood test came back, an appointment had to be rescheduled, etc.  which could have been relayed over a phone call or an email, had those services reliably existed.

'Hidden' housing

Part of the challenge in getting internet to migrant farm labor camps stems from how isolated their housing often is.

Nearly 40% of migrant camps are hidden, according to a 2015 study by researchers at Wake Forest School of Medicine, meaning theyre far off the road, or tucked behind other structures. The distance between the road and migrant housing makes it more likely trees or other physical barriers will need to be removed, which can lead to rising costs when laying the fibers and cables.

The other part about migrant housing is, in many cases, it's congregate housing, Rivera said. So that also creates a challenge."

Researchers from Wake Forest School of Medicine analyzed the "structural vulnerability" that hidden migrant labor camps places farmworkers in. Among the housing units analyzed, researchers found that more than one-third were hidden.

Much migrant housing is also built from metal or concrete, which can impede getting internet access inside. Rivera said shes heard from many growers whove gotten quotes from internet service providers saying that it will cost tens of thousands of dollars to wire up such buildings.

Housing being hidden can also contribute to health problems beyond a lack of internet access.

Crowding, lack of access to sufficient bathing facilities, pest infestation, and structural damage are common to dwellings in farmworker labor camps, the authors of the 2015 study wrote. Employer-provided farmworker housing seldom meets the requirements of state and federal regulations.

While improved internet access wouldnt address those problems, those in the field have seen how expanded access has helped immigrant laborers in other capacities.

We've learned that the internet is not only beneficial for health access, but also just for emotional well-being, Rivera said.

Despite the benefits of internet access, and the increasing dependence on web-based services during the pandemic, neither North Carolina nor federal migrant housing regulations require internet access be available to workers living in migrant housing.

Wi-Fi vs. broadband

As the virus spread, members of the farmworker health program began speaking with people at the North Carolina Broadband Infrastructure Office to strategize the easiest and quickest way to get internet access to farmworkers. They decided on Wi-Fi hotspots.

Hotspots use cellular networks, such as Verizon and AT&T, to deliver internet access. Theyre small, essentially the size of a cell phone, and portable. But their size poses some problems.

They can easily get lost, Rivera said. They also dont work especially well if multiple people are trying to do simultaneous things that require a lot of bandwidth, like watching YouTube or video chatting with family, not to mention a child trying to participate in video classes.

Since the start of the program, the Farmworker Internet Connectivity Project has distributed more than 200 hotspots to labor camps throughout the state.

The organization distributes hotspots to farms through the health partners with whom they already worked. Some nonprofits and other community-based organizations that have existing relationships with farmworkers also participate.

Blue Ridge Health, a federally qualified health center that works with migrant farmers in western North Carolina, participated in distribution.

Kenett Melgar, the vulnerable populations manager at BRH, said the hotspots were critical. They enabled many migrant workers, who didnt previously have internet access, to participate in telehealth appointments, and to speak with their families using WhatsApp.

The need for the migrant population parallels the needs of the community as a whole, Melgar said. Internet access  especially in remote mountainous areas, such as the ones that we have around here  can sometimes be spotty, and a lot of people just don't have good internet. Which, in today's world, is kind of a need.

As of August 2021, the most recent data available, the group had distributed 258 hotspots, enabling over 2,000 farmworkers to gain access to the internet. They did not have documents available showing the geographic distribution of the hotspots.

An emergency stopgap

The Wi-Fi hotspots were always designed to be a short-term response, generated by the pandemic. Theres only funding for the service through the end of 2022, according to Rivera.

Alongside the hotspot program, the agency also partnered with the N.C. Institute of Agromedicine to come up with a more permanent solution.

Broadband infrastructure takes time to build out and it can be very expensive. Its an issue rural communities across the state and the country have reckoned with, especially during the pandemic when so much of life has moved online.

Wired internet like fiber or cable, really needs to be sort of buried underground. It costs a lot more money, Rivera said, but it ends up being more permanent and more cost-efficient once it's available to you.

In addition to the Wi-Fi hotspot program, the internet connectivity project is also working with the N.C. Agromedicine Institute to reimburse expenses for installing more permanent internet access.

The agencies designed a program whereby farm owners and growers who want to install more permanent internet at their locations can do so and get reimbursed by the Agromedicine institute for up to $1,000 per migrant housing unit.

The reimbursement, though, is also temporary.

To achieve digital equity, Rivera said, its critical that migrant farmworkers have access to the internet. The question is, who is financially responsible for making that happen?

The challenging part has been what would happen afterward, she said. Do we pay for it? Or do they pay for it? And I think we were trying to go through this to learn and see.

This article first appeared on North Carolina Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license. North Carolina Health News is an independent, nonpartisan, not-for-profit, statewide news organization dedicated to covering all things health care in North Carolina. Visit NCHN at northcarolinahealthnews.org.
If asked to identify a symbol for justice most of us would picture a blindfolded Lady Justice holding aloft a balance scale in one hand and a sword in the other. The sword declares that justice is worth fighting for, the scale demonstrates justice is balanced and the blindfold signifies that justice is blind to race, sex, class, nationality or partisan prejudice.

The question of partisanship in our courts is frequently raised. Time and again you hear that a case was decided by a Democratic court, or a set of Republican judges. As one who has been following and commenting on public affairs for almost a half century, there are an increasing number of times when I feel charges of partisanship are justified. If Im right, this is a sorry commentary on the state of justice.

Take the case now before our courts on redistricting. Anyone not a fervent, card-carrying member of the Republican Party can look at those maps and concur that they were drawn so as to keep a large plurality of North Carolinas congressional and legislative delegation in Republican control. A panel of three Superior Court Judges, two Republicans and one Democrat agreed the districts were gerrymandered.

In their ruling they said, This court has not been asked to eliminate all partisan gerrymandering, only extreme partisan gerrymandering. In short, we are asked to decide how much partisanship is extreme. In unanimously allowing the maps to remain, they decided they were unable (and unwilling) to make such a declaration.

Appeals are now heading to the N.C. Supreme Court and already Republicans are screaming partisanship, since our highest court has four Democrats and three Republicans. The GOP expects the court will declare the maps unconstitutional and require that new maps be drawn.

An initial solution to judicial partisanship would be to repeal North Carolina law requiring judicial candidates to list their party affiliations. The biggest justification given for reinstating the party affiliation was because people did not know anything about judicial candidates on the ballot and at least could vote for a member of their own party. As an aside, unaffiliated voters now outnumber Republicans in our state and, if current trends continue, could soon outnumber Democrats. Yet on judicial election ballots there is no way for a candidate to list he or she is neither R nor D, but is U.

I dont want my court case decided by either a Republican or Democratic judge. I want a jurist who is blind to whatever party I might be a member and decides the case based on state law, case law and our constitution.

Lets not whitewash the issue of partisan courts. We are essentially reducing our courts to being yet another partisan political tool. George Washington, in his farewell address, warned us about the pernicious danger of political parties. Current reality is proving his admonition true.

This reopens the subject of how we put the best jurists on our bench. We are so jaundiced that we dont trust any administration, any legislature or, for heavens sake, any group of currently robed judges to make such a decision. Instead, we choose primarily by whether they have an R or D beside their name.

Its farcical. Yes, I value and uphold the power of the public at the ballot box but tell the truth  we arent qualified to make informed selections regarding judges. For Petes sake, we dont even know who they are. We want our judges to be lawyers, to be students of the law who will research case law and who are imbued with large doses of common sense and wisdom.

Thirty-nine states have some form of judicial election; in 38 they elect those on the highest court. Fourteen states have nonpartisan judicial elections. Ten states high court judges are selected by gubernatorial appointment. Some are appointed for life or until they reach a certain retirement age. Another side issue: Our states mandatory judicial retirement age is 72. That age may have been appropriate 40 or 50 years ago, but most 70-year-olds today are still very much in their prime. The mandatory age needs raising.

The real issue is that North Carolina doesnt have a good solution to judicial selection. Regardless, theres no place on the bench for political partisanship. Bring back Lady Justices blindfold.

Tom Campbell is a Hall of Fame broadcaster and columnist who has covered North Carolina public policy issues since 1965. He recently retired from writing, producing and moderating the statewide half-hour TV program NC SPIN for 22 years.
In an effort by the Turkish state to maintain its dominance over the Kurdish people, it claims that the PKK is a terrorist party. On this subject, the people of Afrin spoke to our agency.

Nidal Ibrahim supported the campaign to remove the name of the PKK from the 'terror list' and said, "All countries should remove the name of the PKK from the terrorist list, because it works only for the freedom of peoples."

Nidal continued, "Removing the name of the PKK from the 'terror list' will bring stability to the Middle East, because the Turkish state is attacking the Kurdish people under the pretext that the PKK is a terrorist party. Therefore, this name must be removed from the party."

As Hasan Hassan said, "No one comes to defend the Kurds. The PKK is the one who takes on the task of defending its people, and this is a natural right for all peoples. The Turkish state launches its attacks on us by all means, including chemical and heavy weapons. Why would it attack us? But it will not be able to prove the character of terrorism on the Kurds.

Rashid Muhammad said, "Is every people who rises up to demand their rights considered a terrorist? It is the right of every person to live with his rights and his language."

Rashid Muhammad concluded his speech by saying, "Countries that say they are working for human rights must remove the name of the PKK from the 'terror list'. If they do not act and take any action, we will confront this matter ourselves and secure our rights in our own hands."

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ANHA
A record number of new businesses were created in Montana last year, state officials said, noting that more than 51,500 new businesses were registered with the Montana Secretary of State in 2021, surpassing the previous record set in 2020 by more than 12,000 businesses.

Nearly 30,000 Domestic Limited Liability Cos., or LLCs, were registered in 2021.

The Montana Business Economic Report contains information about where, by ZIP code, new businesses are located. The 59901 ZIP code (Flathead County) had the highest increase in 2021, with more than 7,000 new businesses registered.

There were also 178,601 renewal filings in 2021 and 267,900 businesses in good standing, both increases over the prior year.

In addition to new business registrations, business renewals and businesses in good standing both increased in 2021.

Through the Secretary of States Montana Business Economic Report, data is provided about the business economy in Montana. Per the report, March had the largest number of business registrations in 2021, with 5,161 new businesses registering with the Secretary of States Office.

Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen said Montana has been rated as one of the best states in the nation for business startups.

Gov. Greg Gianforte said in a news release that Montana is open for business.

He said in the past year the state has seen a record low unemployment rate, a record number of Montanans working, and a record number of new businesses created.

Well continue to foster a climate where businesses can thrive and create sustainable jobs and greater prosperity for more Montanans, he said.

Montana Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Todd OHair said the record growth in business registrations points to a strong Montana economy and a vibrant entrepreneurial base.

The Montana Business Economic Report can be found on the Secretary of States website by going to https://sosmt.gov/economic-report/.

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We are 35 state, federal, and Tribal wildlife professionals who have worked together for more than 40 years to help recover and manage grizzly bears, wolves, and other wildlife in Montana. We did this by building science and fact-based management policies and plans with public input while carefully balancing the needs of bears and other wildlife with the needs of the people who live, work, and recreate in Montana.

We believed in and promoted the eventual delisting of recovered grizzlies and wolves and turning them over to state management. We believed that the wildlife professionals in Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks (FWP) would be good stewards who would continue to carefully manage grizzly bears and wolves using science and facts after recovery and delisting.

All this changed in 2021 when a new legislative majority and a like-minded governor took office. Science-based wildlife management in Montana was replaced by anti-predator hysteria fueled by misinformation and emotion. Professional wildlife management by FWP biologists was replaced by partisan political intervention that overturned decades of sound wildlife policy.

Examples of legislation/regulations passed in 2021 that sabotages sound wildlife management:

 A law (SB 98) that says a person can shoot a grizzly bear if it is threatening to kill a person or livestock. Threatening is not defined. This will result in the unregulated killing of grizzlies anywhere by anyone.

 A law (SB 337) that says that FWP cannot relocate any grizzly bear captured in any type of conflict outside a recovery zone.

 A law (HB 224) mandating allowing the use of neck snares to kill wolves that will result in grizzly bear deaths and the deaths of countless numbers of other non-target animals.

 A law (HB 468) allowing the use of hounds to hunt black bears (which had been outlawed in Montana for 100 years). The use of hounds to hunt black bears will result in conflicts and death for grizzly bears in the areas where hounds are used.

 A law (SB 314) allowing the use of bait around wolf traps and neck snares. Bait will also attract grizzly bears and other forest carnivores to these sites where they will be trapped, or neck snared and be killed or maimed.

 Montana Code (MCA 87-2-519) allowing out of state landowners who own more than 640 acres and their guests to hunt both black bears and mountain lions with hounds on their property and on public lands surrounding their property for 2 miles in any direction, and to do so without buying a non-resident hound hunting license. The use of hounds to hunt black bears will result in conflicts and death for grizzly bears in the areas where hounds are used.

 A law (HB 225) extending the wolf trapping and neck snaring season into the time that both grizzly and black bears are out of their dens, which will result in bears being caught, maimed, or killed in wolf traps and neck snares.

 A law (SB 314) allowing hunting wolves over bait, even at night with spotlights and night vision scopes.

 A law (SB 267) that pays people to try to trap and kill wolves. This law takes wolf management back into the anti-predator bounty days of the 1800s.

In addition to meeting population objectives established in the Recovery Plan, a mandatory requirement of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) for a species to be delisted is that the state have adequate regulatory mechanisms in place to assure that grizzlies (and wolves) in Montana remain healthy and recovered after delisting. Healthy and recovered grizzly (and wolf) populations are populations that are carefully managed and distributed across their suitable available habitat. Delisting does not mean that legislatures can drive grizzly and wolf populations down to minimum numbers.

Montana legislators and the governor were informed on numerous occasions about how these laws would undermine FWPs ability to adequately manage grizzlies and risked wolves being relisted. They ignored this input and passed these laws anyway. These laws will result in excessive, unregulated killing of grizzly bears, making it impossible for FWP to adequately control the number of grizzly bear deaths within sustainable levels.

In addition to the actions of the Legislature, Montanas sole congressional representative and junior senator have introduced legislation in Washington to bypass the requirements of the ESA and delist grizzly bears by congressional vote.

It doesnt take a lot of imagination to realize that if grizzly bears were delisted and turned over to state management, that the Legislature and governor would do the same thing to grizzlies that they are currently doing to wolves  they would likely try to legislatively minimize grizzly numbers inside recovery zones and eliminate most grizzlies outside recovery zones.

Before grizzly bears can be delisted:

 Laws that will result in excessive grizzly bear deaths and unnecessary restrictions on state grizzly management must be reversed (SB 98 and SB 337).

 There should be a commitment in law and policy to prohibit use of wolf killing methods that will also kill grizzly bears (HB 224, HB 468, SB 314, HB 225, SB 267) anywhere in grizzly range.

 The management of grizzly bears (and wolves) in Montana must return to management based on science and facts instead of politically driven misinformation and anti-predator hysteria.

If these measures were taken, we could support grizzly delisting. However, while these regressive laws and the legislative anti-predator attitudes that produced these laws remain in place, we cannot support the delisting of grizzly bears in Montana.

We strongly believe that grizzly bears must remain listed under ESA in Montana so that their populations remain healthy, and politicians are not able to reverse 40 years of grizzly recovery.

This opinion was submitted on behalf of the following 35 signers:

Chris Servheen, Missoula, Ph.D., 35 years U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as grizzly bear recovery coordinator (retired).

Chuck Schwartz, Bozeman, Ph.D., 20 years Alaska Fish and Game as research biologist (retired) and 16 years USGS as leader, interagency grizzly bear study team (retired).

Richard Mace, Kalispell, Ph.D., 31 years Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks as grizzly and black bear research biologist (retired).

Tim Manley, Bigfork, B.S., 37 years FWP in grizzly bear research and as grizzly bear management biologist (retired).

Harvey Nyberg, Lewistown, M.S., 26 years FWP, last position as regional supervisor (retired).

Gayle Joslin, Helena, M.S., 32 years FWP as wildlife management biologist and research biologist (retired).

Keith Aune, Bozeman, M.S., 31 years FWP as wildlife research biologist, laboratory supervisor, chief of wildlife research (retired) and 10 years as a wildlife biologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society (retired).

Bruce Sterling, Thompson Falls, M.S., 38 years FWP as management biologist (retired).

Diane Boyd, Kalispell, Ph.D., 8 years FWP as wolf and upland bird biologist (retired), 15 years University of Montana as large carnivore researcher (retired).

Ron Marcoux, Helena, M.S., 22 years FWP as biologist and deputy director (retired); 18 years with Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation in land conservation and administration (retired).

Kristi DuBois, Missoula, M.S., 28 years FWP as a wildlife biologist (both game and nongame) (retired) and 6 years USFWS as a wildlife biologist (retired).

Tim Thier, Trego, M.S., 27 years FWP as wildlife biologist (retired) and 5 years USFWS as wildlife biologist (retired).

Heidi B. Youmans, Helena, M.S., 27 years FWP as area management biologist, upland game bureau chief, non-game bureau chief (retired).

Gary Olsen, Conrad, M.S., 34 years FWP as area biologist (retired).

Wayne Hadley, Deer Lodge, Ph.D., 23 years FWP as fisheries biologist (retired).

Gary Wolfe, Missoula, Ph.D., 4 years as a commissioner on the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission; 12 years Vermejo Park Ranch wildlife biologist/manager and big game hunting outfitter and guide; 15 years Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, wildlife biologist/field director, director of field operations, chief operating officer, president & CEO (retired); 11 years Vital Ground Foundation, wildlife biologist/executive director (retired).

Tim Aldrich, Missoula, B.S., 4 years as a commissioner on the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission.

Greg Munther, Missoula, M.S., 32 years U.S. Forest Service as biologist and district ranger (retired).

Sterling Miller, Lolo, Ph.D., 21 years Alaska Fish and Game as wildlife management biologist (retired). Affiliate professor, UM.

Dan Carney, East Glacier, M.S., 31 years Blackfeet Tribe as senior wildlife biologist (retired).

Douglas H. Chadwick, Whitefish, M.S., 3 years wildlife technician with NPS, 40 years independent wildlife biologist collaborating with university and agency researchers.

Tom Puchlerz, Stevensville, M.S., 38 years USFS as wildlife biologist, district ranger and forest supervisor (retired).

Kate Kendall, Columbia Falls, M.S., 36 years NPS and USGS as research ecologist (retired).

Joe Fontaine, Helena, B.S., 6 years U.S. Bureau of Reclamation wildlife biologist, 18 years USFWS as deputy wolf recovery coordinator (retired), 4 years as deputy project leader National Wildlife Refuge Complex (retired).

Jay Gore, Missoula, M.S., 10 years USFS as wildlife biologist (retired), 13 years USFWS as wildlife biologist (retired), and 7 years Corps of Engineers as wildlife biologist (retired).

Mary Maj, Bozeman, M.S., 32 years USFS as district and regional wildlife biologist, resource staff officer, and district ranger (retired).

Dale Becker, Polson, M.S., 7 years as a private wildlife consultant and 32 years CSKT as Tribal wildlife program manager.

Edward Bangs, Helena, M.S., 36 years USFWS as wildlife biologist on Kenai NWR and Northern Rocky Mountain wolf recovery coordinator (retired).

Jim Claar, Missoula, M.S., 21 years USFS as wildlife biologist (retired), and 11 years Bureau of Indian Affairs as wildlife program manager (retired).

Jack Stanford, Bigfork, Ph.D., 36 years Flathead Lake Biological Station as director (retired).

Kerry R. Forsman, Missoula, Ph.D., 37 years UM as professor of biology and wildlife biology (retired).

Mike Phillips, Bozeman, M.S., 35 years: USFWS red wolf restoration leader (retired); NPS grey wolf restoration leader (retired); Turner Endangered Species Fund executive director; Montana state legislator 2006-2020.

Sandy Kratville, Missoula, M.S., 31 years USFS as wildlife biologist, including 5 years as USFS/Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation liaison (retired).

Mike Jimenez, Big Arm, M.S., 20 years USFWS grey wolf research and management (retired).

Lewis Young, Eureka, M.S., 31 years USFS as wildlife biologist and wildlife program manager (retired).

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Todays Highlight in History:

On Jan. 16, 1991, the White House announced the start of Operation Desert Storm to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. (Allied forces prevailed on Feb. 28, 1991.)

On Jan. 16:

In 27 B.C., Caesar Augustus was declared the first Emperor of the Roman Empire by the Senate.

In 1865, Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman decreed that 400,000 acres of land in the South would be divided into 40-acre lots and given to former slaves. (The order, later revoked by President Andrew Johnson, is believed to have inspired the expression, Forty acres and a mule.)

In 1912, a day before reaching the South Pole, British explorer Robert Scott and his expedition found evidence that Roald Amundsen of Norway and his team had gotten there ahead of them.

In 1919, pianist and statesman Ignacy Jan Paderewski became the first premier of the newly created Republic of Poland.

In 1920, Prohibition began in the United States as the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution took effect, one year to the day after its ratification. (It was later repealed by the 21st Amendment.)

In 1942, actor Carole Lombard, 33, her mother, Elizabeth, and 20 other people were killed when their plane crashed near Las Vegas, Nevada, while en route to California from a war-bond promotion tour.

In 1987, Hu Yaobang resigned as head of Chinas Communist Party, declaring hed made mistakes in dealing with student turmoil and intellectual challenges to the system.

In 1989, three days of rioting began in Miami when a police officer fatally shot Clement Lloyd, a Black motorcyclist, causing a crash that also claimed the life of Lloyds passenger, Allan Blanchard. (The officer, William Lozano, was convicted of manslaughter, but then was acquitted in a retrial.)

In 2002, Richard Reid was indicted in Boston on federal charges alleging hed tried to blow up a U.S.-bound jetliner with explosives hidden in his shoes. (Reid later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.)

In 2003, the space shuttle Columbia blasted off for what turned out to be its last flight; on board was Israels first astronaut, Ilan Ramon. (The mission ended in tragedy on Feb. 1, when the shuttle broke up during its return descent, killing all seven crew members.)

In 2007, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois launched his successful bid for the White House.

In 2012, Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney fended off attacks from rivals during a debate in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; hours before the debate, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman withdrew from the race and announced his support for Romney despite their differences.

In 2016, Turkish authorities captured an Uzbek national suspected of killing 39 people during an attack on an Istanbul nightclub during New Years celebrations. Former NASA astronaut Eugene Cernan, to date the last man to walk on the moon, died in Houston at age 82.

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CHICAGO - On a recent morning at Loretto Hospital on Chicagos West Side, beds and recliners were lined up in the hallway of the emergency department.

All 14 rooms in the ER were full, and the hospital needed a place to put patients during the afternoon rush. One patient was already lying in the hall. Hed been in the ER eight days, unable first to get a room upstairs and then, after hed healed enough, to find a care facility that would take him.

Other hospitals might be able to help handle the ER overflow, but redirecting patients isnt easy. The state has stopped Loretto from diverting ambulances to other hospitals, and the state also hasnt forced hospitals with more room to take more patients to even out the burden.

The crammed hallways at the Austin hospital led the union representing some of its health care workers to hold a news conference urging other facilities to voluntarily accept transfers of patients from financially strapped safety-net hospitals like Loretto. We just dont have the room, said Wellington Thomas, an ER technician.

Lorettos struggles are just one sign of the way long-standing inequities in Chicagos health care community are affecting COVID-19s fifth surge. While hospital executives have joined others in saying they want to close the gaps, that ambition can sometimes seem at odds with the competitive nature of the health care industry in the Chicago area.

I just feel like its one of the ways where theres a lot of talk about racial equity, but in some of the ways that could actually be affected, by helping poorer neighborhoods, its just not happening, said Claire Laurier Decoteau, a sociology professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago who has studied health inequity.

Its also difficult for the public to know, in real time, which hospitals are in the most dire situations. What government data exists for each hospital comes from a snapshot taken a week or so earlier, and the Tribune found it can contain errors.

Still, that federal data broadly illustrates gaps in available space, with some hospitals overflowing with patients and others, though busy, with open beds.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker has asked, but not ordered, hospitals to delay nonemergency surgeries to help keep beds open. The state also said it has sent or is set to send roughly 2,000 state-funded workers to select hospitals across Illinois.

Data from earlier this month suggests many of these workers did go to hospitals that had been reporting problems. But the Tribune also found some hospitals reporting serious space issues didnt receive help at that time, while some workers went to bigger hospitals that reported having more room.

Pritzkers administration has said its doing its best to coordinate with hospitals while also praising health care workers dealing with staggering patient loads.

They need help, Pritzker told reporters Wednesday, and Im doing everything that I can to support them as they tackle this latest surge.

Gaps in available beds

Each day, most hospitals fill out online reports to the federal and state governments listing the number of beds they can staff and the number of beds occupied by patients.

The state then totals the data each day for each region to see what percentage of beds remains available, in both inpatient wards and intensive care units. The state considers regions to be stressed if the rates fall below 20%, which has been the case in all of the Chicago area for weeks, if not months.

State officials wont release daily data for each hospital, saying the law doesnt force them to release it and, regardless, they worry that changing numbers would confuse the public. The federal government does release some figures for each hospital, and, though the Tribune found errors, the data on 59 Chicago-area hospitals shows bed availability can vary.

According to the data, nearly half of hospitals reported more than 20% of their adult ICU beds were available in the seven-day period ending Jan. 6. Meanwhile, nearly a fourth averaged less than 5% availability. That difference generally held true even when looking at the larger numbers of inpatient adult beds.

In the same week, five hospitals reported no available ICU beds: Mount Sinai, St. Bernard and South Shore hospitals in Chicago, along with Amita Health St. Francis Hospital Evanston and Amita Health St. Joseph Hospital Elgin.

All the other facilities that we have called, when weve tried, theyre all so full they cant accept our transfers due to space, said Rosenda Barrera, chief nursing officer at Amita St. Francis. Theyre having the same struggles too.

But the Tribune found the data is not well vetted. Stroger Hospital, for example, was shown for weeks as completely empty. Nobody caught that mistake until a reporter asked.

NorthShore University Health System said its not sure why federal data showed its Evanston hospital had so many inpatient and ICU beds open, since its been running at or near capacity. Loretto also said its busier than the data suggests.

Rush University Medical Center told the Tribune it had about 20% of its staffed inpatient beds and 33% of its ICU beds available Thursday. Federal data also indicates Rush has had some open beds. But a hospital representative said those numbers came after Rush extended its ER into its lobby and sent some patients, who were awaiting discharge, to another Rush facility.

I dont want to give the picture that Rush has all these empty beds, said Angelique Richard, Rushs chief nurse executive. I do think we have put forth some creativity around how to expand and create capacity quickly while facing some of the same things that everybody else is facing.

Long-standing inequities

Even with some of the federal figures in dispute, theres little debate that some hospitals are faring worse than others, part of a generations-long racial and ethnic divide researchers have documented in access to quality health care.

One reason for that divide: Hospitals can better grow and expand by chasing more lucrative groups of patients, not necessarily the sickest or neediest ones.

The Chicago hospital landscape includes large hospital systems, facilities tied to universities, and others that struggle to operate independently in lower-income neighborhoods. That mix has affected hospitals options in adapting to the pandemic crush.

Hospitals that are part of larger systems say they have been able to transfer patients among their own facilities to try to even things out, while bigger hospitals have looked for ways to expand capacity. But for safety-net hospitals, the options can be more limited.

Transferring patients to less busy hospitals carries risks: A patient could get sicker on the ride there, or a hospital could run out of space in the time it takes to complete the paperwork and travel. Some fuller hospitals, such as Mount Sinai and Holy Cross, said they arent often transferring patients elsewhere to make room, partly because bed availability across hospitals is so tight and constantly in flux.

Some transfers do happen. Rush, for example, said it has approved the majority of the roughly 20 requests it has averaged each day since October. NorthShore said it has limited transfers from hospitals outside its own system but still takes some on a case-by-case-basis.

Still, Greg Kelley, president of SEIU Healthcare Illinois Indiana Missouri & Kansas, said more transfers could help Loretto and other safety-net hospitals.

When poor hospitals need to transfer patients, they all too often find that richer health systems ... wont take them, he told reporters at Wednesdays news conference.

Kelley singled out Northwestern Medicine, a health system anchored by the regions largest hospital, Northwestern Memorial, which confirmed it has paused taking transfers from hospitals outside its system. The most recent federal data shows Northwestern Memorial averaged nearly 200 open inpatient beds of the 940 it could staff, and about 24 of 115 ICU beds. That equates to about 21% availability for each metric, slightly above the state threshold signaling stress.

Northwestern spokesman Christopher King said that in response to the latest surge the hospital has rescheduled 65% of surgeries and procedures that would require an inpatient bed. And he cautioned the federal numbers are a snapshot in time that dont reflect the fact that some beds are open only to certain types of patients, like for psychiatric care or womens health.

King said Northwestern serves many lower-income Chicagoans and communities, noting that more than 40% of the hospitals COVID-19-positive inpatients live on the citys South and West sides.

State actions

When the pandemic hit nearly two years ago, Pritzker issued an executive order directing all hospitals to cancel nonemergency surgeries. In that order, he also directed hospitals to render assistance in support of the States response to the disaster.

Now, with hospitals saying theyre in even worse shape than 2020, the governor has not gone so far. He recently asked, but didnt require, hospitals to cancel nonemergency surgeries. New York, by contrast, recently directed dozens of hospitals to suspend nonessential elective surgeries.

Perhaps the biggest regulatory step the Pritzker administration has taken is one thats frustrated several safety-net hospitals: making them accept arriving ambulances even when they feel overwhelmed.

Before the pandemic, full ERs could get 911 dispatchers to divert ambulances to other hospitals. Now, with hospitals so busy across the board, the state wont allow that except for extreme situations, and some hospital officials who spoke with the Tribune said theyve tried to take that step but been denied.

A state health department spokesperson said the agency is working with an industry trade group, the Illinois Health and Hospital Association, to encourage appropriate interfacility transfers.

The hospital association told the Tribune no single entity makes the decision to transfer patients from one hospital to another. Rather, doctors at different hospitals and within a region often talk to one another when deciding whether to transfer patients. Typically, they transfer patients based on patients medical needs and not just to make room, said association spokesperson Amy Barry.

That said, regarding the current transfer situation among hospitals, she told the Tribune: We know its a problem.

Its not a new problem, either. WBEZ reported in June 2020 about problems overwhelmed hospitals had making transfers during the first COVID-19 surge. Since then, Chicago hospital leaders confirmed, an online dashboard has been developed for hospitals in the city to get real-time data on peers availability, but that information is less helpful now because so many facilities are reporting high patient loads.

Even if its not coordinating transfers, the Pritzker administration said its trying to even things out by paying private staffing agencies to supply workers to hospitals in need.

But the Tribune found the state hasnt always sent staffers to hospitals reporting the lowest availability. Several smaller safety-net hospitals didnt receive help  and four of them were reporting inpatient and ICU availability below the state threshold, signaling stress.

The state health department did not respond to questions about how it distributed staffers.

In the next week, 892 state-supplied staffers are to join 1,156 already placed at health care facilities or sent as part of special quick-strike forces.

Loretto is one of the hospitals slated to get staff from the state, with 24 workers expected to arrive later this month to help handle whats become the worst surge yet for the hospital.

ER patients often have waited four to eight days for rooms to open up elsewhere in the hospital, workers said. Some are discharged after spending all of their time in the ER.

By Wednesday evening at Loretto, six more patients had joined the man whose bed was in the hallway. Paramedics soon arrived with another. To outfit a new bed for the arrival, nurses had to maneuver a recliner holding another patient into a tight space.

But there was good news for the man who had spent eight days in the ER: An ambulance had arrived to take him to a care facility.

That left 21 patients in the 14-bed emergency department, and a waiting room full of others set to be evaluated.

The Tribunes Brian Cassella contributed reporting.

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Dozens marched Saturday through downtown Abingdon to remember civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.

Every year, on the weekend before his birthday, the Appalachian Peace Education Center hosts a celebration of Kings life and work. In the past, marchers gathered at Charles Wesley United Methodist Church on Main Street and walked to Abingdon United Methodist Church for speeches and music. More than 100 people often attend the event, which is one of the longest continuously held King celebrations in the Mountain Empire.

On Saturday, however, APEC turned the march around. Dozens still attended the rally and march.

Since APEC did not want a big crowd to gather inside the two churches, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the marchers started at the Farmers Market. Several board members, including Buckey Boone, who led the event, as well as Washington County Board of Supervisors Chairman Saul Hernandez, spoke during a brief rally at the Farmers Market.

This years theme was Kings I Have a Dream speech, which he made during a march in Washington, D.C., in 1963.

After the rally, the marchers walked up Main Street through downtown to St. Thomas Episcopal Church. Members at the church provided gatherers with hot chocolate.

A virtual celebration can be found on the Appalachian Peace Education Centers Facebook page, similar to last years celebration, which was also affected by COVID-19. Gatherers on Saturday wore masks and generally practiced social distancing.

Video from the rally and the march can also be found on the organizations Facebook page for those that missed the event.
Legislation regarding a new domestic violence and child abuse task force, the state budget, improving roads and education are expected to be on the table during the current session of the Tennessee General Assembly.

The states Senate and House of Representatives have a full plate with the state budget, COVID-19-related legislation, taxes, education and a plethora of other issues. Following a special session last fall regarding COVID-19 policies, both houses returned Tuesday.

Rep. John Crawford, R-Kingsport, who has spent the last few weeks enjoying the holidays and preparing for the upcoming session, introduced the Gabby Act on Feb. 24, 2021, in the House. House Bill 1526 proposes to create a domestic violence and child abuse task force within the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, according to a bill summary posted on the General Assemblys website.

During last years session, the bill only made it to the Criminal Justice Subcommittee.

The bill stems from the October 2020 deaths of 17-year-old Gabrielle Gabby Kennedy and her mother, Kristina Robinson, who were shot inside their Trammell Road home in Bristol, Tennessee, by Robinsons estranged husband, Michael Robinson, before he killed himself, according to police.

Crawford said the Gabby Act is one of the key pieces of legislation he is spearheading this session.

While Crawford introduced the legislation, the lawmaker previously told the Bristol Herald Courier that he didnt come up with the idea: The person behind it is 19-year-old Bristol, Tennessee resident Trevor Lee. Not long after the murders, Lee found himself talking to family and friends of Gabby and her mother about what went wrong in their situation that we could fix in the future, he said.

The Gabby Act follows last years approval of another piece of legislation based on a Sullivan County case. Evelyn Boswells Law requires parents to report their children missing within 24 hours. Evelyn disappeared and her body was later found in Blountville in early 2020.

Local law enforcement, including Sullivan County Sheriff Jeff Cassidy, regularly follows criminal justice-related legislation.

Our state reps and senator do a good job in communicating upcoming legislation, said Cassidy, who serves on the Tennessee Sheriffs Association Legislative Committee.

Landfill

State. Sen. Jon Lundberg, R-Bristol, is sponsoring the Gabby Act in the state Senate.

My biggest interest is the landfill, said Lundberg, referring to the ongoing odor issues in Bristol related to the landfill on the Virginia side of the Twin City.

Lundberg has been working with people at all levels of the government to try to find a solution and to help residents who have dealt with the stench for more than a year.

Ultimately, we have to close the landfill, said Lundberg.

City managers in both cities, as well as federal officials in Virginia have asked for help from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. The city of Bristol, Tennessee, which has provided air purifiers for low-income residents that have dealt with the ongoing odors, hired a law firm and has threatened to file a lawsuit against Bristol, Virginia over the landfill issues.

The senator said he is not aware whether the state legislature can do anything to help Bristol residents with the landfill odors because it is in Virginia. But he is also working to obtain federal funds to help alleviate the issue.

Crawford said he also working on the landfill situation, as well as addressing other matters in the district, including the pandemic and its effect on constituents, schools and businesses.

Redistricting

An early item expected to be discussed this session is redistricting.

State Rep. Scott Campbell, R-Mountain City, recently shared an updated district map on his Facebook page that had been proposed by the House of Representatives Select Committee on Redistricting. Campbell serves the states third district, which currently includes all of Johnson City, as well as portions of Carter and Sullivan counties. The proposed third district would also include a portion of Hawkins County, and redrawn sections of Sullivan County.

Every 10 years, legislative districts are reviewed and updated based on census information. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, Tennessee grew by 8.9% and increased to 6.9 million residents in 2020 compared with 6.3 million reported in 2010.

A Tennessee House panel in December advanced the new map of the state representative districts despite objections from some lawmakers concerned that the proposal places several Democratic incumbents into the same districts, according to the Associated Press. Several changes are also expected in Tennessees urban areas, including the elimination of a Shelby County district.

Lundberg noted that about 70,000 people should be represented by each elected official in Tennessee. In the Nashville area, he said there are districts where population growth has given some representatives between 130,000 and 140,000 people.

Campbell, elected in 2020 to replace former Rep. Timothy Hill, said he is especially interested in appropriations legislation. He is a member of the House Finance, Ways and Means Committee and the Appropriations Subcommittee.

I am trying to get our priorities funded while keeping taxes as low as possible, said Campbell, who added that there are a number of local and regional items that need funding in Northeast Tennessee.

Campbell said he is especially interested in funding for resurfacing and repairing state highways.

Im trying to keep those at the forefront of the conversation and get as many miles resurfaced as we can, Campbell said.

In partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Forest Service and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, Campbell said he also continues his quest to secure a boat ramp on the Johnson County side of Watauga Lake. He said Carter and Sullivan counties seem pleased with their lake access.

Prisons

Campbell said he is concerned about a major staffing shortage at the Northeast Correctional Complex in Johnson County.

A lot of staff have told me they feel unsafe, Campbell said.

Gov. Bill Lee previously announced a $44,500 starting pay for correctional officers and a 15% raise for the current employees.

As we face staffing shortages across the country, rewarding officers with competitive pay will ensure we recruit and retain the most highly qualified individuals in our workforce, Lee said in a news release in December regarding the Tennessee Department of Corrections. These Tennesseans play a crucial role in ensuring public safety and we remain committed to valuing their important work.

Campbell said he recommends expanding pay raises to the entire department.

I will continue to advocate for staff to have a safer environment at the complex, he said.

Lundberg said the entire Department of Corrections has had difficulty with staffing and he has also been working on the issues at the Northeast Correctional Complex. He believes there needs to be more incentives for people to apply for corrections positions.

As of Jan. 6, there were 124 vacancies at Northeast Correctional Complex. The facility has a total of 432 positions, according to a Department of Corrections spokesman.

Campbell also said he plans to advocate for additional funding for emergency medical services, fire departments and law enforcement.

Education

The state representative also noted that there have been discussions about changes to education funding in Tennessee.

I will work tirelessly to make sure we get our fair share, Campbell said.

Late last year, Gov. Lee said he wants the legislature to revamp how Tennessee funds its multi-billion-dollar K-12 education system. The governors administration unveiled plans to overhaul the system in October and has since held multiple town halls across the state to collect feedback from teachers and families.

Im a strong advocate for public education and we need to fund our schools appropriately, Lee told reporters in 2021.

Known as the Basic Education Program, Tennessees school funding formula includes 45 components that are all used to determine how much funding each school should receive for teacher salaries and other expenses. It has long been criticized for being complicated and outdated since it was adopted nearly 30 years ago. It has even faced lawsuits led by school boards for falling short of Tennessees constitutional obligation to provide students with a free, adequate, and equitable education.

Democrats and the Tennessee Education Association have argued that any reform should increase school funding, but Lee has held off promising the new plan will include a bump in funding.

The governor says he hopes to have a proposal during the current session.

The Basic Education Program is a model that weve used for decades, Lundberg said. Its an exceptionally complicated model.

The senator said there has been a lot of discussion about various proposals.

In addition to working on the state budget, which every local representative and senator has said they will approve if it is balanced, taxes are expected to be discussed. There has been discussion regarding returning some of the excess revenues to taxpayers in the form of tax relief.

Lundberg said he is also interested in discussions about potential health care expansion, telemedicine and how to expand broadband internet in the state. He noted that although COVID-19 has caused many problems over the last couple years, it has improved telemedicine, but its also showed us weaknesses in broadband.

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Baltimore States Attorney Marilyn Mosby got a warm reception Sunday morning at Baltimores Empowerment Temple AME church, days after she was indicted on charges alleging she lied on financial documents.

After beginning his sermon, the Rev. Robert Turner summoned Mosby and her husband, Baltimore City Council President Nick Mosby, to the front of the church, where they were encircled by congregants, who joined hands in prayer.

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We rebuke the enemy and his attack on their life. The Devil is a liar, Turner said, standing beside the couple as an organist played softly. We surround her physically now, but spiritually forevermore, as we intercede on her behalf.

Then Mosby herself took the microphone, repeating a familiar refrain  that she is innocent, and that the charges reflect unfair probing into her finances.

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Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 9 Nick and Marilyn Mosby at the Sunday morning service at Empowerment Temple, where they were invited by Rev. Robert Turner, right, who preached in support of Mosby. Marilyn Mosby, the States Attorney is under federal indictment. (Amy Davis / Baltimore Sun)

We can certainly use your prayers, Mosby said, reading from a cellphone. As a family, we are in the fight of our lives. But I stand before you confident and covered, trusting that with God on our side, I believe the fight is already fixed in my favor.

The charges against Mosby, which were announced Thursday, included allegations that she lied to prematurely withdraw thousands of dollars from her city retirement account, then used the funds to purchase two vacation homes in Florida. Prosecutors said she claimed she had faced financial hardship from the COVID-19 pandemic to complete the withdrawal, when in fact she had received a raise during that time period.

[ As Baltimore prosecutor Marilyn Mosby turns defendant, residents debate whether charges are fair or political persecution ]

While applying for loans to purchase the two properties, prosecutors argue Mosby lied again, saying she was not indebted to the federal government when in fact she owed thousands in unpaid taxes.

During his sermon Sunday, Turner repeatedly cited the charges against Mosby, as he discussed the biblical account of Jesus forgiving a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. The sermon was entitled: He dropped the charges.

One sad fact about today is social media can allow people to be charged  accused  before you ever set foot in a courtroom, Turner said. As a people of African descent, we have been charged before we even got here. They charged us while we were minding our business in Africa.

At one point during his prayer for Mosby, Turner began to solicit donations on her behalf  not for her campaign, but for her personal use. Mosby appeared to decline the offer.

Even this shows her integrity, Turner said.

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Sunday, Turner was celebrating 15 years in ministry while leading service at the church, an African Methodist Episcopal congregation with thousands of members thats headquartered near the Pimlico Race Course in Northwest Baltimore.

Turner took over as Empowerments pastor in October, after former pastor George Barnes was dismissed over concerns that he had failed to file financial forms required by the churchs mortgage lender, costing the congregation thousands of dollars in fees. Turner, who had previously served at an AME church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, also took on an activists role: calling for reparations and recognition a century after the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

I know Im new here to Baltimore, but it dont take me long to figure out whats right and whats wrong. And in my humble opinion, whats being done to this sister is dead wrong, Turner said of Mosby.

Speaking before the congregation for about five minutes Sunday, Mosby struck a defiant tone, although she stressed the difficulties of her job as states attorney for the city.

Despite the death threats, the hate mail, the constant media attacks, the lawsuits, the scrutiny of every dollar in my bank account  Im still here, Im still standing and Im still blessed, Mosby said.

The 41-year-old, who took office as states attorney in 2015, is perhaps best known for bringing charges against several Baltimore Police officers who were charged in the death of Freddie Gray in police custody. None were convicted.

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Mosby, who bills herself as a progressive prosecutor, has made headlines more recently for prosecutorial policy changes. In 2020, she began dismissing charges levied for certain nonviolent crimes such as drug possession, prostitution and trespassing. Mosbys term will end this year and she will be up for reelection.

She has maintained her innocence throughout the federal investigation into her and her husbands finances, and said the charges are a political witch hunt aimed at her because of her policies and her race. Nick Mosby has not been charged with any crime.

As Turner and Mosby spoke, claps and encouraging cheers emerged from the crowd. As the couple left the church, they embraced several parishioners.

Were praying for you, one said.

Afternoon Update Weekdays Updating you on the day's biggest news before the evening commute. >

Cynthia Addison, who said shes attended Empowerment Temple since 2005, said shes seen Mosby at the church in the past, and she continues to support the states attorney.

I support her, and Im just praying that shes exonerated from all charges. You know, shes a great woman, and Im prayerful that things will work out for her, said the 54-year-old parishioner from Randallstown.

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To Empowerment parishioner Dorothy Hemsley, a 73-year-old from Owings Mills, the charges against Mosby reflect unfair persecution of Black women. She likened the situation to the prosecution of former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh, who is serving three years in federal prison after she pleaded guilty to charges related to her self-dealing childrens book scheme.

As you see all the way through, who they get: All the Black women  not the people thats really done things, Hemsley said. Even as far as Pugh, what shes done. And Im sure people ahead of her did that, but she was the one who was chosen to be taken down.

Also in attendance was Maryland Sen. Antonio Hayes, who serves on the churchs trustee board. Hayes, a Democrat who represents Marylands 40th district in Baltimore City, said he stands by Mosby, given that she is considered innocent in the eyes of the law before she has been proved guilty.

Right now theyre just accusations. Everyone has their day in court, Hayes said. I wish them well in their journey and well see what will happen.

Its a true belief and a discipline of the AME church to reach out to those who are in need, Hayes said. And I think it was quite Christian of [Turner] to open the doors of our church to cover the Mosbys in this time, obviously, where they need prayer.
The Hickory NAACP asked Hickory Public Schools students this question: If you could give the world one gift, what would it be?

The students entries reflected their hope for peace in the world  good health for all, food and warmth for all humans and animals, and for people to respect others with kindness, no matter their differences, said Beverly Snowden, Hickory Public Schools director of communications. The heartfelt messages from these students certainly give us hope for a bright future.

The schools that participated were Southwest Primary, Viewmont Elementary, Oakwood Elementary, Longview Elementary, Jenkins Elementary, Grandview Middle and Northview Middle.

Here are some of the childrens responses. Some were edited for clarity.

Fifth-grader Sophia Emery, Oakwood ElementaryIf I could give the world a gift, it would be a robot police officer. Its traits would include tidy and neat. It would live on all of the highways, and when someone would litter, it would pick up the trash. The robot would live off of trash, and when people would litter, it would pick it up and eat it. It would also spit out a ticket to the person, and when they would pay it, the money would go to the government, and that money would pay for homes for people and animals that cant afford a home to live in. This robot would have backup to keep watch while he would go to other highways. He would have high-speed wheels to go from highway to highway. That is what I would give the world as a gift.

Second-grader Angie Nicole Mejia, Southwest PrimarySi yo pudiera darle al mundo un regalo seria comida porque muchos animales y personas no tienen para comer. Porque ellos lo necesitan pura sobrevir. Tambien yo pienso que todas las personas del mundo deberian tener una casa donde vivir para no estar bajo la lluvia y el color del sol. Tambien para dormir y para descansar bien. Yo creo que las personas que tienen dinero pudieran ayudar a las personas y a los animales con comida y casas para sobrevivir.

Translation provided by Grace Childers:

If I could give the world a gift, it would be food, because many animals and people dont have anything to eat. Because they need that to survive. Also, I think all the people in the world should have a house to live in so they arent under the rain and the heat of the sun. Also to sleep and to rest well. I think the people that have money could help people and animals without food and houses to survive.

Third-grader Taylor Fisher, Jenkins ElementaryI would give the world a cleaner for the seas. They could clean the world and make the world a better place for animals.

Fifth-grader Anah Ellis, Viewmont ElementaryIf I could give the world a gift, it would be to have a fair health system all around the globe. One reason is because some areas dont have fair health systems. Those areas cant get vaccines of any kind. People in those areas are more likely to pass away. Some of the places that are listed is Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan and more. Health is important because it keeps us alive and healthy. People cant get the medicine that they need and probably have a bad immune system. Immune systems help fight sickness.

Kinley Workman, Longview ElementaryI would give the world courage, hope and kindness because I think most people need it. Some people are sad, alone and mad or frustrated, and I dont like that because that makes me sad. I dont like being sad, and sometimes life isnt fair, and I think everything and everybody needs to be loved or just needs some love. I think most people would agree with me  most of the sadness is coming from COVID-19. Weve lost people and its just not fair for us.

Sixth-grader Cooper Scharf, Northview MiddleIf I could give the world a gift, it would be the ability to accept uniqueness. Everyone is different, whether it be how they look, their personality or what they like. Many people in our world cannot accept people who are different than them. Too many people try to take control of them and make them feel as though they are of a lower class. Children and adults alike are bullied for not looking pretty, not acting the same as everyone else and for what they look like. If we can all respect each others differences, we can work together to make a better world for everyone.

Gabby, Grandview Middle

If I could give the world a gift, it would be peace. I would give the world peace because I feel if there was no violence the world would be a better place. If I gave the world peace, people would help each other out more. People will treat others like they are humans and nobody would feel unsafe. If someone were to be a part of the LGBT+ community, they would not be scared to come out. There would be no shootings or murders. The world would just be safe. Thats why I would give the world peace.

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Odd-numbered years in the United States are considered to be off-election years given the absence of general national elections. But democracy worldwide did not take the year off in 2021. Last year, along with significant government reshufflings in places such as Italy, Japan, and Haiti, there were notable elections in Germany, Israel, Nicaragua, Chile, and even in the United States where state and local races provided some clues as to what we may see in the year ahead.

Angela Merkel stepping down as chancellor marked the end of 16 years of Christian Democratic governance by the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU) in Germany. Merkel remained broadly popular during her time as chancellor, during which she commanded respect not only within Germany but more broadly in the European Union and the world at large.

She has been replaced by Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Though to the center-left rather than center-right ideologically, Scholz, having a measured, centrist, non-populist approach to politics, is widely viewed as similar to Merkel (going so far as to even at times adopt the so-called Merkel rhombus hand positioning when in public). Scholz is likely to have a more difficult time governing than Merkel, though, given that his governing coalition includes two relatively dissimilar parties  the centrist Free Democrats (FDP) and the progressive Greens  rather than having a single coalition partner as the Christian Democrats did (with the SPD in a grand coalition, or alternatively with the Free Democrats) during the partys time in office under Merkel.

Elections in Japan and Italy in 2021 demonstrated how the pandemic can affect the political fortunes of elected officials. In Japan, Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide stepped down in part due to growing unpopularity as a result of what was viewed as mishandling of the pandemic. In Italy, the governing Five Star Movement lost the support of their coalition partner in part due to disagreement over Prime Minister Giuseppe Comtes COVID-19 economic recovery plan, paving the way for popular former president of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi to become prime minister.

In Latin America, there was somewhat of a shift of power to the left in 2021. Daniel Ortega, who led Nicaragua as head of the Sandinistas in the 1980s, and now again as president since 2007, won reelection in a vote that was far from free and fair. Raul Castro, Fidels brother, stepped down as first secretary of the Communist Party in Cuba but handed power over to party insider Miguel Diaz-Canal, who has been serving as president since 2019. Pedro Castillo was elected president in Peru on the most left-wing platform of any president of Peru, according to the Economist. Hondurans elected their first female president, Xiomara Castro, also on the left, in its general election at the end of November. And Chileans, as their constitution is being rewritten, elected progressive candidate Gabriel Boric to close out the year.

While some countries forged ahead in 2021, others experienced democratic setbacks. Sudan experienced its second coup in two years. The prime minister, Abdallah Hamdok, was technically restored in November but the military remained in power. He recently resigned, leaving the military fully in control.

It was a bad year for democracy in Asia, where the military seized power in Myanmar in a coup in February, and the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan. Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and others remained non-democratic, and democratic backsliding occurred in several states, including the Philippines under Rodrigo Duterte, who has led a brutal extra-judicial crackdown on drugs during his tenure, and Malaysia, which struggled to form a government during an extended period of political instability.

Still, there was some good news for proponents of democracy in 2021, including Zambia, where successful businessman turned politician running for president for the sixth time Hakainde Hichilema successfully fought off attempts by the incumbent government to rig the vote. And in tiny Samoa, Fiame Naomi Mataafa became the first female prime minister after the court of appeal ended the incumbent governments attempt to remain in power through dubious means. The outgoing government was in power for 33 consecutive years, with the same prime minister for the past 22.

Though national elections were not held in the United States in 2021, state and local elections provided some clues as to what might be ahead in this years midterms. The gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey were viewed as bellwether elections, being among the first of prominent elections since the last general election and with Congress hanging in the balance as we head into the fall. Some viewed Glenn Youngkins campaign in Virginia as a model for Republican candidates to follow to appeal to Trumps base without alienating moderate voters in the midterms. Some took his win, along with Democratic incumbent Phil Murpheys more narrowly than expected win in New Jersey, as indicators that the Democratic Party will be facing strong headwinds going into the midterms.

There were additional important elections throughout the world in 2021, including in Israel, Canada, and Iran, among other places. But perhaps the most important lesson in democracy of the year came from here in Catawba County where after a tie vote, a coin flip determined who won a city council seat in Conover. Given the tie, anyone who did not vote in the election who could have, would have cast a deciding vote.

When it comes to the midterm elections this year, it is easy to be cynical. Politicians are voted in and of office and not much seems to change in Washington. But elections have consequences as the saying goes, on everything from the economy to the environment to our health and education systems. So do not leave it to chance. Stay informed. Listen, think, converse and debate with others. And get out that vote.

David R. Dreyer is a political science professor at Lenoir-Rhyne University.
" " Rosa Parks is fingerprinted by police. Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty images

The Supreme Court had struck down the "separate but equal" precedent of Plessy v. Ferguson with their decision in the Brown v. Board of Education case, making segregation illegal. But were states actually following orders?

Many people know the story of Rosa Parks. On Thursday, Dec. 1, 1955, after a long day at work as a seamstress, Mrs. Parks boarded a bus in Montgomery to go home. She sat in the fifth row with three other Blacks, the farthest row forward Blacks could legally occupy. As the bus filled up along the route, however, more whites entered the bus. Eventually, one white was left standing. According to Alabama law during the '50s, Blacks and whites couldn't occupy the same row. When told by the bus driver to give up the row to the white man, three of the Blacks left for the back of the bus, but Mrs. Parks simply refused. She was quickly arrested and sent to jail.

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Rosa Parks remains one of the most iconic figures of the civil rights movement, and the steps she took changed American life. But her story isn't as improvised as it sounds. In fact, Mrs. Parks' arrest, which led to the famous Montgomery Bus Boycott, was planned from the beginning. Parks was an NAACP member with interest in the segregation situation, and she had completed a workshop on civil disobedience before she was arrested. After hearing of the Supreme Court's decision in the Brown v. Board of Education case, Jo Ann Robinson, a Black woman and professor at the all-Black Alabama State College, had decided the time was right to test the law.

After the arrest, Robinson and other prominent ministers and civil rights activists, including E.D. Nixon and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., gathered to discuss a boycott. Handouts were made urging Blacks to stay off of buses the following Monday.

The first day of the boycott was a huge success, with empty buses rolling through the streets of Montgomery. The group met again that night and quickly formed an organization, calling themselves the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) and electing King as president. After some discussion, the MIA agreed to continue the boycott, which would last for a little more than a year.

" " Rosa Parks, center, one of the most famous figures from the civil rights movement, helped spark the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Don Cravens/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

Whites tried every way possible to break up the boycott. First they tried nonviolent means. When Black cab services began undercharging other Blacks with a 10-cent fare, the city announced that any cab charging less than 45 cents would be stopped. Companies began canceling insurance polices on cars used for carpooling. Mrs. Parks was arrested for not paying her fine, and King was arrested several times, usually for minor trafficoffenses. When these tactics didn't work, whites then turned to violence. Bombs went off in Black homes, King's house was shot at and the Ku Klux Klan marched around to protest.

The city was beginning to suffer financially from the boycott, and news of the case made its way to the Supreme Court, which had recently declared segregation illegal in Brown v. Board of Education. The Court ordered full integration in November 1956, and by Dec. 21 of that year, Blacks ended the boycott and started riding the buses again.

The boycott marked the first important involvement of the public in the civil rights movement and the emergence of Martin Luther King Jr. After success in Montgomery and gaining national attention, King soon became a major leader of the movement, moving to Atlanta and starting the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
The No. 22 Nebraska women's gymnastics claimed two event titles in their home opener against No. 16 BYU. The Huskers fell, 193.925-195.700.

Kinsey Davis added her second uneven bars title of the year with a 9.900. Freshman Halle Rourke made her collegiate debut on floor, earning a 9.875 and the title. Sophomoreadded her second uneven bars title of the year with a 9.900. Freshmanmade her collegiate debut on floor, earning a 9.875 and the title.

Rotation One

Emma Spence led NU off with a 9.700. Kylie Piringer followed with a 9.750, matching her season-high score. Ayzhia Hall earned a 9.600 while Makayla Curtis notched a 9.675. Kinsey Davis earned a season-high score of 9.800. The Huskers started on vault with a team score of 48.525.led NU off with a 9.700.followed with a 9.750, matching her season-high score.earned a 9.600 whilenotched a 9.675.earned a season-high score of 9.800.

The Cougars started off on uneven bars and earned a team score of 49.100. Anyssa Alvarado led BYU with a score of 9.850.

Rotation Two

Kinsey Davis led NU with a 9.900, claiming her second title on the event this year. Spence followed closely with a season-high score of 9.850. Clara Colombo earned a 9.800 while Kathryn Thaler notched a 9.725. Genesis Gibson made her collegiate debut with a 9.200. Emma Simpton rounded out the rotation with a 8.125. Nebraska had a strong second rotation as the Huskers posted a 48.475 team score on uneven bars.led NU with a 9.900, claiming her second title on the event this year. Spence followed closely with a season-high score of 9.850.earned a 9.800 whilenotched a 9.725.made her collegiate debut with a 9.200.rounded out the rotation with a 8.125.

BYU had a strong performance on vault earning a 48.775 on the event. Sadie Miner-Van Tassell had a team-high 9.825, claiming the event title.

Rotation Three

Ayzhia Hall led the Huskers with a season-high 9.775. Spence and Thaler followed, both tying their season-high of 9.725. Davis and Colombo each earned a 9.625 while Curtis earned a 9.275. The Huskers earned a team score of 48.475 on beam, a season-high. On beam,led the Huskers with a season-high 9.775. Spence and Thaler followed, both tying their season-high of 9.725. Davis and Colombo each earned a 9.625 while Curtis earned a 9.275. The Huskers earned a team score of 48.475 on beam, a season-high.

On floor, the Cougars earned a team score of 49.075. Sadie Miner-Van Tassell earned the highest score with a 9.850.

Rotation Four

Kaitlyn Higgins finished with a 9.150. The Huskers finished on floor earning a team score of 48.450. Rourke led the Huskers with a 9.875. Piringer followed with a season-high 9.850. Spence earned a 9.775 while Hall notched a 9.750. Curtis had a 9.200 whilefinished with a 9.150.

The Cougars finished on beam, earning a team score of 48.800. BYU was led by Miner-Van Tassell, earning a 9.850, who claimed the event title.

All-Around Competition

Spence earned a second-place finish in the all-around competition with a season-high 39.050. BYU's Miner-Van Tassell took the all-around title with a 39.325.

Up Next

Nebraska returns to the Bob Devaney Sports Center on Friday, Jan. 21 against Illinois. The meet is set to start at 6:30 p.m. and will be streamed live on BTN+.
Earlier this month, at the Allen T. Small Family Center, a number of residents from Concord came together to celebrate American history from the standpoint of historians Norman J. McCullough and Ben Callahan.

McCullough is based in Concord, and Callahan operates out of Mount Pleasant. The overall objective was to have people from the community come together to share and express their views about our history from a white and Black perspective.

Callahan made it clear that he was a native of Cabarrus County, graduated from Mount Pleasant High School and later received a B.A. degree from Catawba College. Callahan continued his studies in history at UNC-Chapel Hill for a M.A. degree. He received a second masters degree in public administration.

Callahan served in the Army during the Vietnam era and later spent most of his career in police work, eventually becoming chief of police at the Carrboro Police Department.

Given his background, Callahan wrote two books: Mount Pleasant by the Minutes and Promises Unfulfilled.

McCullough, on the other hand, is from the Northeast. He attended Hunter College for a bachelors degree in history and Columbia T.C. for a masters degree and Ab.D.

McCullough also served in the military during the Vietnam era. Most of McCulloughs career was spent in the field of training and years of teaching at the college level. In line with his experience attending Price Memorial AME Zion church, McCullough began by reading Matthew 5, verses 14-16. As we strive to become the light of the world, McCullough noted that it is important for people to talk about and discuss their differences.

For the sake of our country, talking to each other about our history is important. They discussed a number of issues in American history after the Civil War. Specifically, they talked about the history of Mount Pleasant, Concord and other parts of Cabarrus County. In line with McCulloughs new book, found at WarrenClayColeman.com, Callahan mentioned that during his research, he found records of Coleman owning land in an area known as Gold Hill between Cabarrus and Rowan counties.

Coleman, said Callahan, would lend money to other former slaves, according to his research. Colemans family started in Mount Pleasant with pioneer John Paul Beringer, who came to America as an indentured servant. His family coming to America by boat was not the same as slave boats, but many people were thrown overboard due to horrid conditions, including children. Of course, one of John Pauls descendants was Gen. Rufus Barringer of Concord. Barringer had two sons with a slave named Roxana Coleman. By focusing on this family, anyone can see that America, including from President Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings, is filled with interracial families that will only grow into the future (Google, the browning of America).

They also discussed the idea that American history must include all the facts of slavery, Jim Crow, 1776, and that all the good and bad must be shared with children as we attempt to move forward and grow as a country. Another important discussion included the fact that Paul Barringer II came to Concord in April 2021 to meet with his Black family (see Paul Barringer II came to town dated May 14, 2021). They also discussed the photos of Barber-Scotia, Logan and Shankletown schools that will be revealed on Feb. 26 at the Cannon library.

How many have Black people in their family? Because of the importance of this discussion, Callahan and McCullough are willing to continue this discussion with others in government, churches, etc.
Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:16)

In 2004, I was fired from my position as county manager where I lived. The 3-to-2 vote that resulted in my dismissal came as quite a surprise. I had committed no offense. In fact, the local county commission chairman characterized it as a hatchet job.

In the days that followed, I was hounded day and night by newspaper and television reporters. For a week, my dismissal seemed to be one of the lead stories on the 6:00 p.m. newscasts on every station in the Raleigh, North Carolina market. I had never witnessed anything quite like the firestorm of media attention that my firing received.

I am grateful for the faith that I had. I could not have survived those weeks and months without the peace and comfort of the Lord. It also meant so much to receive hundreds of telephone calls, emails, and personal visits from friends and supporters. It was a period of time I would not have wished on anyone. However, it was also a time where I realized just how many friends I had made in the four years I had lived in that community.

Life is not always fair, and we have to play the hand that we are dealt. Very few people in the town where I was living agreed with the action that the local county commission took. But, it was done and my family and I dealt with the pain that came from this unexpected surprise that life had brought our way.

Ironically, I have to confess to you how much trouble I had trying to find time for Bible study and prayer. My life was crowded and I had asked God to help me. He answered that prayer with an exclamation point!! He also let me know how much he loved me and reminded me that he would take care of things. He sent me the added measures of grace and peace to deal with what had happened. He is a great God.

When hard times come, God expects for us to model the Christian conduct that will honor him. Indeed, when the world looks at us during trying times, they should see the same person in the valley that they have seen on the mountaintop.

Needless to say, my Bible study and prayer time began to improve. In fact, God reminded me that in spite of my station in life, there are seven truths on which I can count:

1. I have a great family - blood and Christian - that loves me unconditionally.

2. Serving God will not always be easy. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:27)

3. Following God with life choices can be costly. If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. (Matthew 16:24)

4. No matter what the circumstances, God has a plan for my life. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)

5. The Lord presents himself in very real ways when trouble comes. For I know that my Redeemer lives, And he shall stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God. (Job 19:25-26)

6. God will never turn his back on me. I will not leave you nor forsake you. (Joshua 1:5)

7. It is important to keep things in perspective. The devil will win a battle or two, but remember, the victory has already been won. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world - our faith. (1 John 5:4)

Amazingly, I was hired back to my old position three months later after the elections. In several ways, that incident became a blessing in my life.

Many times, I dont know what tomorrow will bring. None of us does. But, the words to an old song have brought me comfort during that time:

Many things about tomorrow

I dont seem to understand

But I know who holds tomorrow,

And I know who holds my hand.
The federal holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. blends celebration, reflection and action.

On the third Monday in January, typically there are parades, prayer breakfasts, church services, concerts, readings from the writings of the slain civil rights leader and, yes, sales. Shopping, though, is far less a focus than on other federal holidays.

The King holiday is our national day of service, when Americans are encouraged to volunteer to make their communities better.

King would have turned 93 on Jan. 15. He received the Nobel Peace Prize at 35 and was only 39 when he was tragically killed by a sniper in 1968.

Time dims memories, so its worth remembering the holiday honoring him was hard won. Black members of Congress had to fight for 15 years to get the holiday through Congress.

Former Republican Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina once filibustered the bill with 300 pages of documents accusing King of being a Marxist with communist leanings. Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York declared the papers filth.

Congress finally passed and President Ronald Reagan signed the law creating the King holiday in 1983, with the first observance in 1986. But some states resisted. Arizona did not recognize the holiday until 1992 and New Hampshire in 1999.

Until last year, Virginia still honored Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson with a state holiday on the Friday before the King holiday.

Shortly after the first MLK federal holiday, The New York Times published a letter from a Princeton University sociology professor.

I propose we declare the holiday a day on, rather than a day off, Marion J. Levy Jr. wrote. His idea was that everyone would work on the holiday and those above the poverty line would send their wages to a special MLK fund benefiting education, housing and other projects.

Persuading millions of Americans to work on a holiday and donate their pay was a bridge too far, but the idea of service caught on.

In 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the King Holiday and Service Act, officially designating the holiday as a day of national service.

Overshadowing the commemorations this year is the political battle over voting rights legislation.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris paid tribute to King and met with his family Tuesday in Atlanta before the president delivered a fiery speech evoking Kings memory to press for passage of voting rights legislation.

Voting rights used to be a bipartisan issue but, like most things, it has become fiercely politicized. Partisans cant even agree on facts.

Biden and many Democrats contend passing the two voting rights bills before Congress is so crucial to restoring equity in the election system that the Senate should set aside the filibuster rule, which requires 60 votes, if necessary.

But Republicans vociferously claim the voting rights bills are a massive power grab by Democrats, an attempt to rewrite the nations election laws to benefit Democratic candidates.

Biden hopes to make where legislators stand a key marker in this years midterm elections.

As senators wrestle with their role in history, the rest of us can find meaningful ways to observe the holiday.

You can Google local MLK service events. If wintry weather or the pandemic makes in-person volunteering problematic, the federal government has two service opportunities people can do at home.

Both the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution are seeking volunteers to transcribe historical documents virtually. Digital volunteers are helping to make letters, field notes, diaries, manuscripts and other handwritten documents more widely available.

For example, the Smithsonian needs help transcribing records from the Freedmens Bureau, which was formed to improve the lives of formerly enslaved men and women during Reconstruction.

The Library of Congress needs help transcribing pages from George Washingtons farm reports that chronicle the lives and labor of enslaved people at Mount Vernon as well as other aspects of 18th century farm life.

The library also has projects transcribing Walt Whitmans letters and Frederick Law Olmsteds landscape architecture files. They can be found at: https://crowd.loc.gov and https://transcription.si.edu.

This MLK holiday is a chance to learn while we serve.

Everybody can be great, King said, because anybody can serve.

Marsha Mercer writes from Washington. Contact her at marsha.mercer@yahoo.com.
What if your charitable donations could provide for the needs of Anne Arundel County nonprofits forever? Donating to a local endowed fund is one way to assure that can happen. Endowments create a permanent source of capital to ensure financial support for charitable causes in perpetuity. In addition, endowments are invaluable in times of economic uncertainty, especially when other funding is no longer available.

By definition, endowments are a pool of assets invested in equities, bonds or other investment vehicles of which a percentage is withdrawn annually to assist charitable causes. Nonprofits use the annual investment income for programs, operations or other specified purposes. The principal (remaining assets and investment returns) is reserved in the endowment to provide for growth over time. Simply put, endowments are permanently restricted funds that allow charitable organizations such as the Community Foundation of Anne Arundel County and other nonprofits to continue to fulfill their missions in perpetuity.

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Endowments have many benefits for both donors and charitable organizations. They can help create a lasting legacy while supporting charitable causes or community needs. They can provide an assurance that the programs or causes donors care about will survive. In addition, donating to an endowed fund can provide tax benefits for donors through Endow Maryland.

What is Endow Maryland?

Endow Maryland is a Maryland state tax credit that rewards donors who help build permanent charitable funds for local communities across Anne Arundel County and the state. Endow Maryland offers a tax credit for gifts from $500 to $50,000 to permanent, endowed funds at qualified Maryland community foundations such as the Community Foundation of Anne Arundel County. These gifts can be made to an existing endowment fund or donors can create new funds that benefit Maryland organizations.

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Endow Maryland provides an incentive for Marylanders to give back to their local communities in a meaningful and lasting way. It promotes philanthropic giving in Maryland, for Maryland.

Endow Maryland tax credits can be used to support permanent charitable funds at CFAAC that allow us to address Anne Arundel Countys greatest needs today and for generations to come. Gifts made to establish or add to an existing endowed fund at CFAAC may qualify for a 25% tax credit on the donors 2022 state tax return. Maryland community foundations are sharing $250,000 in tax credits for 2022 and these credits are available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Heres an example of how it can work: Perhaps you donate $1,000 to a CFAAC-endowed fund; your state taxes will be reduced by a $250 tax credit and the net cost to you would be $750. If you itemize deductions on your federal tax return, your gift may also be eligible for the federal charitable tax deduction, reducing the cost to you even more. Check with your financial advisor about your specific situation.

CFAAC has many qualified permanent funds that can benefit Anne Arundel County forever including the Fund for Anne Arundel, which supports grant-making to address the most critical needs of Anne Arundel County. The current focus area of the Fund for Anne Arundel is nonprofit organizations offering physical, mental and behavioral health programs for children in Anne Arundel County. This is one example of the many qualified permanent funds at CFAAC.

With limited tax credits available in 2022, we encourage current CFAAC endowment fund holders to add to their fund and invite others to establish an endowment fund or donate to an existing endowment fund to support the causes they care about early in the year to take advantage of this opportunity. To find out what qualified permanent funds are available at CFAAC, visit cfaac.org/EndowMaryland

CFAAC is 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.

Mary Spencer is the President and CEO at the Community Foundations of Anne Arundel County.
The new owner of Silas Creek Crossing cites the real-estate mantra of location, location, location as a key reason behind his companys decision to spend $24.2 million on the Winston-Salem retail property.

The 23.11-acre property at 3200 Silas Creek Parkway was sold in two tracts to affiliates of DLC Management Corp. of Elmsford, N.Y.

Across from Hanes Mall, Silas Creek Crossing contains 209,120 square feet of retail space when counting three anchor and three outparcel spaces. The shopping center debuted in 1989.

However, DLC recognizes that having a prime and easy-to-access location only goes so far in attracting customers  particularly as Silas Creek Crossing often is overshadowed not only by the mall, but also by shopping-center competitors Thruway, Hanes Commons, Hanes Towne Village and Reynolda Village Shops & Restaurants.

For example, internet searches for the top shopping-center destinations in Winston-Salem tend to have Silas Creek Crossing near the bottom of the list, if its mentioned at all.

Thats why DLC, which specializes in owning, developing and managing open-air shopping centers, acknowledges it will take plenty of infrastructure and marketing efforts to unlock Silas Creek Crossings potential.

Those efforts will begin soon and will take until early 2023 to complete, chief operating officer Chris Ressa said last week.

We plan to do some capital improvements and enhancements to the physical attributes of the property, facade and landscaping, Ressa said.

Were bullish on open-air retail in our markets, and Silas Creek Crossing represents a good fit for what we do well. We buy properties where we are convinced that we can add value to assets with upside opportunities.

It has a good mix of daily needs and destination retailers and retailers that are relevant to the consumer that offer a value to the consumer in a convenient open-air format, Ressa said.

Ressa said repeatedly that DLC views the Winston-Salem and Triad demographics as favorable to brick-and-mortar retailers in the open-air format.

The macro fundamentals of Winston-Salem are compelling, Ressa said. Median household income is on the rise with more people moving here. Employment is growing and the housing market is on fire.

It is a desirable place for national retailers and local businesses, which makes it a good place to be a landlord of retail space.

It is one of the nations leading small- to medium-sized metros for entrepreneurs, such as small businesses and startups that comprise the majority of our tenants, Ressa said.

Ressa added that it is rare to have all those things happening all at once involving a new DLC property.

Recovery mode

DLC is taking over a Silas Creek Crossing property still in recovery mode from the loss of two of its three primary anchors since 2018.

A marketing flier by The Shopping Center Group lists 11 of 54 storefronts as available, as well as one of the outparcels that is a former Bank OZK branch. Those vacancies represent a combined 23,134 square feet, or about 11% of the 209,120 square feet.

The departure of Toys R Us in June 2018 took away the shopping centers top retail attraction  an anchor that it had become overly dependent upon for overall customer traffic.

The corporate-bankruptcy closing of A.C. Moore Arts & Crafts in 2019 added to the perception that Silas Creek Crossing had seen better days, leaving Marshalls as its lone anchor.

That A.C. Moore store was one of the most successful stores in the chain, Ressa said.

Ressa said DLC is enthused to start ownership with three destination anchor tenants  Burlington (formerly known as Burlington Coat Factory), Marshalls and Jo Ann Fabrics beginning in October. Burlington and Marshalls are prominent tenants in DLC overall shopping-center portfolio.

We dont view this as a property that is broken by any means, Ressa said. We believe we are going into there with significant momentum.

There is a very successful Marshalls there, and we know them and have a really good relationship with them.

We have put new Burlington stores in many of our properties, so having that destination anchor already there is a plus, Ressa said.

Ressa said that we think a really good indicator of the promise of Silas Creek Crossing is that Jo Ann Fabrics is leaving its current site off Stratford Road across from Hanes Mall.

Having Jo Ann Fabrics being in the local market for a long time and deciding that it wanted to be here gave us a lot of conviction around the fundamentals of retail real estate here.

Ressa said DLC is confident it will be able to find complementary retailers to fill the vacancies and the former bank outparcel.

The available spaces are very suitable for growing entrepreneurs, Ressa said. We already have interest for the outparcel space.

Open-air retail

Ressa said DLC is very bullish on open-air shopping centers, in part because those retailers are performing better during the COVID-19 pandemic than stores in enclosed malls.

Unlike Silas Creek Crossing, many open-air shopping centers, including Thruway and Hanes Towne Village, have grocery store anchors.

Recent retail-trade media reports share Ressas assessment on how well open-air shopping centers are doing.

The Real Deal said in a Dec. 15 posting that landlords filled 17 million square feet of open-air shopping centers during the third quarter, according to CBRE data reported by the Wall Street Journal. It represented a 49% hike from 2019 and a 10-year high for net absorption.

According to CBRE, investors poured $5 billion into grocery-anchored retail centers (in the third) quarter, the second-most for a single quarter in 10 years, according to The Real Deal.

Recent data from Green Street further divide the two retail sectors. Malls have lost a third of their value in only four years.

Meanwhile, the value of strip centers has actually increased nearly 5% since 2016 and 13% since the start of the pandemic.

Another example: Retail Touch Points said in a Dec. 10 posting that the rise of buy online, pick up in-store, and the lingering demand for more open spaces, have made centers offering plenty of fresh air, easy access between parking facilities, and stores and amenities that go beyond just retail, all very attractive to consumers.

Retail Touch Points noted that as shoppers have become accustomed to placing orders and picking them up at their own convenience, this habit is unlikely to change even post-pandemic.

Silas Creek Crossing is an excellent retail property in a prime location with a healthy mix of national retailers and locally owned shops and restaurants, said Laura Lee, senior vice president of economic development for Greater Winston-Salem Inc.

We are pleased to see this investment into commercial real estate in our county, as it signifies the value of locating and expanding here.

Having DLC view Silas Creek Crossing as a viable shopping center was not surprising to Raymond Collins Jr. with Collins Commercial Properties Inc.

Retail sustains a higher return on investment than office, industrial or multifamily, sustaining investor interest and confidence, Collins said.

While Collins said the enclosed mall retail concept will continue to struggle except for in high-income areas and very cold areas; other than that, the retail commercial property sector remains healthy.

Even though it is in the shadow of Hanes Mall, Collins said Silas Creek Crossing indirectly benefits most from the proximity.

"Burlington more than offsets Toys R Us, which was mostly a seasonal draw and Burlington is a year-round draw," Collins said.

However, Collins said a soft goods apparel user may have been "a better draw" to replace A.C. Moore "or some other specialty category killer with strong financials."

"The irregular shopping center configuration also places a limited parking hardship on the area in front of Jo Ann."

Ressa said Silas Creek Crossing is appropriately sized and not overly built.

Open-air assets are able to pivot and maneuver much easier, based on how they are built, compared with enclosed properties.

Ressa said that DLC is working on every specific use, and open to, every kind of use.

That includes trying to land as tenants online retailers that have recognized the need for a brick-and-mortar presence in order to offer a buy-online, pick-up-in-store option.

We like the food-and-beverage category because they can help the ancillary retail, Ressa said.

Rarely do we get into an acquisition at this point of the life cycle of a property, such as having the heavy lifting of getting Burlington and Jo Ann Fabrics has been done for us.

We believe we have a viable tailwind, and we believe we can set ourselves up to deliver a first-class product if we execute well, and thats what we tend to do.

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UPDATE: Mount Tabor United Methodist Church at 3543 Robinhood Road in Winston-Salem has postponed its annual Community Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Service at 4 p.m. today due to dangerous weather conditions.

The church said on its Facebook page that it is also canceling its open house of the Navigating Jim Crow: Green Book and Oasis Spaces in North Carolina exhibit that was scheduled from 2 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. on the same day.

Other open dates to visit the Green Book exhibit are from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Jan 22, Feb. 6 and Feb. 20. The exhibit is free. For more information on the exhibit visit, mttaborumc.org/green-book.

Sadie R. Daniels of Winston-Salem had never heard of The Negro Motorist Green Book until a group from Mount Tabor United Methodist Church toured the Historic Magnolia House in Greensboro last year.

The Green Book was a travel guide published between 1936 and 1966 during the segregation era in the United States that identified businesses that would accept African American customers.

It was explosive for me, Daniels, a 93-year-old African American said of visiting the Historic Magnolia House, one of just a few Green Book sites still in operation in North Carolina. I just felt real good to know all these things happened at the Magnolia House and all the people that had been there to spend a night or to visit.

The Historic Magnolia House states on its website that renown African Americans such as James Brown, Ray Charles, Ruth Brown, Ike and Tina Turner, Joe Tex, Carter G. Woodson and Jackie Robinson stayed there, as well as families and college students who attended colleges such as Bennett College and N.C. A&T State University.

Daniels is a volunteer helping with Navigating Jim Crow: Green Book and Oasis Spaces in North Carolina an exhibit about the Green Book that will be on display to the public Jan. 17, Jan. 22, Feb. 6 and Feb. 20 at Mount Tabor United Methodist Church at 3543 Robinhood Road in Winston-Salem.

The church, where Daniels is a member, is hosting the exhibit in partnership with the Winston-Salem Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc.

The exhibit is one of two identical traveling exhibits developed and produced by the N.C. African American Heritage Commission, a division of the N.C Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. It was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

The exhibit

Navigating Jim Crow: Green Book and Oasis Spaces in North Carolina is an eight-paneled exhibit that takes viewers through the state of North Carolina and tells the stories of some of the more than 300 locations ranging in cities from Wilmington to Lenoir with photography and words.

Exhibit-goers have the chance to view several videos with narratives featuring Green Book locations throughout North Carolina and along Route 66, as well as browse through facsimile copies of Green Books.

The words of African American travelers and descendants of Green Book site owners are featured prominently in the exhibit. Their stories are from oral histories collected by the N.C. African American Heritage Commission in 2018 and 2019.

The exhibit is self-guided, but church volunteers will be available during public showings.

Cathy Hurd, the chairwoman of Church for All People ministry at Mount Tabor, said the exhibit is designed to educate the community about what it meant for African Americans to travel the United States during segregation and experience the limited safe havens for lodging, food, gas and other services. The Green Book was a necessary guide for African Americans to feel safe when traveling.

She added that Mount Tabor is hosting the exhibit as an expression of our vision statement of sharing the love of Jesus with each other, our community, and our world, even when its hard. It is important to acknowledge and understand the horrific impact of prejudice and racism in order to become a beloved community where all people respect and care for each other.

A springboard

Deborah Daniels, who is Sadie R. Daniels daughter, said she didnt know about the Green Book until the movie Green Book was released in 2018.

When the movie came out, I was like, Green Book? Youre still thinking its fiction, said Deborah Daniels, who is also a member and exhibit volunteer at Mount Tabor.

She likes a comment from the 1948 Green Book in the exhibit that states: There will be a day sometime in the near future when this guide will not have to be published. That is when we as a race will have equal opportunities and privileges in the United States ...

Fran Bates Oates of Clemmons also volunteered to help with the exhibit. She was partly interested in the exhibit because she teaches a Social Justice and Me course, which she wrote, at Appalachian State University.

In the course, We talk about the Green Book, and we talk about redlining, Oates said.

She found out about the Green Book as a child.

I didnt know it was a book like I would go to the shelf and get a book to read Oates said. But we lived in Hampton, Va. My mothers family lived in Raleigh, and my fathers family lived in Durham. And in order to come down those two-lane highways to get from Hampton, Va., to Durham, N.C., you had to find where you could have your children to go to the bathroom, where you could eat, and we knew exactly where to go.

My father had that information. And he seemed to have papers all of the time, rather than a book. But we knew we could stop at a place in Murfreesboro, Va., and we knew that was a place where Negroes could go and use the bathroom and get something to eat.

Mount Tabor United Methodist Church recently invited local social studies teachers to view the exhibit.

Conan Arthur, who teaches American history at Mount Tabor High School, said he appreciates the exhibit.

Its opened my eyes to a subject in history that I was really not very familiar with at all, Arthur said, and one of the things that Ive really enjoyed about this exhibit is that it provides a lot of interesting information that actually serves more as a springboard to more questions that need to be asked.

He hopes the exhibit will inspire people to do more research and investigate the topic of the Green Book.

Judge Hughes, who teaches N.C. history at Philo-Hill Middle School, said he had never heard of the Green Book before seeing the exhibit and now would like to visit the Historic Magnolia House.

As he read through a facsimile copy of a Green Book, he noticed a bit of humor in a book that he found to be serious in nature.

My favorite is, In sloppy weather, drive close to pedestrians. Drycleaners appreciate this, Hughes said.

Green Book Project

The two identical Navigating Jim Crow: Green Book and Oasis Spaces in North Carolina exhibits have been traveling across North Carolina since February 2020.

Those exhibits are an outgrowth of a larger project that was executed by the N.C. African American Heritage Commission from 2017 to 2020, said Angela Thorpe, director of the N.C. African American Heritage Commission.

The project is commonly known as North Carolina Green Book Project, but its formal name is the Green Books Oasis Spaces Project.

We really wanted to understand what the status of Green Book sites in the state of North Carolina were, Thorpe said.

The N.C. African American Heritage Commission found that out of an original 327 sites in North Carolina that were listed in the Green Book during its 30 years of publication, 63 sites are still standing across the state. Six of those sites are still in operation.

Although there are other Green Book Projects in the United States, Thorpe said the Green Book Project in North Carolina is different.

We really wanted to look at the people behind the buildings, she said. You see a lot of Green Book Projects. Theyre documenting the spaces.

She said the NCAAHC wanted to do a deep dive to see who owned those spaces and who patronized those spaces.

In addition to the traveling exhibits, information about the sites and some of the stories associated with them are available online through a web portal, and there is an online version of the exhibit.

Thorpe said that for some people, the exhibit reveals stories that are lesser known.

I think for other people, this exhibit does a really beautiful job of underscoring, not just the power of the Black community but what coalition and community looks like in the Black community, Thorpe said.

For example, Jacqueline DeShazor owned a beauty parlor that later turned into DeShazor Beauty College in Durham.

Thorpe said the exhibit also demonstrates the power of place.

One of my favorite things about the Green Book is the sites, she said. In it are places that are familiar to so many of us. These spaces that served as oasis spaces for Black people were everything from restaurants to taverns to beauty parlors.

336-727-7366 @fdanielWSJ

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COLLEYVILLE, Texas (AP)  Authorities on Sunday identified a 44-year-old British national as the man who took four people hostage at a Texas synagogue for 10 hours before an FBI SWAT team stormed the building, ending a tense standoff that President Joe Biden called "an act of terror."

Malik Faisal Akram was shot and killed after the last of the hostages got out at around 9 p.m. Saturday at Congregation Beth Israel near Fort Worth. In a statement, the FBI said there was no indication that anyone else was involved, but it didn't provide a possible motive.

Akram could be heard ranting on a Facebook livestream of the services and demanding the release of a Pakistani neuroscientist who was convicted of trying to kill U.S. Army officers in Afghanistan. The FBI and police spokeswomen declined to answer questions Saturday night about who shot Akram when the standoff ended.

Video from Dallas TV station WFAA showed people running out a door of the synagogue, and then a man holding a gun opening the same door just seconds later before he turned around and closed it. Moments later, several rounds of gunfire could be heard, followed by the sound of an explosion.

"Rest assured, we are focused," Biden said during a visit to a food pantry in Philadelphia on Sunday morning. "The attorney general is focused and making sure that we deal with these kinds of acts."

FBI Special Agent in Charge Matt DeSarno said the hostage-taker was specifically focused on an issue not directly connected to the Jewish community, and there was no immediate indication that the man was part of any broader plan. But DeSarno said the agency's investigation "will have global reach."

It wasn't clear why Akram chose the synagogue.

Law enforcement officials who were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation and who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity earlier said the hostage-taker demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist suspected of having ties to al-Qaida who is in a federal prison in Texas. He also said he wanted to be able to speak with her, according to the officials, one of whom confirmed that the hostage-taker was a British national.

A rabbi in New York City received a call from the rabbi believed to be held hostage in the synagogue to demand Siddiqui's release, a law enforcement official said. The New York rabbi then called 911.

Police were first called to the synagogue around 11 a.m. and people were evacuated from the surrounding neighborhood soon after that, FBI Dallas spokeswoman Katie Chaumont said.

Saturday's services were being livestreamed on the synagogue's Facebook page for a time. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that an angry man could be heard ranting and talking about religion at times during the livestream, which didn't show what was happening inside the synagogue.

Shortly before 2 p.m., the man said, "You got to do something. I don't want to see this guy dead." Moments later, the feed cut out. A spokesperson for Meta Platforms Inc., the corporate successor to Facebook Inc., later confirmed that Facebook had removed the video.

Multiple people heard the hostage-taker refer to Siddiqui as his "sister" on the livestream. But John Floyd, board chair for the Houston chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations,  the nation's largest Muslim advocacy group  said Siddiqui's brother, Mohammad Siddiqui, was not involved.

"This assailant has nothing to do with Dr. Aafia, her family, or the global campaign to get justice for Dr. Aafia. We want the assailant to know that his actions are wicked and directly undermine those of us who are seeking justice for Dr. Aafia," said Floyd, who also is legal counsel for Mohammad Siddiqui. "We have confirmed that the family member being wrongly accused of this heinous act is not near the DFW Metro area."

Texas resident Victoria Francis told the AP that she watched about an hour of the livestream before it cut out. She said she heard the man rant against America and claim he had a bomb.

"He was just all over the map. He was pretty irritated and the more irritated he got, he'd make more threats, like 'I'm the guy with the bomb. If you make a mistake, this is all on you.' And he'd laugh at that," she said. "He was clearly in extreme distress."

Francis, who grew up near Colleyville, tuned in after she read about the hostage situation. She said it sounded like the man was talking to the police department on the phone, with the rabbi and another person trying to help with the negotiations.

Colleyville, a community of about 26,000 people, is about 15 miles (23 kilometers) northeast of Fort Worth. The synagogue is nestled among large houses in a leafy residential neighborhood that includes several churches, a middle and elementary school and a horse farm.

Congregation Beth Israel is led by Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, who has been there since 2006 as the synagogue's first full-time rabbi. He has worked to bring a sense of spirituality, compassion and learning to the community, according to his biography on the temple's website, and he loves welcoming everyone, including LGBT people, into the congregation.

In a Sunday morning post on what appears to be Cytron-Walker's Facebook page, the rabbi thanked law enforcement and first-responders, and security training "that helped save us."

"I am grateful for my family. I am grateful for the CBI Community, the Jewish Community, the Human Community. I am grateful we made it out. I am grateful to be alive," he wrote.

Anna Salton Eisen, a founder and former president of the synagogue, said the congregation has about 140 members and that Cytron-Walker has worked hard to build interfaith relationships in the community, including doing pulpit swaps and participating in a community peace walk. She described Saturday's events as "surreal."

"This is unlike anything we've ever experienced. You know, it's a small town and it's a small congregation," Eisen said as the hostage situation was ongoing. "No matter how it turns out, it's hard to fathom how we will all be changed by this, because surely we will be."

President Joe Biden issued a statement thanking law enforcement after the hostage situation ended.

"There is more we will learn in the days ahead about the motivations of the hostage taker. But let me be clear to anyone who intends to spread hatewe will stand against anti-Semitism and against the rise of extremism in this country," Biden said.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Twitter that he had been monitoring the situation closely. "This event is a stark reminder that antisemitism is still alive and we must continue to fight it worldwide," he wrote. He said he was "relieved and thankful" that the hostages were rescued.

The standoff prompted increased security in other places, including New York City, where police said that they increased their presence "at key Jewish institutions" out of an abundance of caution.

Aafia Siddiqui earned advanced degrees from Brandeis University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before she was sentenced in 2010 to 86 years in prison on charges that she assaulted and shot at U.S. Army officers after being detained in Afghanistan two years earlier. The punishment sparked outrage in Pakistan among political leaders and her supporters, who viewed her as victimized by the American criminal justice system.

In the years since, Pakistani officials have expressed interest publicly in any sort of deal or swap that could result in her release from U.S. custody, and her case has continued to draw attention from supporters. In 2018, for instance, an Ohio man who prosecutors say planned to fly to Texas and attack the prison where Siddiqui is being held in an attempt to free her was sentenced to 22 years in prison.

___

Tucker and Balsamo reported from Washington, D.C.; Associated Press writers Jennifer McDermott in Providence, Rhode Island; Michael R. Sisak in New York; Holly Meyer in Nashville, Tenn.; Acacia Coronado in Austin, Texas; and Issac Scharf in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
GREENSBORO  Superintendent Sharon Contreras has led Guilford County Schools through every step of the COVID-19 pandemic as she and school board members felt their way through a maze of difficult decisions and frustrating choices.

In a surprise announcement on Friday, she announced plans for her exit.

Contreras said she will be leaving after the end of this school year to take a position leading The Innovation Project, a nonprofit group of North Carolina school superintendents that tries to develop innovative strategies for public education.

As she spoke with reporters on Friday about her choice, Contreras said she was drawn by the opportunity to help other superintendents and hopes the job will allow her to spend more time with her grand-nephew Jonathan, whom she is raising.

I realized I am caring so deeply for other peoples children and I have a child thats about to go into high school, and at some point we all have to make a decision about whats good for ourselves and our own family, she said.

The pandemic, she explained, has made the job of a superintendent more difficult than ever  as well as other for other district staff, from teachers to bus drivers.

I think that the community has to come together to solve some of the problems created by the pandemic instead of simply looking at school districts and saying this is a school district problem, she said. I think that makes it much more difficult to keep educators in positions.

Greg Newlin, the principal of Western Guilford High School, attended Fridays news conference and listened to Contreras take questions from the media and receive praise and congratulations from the districts school board chairwoman and vice-chairwoman.

He said he thinks Contreras has a good grasp of the plight of the day to day facing educators.

With all she has to do in terms of running this enormous organization, she understands that struggle at the school level, he said.

Contreras has lead Guilford County Schools for five and a half years. She previously was superintendent for the Syracuse City School District in New York from 2011-2016, following many years as an administrator and teacher in districts around the country.

Over that time, Contreras built national connections through her work with groups like the Council for Great City Schools and Howard Universitys Urban Superintendents Academy.

In December 2020, CNN reported Contreras was among those being seriously considered to be President-elect Joe Bidens education secretary. The position ultimately went to Miguel Cardona.

And in November, The School Superintendents Association named Contreras a finalist for its 2022 Women in School Leadership Award.

In Guilford County, Contreras championed projects to expand and reimagine the districts career and technical education offerings, such as several new signature academies that have opened at area high schools.

She also played a critical role in the creation of Guilford County Schools facilities master plan. Voters approved a $300 million bond referendum in November 2020 aimed at funding the first phase of that plan.

At other times, Contreras waded into controversy, such as when she recommended closing Gateway Education Center to protect students with special needs amid the buildings ongoing structural issues and other health concerns. Parents battled the proposal, Contreras backed off and the school board ultimately voted to keep Gateway open while funding some repairs.

Reactions on Friday to the news of Contreras departure varied.

Im just still very overwhelmed and sad and at the same time I understand people have careers, too, said Khem Irby, a school board member. She has given all of her expertise and talent to Guilford County. It makes it very hard for the next person as well because we cant accept anything less.

Irby said Contreras has a great ability to not only come up with a vision but also lay out a plan thats supported by data. And she said shes been struck with the rapport Contreras has built with everyday people in Guilford County.

People in this community really do love her, she said. People come up to her and they know her.

Marc Ridgill, a retired school resource officer and longtime Contreras critic, said he thinks a different leader could do better with improving district reading scores and lessening violence and discipline issues in schools. A lot depends though, he said, on whom the school board picks as her replacement.

Its only half the battle, said Ridgill who ran for school board in 2018 and plans to run again this year. The replacement is more important than her leaving.

School board member Deborah Napper fell somewhere in the middle.

For the district, I dont think its a matter of good or bad, she said. It gives us the opportunity for some new blood and some new thought processes. Its an opportunity for change.

Napper said that since she joined the board in December 2020, her entire time working with Contreras has been during the pandemic.

I think she handled that as well or better than the other superintendents in North Carolina and she did the best with what she had, Napper said. There were so many situations where there was no good answer. 

Assistant editor Jennifer Fernandez contributed to this story. Contact Jessie Pounds at 336-373-7002 and follow @JessiePounds on Twitter.
What is the difference between an idea and an ideal?

Generally speaking, an idea is a thought, a notion or a concept. An ideal is a lofty aim, when used as a noun. It can be the rough equivalent of excellent or perfect.

For example, the Declaration of Independence espouses the idea to break away from the tyranny of Great Britain, but the ideal of the declaration offers that all are endowed with the natural law of liberty and equality. This embodies Americas civic virtue.

Representative democracy depends upon the judgments and behaviors of its citizens. Therefore, those sent to represent the people, especially if they are reelected, reflect the will of the citizens they represent.

If those representatives are corrupt, the system is unable to meet the challenges presented by its lofty ideals. In this context, corruption does not merely suggest wrongdoing, though it certainly includes that, but also includes being consumed with self-interest whereby the public good is neglected.

This form of corruption can view America through a lens that can only see homogenization. Therefore, difference, whether based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, creed or other factors, are considered deficiencies. It reflects an idea about the American narrative that is counterintuitive to the ideal. It is a violation of the nations civic virtue.

Such thinking rests on the slender paradoxical scale of the founders intent, promoting the historical inequalities systematically practiced in America as norms. A familiar retort has been to offer that slavery was a global phenomenon. The aforementioned statement is accurate, but not precise. Finding methods through compromises, pseudo-scientific research and judicial decisions to co-exist with the institution of slavery only served to keep the nation in moral tension with itself for more than 87 years, ultimately costing the lives of more than 600,000 Americans.

Not only did the founders provide the foundation that would ultimately lead to the Civil War, their legacy also inspired the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s.

Because of this inconsistency between some notion of the American idea and the ideal, the nation has hobbled along trying to reconcile the tension to achieve equality beyond an a la carte manner.

A fledgling nation that stated in its declaration to secede from Great Britain that equality was part of the natural law has found it difficult to implement the notion ubiquitously. If the liberty portion of Americas civic virtue was included in the Bill of Rights in 1791, it was not until 1868 that equality received constitutional acknowledgment with the 14th Amendment.

The ratification of the 15th Amendment bears witness to this occurrence. What began as a quest for universal suffrage ultimately left women largely out for an additional 50 years, causing internal strife between abolitionist and suffragist movements.

But liberty and equality have been bequeathed with unrealistic definitions within the public discourse. Liberty does not grant unfettered ability to do what one desires, especially if that act potentially infringes on the public good. Moreover, equality is not a finite resource. Extending the rights of one group does require taking away from others.

What happens when civic virtue is disregarded? America becomes hostage to a corrosive form of the idea  a banal moving target of immediate gratification, as articulated by the most vociferous voices dwelling in the shallow waters of the extreme. It suffers from the cataracts of bigotry that allows one to only see those that view the world as they do. It is cannibalism masquerading as patriotism.

It was the American ideal that Abraham Lincoln reached for at Gettysburg when he stated: That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom  and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

A century later, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., as the keynote speaker at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, also recalled the same ideal to reaffirm his belief that Americas failure to make good on its promissory note to Black Americans did not mean the bank of justice was bankrupt or that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity.

When the ideals of America give way to individual ideas ensconced in conjecture, innuendo and baseless suppositions, it invariably leads to a demagnetized moral compass or America at its worst.

Note: I will once again conduct the online Civics Intensive. Those interested in learning more about the course can email me directly. The Rev. Byron Williams (byron@publicmorality.org), a writer and the host of The Public Morality on WSNC 90.5, lives in Winston-Salem.
Simplicity

I like simplicity.

Step 1: Get vaccinated.

Step 2: Everyone can then return to work and school.

Step 3: Supply and demand return to normal as a result.

Step 4: People are happier and kinder to one another.

Step 5: Kinder people vote for representatives who are of a like mind.

There, problems solved.

Diane Linville

Kernersville

Overwhelming evidence

Many Americans who wholeheartedly accept the efficacy of medical science 99% of the time refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

The evidence is overwhelming that getting the vaccine protects an individual from getting a serious case of COVID and helps stop the spread of the disease to the elderly and other vulnerable populations. These anti-vaxxers are not stupid or mean. They are misguided by politicians and other con men who fearmonger for profit. The creation of the vaccine was a great accomplishment under President Trumps administration, and he has been vaccinated and promotes the vaccine.

I beg the anti-vaxxers to reassess their understanding of this disease and get vaccinated for their benefit, their families benefit and the countrys benefit.

David Greenwood

Wilkesboro

With empathy

The film title To Sir, with Love is being applied to Sidney Poitier to honor his life. It recalls his portrayal of a teacher who inspires a group of difficult teens while maintaining his dignity and restraint in spite of all odds.

Having retired years ago from demanding but satisfying years in the classroom, I read with pride the Journals account of the meeting of disappointed teachers with the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school board (Teacher raises reduced, Jan. 12). These educators are earning the raise they were promised  and more  in todays difficult landscape that is public education.

In a time when many protests become raucous or violent, these adults  suddenly deprived of what had been promised  expressed empathy and understanding for the people who made the error. Their composure while seeking relief should force our community to find a way to reverse the mistake.

Diana Calaway

Winston-Salem

A free people

Thank you for your Jan. 13 editorial Courts disappointing, anti-democracy decision, pointing out that the gerrymandering that Republicans are practicing in North Carolina will cheat citizens out of fair representation.

According to PlanScore.org, if overall votes were evenly split in future elections to mirror the number of voters in the state, Republicans would win 64 out of 120 legislative districts and 32 of the 50 state senate districts. But winning that majority isnt good enough for them. Actually having to work with their Democratic counterparts would prevent them from forcing their will on the residents of the state.

They are, essentially, cheating to win elections  just what they accuse Democrats of doing. The hypocrisy is stunning.

I hope the N.C. Supreme Court will see fit to stop this travesty of justice. If they dont, we will no longer be a free people.

Ronnie Miller

Winston-Salem

Into the future

Why are people worried about the price of gas when our nation is transitioning to electric vehicles?

I understand, its money. But if we achieve the energy independence conservatives desire by drilling for more oil, thats just going to keep us addicted to a dangerous fossil fuel that we all know is harmful to human health and that of our environment.

Weve lost the ability to see more than five minutes into the future. How about a little suffering now to ease our pain later?

Malcolm Ramsey

Winston-Salem
Dear Doctors: My wife and I are now six months out from our second shots of the Pfizer vaccine, and we want to get boosters. Can you please explain where things stand in terms of who is eligible, and for which vaccines? Is there any benefit to a mix-and-match approach?

Dear Reader: The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has now expanded eligibility for COVID-19 booster shots to include the widest group of people thus far. This action follows a unanimous recommendation by a key Food and Drug Administration committee in late October.

Eligibility for COVID-19 boosters now includes anyone over age 65. It also includes those who are 18 and older and are living with a health condition that puts them at risk of developing severe illness. This includes medical conditions such as cancer, chronic lung or heart disease, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, liver disease, obesity and pregnancy, as well as medical treatments that adversely affect the immune system. Individuals living with mood disorders, including depression and schizophrenia spectrum disorders, are now also eligible for a booster.

Those at higher risk of becoming infected due to either their living conditions or their work are also eligible for boosters if they're over 18. This includes people who are living in group situations and long-term care settings, and those whose work puts them into contact with the public.

The CDC's decision also allows people to receive a booster shot that is different from their original vaccination. It is recommended that recipients of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines who elect to get a booster have it administered six months after the second dose of the initial vaccination cycle. Recipients of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine are advised to receive a booster shot at least two months after the first dose. The boosters are the same vaccine as the original, but include just one-half of a dose. When it comes to side effects, people report that they are similar to those experienced with the initial vaccine. That includes pain at the vaccination site, fatigue, muscle pain, fever, headache and chills.

Regarding your question about the benefits of the mix-and-match approach to the vaccine, in which someone gets a different type of booster, the evidence at this time is preliminary. However, it does appear that mixing two different types of COVID-19 vaccine results in a stronger immune response than when matching the booster to the original vaccine. Boosters of all three vaccines have received the green light. However, the Pfizer and Moderna booster doses of the mRNA vaccine appear to be more effective than the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

Although this is a column about booster shots, we want to once again urge our readers to please get vaccinated if their age and health conditions allow it. The trio of vaccines that the FDA has approved are highly effective in preventing severe illness and hospitalization in those who become infected with the coronavirus. It's tragic, but those who are unvaccinated are 10 times more likely to develop severe disease that requires them to be hospitalized.

Send questions to askthedoctors@mednet.ucla.edu.

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Many still do not appear to understand why we celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King as a national holiday. We do so because his lifes work, along with the work of others, created a moral imperative that challenged racial apartheid in America so that the injustices created by apartheid could no longer be ignored. Therefore, we celebrate Dr. King for the sacrifices that he and others made to free African Americans from state-sponsored violence and its attendant shame. We celebrate Dr. King because it is the right thing to do, especially when many believe that our government may have been involved in Dr. Kings death.

In June 2020, protests and demonstrations reminiscent of the civil rights movement erupted worldwide after a video of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin committing an act of murder, while three fellow officers looked on, went viral. For 9 minutes and 29 seconds, the officers ignored cries from George Floyd as Chauvin suffocated George Floyd to death.

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Residents of Anne Arundel County, who had been quarantining, risked their health at these massive protests to rise up against laws and practices that shielded violent and discriminatory police officers from accountability.

Students of all races and ethnicities marched in support of their Black peers. The community spoke out against the system of backroom negotiations and self-dealing enshrined in Marylands Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights (LEOBR). LEOBR reflected a broken social contract between the people and law enforcement, at the expense of true justice.

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During the 2021 session, the Maryland General Assembly passed the Maryland Police Accountability Act of 2021 into law and repealed the officers bill of rights. The accountability act is a piece of compromise legislation that maintains certain aspects of the officers bill of rights, such as police trial boards, while repealing other onerous policies that shielded departments from accountability.

Locally, the MPAA requires our county government to establish a Police Accountability Board and Administrative Charging Committee by July 1. The Police Accountability Board and Administrative Charging Committee are cautious and meager additions to a new process of local community oversight of police discipline. We urge the county executive and County Council to act aggressively to move the needle forward at the local level.

For example, a white officer in leadership who posted disparaging comments about Vice President Kamala Harris on social media should not be allowed to keep his job when another officer of color is terminated for posting his or her objections to the Jan. 6 insurrectionist lynch mob.

In addition, Anne Arundel County should have zero tolerance for officers who commit atrocities similar to those committed against George Floyd, as was the case with Officer Daniel Reynolds. Such officers should be removed from the force.

Placing a knee on someones neck during an arrest until the victim says, I cant breathe, is an unspeakable act of police brutality. It is an example of why the Maryland state legislature has given our community a new tool to hold officers accountable when they violate use of force policies and commit acts of excessive force.

Our coalition of advocacy groups insists that the county executive, Steuart Pittman, and the County Council implement recommendations regarding membership, staffing, budget, investigative powers and record retention policies developed by people most impacted by police misconduct and civil rights advocates. We want an effective Police Accountability Board and Administrative Charging Committee that have intelligent, honest, forward thinking members, a robust budget, adequate staffing, strong investigative powers, and deeply informative record retention policies.

The Anne Arundel County Police Accountability Board and Administrative Charging Committee must reflect the aggressive spirit of racial justice that spurred the Maryland General Assembly to action. That spirit must not be suffocated and snuffed out in the street by backroom deals with special interests like the Fraternal Order of Police.

We cannot afford to lose hope. We cannot make a mockery of Dr. Kings dream.

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Jacqueline Boone Allsup is president and Steven Waddy is political action chair of the Anne Arundel County NAACP. Rev. Marguerite Morris is founder of the Community Activity Seeking Transparency. Joshua Hatch is public safety committee chairman of the Caucus of African American Leaders. Apostle Antonio Palmer is president of the United Black Clergy. Emma Buchman is director of the March on Maryland. Sarah Blazer is founder of South County is Kind. Amy Cruice is the legal program manager of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland.
Kathryn Slattery spends her days mixing flour and sugar and spices, taking the ingredients in her kitchen and spinning them into something sweet and delicious.

That the young woman is there at all, the pastry chef in her familys business, the youngest of Marilyn and Jim Slatterys five children about to turn 28 years old, is oh so sweet  a tale of faith and the miracles of science and embracing life no matter what it throws at you.

Ten years ago last week, surgeons performed a 14-hour surgery on Slattery, then a Pius X High School senior who came out of the operating room with a new liver and heart  the first such dual transplant ever done at Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.

In the decade since, the medical center has done just two other heart-liver transplants and they remain a rare procedure nationally.

All three of the transplant patients are doing well today, said Nebraska Medicine spokesman Taylor Wilson, though the journey to well is not always a straight line.

Slatterys journey, once the surgery was over, included cancer and seizures and an outlook on life that impressed everybody. In the years following her surgery, the doctors commented on it, nurses noticed, family and friends saw it, followed her lead.

Five years ago, her dad had triple-bypass heart surgery. It was scary and the recovery was painful.

It hurt like the dickens ... but then I thought of Kathryn, said Jim Slattery.

Youve just got to do what they tell you to do and work hard, just like she did ... and things will be OK, he said five years later, sitting at a table with the pastry chef who showed him how to find the strength.

* * *

Maybe Kathryn Slatterys determination and optimism was there from the start, when her 4-pound, 8-ounce self came into the world with a congenital heart defect called hypoplastic left heart syndrome, in which parts of the left side of the heart dont develop completely.

She had three open-heart surgeries before she turned 2 years old, then spent years growing up nearly free of doctors and hospitals and sickness. In high school, she suffered several bouts of pancreatitis, had gallbladder surgery and in the fall of 2011 started retaining fluid. By December, shed started running a fever and landed in the hospital.

Initially, doctors said shed need a new heart and liver within three to five years, said Jim Slattery. But once she was hospitalized things deteriorated quickly and a prognosis of years turned to weeks.

The doctors did amazing work, Jim Slattery said, but he believes faith played a part, too.

Ten years ago, doctors couldn't pinpoint the reason for Kathryn's fever, but it dropped enough that she could be put on the transplant list. The organs became available, making it possible for Nebraska Medical Center doctors to perform a first-ever surgery.

So many things happen that faith gets you through it, Jim Slattery said.

Kathryn came home from the hospital 23 days after surgery. She went back to high school, was elected prom queen, graduated and enrolled at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

But that summer when her stomach began to hurt, doctors discovered cancer in her small intestine, a post-transplant lymphoma that happens in as many as 20% of transplant patients.

She started a relatively mild chemotherapy treatment and the college student went to class, joined a sorority, lived in a dorm.

Jim Slattery remembers that by late fall, doctors were optimistic the cancer was gone, until  as they were leaving an appointment  the Slatterys mentioned their daughter was having a few motor skills difficulties, something they assumed was a side effect of the chemo.

It wasnt.

Doctors did more tests and found lesions on her brain. More difficult chemo followed, then radiation, a grueling experience. There were times when optimism was difficult to muster.

That first year was hard, Kathryn said. There were days. ... But I didnt see any other way.

So she kept moving forward, doing what she needed to do. She took a break from college when managing classes and treatments became too difficult.

One of the scariest moments: a grand mal seizure that began when she was driving home from SouthPointe Pavilions.

On her way to Goodcents to get her sister a sandwich, she drove over a median, completely stripping the tire from her car. She kept going and ordered the sandwich  though it was all wrong. When she got home, her sister saw she was acting strangely. After an ambulance got her to a hospital, Kathryn crumpled.

When it was over, she couldnt walk, couldnt pick anything up, her left arm nearly useless. Months of physical and occupational therapy followed, and she got back what shed lost, though her left arm was still weak.

Her dad looks back and marvels that his daughter didnt wreck the car  that she managed to get home unharmed before she collapsed.

If you dont believe in guardian angels, thats my proof, he said. Someone was watching over her.

Though the radiation and chemo appeared to work, doctors suggested a clinical trial at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and for the first three months of 2013, the Slatterys made nine trips to the East Coast. When Kathryn was done, doctors found no growth or new lesions.

In June of that year, the family went to Hawaii  a Make-A-Wish gift.

They watched the sunrise from the top of a volcano. They took a submarine ride. Kathryn tried surfing. They had dinner at a fabulous restaurant on the beach.

We sure needed it after all wed been through. The transplant. The cancer, Jim Slattery said. That really helped us refocus.

* * *

Back in Lincoln, life went on, minus the doctors  except for periodic check-ups that have all been good. The cancer has not made a reappearance.

Kathryn considered going back to UNL. But shed always loved baking, so she decided on another path. She attended the culinary program at Southeast Community College and earned an associate's degree in baking and pastry in 2017.

She remembers her instructors surprise that shed never tried decorating a cake, a task shed avoided because of the weakness in her left hand. Now its no problem.

Her hands gotten stronger  a process probably helped by decorating cakes.

And practice makes perfect, she said.

She spends much of her time in the kitchen at her familys restaurant Art & Soul. Her signature creation: carrot cake, a family recipe. But she likes the creativity of trying new things.

I just kind of like experimenting with flavors, she said.

She spends her free time with family and friends, the support system that held her up through the hard times, the people who are always there. She likes movies. Shes thinking of learning to paint.

Life is normal and boring, Kathryn said. Because Im not sick anymore.

Not even a pandemic could deter her.

At the beginning, her dad said, they were terrified. She stayed home for months, but began to go stir crazy. So her parents let her come back to work, though she didnt interact with customers.

And shes well. Blessed, she said.

She hopes shes helped others have a positive outlook. She hopes people consider becoming organ donors. She is thankful for her family, her friends. A life well-lived.

Life is what you make it, she said. I try to make it sweet, with my pastries.

Reach the writer at 402-473-7226 or mreist@journalstar.com. On Twitter @LJSreist

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OMAHA  Gang members arrested in Omaha for years lived in fear of having their gun crime cases taken across the street  slang for moving from the county courthouse to the federal courts.

That shift meant the offenders would be subject to federal gun laws, which carried more severe penalties than used to be available under Nebraska law. And they would do their prison time in some federal facility, far from Nebraska.

But such federal gun prosecutions dropped by almost two-thirds after the Legislature in 2009 passed a new state law that stiffened Nebraskas penalties for gun crimes. With the change, hundreds of gang and gun cases that previously would have been prosecuted federally went through state courts instead.

In effect, those offenders traded a federal prison cell for a state one  at Nebraska taxpayer expense.

Nebraskas prison system is now the most overcrowded and fastest-growing in the nation. And that 2009 gun crimes law served as a major driver.

Since its passage, inmates whose most serious crime was a gun offense have been stacking up in state prisons, shooting up more than 800%. And part of that increase is the result of the federal-to-state prison shift the law helped induce.

At one point, so many new gun and gang offenders were coming into Nebraska prisons that state corrections officials pleaded with prosecutors to reverse course.

The shift of gun cases into state courts didnt just exacerbate Nebraskas prison overcrowding crisis and cost state taxpayers millions. In the state prisons, those offenders could also more easily maintain their gang ties.

The whole thing was a bit of a bait and switch, said Hank Robinson, a former University of Nebraska at Omaha criminologist. Im not sure (state senators) understood when someone was sent away in the federal system, they landed in prison with a bunch of people from Illinois and Oklahoma and New Jersey, not with a bunch of fellow gang bangers from Omaha.

Mike Friend, the former state lawmaker who introduced the gun crimes bill in the Legislature, acknowledged such shifts appeared to have occurred. But he defended the bill as an appropriate response to a serious public safety issue.

He also said its not surprising county attorneys in the state would choose to prosecute such cases locally.

County attorneys are tasked with protecting their community, and they will use the tools they have available to them, Friend said.

Its been common across the country over the last two decades for local gang and gun crimes to be prosecuted federally under the U.S. Justice Departments Project Safe Neighborhoods program.

Launched in 2001 in an effort to stem gun violence, the program brings street-level gun cases in front of federal prosecutors, who often have legal tools unavailable on the state level, including some tough federal prison terms.

The program is built on cooperation between law officers and prosecutors on the federal and state level.

In Omaha, prosecutors from Douglas County and the U.S. Attorneys Office pore over police reports and cases involving guns. The prosecutors and police agencies then work cooperatively to share information and assign cases for prosecution.

Though the vast majority of cases where guns are used to kill or maim have always been tried in state courts, numerous federal laws deal particularly with firearms possession.

Federal law has long barred convicted felons, drug users or addicts, drug dealers, people with restraining orders or people with prior misdemeanor domestic violence convictions from possessing firearms or ammunition.

During the programs early years, if there was an opportunity in Nebraska to take a case into the federal courts, it was almost never turned down.

If the case did not rise to the level of a murder or public spectacle, it was just as easy for (local prosecutors) to let the feds take the case, said Robinson, who while at UNO in 2007 co-authored a federal evaluation of the program. They could be confident they were getting a good outcome.

But that calculus soon changed.

In response to a rash of gang-related shootings in Omaha, Friend in 2009 introduced the bill creating new gun crimes and stiffer penalties.

Backers specifically said one of the intents behind LB63 was to make the states laws on gun possession and other gun crimes more closely mirror federal ones.

For example, the bill extended Nebraskas felon in possession law to also cover domestic abusers. And it made the penalty even more severe than under federal law, with a three-year mandatory minimum sentence. That was one of numerous new mandatory minimums under the law.

During the public hearing on the bill, Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine said he felt local prosecutors should be given the tools to handle such prosecutions.

Im a strong believer in relying on local government as much as we can  local prosecution rather than the federal government  to handle such crime, Kleine said.

UNOs Robinson was one of few voices opposing the bill. He called the increased penalties unnecessary for dealing with the problem. He projected the longer sentences under the measure would cost the state more than $15 million a year.

He said that estimate also didnt include the cost of new inmates coming into state prisons who previously would have gone to federal prison. With the gun crime penalties roughly equalized, he predicted that shift would occur.

In the end, thats exactly what happened.

For the three years before the law passed, Nebraska averaged just more than 150 federal gun indictments a year. Within three years of the laws passage, that figure had dropped to 56.

Why did the federal numbers drop so sharply?

It had a lot to do with the state statute, said Joe Jeanette, law enforcement coordinator for the U.S. Attorneys Office in Nebraska. With the new mandatory minimums in Nebraska law, he said, local prosecutors could see they could get as much time or more for gun offenders through the state system.

Within five years of the laws passage, the number of inmates coming into Nebraskas prison system whose most serious offense was a gun crime swelled from roughly 50 a year to more than 200.

Kleine does not dispute that more gun cases in Douglas County have been taken into the state system. He said that conforms with how most other local crimes are handled.

Its difficult to determine exactly how many gun cases in Nebraska were shifted in that way.

But if Nebraska had continued to average 150 federal gun indictments a year, there would have been about 660 more such indictments between 2010 and 2020. That also would have translated into roughly 660 fewer gun offenders landing in Nebraska prisons. Its rare for such federal cases not to end in conviction.

The Nebraska Department of Correctional Services saw the direct results of the shift.

It became very discouraging, said Bob Houston, who at the time was the departments director. Not only do they now stay in Nebraska, but they are on the Nebraska prison yard, where they can continue their gang ties.

Houston and Robinson, who as it happened in 2012 had taken a job as a state prison administrator, both recalled holding meetings with prosecutors and law enforcement officials around that time to again encourage the return of more cases to federal court.

We asked them directly, 'Please, can we start sending some of these the federal direction? Robinson said. It was something we actively pursued as a strategy to help mitigate overcrowding.

Jeanette and Kleine also recall such conversations.

I understand what Houston and Robinson were saying, Kleine said. Sometimes that is a good idea to keep them out of the (state) system if we can.

Houston said the prosecutors seemed receptive to the idea.

They all get it, Houston said.

But the entreaties didnt have a big impact, at least initially. Federal gun indictments did tick up in the next few years, but were still half of previous levels.

However, the last three years have seen a dramatic change. Federal gun prosecutions have jumped 100%, back above 2009 levels and to their highest since 2006.

Jeanette and Kleine both said the dramatic change was not part of a conscious decision to reverse the previous shift.

Jeanette said there was an unrelated decision several years ago to prosecute more robberies under federal gun laws.

Bank robberies often are prosecuted federally, but now those involved in strings of armed store robberies could be taken into federal courts. Some of those offenders are gang members, Jeanette said, as gangs often use such robberies as initiation rites or to gain cash.

Jeanette said hes also noticed some small rural counties increasingly asking for federal prosecution of gun cases, likely to avoid the cost of having to prosecute the cases themselves. In small counties, law enforcement budgets can be limited.

Jeanette also thinks that over time, local law enforcement has grown to appreciate the value of sending a gang member far, far away from Nebraska.

If they are 350 to 1,000 miles away, he said, its not so easy to preserve those gang ties.

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Delivering a strongly conservative message with a vow to "begin to take back our country from the Far Left," Sen. Mike Flood of Norfolk announced Sunday that he will challenge embattled Rep. Jeff Fortenberry in the May Republican primary election for the 1st District House seat.

Flood, a former Speaker of the Legislature, announced his candidacy at a news conference in the State Capitol rotunda, arguing that Fortenberry's indictment on charges of allegedly lying to federal officials about illegal foreign contributions that were funneled into his 2016 reelection campaign places Nebraska's 1st District House seat at risk.

"If our Republican nominee is waging a battle against prosecutors in a courtroom out of state instead of campaigning here in the 1st District, this seat is in jeopardy," Flood said.

"If our nominee has to focus on beating felony criminal charges instead of defeating a serious Democrat opponent, we risk defeat in November," he said.

"Today, I am sad to say that Republicans are not on a path to victory here in our district."

Fortenberry, a former Lincoln city councilman, is seeking reelection to the House seat he has held since 2005.

Flood hammered at Democratic policy positions during his announcement, arguing that "Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi are using the House of Representatives to ram through a radical, socialist agenda that would destroy the country we love."

"With just a razor-thin majority, they have claimed a mandate to pass trillions of dollars in big-government giveaways, raise our taxes, grow government's power, seize control of our elections and wage partisan witch hunts that are tearing our country apart," he said.

Flood described Biden as "an inept president" and said America's enemies are "emboldened every day by the weakness they see" in him.

If he wins the eastern Nebraska House seat, Flood said, he would "focus on taking the fight to the radical socialists in Congress who threaten our values and our way of life."

Answering questions, Flood said results of polling undertaken in advance of his decision to enter the race gave him "confidence I am going to be successful" in the Republican primary struggle with Fortenberry, who is seeking his 10th term in the House of Representatives.

Flood was accompanied by his wife and their two sons for the announcement that throws a bright spotlight on the 1st District House race.

"The battle for House control runs right through Nebraska's 1st Congressional District," Flood said. "This is a race we have to win to save America."

Flood returned to the Legislature in 2021 after previously serving eight years, including six years as Speaker, before being term-limited out office. He was Speaker from 2007 to 2013.

As founder and CEO of Flood Communications, Flood currently operates a statewide network of 15 radio stations and five TV stations called News Channel Nebraska.

Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks and Jazari Kual, both of Lincoln, are candidates for the Democratic nomination for the House seat.

"The sitting congressman is now being challenged in his own primary, proving that Nebraskans are ready for a change," Pansing Brooks said.

"At the end of the day," she said, "this race is about more than just his indictment. It's about a culture that must change in Washington."

Reach the writer at 402-473-7248 or dwalton@journalstar.com. On Twitter @LJSdon

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VERMILLION, S.D.  Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation wants to change the narrative of the small unincorporated border town of Whiteclay, Nebraska.

The small towns four liquor stores left a decades-long scar on the people of the nearby Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and the land that once belonged to them.

The liquor stores sold 4 million cans of beer annually, mostly taking advantage of the tribal citizens just 2 miles to the north. In 2017, the Nebraska Liquor Commission declined to renew the stores liquor licenses.

It took years of work by a variety of people to make that happen. Whiteclays booming alcohol industry, which took advantage of existing social issues faced by the people of Pine Ridge, was effectively shut down. Thunder Valley hopes the healing can now begin, South Dakota Public Broadcasting reported.

Thunder Valley CDC started on the Pine Ridge Reservation as a way to connect youth with the Lakota way of life. It continues its efforts to enhance the Oglala Lakota Oyate by offering a variety of initiatives such as food sovereignty, Lakota language education, housing and home ownership, a regenerative community development and more. The corporation recently acquired 48 acres of land in Whiteclay with the intent of building a holistic healing community.

Former Oglala Sioux Tribe attorney general and current Thunder Valley Executive Director Tatewin Means wants to write a new chapter focusing on healing, and changing the narrative around Whiteclay and the connection it had to her people.

Its tremendous because were able to be really intentional about building a healing community that is focused on really our relatives that are on the periphery, those that are forgotten or invisible or having a harder time accessing resources, said Means, who is the daughter of the late Russell Means, a prominent member of the American Indian Movement.

The idea of the community is transitional housing or permanent supportive housing with access to resources in one centralized place.

Right now, were focused on designing this community, what will it look like? What will be included? said Means. And thats going to take a lot of engagement with our community members, with justice-system stakeholders.

This project is one of many initiatives that Thunder Valley is doing to help tribal citizens reclaim their identity.

Reclaiming our identity as Lakota people, thats a part of liberation, right? Thats a part of freedom, said Means. And so eliminating those messages of colonialism that have bound us for so many generations, and so how do you do that? How do you begin that process of decolonizing?

Healing is a first step in that liberation process, according to Means.

We cant hope and dream and think and act like Lakota again if we are still holding on to traumas, if were still holding on to colonial mindsets, said Means. Were finding our way through it just as everyone else is, but being open to that and making ourselves vulnerable to that, because its scary to truly think about healing for ourselves. That takes a lot of courage.

Means hopes that someday there can be a holistic healing community in each of Pine Ridges nine districts thats intentional and specific to providing pathways for each districts members.

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1872: Among the special appropriations being considered by the Legislature was one to increase the pay of the janitor in charge of the Capitol grounds to $70 a month.

1882: A permanent organization for women suffragettes in Nebraska was formed.

1892: The Mitchell Canal and Irrigation Co. of Scotts Bluff County secured the first deed to state land ever given an irrigation company.

1902: Nebraska dairymen, concerned over proceedings in Washington, were waiting on the final outcome of an anti-oleomargarine bill that was in the congressional mill.

1912: Pupils attending school in typhoid fever zones in the city were provided boiled water to drink.

1922: The Legislature convened to consider re-education of appropriations made by that body in 1921 and to consider the governor's proposed gasoline tax of 1 cent per gallon.

1932: Paul V. McNutt of Indiana, national commander of the American Legion, spoke in Lincoln in a fund-raising campaign. Nebraska had been invited to finance the furniture in the grand salon of the Paris memorial to Gen. John J. Pershing, who had lived in Lincoln and later commanded the World War I American Expeditionary Force in France.

1942: World War II brought back memories of rationing, and Lincoln consumers were reported to be buying more produce than usual. Sugar dealers were the most concerned, and many warned buyers to the effect: "Don't hoard and there will be enough sugar to go around."

1952: The Lincoln Air Force Base was to be reactivated. It was not immediately known when construction on the $29 million project would begin.

1962: Nebraska Gov. Frank Morrison officially announced that he would seek a second term in that office rather than run for chief justice of the state Supreme Court.

1972: University of Nebraska football coach Bob Devaney, whose teams had just won two consecutive national championships, announced he would coach only one more year.

1982: Lincoln Hilton officials announced that a $1 million interior renovation was under way.

1992: Six-year-old Antonio Diaz and his dad, Ruben, from North Platte, were given the chance to attend Super Bowl XXVI after finding a winning game piece in a box of Wheaties.

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Let us march on ballot boxes, march on ballot boxes until race baiters disappear from the political arena ... Let us march on ballot boxes until the salient misdeeds of bloodthirsty mobs will be transformed into the calculated good deeds of orderly citizens.

So spoke Martin Luther King, Jr. on March 25, 1965, rallying protesters on the final day of the march from Selma to Montgomery to defend democracy from racism, physical assault and efforts to suppress and prevent voting.

The march, which began earlier that month with Bloody Sunday, during which the late Rep. John Lewis was beaten and bloodied by white Alabama state troopers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, was an effort to pressure President Lyndon Johnson and Congress to enact national voting rights legislation.

Voting rights, for King and his followers, and, in reality all Americans, are civil rights and, with the self-determination of our democracy, a fundamental human right.

The march from Selma, and Kings determined activism, worked as Johnson proposed and the Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed discriminatory practices designed to keep Blacks away from the polls, including bureaucratic impediments like poll taxes.

Sadly, Kings rallying cry from 57 years ago presciently rings true today as our democracy is again under assault from those who refuse to accept the results of an election and are attempting through the courts and legislation to roll back the Voting Rights Act and make it harder for many to vote.

The fight for voting rights and free, fair elections, King said, in another speech, is incumbent on Americans, who for decades proclaimed the United States as the worlds beacon of democracy.

America must begin the struggle for democracy at home. The advocacy of free elections in Europe by American officials is hypocrisy when free elections are not held in great sections of America.

Appropriately, President Joe Biden cited King as he challenged the countrys elected leaders to do the right thing for democracy as the U.S. Senate considers new voting rights acts and state legislators, including those in Nebraska, confront legislation aimed at restricting and suppressing the vote.

Do you want to be on the side of Dr. King or George Wallace? Biden asked in his Georgia speech last week. Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor? Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis? This is the moment to decide to defend our elections, to defend our democracy.

Individual citizens should ponder Biden's query as well. And, as we remember King on the holiday established in his honor, we should heed his rallying cry and again pressure Congress and the Legislature to preserve, protect and defend our precious right to vote and our democracy.

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I was not surprised that in a Jan 6. press conference Gov. Pete Ricketts and Sen. Lou Ann Linehan proposed putting a cap on public schools spending. Those two have always shown disdain for Nebraska's public schools.

Here in Omaha's Westside School District, we were the first district to override the Legislature's tax limit for schools back in the early 2000s, and we did it again overwhelmingly last year.

Our community regularly votes a tax increase on ourselves to fund our schools the way we deem appropriate.

Republicans like Ricketts and Linehan refuse to listen to those who argue funding of schools belongs to the locals. Instead they pay heed to the farmers and ranchers out west who constantly complain about their property taxes.

My advice to Linehan and Ricketts is to tell those complainers to just clam up and pay their taxes. City folk have no sympathy for large landowners who get loads of crop subsidies from the federal government.

I hope the Legislature will defeat any bill that puts more limits on public school finances.

Ricky Fulton, Omaha

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Sen. Rob Clements is completely right when he says that all of the state health departments should be treated equally. They absolutely should all be treated equally, all equally able to issue Directed Health Measures in their districts without state interference.

Why should the state government in Lincoln tell the people in Chadron -- seven hours, 400-plus miles and a time zone away -- what their health board should or should not be doing?

And this is where I part ways with the senator. I thought Republicans were about local control, but it seems that they are only about local control on issues where they have the control.

Clements stated to the media that, "There's been a lot of people who didn't care for the decisions made by (the health department)," yet we already had that debate in Lincoln. A recall campaign against the mayor and some City Council members regarding the health department and mask mandates was a complete and total failure.

At every turn, the folks involved in court cases over the mask mandates have been thwarted. The people of Lincoln have spoken and, since Senator Clements apparently didn't hear us clearly, we are satisfied with our Health Department, and we do not need the state to get involved.

The only way LB859 should pass is if it removes, not imposes, state interference and allows local control over local health departments and local directed health measures.

Nathan Rice, Lincoln

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Council vote on COVID measure was not leadership

Once again the Anne Arundel County Council has caved in to the vocal minority of citizens, who place their own interests above the welfare of the community, and voted down an extension of the county executives state of emergency and an indoor face mask mandate.

This makes no logical sense given that infection rates in the county are at an all-time high and may be expected to increase further. There is solid scientific evidence that mask and vaccine mandates can reduce the transmission rate of the virus. Yet the council ignored the facts and tried to justify its actions by falling back on the ridiculous argument that they were only responding to the will of county residents and business owners. In fact they were doing nothing but groveling before the purveyors of conspiracy theories and a twisted concept of freedom.

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In a civil society, an individuals freedom does not extend to placing others at risk. With freedom goes a responsibility to others and a recognition of their rights. As a senior in the most vulnerable age category, I am sick and tired of having my life put on hold and held hostage by inconsiderate and irresponsible individuals who refuse to wear masks or get vaccinated. These people are responsible for the continuing epidemic and for the disruptions of normal life we are experiencing. Its time for members of the council and other politicians to demonstrate some accountability to the vast majority of citizens who favor responsible measures to reduce the impact of the pandemic. Fantasies, quack cures, and ideology are not going to lead us out of this crisis. Only reason and perseverance can do that.

Fortunately, the county health officer has stepped in to save the council from further embarrassment and pointed the county in the right direction. I dont expect the council will be expressing gratitude for his actions anytime soon.

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David Mauriello, Severna Park

Council was correct to reject state of emergency

Nobody who has read my commentaries over the years will ever confuse me as a supporter of Herb McMillan. But County Executive Steuart Pittmans coordinated broadside against McMillan, Councilwoman Jessica Haire, and the county Republican Party is disingenuous at best.

Pittman was not simply asking the county council to extend his mask mandate by seven days. He wanted reauthorization of his COVID-19 state of emergency. He used that state of emergency to shut down businesses, doing great harm to this county, far exceeding prudent restrictions enacted by Gov. Larry Hogan.

Pittman likes to reference science and scientific consensus. But he has no education or training in science. He has a Bachelor of Arts in political science, concentrating on Latin American politics. And he has increasingly governed like the leader of a banana republic. To wit: his request to extend emergency powers was denied by the legislature, so his health officer overrode the legislature on the mask mandate.

Think about that for a minute. The county executive didnt veto a bill. One of his appointees told legislators he is arrogating to himself power which legislators specifically did not grant him, with the backing of the county executive.

When COVID swept the world two years ago it made sense for legislators to grant executives emergency powers to deal with a rapidly-changing health threat. But with vaccines and other treatments for COVID widely distributed for more than a year, and legislatures properly functioning, there is no longer a need for executives to wield emergency powers or rule by fiat.

I often read how people are terrified about the fragility of our democracy. It begins by executives bypassing, dismissing, and ignoring their legislatures.

Mike Collins, Annapolis

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Taking Holbrooks word over McMillans

Thank goodness for the smart and clear letter by Janet Holbrook. It explains the mask mandate and points out some of the more egregious fiction in Herb McMillans word salad opinion of Jan. 5. Not only are his statements false and misleading, if followed, they will contribute to more illness and further strain the already collapsing hospital and health care system. McMillan shows us exactly why he is not qualified to hold public office  it is beyond his ability to let go of his personal agenda and act in the interest of the greater good.

Camilla Schwarz, Annapolis

COVID decisions need reasoned debate

The Anne Arundel County Council recently voted against the extension of County Executive Steuart Pittmans mask mandate. While the county health officer almost immediately overturned their decision, I want to thank the council members who made a reasoned decision, including my Council member, Amanda Fiedler.

Not only did Fiedler recognize our hospitals and health care workers are overwhelmed, she took the time necessary to understand all the factors involved. It was clear that she invested tremendous time and effort to explore this with medical professionals and business owners on both sides of the issue, including doctors who testified that mandating fabric mask wearing does little, that COVID outbreaks happen despite mask mandates in group settings, and that businesses policing their customers doesnt work.

Fiedler didnt decide lightly. She asked pointed questions to understand the enormous impact that COVID testing of the masses and nonemergency patients is having on our hospitals and first responders. She also asked specific questions on mask mandate enforcement, learning that a mask violation complaint line that forces business owners to police their own customers is the only enforcement method, and requirements that children wear masks while playing outside goes against scientific data on outdoor transmission.

Almost two years into this pandemic, one of the biggest threats to our community, our neighbors, hospitals, first responders schools, and businesses is that one party or person thinks they can make better decisions for us than we can for ourselves and our families. That fails to recognize the various mitigating circumstances that come with someones decision to wear a mask or not.

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We are inundated with COVID information. The conflicting information and feeling there is no end in sight has created an enormous amount of fear, desperation, anxiety and anger in residents of all ages.

Our family is grateful council member Fiedler consistently exemplifies the ability to make hard, but good decisions, for the greater good of our communities. She has not forgotten those who are desperately struggling with the mental health impacts of COVID and she continues to be an example of strong, committed leadership when making decisions for her constituents.

Joseph Calo, Annapolis

McMillan right on mask mandates

Herb McMillan is spot-on in his commentary about the reality of COVID-19 versus the view presented by the county government.

It does not require a degree in nuclear physics for anyone to see from the data printed in this paper that the risk of death, the key factor to watch, varies widely among age groups. Those in the age groups that comprise the working population and students are at low to very low risk while those age 70 and older are at higher risk. The devastating effects to our economy and its concomitant effect on millions never should have happened and certainly must not be repeated.

Pittman and his public health staff need to learn from the data and act accordingly. To my knowledge there has been no county public health analysis published nor any indication that any analysis has even been done.

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I call upon Pittman and the public health officer to disclose now what if any lessons have been learned and the analysis of data and empirical evidence in support thereof.

James A. Sagerholm, Severna Park

Wheres the mask?

While looking at the excellent photographs taken by Capital Gazette photographer Paul Gillespie of our elected officials before the start of the 2022 General Assembly session, I couldnt help but notice that only one of these elected officials was not wearing a mask  though a mask was near his laptop. Should we read anything into this lapse of mask-wearing? Was said representative making a political statement? Or was he simply ensuring that his full face was visible?

Brigid Haragan, Annapolis

Pandemic relief funds are for those in need

I was startled while reading an article about the upcoming legislative actions by our elected officials,   how to spend a budget surplus bolstered by federal pandemic relief money.

As a lifelong fiscal conservative, I have long begged answers to my questions regarding local, state, and federal expenditures: from where is the money coming and, more importantly, what is the balance in that account?

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Federal pandemic relief money was meant to provide the stated relief, not to be used for other purposes. With the federal budget deficit increasing by the minute, there are no surpluses.

Legislators must assure us that those in need of pandemic relief receive necessary funds. If this assurance is given, the federal funds must be returned,

Kenneth Piel, Annapolis
A recent letter, Stamp out voter fraud, (Jan. 5) was very interesting. The author suggests that eliminating absentee or mail-in voting and requiring voter IDs will enhance voting security in the United States.

Id agree that voter IDs would be fine, provided they are furnished at no cost to anyone needing one.

As to eliminating absentee or mail-in voting, how would this impact the residents of Knox, Cedar and Dixon counties in Nebraska, which currently have 100% mail-in voting? We also shouldnt forget that five U.S. states (Washington, Oregon, Utah, Colorado and Hawaii) have 100% mail-in voting.

Donald Trumps own attorney general, William Barr, found there was no voter fraud in the 2020 election which would have changed the results. Trumps own Department of Homeland Security found that the 2020 election was the most safe and secure election in history.

Of course, when these findings go against the false narrative thats been created about the election being rigged, stolen, or that voter fraud is rampant, its convenient to ignore such findings.

Perhaps a better approach which might enable more voters to vote in person would be to either change Election Day to occur on a weekend (as is the case in many Western democracies) or to make Election Day a national holiday (as is currently done in France, South Korea, Israel, Mexico, India and Singapore). This would enable more of our citizens to exercise their right to vote.

We need to look at ways to make it easier to participate in our democracy, not to make it more difficult.

William Davenport, Lincoln

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MADISON  When Gary Nelson was arrested in November on misdemeanor battery and disorderly conduct charges, a previous hospitalization for COVID-19  combined with high blood pressure  got him sent to the Dane County Jail's "COVID-vulnerable" unit for people whose pre-existing conditions put them at higher risk of serious illness.

Yet the virus found him again, along with other inmates in the unit, when an outbreak struck that part of the Dane County Jail in the days before Christmas. During the bout, Nelson said he was coughing up black phlegm, had abdominal pain, no sense of smell and a runny nose.

Everyone in that unit was sick, Nelson said over video chat from the jails COVID-positive wing, where he was taken after testing positive. If you test positive they take you out and put you in a pod like this. But after they test positive, theyve already usually been on the unit for over a day or a day. I mean, thats full exposure to everybody.

Shawn Knox, a diabetic inmate in the COVID-vulnerable unit who has hypertension and asthma, said that when he was infected he didnt get out of bed for a week and a half and suffered a bad cough and sinus problems. Knox has been in jail since November on a parole violation after he was arrested for theft, forced entry and disorderly conduct.

I actually was kind of concerned if I was going to make it or not, Knox said over video chat. Everyone was tired, coughing everywhere, coughing up phlegm. It was scary.

Earlier this month, Lee Newspapers interviewed five inmates who had been in the protective unit about their experience with the outbreak. All detailed similar timelines for when the outbreak started and the extent of illness in the unit. All pointed to an increasingly crowded jail and changes to how inmates are tested and isolated upon intake as the likely cause.

But the spread of the virus is by no means limited to that part of the jail. Amid Dane Countys ongoing surge of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations fueled by the omicron variant, the jail has seen a record number of positive inmates this month.

To get a snapshot of the true extent of the virus spread among the countys incarcerated, the National Guard tested the jails entire population on Monday, Jan. 10. Eighty-one inmates tested positive that day, according to the Dane County Sheriff's Office. Only six inmates declined to be tested, said Capt. Kerry Porter, the jails administrator.

The jails population is also the highest it has been since the start of the pandemic. Measures to limit the number of people behind bars at the start of the pandemic brought the population down below 400 in the spring of 2020, Porter said. As of Tuesday, the jails population was 604, an abnormally high number for the wintertime when that figure normally trends down.

A crowded jail mixed with the virus swift spread has made it difficult to impose the kind of isolation for new inmates the jail did before omicron, Porter said.

It has been a little tense, Porter said. That 200 or so people makes a significant difference for us.

For much of the pandemic, new inmates were isolated for 14 days before being released into the general population unless they tested positive in the final days of that isolation. If an inmate on a housing block were to test positive, the rest of the block would be put on quarantine and told to monitor symptoms. But with more inmates and more illness, those kinds of policies are more difficult to enforce, Porter said.

It just gets us bogged down to where we dont have any beds for people to go into, Porter said. Ideally, we would quarantine that area, and we have been able to do that in the past. But right now were really tight for space.

After a visit from officials with Public Health Madison and Dane County on Jan. 3, recommendations from the health agency led the jail to change its policy to testing all inmates on intake and putting those who test negative directly into the general population.

Inmates in the COVID-vulnerable wing said they noticed the change in intake policy as early as mid-December. Porter said it had not come into effect until this past week.

Jason Natcone, an inmate in the wing, said for much of the pandemic the number of inmates in the unit could be as low as the single digits.

But in mid-December, All of a sudden they just moved a bunch of people in here," Natcone said.

Within a week of them moving seven inmates in here, three people tested positive and they were moved. A fourth person tested positive, and the next day was moved, he said. Theyd kick them out and the next day theyd move more people in here. We were all exposed.

Porter said it was likely an outbreak had struck the 24-bed COVID-vulnerable unit but that an increasing population necessitated using all available space.

We needed to utilize those empty beds, and out of necessity, we moved other residents into that Pod who would not necessarily meet the criteria of COVID-vulnerable, Porter said. All residents who were moved into that Pod were tested and received a negative PCR test prior to being moved there.

'A hard pill to swallow'

One impediment to testing and isolating inmates at the jail is fear of being put in solitary confinement, which has been used as a way to separate those infected from others. All inmates interviewed for this story said fear of solitary dissuaded either themselves or others from reporting symptoms.

In jail, you dont want to tell them youre positive because you feel like youre going to get punished, Natcone said.

Porter said staff at the jail do keep a lookout for inmates who are hiding or not reporting their symptoms.

It probably does feel like youre being punished, Porter agreed. Thats a hard pill to swallow when you havent done anything wrong.

COVID-19 is not the first time solitary confinement at the Dane County Jail has been used for medical purposes. Due to a lack of medical facilities, inmates in the midst of mental health crises have long been put in solitary.

Reduction or outright elimination of solitary confinement in Dane County has been a longtime goal of proponents of consolidating the county's three lockups at the Public Safety Building, which is back on the countys agenda amid the record high case count.

Competing proposals for the project are currently under consideration. One would authorize an additional $24 million in borrowing so the county can fulfill its original vision for a seven-story jail addition with 922 beds. Before the pandemic, that version cost an estimated $148 million, but rising construction costs have pushed that figure to $172 million.

A second, cost-cutting proposal would eliminate a seventh floor from the building, resulting in 794 beds at an estimated cost of $155 million. That proposal would also redesign a medical area planned for the fourth floor.

In recent county meetings, Sheriff Kalvin Barrett has said the chance that COVID-19 will not go away anytime soon only reinforces the need for the pricier option because it has more space.

We want to make sure that we have the appropriate amount of space not just to house but to rehabilitate, but also to be able to be flexible in regards to our COVID-19 rules, Barrett told county officials at a meeting earlier this month.

I believe 922 (beds) is a fair compromise, and I believe it will allow us to have some flexibility when we see these new variants that are going to increase our numbers, Barrett said.

Eric Howland, a member and former president of MOSES Madison, a criminal justice reform group, said the jails dorm room-style living quarters make the idea of social distancing nearly impossible and that traditional, two-bed cells in a new jail could make the virus more manageable.

Its a whole bunch of people in one room, Howland said of the dorm-style housing blocks. Youre sort of condemning people to be in that whole group and to have the same outcome.

More inmates, more illness

While the inmates interviewed for this story are behind bars for offenses ranging from misdemeanors to serious felonies, Natcone argued that being incarcerated shouldnt preclude them from being protected against COVID-19.

Natcone, who is awaiting sentencing for first-degree reckless homicide related to a 2019 high-speed crash in Madison, said hes frustrated that the jail's policy has put people at risk.

Just because were here doesnt mean we should be kicked to the side, Natcone said. We should all look at each other, extend helping hands and say, 'Listen, youre a human being and you need help. We should protect you.'

To curb the spread of COVID-19 in the jail, inmates said theyd like to see a return to isolation periods for new inmates and a reduction of the population.

Theres no way to social distance in here, said Nelson, who is set to be out later this month on work release. You have communal toilets, communal bathrooms, communal water fountains. Its impossible. The only way to do it is to reduce (the population), and theyre not even trying.

Speaking from the COVID-vulnerable unit, Chris Healey also said hes seen no effort to reduce the jails population.

Theres a lot of people here that dont belong, said Healey, who faces felony battery and disorderly conduct charges. In the midst of COVID even a year ago, the people that they knew didnt belong here theyd prioritize (for release) ... Now almost everybody is full and theyre doing nothing to reduce the population.

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Updated with a quote from Bryan Steil:

The Racine Branch NAACP asked Gateway Technical College to uninvite U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil from Monday's 38th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration after Steil voted against S.2747, the Freedom to Vote Act, and H.R.4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.

Gateway indicated it will not be doing so.

No Republicans in the House voted for the bills Thursday, while no Democrats voted against them. The bills are now before the Senate, where they are not expected to pass.

Steil, a Janesville Republican, represents all of Racine and Kenosha counties. His office did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

In an emailed statement, Gateway spokesperson Lee Colony: "Representative Bryan Steil and Senator Tammy Baldwin reached out to Gateway about the event, and the college provides the opportunity for our federal offices to participate in our Dr. King program."

In the same statement, Gateway President and CEO Bryan Albrecht said: Gateway is committed to the vision established by Dr. King. Our celebration on Monday is intended to bring our community together to reflect on our individual responsibilities to respect the rights of all citizens.

In a statement issued to The Journal Times after the initial publication of this article, Steil said I strongly support the need to secure our elections, including voter ID for voting. I agree with Gateway Technical Colleges statement, their annual event brings our community together and I am honored to be invited to this celebration. It is disappointing that the NAACP would launch a political attack like this over my support for common sense measures like photo ID to vote. Instead of trying to cancel voices they disagree with, I would encourage the NAACP to listen to all side of this debate.

The bills

The Democratic-authored bills would put more federal oversight in place for states and localities that may want to make changes to certain voting laws. They were proposed in the wake of moves made in some parts of the country that would reduce the number of polling places in communities that are largely populated by people of color and also in response to proposals in states, including Wisconsin, that would disallow ballot drop boxes and mail-in voting.

Some conservatives have raised concerns that those practices could be prone to abuse, although there is no evidence of absentee voting having led to increased voter fraud.

Also included in the bills Steil voted against would be requirements that a reduction in the number of polling places must receive federal approval before a state or municipality could enact it, and require attempts to make voter I.D. laws more stringent than they currently are to receive federal approval. Another requirement would be for there to be federal pre-approval before a state adds a reason to remove names from voter rolls.

On the House floor before Thursday's votes, Steil explained why he was opposed to the bills.

The Democrats are up to the same old tricks, he said, arguing that the bills would "gut key voter integrity provisions ... this bill guts voter ID laws ... this bill restricts states' ability to maintain their voter rolls, voter rolls that are essential, so we know who is eligible to vote.

Regarding the Freedom to Vote Act, Steil argued it would end up "delaying the final results (of elections). Delaying the final results does not instill confidence in our elections.

According to an analysis from the Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal nonprofit based at New York University Law School, the Freedom to Vote Act "would create a national standard permitting no-excuse vote by mail for every eligible voter. States would be required to permit voters to apply for absentee ballots online and prohibited from imposing onerous requirements like requiring mail ballots to be notarized. Apart from returning ballots by mail, the bill would allow voters to return mail ballots in person to a polling place or to a drop box ... Any mail ballot postmarked on Election Day that arrives within seven days would need to be counted, and ballots could not be discarded for minor errors, like failing to use an outer security envelope."

U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., has backed the proposals since they were introduced. In October 2021, she issued a statement saying "This summer we celebrated the 56th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. That historic step forward for our country is reminder that Congress does indeed have a role and responsibility at the federal level to stop voter suppression efforts and remove barriers to the constitutionally protected right to vote. Voting rights are the foundation of our democracy and our democracy works best when all our voices can be heard. That is why I will keep working to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act so that we strengthen our democracy and put power in the hands of the people."

NAACP

In a public statement issued Friday, the Racine Branch NAACP outlined its reasons for calling for Steil to be uninvited to Monday's event. "When we think about Dr. King, we know that he believed the right to vote was essential to bringing about equality. Dr. King fought for landmark legislation, including the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and organized voter registration drives like the Freedom Summer to codify our right to have a say in the halls of power and laws that govern our lives. We see now that backlash from Republican controlled legislature and the right-wing packed Supreme Court are working to undo his legacy and our freedom to vote.

"Unfortunately, Gateway has invited Representative Bryan Steil to this years MLK event. Looking at Rep. Steils voting record on elections and civil rights, this is not the time or place for him to be, even virtually. We would ask that Gateway rescind the invitation to Rep. Steil based on his No votes of the George Floyd Policing Act, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2021 and his recent No vote again on Thursday. The widespread voter suppression we are seeing today is the new Jim Crow, shutting out minorities and voters of color from participating in our democratic process. African Americans must have the right to vote in 2022 and moving forward.

"Rep. Steils No votes have shown us who he is, and his actions are not reflective of what Dr. King stood for."

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LA FARGE  The science lesson compared the tracks of a bobcat to those of a coyote.

For language arts, the young students were encouraged to use the word "scat" instead of "poop" to describe the deer and rabbit droppings.

Climbing and testing the strength of the branches on a fallen pine tree offered up physics, while recess had students sliding like otters down a snow-covered hill.

"It did it right here, scratch, scratch, scratch," said a rosy-cheeked Fred Severson, 4, as he demonstrated how a buck used its antlers to scrape the bark off a small tree. "It's right here, see."

Almost all of the lessons at the Kickapoo Valley Forest School are held outdoors, even on days when the temperature plunges well below freezing. The nature-based curriculum is central for the 4K and kindergarten students and their teachers, who have had lunch outside all but four days since the first day of school in early September.

But this school, in its first year and based at the nearly 9,000-acre Kickapoo Valley Reserve just up the road from Organic Valley, is doing more than helping grow the minds and physical stamina of rambunctious and curious 4-, 5- and 6-year-olds.

About 75% of the students come from outside of the La Farge School District and are helping to grow the enrollment at a time when rural schools around the state are losing students due to rural population declines, facing increased costs and seeing state aid diminish.

The school will expand to include first grade in 2022-23 and second grade the following school year. A committee is studying what it would take and how the curriculum would look if older grades are added in the future.

The School Board here is really proud with our long-standing partnership with the (Kickapoo Valley Reserve), and weve been looking for a long time to offer some innovative programming," said Meaghan Gustafson, the district's superintendent. "It took a lot of work, but I wouldn't say it took a lot of convincing.

Madison connection

Gustafson, who grew up in Madison's Vilas Park neighborhood, is well acquainted with the Kickapoo Valley Reserve. About 12 years ago, she worked as an educator at the reserve before taking a teaching position with the La Farge School District. She later became a principal and for the past three years has been superintendent of the Vernon County district that has about 265 students and is one of the state's smallest districts that serve students through 12th grade.

Gustafson and Jonel Kiesau, education director at the Kickapoo Valley Reserve for more than 20 years, had spent years talking about creating an outdoor school based at the reserve. Summer camps and other youth programs have long been a part of the reserve's programming, but in spring 2019 they began putting pen to paper to create a business plan for a tuition-free charter school.

That winter, a half-day program that required a fee was launched as a test pilot, and in December 2019 they received permission from the School Board to submit an application for a $700,000 startup grant from the federal government, administered through the state Department of Public Instruction. The grant was received in June with the months that followed spent hiring staff, creating a curriculum and figuring out classroom space.

Organizers used as a model the Riveredge School, which opened in 2019 in Ozaukee County and is believed to be the only other public outdoor charter school in the state. Based at the 402-acre Riveredge Nature Center about 10 miles northwest of Port Washington, the school, part of the Northern Ozaukee School District, offers classes for 72 students in K-5.

"We had this niche here with 9,000 acres and we had parents asking for these kind of opportunities," Kiesau said. "What were seeing is just amazing strides (from students) in strength, resiliency and cooperation. We're seeing huge expansions of vocabulary."

Schaffer Kemp, 6, spent 2 days a week at a Kickapoo Valley Reserve summer camp in 2021, which allowed him to become more familiar with the surroundings and meet many of his classmates. His father, Louis Kemp, said when they learned there would be a full-time school at the reserve, there was little doubt about where his son would attend kindergarten. They had no apprehension about the outdoor curriculum and its approach to learning.

"He's made for this," said Kemp, who works at Organic Valley. "We were more worried about the prospect of him being in a classroom and sitting and having to follow those rules all day, so the second this was an option we knew this was the option for him."

Forts from sticks

Students start arriving a little before 8 a.m. and begin their day with free play in the woods behind the reserve's visitor center. There is no playground equipment. Instead they build forts from sticks, climb trees and wood piles, pull each other in sleds and sit around a fire ring where on this day they had bowls of hot scrambled eggs and graham crackers topped with apple butter.

Just before 9 a.m., the students gather in a circle to sing before breaking up into two groups, the Oaks, led by educator Ximena Puig, 39, and the Lindens, headed up by educator Julia Buckingham.

Each is equipped with backpacks filled with first aid supplies, extra mittens and water as they set out on separate hikes that can last more than two hours to explore different parts of the reserve each day. The afternoon can include lunch, naps inside the two classrooms, reading and numbers work, and then back outdoors. During warmer months, school work is typically done outside.

"So far all of our progress monitoring in academic achievement and growth measures shows theyre learning at the same rate as the students in the La Farge Elementary School," said Gustafson, whose daughter, Margo, is in the Forest School. "As a kindergartner, and as her parents expecting her to learn to read, shes coming home with new inventive spelling and new ideas with a really rich vocabulary."

On Wednesday morning, the Lindens headed west to scope out from a covered bridge the coyote and bobcat tracks in the snow on top of the ice of the partially frozen Kickapoo River. There are designated stop points along each trail so the group doesn't get too spread out. About 50 yards from the river and up a hill, the Lindens discovered impressions in the snow left by deer that had recently bedded down. Signs of beaver were also present on the hike.

Buckingham, who grew up in Chicago but spent lots of time as a child at family property near the reserve, is a graduate of the University of Colorado and has a background in early childhood and environmental education. She and Puig both were part of the planning team that helped create this year's curriculum for the Forest School and this weekend were scheduled to present at a conference of educators at UW-La Crosse about the benefits of outdoor education.

"Whats happening in the forest has really opened opportunities for these children to work and develop themselves," said Buckingham. "We feel that these children are going to be so excited and love the natural world so much that they're going to want to become stewards when they get older. I think these are very important foundational building blocks for that.

Julie Tomaro drives her son, Levon, 6, from Viroqua each day, a trip that takes about 35 minutes. The drive to the reserve, populated with hiking trails, wildlife and stands of hemlock, white pine, maple and oak, is well worth her time and an investment in her son that he would be unable to get in any other area school.

"I just think its such an amazing opportunity for our children who have so much energy," said Tomaro, who has her own sewing and upholstery business. "Hes learning things with his body as opposed to just with his mind, which feels really powerful, as well. It feels like hes going to learn things at a deeper level."

Students return

And none of this, the reserve or the school, would exist had a dam been constructed decades ago in the valley in an attempt to control flooding that had plagued communities like La Farge, Soldiers Grove and Viola.

The initial plan called for a 400- to 800-acre reservoir, but in 1967, plans were revised for a 1,780-acre lake that would require the removal of 149 farms from the valley. Two years later, the Army Corps of Engineers began purchasing 9,000 acres of land from farmers, only to see the project halted in 1975 over environmental concerns, budget overruns and a UW-Madison study showing the lake would quickly silt in and the dam would not be a cure-all for flooding issues.

Many of those families displaced by the dam project never returned.

"Whats really rewarding is that this school, finally, 45 years later, is helping to bring students back to the district with this same piece of land that had originally hurt the district in the first place," Kiesau said. "So its kind of beautiful that way.

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1. Yes. Raising the bar for future developments will boost the citys housing market.

2. Yes. It will help in newer areas, but more needs to be done to change Killeens image.

3. No. The new standards will just slow down homebuilding and drive away developers.

4.No. The ordinance will do little more than drive up the price of new homes in the city.

5. Unsure. Its hard to say what the effect will be until they have been in place for a while.

Vote

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Chess Records co-founder Phil Chess, who with brother Leonard helped launch the careers of Chuck Berry, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters and others and amassed a catalog of rock and electric "Chicago" blues that profoundly influenced popular music in the 1950s and beyond, has died. He was 95.

Chess died overnight in Tucson, Arizona, according to his nephew, Craig Glicken, who spoke to the Chicago Sun-Times on Wednesday. Leonard, the older brother, died in 1969.

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Started in Chicago by Leonard and Phil in 1950, Chess Records was home to many of the major blues artists of the following two decades and also took on such musical pioneers as Berry, Etta James and Ike Turner, whose "Rocket 88" is considered one of the earliest rock songs. Chess' rise helped mark the migration North of such Southern-born blacks as Waters and Wolf and the transition of the blues from acoustic to electric, with hard-hitting arrangements that the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton and other white stars openly drew upon.

One of today's greatest bluesmen, Buddy Guy, credited the label with raising Chicago's status to the capital of blues.

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"Phil and Leonard Chess were cuttin' the type of music nobody else was paying attention to ... and now you can take a walk down (Chicago's) State Street today and see a portrait of Muddy that's 10 stories tall," Guy, who recorded at Chess, said Wednesday in an emailed statement. "The Chess brothers had a lot to do with that. ... I'll always be grateful for that."

Like other businessmen of blues and early rock, the brothers were Jewish kids with an affinity for black music. Phil Chess was born Fiszel Czyz in Motol, Poland, and changed his name to Phil Chess after the family immigrated to the U.S. After Phil served in the Army during World War II, the brothers started out with a liquor store, then ran the Macomba Lounge nightclub and music venue, before getting into the music recording business.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 15 Muddy Waters recorded with Chess Records and cut "Rollin' Stone" in 1948, known to have inspired the name of the band The Rolling Stones. (Val Mazzenga)

"Neither played an instrument. Neither had even a bent for music," author Nadine Cohodas wrote of the Chess brothers in her 2000 book "Spinning Blues into Gold: The Chess Brothers and the Legendary Chess Records." ''But they were entrepreneurs, and through the indigenous sounds of America  blues and its progeny, Jazz, rock and roll, and soul  they found their fortune."

Chess Records' first release was a Gene Ammons' version of "My Foolish Heart." Then came Waters' "Rollin' Stone"  a song so influential it became the name of the English rock band and the groundbreaking rock magazine.

For the next 19 years, they recorded a staggering lineup of America's greatest blues, R&B and rock 'n' roll musicians out of a two-story building at 2120 S. Michigan Avenue, which still stands. They recorded everything from minimalist blues and harmony groups to Berry and fellow rocker Bo Diddley. Others who worked at Chess included Willie Dixon, Little Walter and a young session drummer named Maurice White, who later founded Earth, Wind & Fire. Leonard and Phil Chess also founded a handful of sister labels, including Checkers Records, Cadet Records and Marterry.

The impact of Chess blues was especially strong in the United Kingdom, where American recordings were cherished and hard to find in the 1950s and early '60s. Chess albums helped inspire the London blues scene of the 1960s, the proving ground for such future rock superstars as the Stones, Clapton, Rod Stewart and Mick Fleetwood. Chess even played in a role in one of rock's most fateful meetings, when Mick Jagger ran into Keith Richards at the Dartford train station in 1961. As Richards liked to recall, he noticed that Jagger was carrying albums by Berry and Waters and sensed he had found a musical soul mate.

When the Stones caught on and first visited the U.S. in 1964, they made sure to stop by what Richards considered "hallowed ground." The band recorded one of its first major hits, "It's All Over Now," at Chess Records and named an instrumental "''2120 South Michigan Avenue" in the label's honor.

Leonard died of a heart attack in 1969. That same year, Chess Records was sold and Phil moved to Arizona, where he worked in radio. In 2008, Shiloh Fernandez played Phil in the movie "Cadillac Records," which also featured Adrien Brody as Leonard and Beyonce as Etta James.

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Leonard Chess was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, and both brothers are in the Blues Hall of Fame.

Associated Press

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A tsunami has hit Tonga's largest island, Tongatapu, and reportedly sent waves flooding into the capital after an underwater volcano in the South Pacific exploded in a violent eruption on Saturday, sending a cloud of ash and gas steam into the air.

A tsunami warning has been issued for the islands of Tonga. Tsunami advisories have also been issued for New Zealand's North Island and the west coast of the United States from California to Alaska, as well as Canada's British Columbia.

Satellite imagery shows a massive ash cloud and shockwaves spreading from the eruption.

Waves crossed the shoreline of Tonga's capital, Nuku'alofa, on Saturday, flowing onto coastal roads and flooding properties, according to CNN affiliate Radio New Zealand (RNZ).

Tonga's King Tupou VI was evacuated from the Royal Palace after the tsunami flooded the capital, RNZ reported, citing local media reports that a convoy of police and troops rushed the monarch to a villa at Mata Ki Eua.

Residents headed for higher ground, RNZ said, as waves swept the palace grounds, waterfront and main street.

Ash was falling from the sky in Nuku'alofa on Saturday evening and phone connections were down, RNZ said.

The Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai volcano first erupted Friday, sending a plume of ash 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) into the air, according to RNZ.

A second eruption hit on Saturday at 5:26 p.m. local time, RNZ reported.

Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said it recorded a tsunami wave of 1.2 meters (about 4 feet) near Nuku'alofa at 5:30 p.m. local time on Saturday.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said tsunami waves of 2.7 feet (83 cm) were observed by gauges at Nuku'alofa and waves of 2 feet at Pago Pago, the capital of American Samoa, Reuters reported.

Warning for US

A tsunami advisory is now in effect for the US west coast including the states of California, Oregon, Washington and Alaska, according to the NWS National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska.

Dave Snider, Tsunami Warning Coordinator at the National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska, told CNN, "We have seen the wave moving through Hawaiian Island."

Current observations are that the wave is one-to-two feet high heading toward the US mainland Pacific Coast. The estimated arrival time along the California Coast is 7 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. Pacific Time.

Speaking by telephone Snider noted, "We don't have a really good forecast because this event is based on a volcano rather than earthquake."

Snider notes this is currently an advisory and not a tsunami warning in effect for the U.S. west coast following Tonga eruption.

Read the full story:

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After 46 years in its original location, Pizza King has moved to the former Clason Buick GMC showroom at 2915 East Ave. S.

In 2013, the Clason auto dealership moved next door to the former Ray Hutson Chevrolet building, where it remains in business.

Pizza King opened Dec. 2 in its new location, owner Terry Mach said last week. It has the same menu, telephone number and hours as it had at the original location, he said. It sells pizzas, submarine sandwiches, wrap sandwiches, gyros, appetizers and salads.

We have limited inside seating at the new location, something Pizza King didnt have room for before, Mach said. More tables and chairs are on the way. But Pizza King is still primarily a take-out restaurant. Third-party delivery is offered through EatStreet.

Mach said he chose the new location partly because its only a couple blocks from the previous one. I didnt want to stray too far away from the former location, he said. With our new outside signage, its easy to see Pizza Kings new location while driving by, he said.

Pizza Kings hours are 10 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday and 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Thursday through Saturday.

Pizza King began in 1975 at the original location, and Mach has owned the business since 1978. For more information, call 608-788-1926 or visit www.pizzakinglacrosse.com or Facebook.

Fred and Antoiwana Williams have opened a second Press Break eatery in La Crosse, this time a downtown location thats open from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. Thursday through Saturday nights.

Their new late-night location at 118 S. Third St. opened Jan. 8. The Williamses share the space with 360 Nutrition LLC, which opened in November 2020 and operates during daytime hours, serving meal replacement protein shakes and energizing teas.

The Williams opened their Press Break drive-thru in 2017 in front of LAXprint at 146 Rose St., serving sandwiches and soups. The drive-thrus hours are 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.

Fred Williams said the new downtown Press Break has a limited menu with such things as Chicago dogs, chili dogs and Italian beef sandwiches. He plans to add panini sandwiches and offer inside dining in the future, but for now all food is sold for take-out.

Williams said he and his wife decided to add the downtown location because late-night food options there have been limited. For more information, visit https://pressbreak.business.site or Press Breaks Facebook page.

A grand opening celebration will be held Thursday at the new Cranberry Country Cafe in the Wisconsin Cranberry Discovery Center at 204 Main St. in Warrens, Wis.

The event will include a ribbon-cutting ceremony at noon, and free food samples during the day.

The cafe opened about two months ago, owner Traci Peterson said, and has the same hours as the center. Winter hours are 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, and closed Monday.

The cafes menu includes breakfast and lunch items such as pancakes, French toast, eggs, biscuit and gravy, burgers, wrap sandwiches, other sandwiches and appetizers. From Tuesday through Friday, the cafe also has daily specials and a full salad bar.

For more information, call 608-378-4878 or www.discovercranberries.com or the centers Facebook page.

St. Paul-based Bremer Bank says it will close its branch location at 108 E. Cedar St. in Houston, Minn., at the end of the business day April 15 because more and more customers are doing their banking online or via a mobile app.

Houston Mayor David Olson said Friday that he hopes another bank will open in that community and added, Theres one thats working fairly hard on getting here.

Olson also said, We dont have any other financial institutions in this town once Bremer Banks Houston branch closes. We have older folks in this town who are not tech savvy.

In a letter to the branchs customers, Bremer Bank said its seen less foot traffic at certain locations as more and more customers do their banking online or via the mobile app.

A Bremer Bank spokesperson said Friday that the bank has offered each employee a position at other Bremer locations, and that its committed to serving the Houston area online, via the mobile app or in person at its Onalaska and Winona locations.

The former Eastwood Bank in Houston became a Bremer Bank with the latters 2015 acquisition of Rochester, Minn.-based Eastwood Bank.

Steve Cahalan can be reached at stevecahalan.reporter@gmail.com.

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BANGOR  Natasha Everson enjoys hearing people talk about their lives, in her part-time job as a bartender at the Robins Nest bar on French Island and in her Velvet Couch Candle Co. business.

Everson, who was raised near Bangor, makes soy candles in her home in that community. She figures that she made more than 2,000 candles last year, and mostly sold them craft shows and through the 16 area boutiques, other retail stores and salons that carry them.

She also has sold some through Velvet Couchs Facebook page and plans to have a website by the end of February where they also can be purchased.

As her business grows, Everson also hopes to have a shop in some small community in the next few years, where she could both make and sell her candles.

I like small towns, Everson said of the possible location for that shop. I think theres a charm about them, and that really speaks to me and its just who I am. Id like to keep it in a smaller town thats close to my home.

Everson left her other job, as a receptionist at a La Crosse pediatric dentistry practice, in October in order to devote more time to her candle business. But she still works at the Robins Nest.

I love hearing peoples stories at the Robins Nest and at craft shows, Everson said.

Ive always loved candles and I love everything about making them, she said. But I love connecting with people and making other people feel special or good about their day. I have so many wonderful customers with stories they tell that are touching. I enjoy meeting people and hearing what they have to say, and hearing how much joy my product brings to them.

Everson, who is a single mother, got her start in candle making when she was looking for something extra to do while her now 4-year-old daughter Violet spends time with Violets father.

She bought a candle-making kit in May 2019 and found that she enjoyed that new hobby.

She gave some of her candles to friends at the bar where she was working. They told her things such as When youre ready to start selling them, let me know, Everson said.

Everson sold her Velvet Couch Candle Co. candles at her first retail event  a craft show in September 2019 in Coon Valley.

She chose the Velvet Couch name because of a velvet couch that she had purchased before Violet was born. I loved the couch, and I wanted the company name to resemble something that was important to me, Everson said. That was my favorite spot to be with (Violet), on that little couch.

She later sold the velvet couch, but now has another couch.

I have way too many scents, Everson said, laughing, as she discussed the large variety of fragrances that she uses in her candles. By the time her website launches, she said, I will have nine core scents that I make all of the time. I might have one more to make it 10, because I dont like odd numbers. But Ill also make seasonal scents.

One of Velvet Couchs biggest sellers is its New York, New York candle, made with black currant and absinthe fragrances.

Velvet Couchs candles are eco-friendly and made with 100 percent soy wax, lead-free wicks and phthalate-free fragrance oils, Everson said.

VELVET COUCH CANDLE CO. WHAT: A business owned by Natasha Everson, who makes her soy candles in her Bangor home and sells them mostly through 16 area retail locations, and at area craft shows. Her sister, Courtney Everson-Wells, helps her at craft shows. RETAIL OUTLETS: Carrying Velvet Couch candles Include Riviera SalonSpa, Tease Salon, Nourish Hair Salon, Salon SoLo and Wisconsin Clothing Co. in La Crosse; Flowers by Guenthers in Onalaska; Heavenly Crossroads Salon and Spa in Holmen; Parlour Fifteen Beauty Lounge in Bangor; Aspen 78 in Sparta; Coulee Boutique and Create Happy in Galesville; Donnas Daughters in Coon Valley; Gracies Hutch and Moon Child Collective in Stoddard; Blush Roots Boutique in Westby; and West Main Boutique in Spring Grove, Minn. MORE INFO: Call 608-386-0792 or visit Velvet Couchs Facebook page.

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The Western Wisconsin Workforce Development Board will begin accepting applications Monday, Jan. 17, for its new Worker Advancement Initiative (WAI).

The initiative will serve those whose previous employment has not come back since the pandemic, as well as those who were not attached to or were not successful in the labor market prior to the pandemic, by offering subsidized employment and skills training opportunities with local employers.

The Western Wisconsin WDB was awarded $1.5 million to serve 150 participants in Buffalo, Trempealeau, Jackson, La Crosse, Monroe, Juneau, Vernon, and Crawford counties. Grant funds will provide paid work experience opportunities, hard and soft skills training in in-demand jobs, on-the-job training opportunities, and enhanced supportive services, including childcare, housing, transportation, and worker stipends.

We are so grateful to have this opportunity to serve more individuals in our communities through these dollars, said Melisa Myers, Western Wisconsin WDB executive director. So many have been negatively impacted by the pandemic and we are excited to help knock down any barriers we can by serving those who need some additional support getting back into the workforce.

Anyone interested in applying to WAI can visit www.westernwdb.org/wai and click on Application. For more information on the program, contact Ashley Alderman, WAI Specialist, at (608) 386-1696 or aldermana@westernwdb.org.

The Western Wisconsin WDB was one of 11 regions in Wisconsin to receive part of $20 million in grant funds that will serve 2,300 Wisconsinites. The grant dollars are part of the American Rescue Plan Act.

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On Nov. 21, the nation looked on in horror to see a man drive through the Waukesha parade, killing six people and injuring dozens more.

Then, not long after, it was revealed that he was out on a $1,000 cash bail after allegedly running over the mother of his child.

Time and time again this story plays out, not just with Darrell Brooks, who has been charged with the Waukesha deaths.

Time and time again, someone who is out on bail commits another crime. In many cases, even then they are able to get out again on another bond.

The Republican-authored bills would require a $10,000 minimum bond for defendants who have previously committed a felony or violent misdemeanor, bar judges from setting an unsecured bond or releasing without bail someone previously convicted of bail jumping, and require the Wisconsin Department of Justice to create a bond transparency report detailing crime and bond conditions.

To be clear, the bail system is an important part of our criminal justice system. A person is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. All individuals charged with a crime need the opportunity to prove their innocence  not just those who can afford it.

With that said, there needs to be a real system in place to protect the public particularly in cases involving a violent offender charged with a new crime.

Following the Waukesha tragedy, a group of Milwaukee taxpayers filed a complaint with Gov. Tony Evers against Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, triggering a process that could end with Evers removing Chisholm from office. That complaint was filed because the $1,000 bail came from an attorney in Chisholms office. Ultimately, Attorney General Josh Kaul said the voters should choose whether to remove Chisholm from office.

While the governor and attorney general want to leave the election up to voters, the attorney general should still take a lead on evaluating bail bond discretion throughout the state.

Minor nonviolent offenses dont need to be treated like violent offenses. But there needs to be consequences for crimes committed.

The Waukesha tragedy may be what is behind the urgent push for bail reform. But its just the case that has gotten the most publicity. Hopefully the magnitude of that tragedy can help garner bipartisan support for change.

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Betty White Centennial Celebration held in front of the Lake Theatre in Oak Park Saturday. (James C. Svehla / Pioneer Press)

Hundreds of well-wishers from Oak Park and beyond gathered Saturday in front of the Classic Cinemas Lake Theatre to thank (Betty White) for being a friend.

Appropriately, the theme song from Whites NBC sitcom, The Golden Girls, was performed as part of a centennial celebration where Village President Vicki Scaman proclaimed Monday as Betty White Day in the town where she was born Jan. 17, 1922. White died Dec. 31, just a couple of weeks before her 100th birthday.

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Betty White has left far more than rolls of film, Scaman told the crowd of about 400 people, virtually every one wearing masks. She brought people together with her relentless positivity, talent and strength. Now be it resolved that the sympathy of officials and citizens of the Village of Oak Park be expressed to all who loved Betty White, her close friends and family, and that this proclamation in her memory be preserved in the official record of the Village of Oak Park.

Vicki Scaman, Oak Park Village President reads a proclamation during the Betty White Centennial Celebration in Oak Park Saturday. (James C. Svehla / Pioneer Press)

Written by Andrew Gold, Thank You For Being a Friend, was the opening song of Whites popular The Golden Girls sitcom, which aired from 1985-1992 and continues today in syndication. It was sung by Cindy Fee, who resides in the area and was on hand for an a capella rendition as an appreciative crowd sang along.

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White also is known for five-year runs on the sitcoms The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Hot in Cleveland. For 19 years, she was co-host of the Tournament of Roses Parade and also co-hosted the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade for 10 years.

Her Tournament of Roses parade was my favorite, Antoinette Pilat, 75, of Oak Park, said. I liked her comedic timing. She was good at getting that laugh at just the right moment.

I loved Betty on Golden Girls, said Oak Park resident Marta L. Penn, 83. She related to all of us, especially women, with her humanity, her sense of humor and love of animals.

Cindy Fee sings "Thank You for Being a Friend," during the Betty White Centennial Celebration in Oak Park Saturday. (James C. Svehla / Pioneer Press)

The celebration included a pet adoption event across the street from the theatre in a bank lobby. Kellie Buchanan of Hickory Hills took the opportunity to rescue a German shepherd mix puppy.

Im in love with this little guy, Buchanan said, while playing with her pup in a get acquainted playpen. Id been thinking about rescuing a dog, and knowing Betty White was a pet advocate just touched my heart. My heart needed to be rescued too!

Local businesses also offered specials in conjunction with the event. Customers were lined up on the sidewalk waiting to enter Sugar Fixe Patisserie.

Maggie Lynch holds "Tangerine" as Erin Kaczynski pets the dog during the Animal Care League pet adoption in Byline Bank's lobby during the Betty White Centennial Celebration in Oak Park Saturday. (James C. Svehla / Pioneer Press)

I wasnt expecting this kind of a response, Head Chef Amelie Bergeron said. We did this in conjunction with the Betty White event. I used to watch her shows with my mother.

Also speaking at the event was Illinois State Senate President Don Harmon, who noted that Monday will be Betty White Day in all of Illinois in celebration of her birthday.

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Its not just her obvious sense of humor and her grace, but I would say it was her bearing -- what she did for women, what she did for our animal friends. And so, on Betty White Day and every day, perhaps we should all have a little Betty White in our lives.

State Senator Don Harmon speaks during the Betty White Centennial Celebration in Oak Park Saturday. (James C. Svehla / Pioneer Press)

White appeared in 33 feature films, including The Proposal, a 2009 romantic comedy that starred Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds.

She wrote seven books, including If You Ask Me (And of Course You Wont), for which she won a Grammy Award for her audio recording of her book.

Among numerous other nominations and awards, White won a Primetime Emmy for hosting an episode of Saturday Night Live in 2010.

Vicki Scaman, Oak Park Village President reads a proclamation during the Betty White Centennial Celebration in Oak Park Saturday. (James C. Svehla / Pioneer Press)

Golden Girls was my favorite, Antonio Garcia, 57, of Oak Park, said. My friends used to say I have her same temperament, with her lighthearted, positive outlook.

Betty was your typical mom and grandma, said Tom Sitko, 66, of Cicero. She was always funny on every show shed ever been on, especially Mary Tyler Moore. I think her legacy is for us to always live life like its your last day.

Betty White cutout makes its way around the crowd during the Betty White Centennial Celebration in Oak Park. (James C. Svehla / Pioneer Press)

Cake provided by Turano Baking Company during the Betty White Centennial Celebration in Oak Park Saturday. (James C. Svehla / Pioneer Press)

Shivangi Khetarpal makes a Betty White Mocha at Wise Cup Cafe during the Betty White Centennial Celebration in Oak Park Saturday. (James C. Svehla / Pioneer Press)

Zack Hudson, co-producer of Golden-Con, speaks during the Betty White Centennial Celebration in Oak Park Saturday. (James C. Svehla / Pioneer Press)

A Betty White cut out in the crowd during the Betty White Centennial Celebration in Oak Park Saturday. (James C. Svehla / Pioneer Press)

Alexa Damon with her daughter Calyx, age 7, of Chicago watch the Betty White Centennial Celebration in Oak Park Saturday. (James C. Svehla / Pioneer Press)

Betty White Centennial Celebration held in front of the Lake Theatre in Oak Park Saturday. (James C. Svehla / Pioneer Press)
Lately, I seem to be spending time in the company of a bunch of people who are unlikable, irredeemable or just plain annoying.

And I do so by choice.

These people are fictional, and they populate some of the critically acclaimed shows Ive watched on TV and streaming services.

Certainly, every TV series Ive watched for multiple seasons, going back to those I enjoyed in the 1960s, has had at least one character whos annoying. Think Leave it To Beavers Eddie Haskell, and his ilk.

After all, even sitcoms need a bit of conflict to be interesting.

But what Im talking about here are shows on which I simply cant stand a majority of the characters. And yet, I keep watching. Many of us keep watching.

Take the show Succession, which aired its season three finale last month on HBO.

The show concerns a Rupert Murdoch-like media mogul named Logan Roy (played to the hilt by Brian Cox) and his four obnoxious, entitled children  plus one obsequious son-in-law and a clueless cousin  who are jockeying to take over for the patriarch.

The show, which just won three Golden Globes including best TV drama, somehow manages to be tremendously entertaining, despite the fact that I have absolutely no one to root for in the entire main cast of characters. I cannot relate on any level to these entitled one-percenters, the younger generation of which is hell-bent on destroying their siblings and their father via incompetent corporate warfare. Their money and power riles them up instead of letting them enjoy a life of astonishing comfort.

And yet, Ive anxiously awaited every new weekly installment of the show throughout three seasons.

I had the same experience 10 years ago when I committed to following the HBO show Girls. In this popular series about young women finding themselves and negotiating relationships in Brooklyn, I found the main characters  along with the men they were involved with  to be whiny, selfish-centered and obnoxious.

And yet, not subscribing to HBO at the time, I went to extraordinary lengths to watch every episode of the series  binge-watching seasons during my cable companys free weekends or while house-sitting for friends. All this, while I was setting the remote down on the couch after many episodes, saying aloud to myself, Why am I WATCHING these people?

It was somewhat the same with the original Sex and the City series. While I got wrapped up in the human comedy of the lives of Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha, I could also see that they were a quartet of often-self-centered pills who sometimes treated the men and other people in their lives badly.

At least in the flawed, but still entertaining, And Just Like That... reboot of the series, now streaming on HBO Max, the women have gained some maturity that leads them to be a little bit more introspective in their 50s than they were in their 30s.

On AMCs Breaking Bad, teacher Walter White started out as a regular Joe till expensive cancer treatment led him to cook meth for money. The drug cartel characters into whose orbit Walter spun which reinventing himself as kingpin Heisenberg  Giancarlo Espositos brilliant criminal Gus Fring being just one example  were terrifying in their brutality. I lost sleep after many an episode. But I still wouldnt miss one.

The show Im knee deep in these days is Search Party, an HBO Max show that begins as both a missing-person mystery and as a satire of millennials with stereotypical characteristics, born of entitlement. The young-adult characters have become unlikable and frustrating at points, but engender just enough sparks of empathy to make the viewer not feel embarrassed for following their saga. Further, the plot twists the show takes are so borderline-wacky and unpredictable  murders, cover-ups, a court trial, kidnapping, the secret to enlightenment in the hands of a billionaire businessman  that Ive decided to strap in for the rest of the wild ride as I watch the ending series final few episodes.

What is it that compels viewers to watch a show on which most or all the characters are obnoxious or hateful?

There are a few possible explanations, I suppose.

Maybe sometimes were just attracted to the dark side, and need to get it out of our system. Sometimes we just need a journey to the opposite side of our sphere of experience. The ancient Greek playwrights knew it was a healthy community-builder for an audience to experience and then purge negative emotions in a collective catharsis as the result of storytelling.

In her 2018 Elle magazine essay I Hate Everyone on Succession and I Cant Stop Watching, EJ Dickson notes the rise of the critically acclaimed prestige-TV antihero, and suggests Succession gets us to empathize with the siblings as they indulge in the trappings of wealth to try to heal the wounds of their deeply drab and miserable lives. Theyre just like the rest of us, only unhappier, despite their money.

It cant be something as simple as Schadenfreude that keeps me coming back for more, can it?

Perhaps we extend sympathy to characters like the Roy siblings because we see how theyve been damaged by how horribly theyve been treated by their parents.

In 2019, the Hollywood Reporter interviewed sociologists about Successions popularity, and one suggested viewers like the show because it gives them a sense of moral superiority to people rich enough to buy and sell them. Another theorizes our attachment to such shows comes simply from an appreciation of the written characters as witty and three-dimensional.

Maybe its simply that great writing and stellar acting can compensate for having no character to admire or root for. Performances by Succession actors Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook and Kieran Culkin and Matthew Macfayden are certainly a thing to behold.

Maybe the appeal comes because when reprehensible characters get their comeuppance on a show, it feels like all is right with the universe. Maybe its that when heinous characters come to a crisis and realize theyve been behaving badly, it seems more profound than when a decent character makes one mistake and has to apologize.

When Walter White admits to his wife late in the Breaking Bad series that he was cooking and selling meth not only to raise money for his medical treatment but because he liked the power it gave him, it was an especially emotional moment in the series.

Maybe its a form of addiction: Once youve invested time and emotional energy in a story, no matter how angry you get at yourself for being interested in the tales of horrible people, you simply cant stop watching until you know how it all ends.

Perhaps the Devil made me do it.

Or, maybe I just need to turn off the TV for a while, and go outside for a walk.
When: Ephrata Area school board committee of the whole meeting, Jan. 10, held at the middle school and streamed via Zoom.

What happened: The board was briefed by district Business Manager Kristee Reichard on the progress in the Ephrata high school and middle school renovations. There have been some supply chain delays, but the new district boardroom should be completed and turned over for occupancy in March.

Why it matters: Every other week when the board meets, the media center at the middle school is transformed into a boardroom with space for an audience. Doing this requires manpower to set everything up, including technology allowing the meetings to be streamed.

Discussion: The new boardroom allows for an audience of about 50 people, and it will have permanent technology in place. Board members discussed how to move forward with student presentations once the new room is ready. The challenge when we go to remote buildings is that the virtual option is going to be off the table, board President Richard Gehman said. Board member David Wissler asked if the administration had any preference on it, to which Superintendent Brian Troop said, The most important part is to make sure we have student presentations. Thats the essence of it. The board will decide whether to continue to hold meetings at one location or start visiting schools again at a future meeting closer to the moving date.

COVID-19: The district experienced a spike in cases after the holiday break and is up to 350 positive COVID-19 cases so far this school year. During his report, Troop pointed out the importance of letting the district know when someone tests positive for COVID-19 to limit the spread of the virus. Our system only works when we work together, he said.

School rankings: U.S. News & World Report recently announced the 2022 best K-8 school rankings. Ephrata middle school ranked best in the district, #269 among Pennsylvania middle schools, followed by Clay elementary school, ranked #353 among elementary schools in the state. The methodology for the rankings focuses on math and reading proficiency, how well students perform on state assessments, and how well they perform compared to expectations. Fulton elementary school ranked lowest in the district, at #567.

Whats next: Ephrata Area regular school board meeting, Jan. 24, at the middle school and via Zoom.
When: Lancaster Township supervisors meeting, Jan. 3.

What happened: Supervisors elected their 2022 leadership team at their annual reorganization meeting. Reelected Benjamin Bamford was sworn in. Iber Guerrero Lopez is chairperson, Steve Elliot is vice chairperson and Bamford is treasurer. Township Manager William Laudien continues as secretary.

Police concern over planned prison: Lt. Michael Placentino, Manheim Township police patrol division commander for the unit that serves Lancaster Township, voiced concern that the Lancaster County correctional facility planned for the township may place an additional burden on his department should they be called upon to back up facility corrections officers, a task now performed by Lancaster city police.

Police extraordinary event: Police Sgt. John Donnelly said a routine stop of a car for an outdated inspection sticker yielded both marijuana and an illegal gun.

Fire service extraordinary event: Lancaster Township Fire Department Chief Steve Roy reported on what he termed one of the most complex removal activities in 20 years. To extract an uninjured but trapped passenger from a car that had hit a Schoolhouse Road telephone pole on New Years weekend, the rescue team had to dismantle the auto, including roof removal, using every piece of equipment, Roy said. The critically injured driver was more easily extracted.

Opiate settlement: The township opted to participate in settlement agreements with major pharmaceutical firms, allowing it to share funds received by the Pennsylvania Opioid Misuse and Addiction Abatement Trust.
Editors note: Stephen Lindemuth was invited by email last week to write a column about why he ran for both the Elizabethtown Area school board and Mount Joy Township judge of elections. He did not respond.

For over a decade, I had the privilege of serving as a judge of elections in the Fairview District of Mount Joy Township. In both temperament and tone, I consider myself a moderate.

Like countless others in Lancaster County and across the state, I volunteered to help work the polls out of a sense of civic responsibility. I take the management and integrity of our elections seriously. Helping facilitate my neighbors exercise of their right to vote seemed to be one small way to contribute to my community.

After I stepped away from serving in this role during the pandemic, the candidacy of Stephen Lindemuth, a Stop the Steal advocate in the judge of elections race in my home Hershey Road district, prompted me to get my name on the ballot this past November to offer voters an alternative. My candidacy did not succeed. But the concerns that compelled me to jump into that race are still before us.

Given the late civil rights leaders efforts to advance democracy, Mondays observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day provides an apt time to reflect on two interconnected threats now jeopardizing our democracy.

The first is voter nullification and suppression, by way of extremist  and sometimes violent  partisan tactics to suppress voter turnout and overturn elections. The second is the continued discriminatory practices and beliefs that marginalize and dehumanize communities of color. Both issues are an affront to democracy, to the rule of law, to our shared humanity and dignity as American citizens.

Like many individuals, I watched the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, with disgust and despair. I could not fathom how a group of self-professed patriots could show such little regard for the law, the collective will of their fellow Americans, and our democratic institutions. Worse still, in symbols, words and actions, Stop the Steal supporters on hand for Donald Trumps Save America rally and subsequent attack on the Capitol clearly showed sympathy for authoritarian and racist viewpoints that conflict directly with the stated ideals of our republic.

Mere hours later, in disbelief, I witnessed eight Pennsylvania U.S. House members vote to contest the certification of the commonwealths electoral results, even though they had no factual basis to do so. Their allegations had been repeatedly litigated in courts across the country and were found to be meritless.

In my judgment, those associated with the events of Jan. 6, 2021, or those who refuse to repudiate them, have compromised their ability to serve in positions of responsibility within our government. These include the roles associated with the administration of our local elections. When Stop the Steal supporters set their sights on those roles, it is time to take notice and take action. We cannot let these efforts go unchallenged.

An effective judge of elections works to ensure that voters in a precinct can cast their ballot quickly and with as little drama as possible. Working with a team of inspectors and clerks from both parties, the judge works to process voters swiftly, make them feel welcome, answer questions and troubleshoot any issues. The judge of elections also interacts with poll watchers, local party committee members and, sometimes, exit polling representatives.

At the end of the night, it is the judges responsibility to accurately compile tallies, share them with approved poll watchers who report results back to campaign and party headquarters, and securely transport the ballots back to county election officials. The whole process demands a commitment to accuracy and honesty. In short, these public servants are carrying out a solemn obligation to communicate the collective will of the voters independent of their personal views.

Experience working the polls and managing a team, along with personal integrity, attention to detail, and a calm and measured demeanor are key requirements for the job. It is a position for those with no agenda other than to run a fair, open and efficient operation in accordance with the election code.

In other words, it is not a position for partisans, even though these judges can be elected by party. I believe that a fully partisan approach to administering elections  as represented by those who would challenge election integrity without evidence  is a dangerous development and should not be endorsed by Lancaster County residents.

As we prepare to officially commemorate the vision, work and legacy of Dr. King, our community needs to work not only on election integrity, but this related issue of the marginalization and dehumanization of our friends and neighbors of color. In my view, there is a direct connection between supporting the Big Lie  the baseless belief that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump  with its racist attributes aimed at diminishing the voices of nonwhite voters, and the efforts to perpetuate a status quo that accepts an underclass in our society.

I invite readers, particularly on MLK Day, to research and reflect on Peggy McIntoshs article, White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack (bit.ly/McIntoshPrivilege), to better understand the inequity that exists in our society and how it undermines our democratic principles. Those who espouse support for protecting democracy must not only oppose efforts to radicalize our election processes, but also work to dismantle the structural barriers that diminish the benefits and responsiveness of our representative government.

When the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness outlined in our Declaration of Independence are routinely and systemically denied to the Black and Hispanic/Latino members of our community, the true legitimacy of our democratic experiment in the United States, and indeed Dr. Kings vision, remains unrealized.

Michael Corradino is a local academic and Mount Joy Township resident.
Talk of a second American civil war seems to be everywhere lately. Pundits, scholars and elected officials have begun to consider openly the potential for widespread bloodshed. Most raise the specter in fearful dismay but some, sadly, do so in almost gleeful anticipation.

There is, of course, plenty of reason to worry. A recent poll conducted by The Washington Post and the University of Maryland found that one-third of all Americans, and roughly 40% of Republicans and independents, think violence against the government could, at least at some point, be justified.

Last February, a survey by the American Enterprise Institute found a similar number of Republicans agreeing that if elected leaders will not protect America, the people must do it themselves, even if it requires violent actions. And in a survey conducted in the fall, the Public Religion Research Institute found 30% of Republicans agreeing that true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.

New research by political scientists Nathan Kalmoe and Lilliana Mason indicates that acceptance of political violence is alarmingly prevalent among partisans. In their book Radical American Partisanship, to be published later this year, Kalmoe and Mason report that 24% of Republicans and 19% of Democrats believe the use of violence to advance their political goals is at least somewhat acceptable. That number rises to 28% and 25%, respectively, if the other party were to win the next presidential election. Even assassinations are thought to be at least a little justified by more than 1 in 10 Republicans and Democrats.

As disturbing as these results might be, its worth keeping in mind that survey questions about political violence are likely to exaggerate the level of support for such measures. General allusions to violence are ambiguous and, to some respondents, may simply refer to threats or property damage. In addition, questions about whether violence may be justified are hypothetical. Surely extreme circumstances exist in which violent resistance to a tyrannical government would be justified. That doesnt mean were close to such circumstances at the moment.

Finally, many survey respondents are not seriously contemplating the consequences of their answers when asked about violence. Agreeing that violence may be necessary is a cost-free way to signal ones displeasure with politics or the other party. Supporting real violence against fellow Americans, should it occur, is another matter.

These reasons for skepticism notwithstanding, recent developments in American politics are cause for concern.

Justifying violence

The events of Jan. 6, 2021, and more importantly the response to those events in the months since, suggest that a large number of Americans are willing to tolerate real political violence. To do so, at least two factors have to be at work.

First, the leadership of ones party would have to embrace, or at least excuse, acts of violence. In the immediate aftermath of last Januarys insurrection, Republican leadership in Congress denounced the violence and even placed blame with then-President Donald Trump himself. But Trumps defiance quickly silenced the emergent critics.

Today, elected officials in the GOP would prefer not to talk about the insurrection. When they do, they attempt to dismiss the violence as either nonexistent  the rioters were just tourists  or the result of left-wing provocateurs, a claim for which there is no evidence.

After Ted Cruz was forced to publicly grovel to Fox host Tucker Carlson for having dared describe those who attacked Capitol police officers as terrorists, no Republican elected official will ever make that mistake again.

However, an increasing number of GOP officials are proclaiming their pride at what took place on Jan. 6, 2021. They do so in reference to attempts to prevent the certification of Joe Biden as president and not necessarily to the acts of violence. However, this helps satisfy the second factor necessary for large numbers of people to accept political violence  namely, such violence has to be justified.

The justification for Jan. 6 in the minds of so many Americans is the false belief that the presidential election was stolen or somehow illegitimate. Its easy to dismiss this belief as merely a convenient excuse to grab power by any means necessary. But there is evidence to suggest most Republicans really believe it.

It is often difficult to know whether survey respondents are answering questions sincerely or are merely engaged in expressive responding  that is, answering in ways that reveal what the respondent would like to be true rather than what they know to be true. Using a clever, though complicated, survey technique called a list experiment, political scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst determined that only 28% of Republicans believe that President Biden was elected legitimately.

Acknowledging that people sincerely hold an incorrect belief does not absolve them of responsibility for holding that belief. But it does explain why people would be willing to consider extreme remedies.

If it were true that the will of the people, the very essence of democracy, was subverted by a stolen election in November 2020, desperate measures would be understandable.

This leaves us with something of a paradox. Those who support the undemocratic events of Jan. 6, 2021, do not necessarily oppose democracy in principle. Indeed, they believe theyre defending democracy. Theyve mistakenly been led to believe that democracy is under attack by Democrats and thus they are willing to accept what in other circumstances, where democracy really was threatened, would be justifiable means to protect it.

Chipping away at democracy

Still, it is imperative to ask just what conception of democracy the Jan. 6 insurrectionists, and their most ardent supporters, think theyre defending.

It is surely not the inclusive, liberal democracy that has been considered the ideal since the civil rights era. Instead, it is a system of minority-party rule where certain people, based largely on place of residence (which is a proxy, by and large, for race), have diminished political agency while those in the ruling party have enhanced power.

The model here is Hungary, a nation led by someone who openly advocates illiberal democracy and whom Trump has recently endorsed for another term as prime minister. Leading pro-Trump intellectuals and pundits now advocate explicitly for a system like Hungarys, which political scientists refer to as competitive authoritarianism. Such systems hold elections, but the rules are rigged to favor just one party. This was the politics of the American South prior to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Would Americans fight and kill other Americans to establish  or restore  competitive authoritarianism?

Thats improbable on any sweeping scale, though sporadic acts of political violence are a virtual certainty. Thats in part because such acts have always been an element of American politics, but also because, as Trumps Big Lie morphs into a new Lost Cause, the grievances and resentment it encourages will surely provoke isolated instances of violence.

Far more menacing, however, is a slow chipping away at the democracy many us once thought, perhaps naively, the vast majority of our fellow citizens cherished. The weakening of democracy will take the form of restrictions on voting rights, heavily gerrymandered districts and partisan election administrators who refuse to certify election outcomes that dont favor their party.

Corporations and media outlets that object to these actions will be punished, as has already been recommended by a number of Republican leaders. Alternative media sources that reject facts and deny reality will further solidify a critical mass of voters who support such measures in the name of protecting our way of life against all manner of conjured threats.

Another civil war in the United States is unlikely but democracy is far from safe. To borrow T.S. Eliots assertion about the end of the world, democracy will die not with a bang but a whimper.

Stephen K. Medvic is The Honorable and Mrs. John C. Kunkel Professor of Government, and director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs, at Franklin & Marshall College.
LNP | LancasterOnline journalists are helping to raise the consciousness of Lancaster County residents about the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Examples are the extensive news stories on the subject published in the Jan. 2, Jan. 6 and Jan. 7 editions of LNP.

Particularly worrisome in this news coverage is the influence Jan. 6 insurrectionists are having on state and local politics, and how Trump loyalists in Pennsylvania are endangering our democracy.

Its concerning to learn that several people who were present during the Jan. 6 Capitol attack and attempt to overthrow our federal government have sought election to local school boards and other positions of trust in Lancaster County. These individuals, in my view, are clearly unfit for public office and should be rejected by voters in favor of principled leadership.

Investigative journalism by LNP helps to protect American democracy from the constant attacks by mostly right-wing conspirators. This reporting is especially important in these troubling times, when many Americans are misled by lies and cover-ups stemming from the Jan. 6 insurgency and the false belief that President Joe Biden's clear victory was stolen from Donald Trump.

The Jan. 6 failed coup attempt was a wake-up call for all Americans on how fragile our democracy is and how strongly it must be protected.

Fritz Fichtner

Denver
I continue to marvel at your newspapers continuing obsession with the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and what I view as your dishonesty in calling it an insurrection.

I believe this crusade is nothing more than a ploy to demonize former President Donald Trump and Republicans leading into the 2022 midterm elections. Youre labeling him and his supporters  not just those who participated in the U.S. Capitol riot  as traitors seeking to overturn the U.S. Constitution.

Hysterical speeches by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris comparing the Jan. 6 riot to 9/11 and Pearl Harbor arent just demeaning to all those who died in those actual attacks on America, but also to our legal and constitutional right to challenge election results, something the Democrats have repeatedly done after several recent presidential elections.

The fact is, not one person died on Jan. 6 at the hands of those who participated in the riot. The only person killed was a protester shot by a U.S. Capitol police officer.

Not one protester fired a shot. At the rally that preceded the riot, President Trump said, I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.

Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser requested only a small number of National Guard troops prior to Jan. 6, clearly not enough for a rally of that size. And then-House Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving, who is under the control of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, did not make a request for the National Guard until the morning of the rally, much too late to do any good. Their lack of a timely response played a direct role in the events of that day, according to USA Today, which reported, Because federal and local authorities underestimated the threat, National Guard troops were not poised to respond.

Just like Robert Muellers investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and the two impeachments of Trump, I believe this new charade is a politically inspired witch hunt  nothing more. Your newspapers constant hectoring doesnt change that.

David Lampo

Rapho Township
Mas

 Copyright 2017 Grupo Editorial La Verdad.

Todos los derechos reservados.
Gary School Board members, from left, Robert Buggs, Norman Bailey, Nellie Moore, and James Piggee talk about their status during a meeting in 2017. (Carole Carlson / Post-Tribune)

Gary school advisory board member Norman Bailey was shot and killed inside his business early Friday.

A second man was also shot, police said.

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Police arrived at the Blue Room Lounge, 224 E. 16th Ave., at 2:59 a.m. and found Bailey unresponsive on the floor. Police Cmdr. Jack Hamady said in a release that Bailey suffered gunshot wounds.

About 3:20 a.m., police received a call regarding a gunshot victim being treated at Methodist Hospitals Northlake campus in Gary.

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A witness told police the 28-year-old male was inside the Blue Lounge when they heard gunfire.

Norman Bailey - Original Credit: Post-Tribune (Provided by Gary Schools / HANDOUT)

Police said patrons began running out of the lounge and thats when they found the man had suffered a gunshot wound in his leg and buttocks area. Police said he was taken to the hospital by a private individual.

Bailey, 60, who was serving his second term on the school board, was praised by board president Robert Buggs.

I call him Norman the quiet storm, because he was nice and easy going, but dont get him riled, said Buggs.

Buggs said he received a call about the shooting and stayed at the Blue Room until Baileys body was removed.

Im just heartbroken. First Ms. Felton and then this happens, he said.

On Dec. 8, former school advisory board member Mary Felton was shot and killed in Gary shortly after she left the Gary police department. Police arrested a man who had been hiding in her car.

Buggs said Bailey planned to shift his business operation to a site at 8th Avenue and Broadway, near a new apartment building. He was working hard day and night, said Buggs.

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Mayor Jerome Prince said in a statement: Our Gary Police Department will use every tool available to bring the person or people responsible for this heinous act to justice.

Prince praised Bailey as a highly respected and well-liked business owner and community member.

In business, he was a hands-on leader who showed the best our Gary community has to offer. As a public servant, including his time on the Gary Community School Corp. Advisory Board, Mr. Bailey showed his heart and love for his neighbors and the children throughout our City.

The Gary Community School Corp. also issued a statement:

We, at the Gary Community School Corporation, were both shocked and saddened to hear of the passing of advisory board member Norman Bailey. His passion for youth and love for the community were signature traits of his character. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and all of those whose lives he touched.

Akilia McCain, vice president of the advisory board, said she just met Bailey a year ago when she joined the advisory board.

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He immediately embraced me as a colleague with his warm and gentle smile, she said. Bailey also nominated her to serve as vice president.

She said she saw Bailey on Sunday at a community meeting concerning House Bill 1187, regarding takeover legislation for the school district.

I am profoundly saddened by the news of his senseless death. I extend my deepest condolences to the Bailey Family and I mourn the loss of this stalwart of our community, she said in a statement.

Anyone with information regarding this investigation is urged to contact Det. Greg Fayson, Lake County Metro Homicide 219-755-3855 or Gary Crime tip line 1-866-274-6347.

Meanwhile, police responded to another shooting death at 5:06 a.m. Friday in the 2400 block of Broadway.

Police found a male with gunshot wounds to his torso lying next to a building. He was not immediately identified.

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The Lake County Coroners office, Gary Police CSI and the Lake County Crime Lab processed the scene.

Anyone with information regarding this investigation is urged to contact Sgt. Kris Admas, Lake County Metro Homicide 219-755-3855 or Gary Crime tip line 1-866 274-6347.

Carole Carlson is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.


As more people around the United States test positive for COVID-19, leaders of healthcare organizations and hospitals are permitting workers to stay on the job even with a positive test.

Around the country, nurses and other healthcare workers are still coming to work if they have the virus.

In the U.S., about 700,000 people each day are testing positive for the virus. This is partly due to the spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19.

There is a daily average of about 110,000 Americans in the hospital with COVID-19. One year ago, when infections were at their highest, there were 124,000 people per day in the hospital because of the virus.

The rise in cases comes at the same time many hospital workers are home because they are sick or tested positive.

In December, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said healthcare workers who have no symptoms after seven days can return to work. They must also have a negative test. However, the time can be reduced if hospitals need more workers.

In Phoenix, Arizona, a large company that runs hospitals said workers could ask to come back to work if they feel well.

The company said: We are doing everything we can to ensure our employees can safely return to work.

In California, hospital staff members can come to work if they do not have symptoms. The states public health department said workers who test positive can be permitted to work with patients who also test positive. The workers must wear face coverings that offer extra protection.

Jan Emerson-Shea is a spokeswoman for the California Hospital Association. She said hospitals may or may not put the new rules in place. She added that they are likely to have more patients than they can care for in coming days.

A nurses group in California recently said it did not think the states idea was a good one. It would lead to more people getting sick, the group said.

In Miami, Florida, workers who test positive at Jackson Memorial Hospital are staying away for five days. The chief medical officer is Dr. Hany Atallah. He said we still have to be very careful to prevent spread in the hospital.

Last week, France said healthcare workers could continue working with mild symptoms.

Im Dan Friedell.

Dan Friedell adapted this story for Learning English based on a report by the Associated Press.

Are people with positive virus tests permitted to come to work where you live? Tell us in the Comments Section and visit our Facebook page.

__________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

positive  n. the result from a test that shows that a particular germ, condition, or substance is present

symptom  n. a change in the body or mind which indicates that a disease is present

mild  adj. not harsh or severe

variant  n. something that is different in some way from others of the same kind

peak  adj. at the highest point or level

ensure  v. to make (something) sure, certain, or safe


Civil rights movement hero, Martin Luther King, Jr. is honored with a holiday on the third Monday in January. He would have been 93 years old this month but was murdered in 1968 at the age of 39.

King led a movement of non-violent, peaceful protests to fight racial injustice in the United States. The first example of this movement began in December of 1955. It was the Montgomery Bus Boycott in the southern state of Alabama.

Many southern cities, including Montgomery practiced racial segregation, or the separation of Black and white Americans in public places. When using public transportation such as buses, the law in Montgomery stated that Blacks must enter from the back door and the first ten rows of seats were for whites only. On December first in 1955, a Black woman, Rosa Parks, was riding a bus on her way home from work. She refused to give her seat to a white man and was arrested.

At the time, King was a 26-year-old clergy man at the Dexter Avenue Baptist church in Montgomery.

In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1961, he explained what happened next.

More than 99 percent of the Negro people of Montgomery rose up with a. righteous indignation, I would say. And this led to the bus boycott. They asked me to serve as a spokesman.and from this time, I found myself in a leadership position in the civil rights struggle.

In Montgomery, King and others organized a one-day boycott of city buses on December 5. Three days later, under the leadership of King and others, a list of demands was presented to city officials. The demands included fair seating for all and courteous treatment by bus operators.

The demands were not met. City officials and white opponents tried to defeat the boycott. Blacks organized and helped one another to meet transportation needs. Many Blacks walked or rode bikes to where they needed to go. Kings home was bombed in early 1956 -- he and his family were not hurt. That same year, King was arrested and found guilty of interfering with a business. Blacks in Montgomery stayed off city buses through 1956.

More than a year after the boycott began -- on the 20th of December in 1956 -- the Supreme Court agreed with a lower court decision that public bus segregation is not legal.

King's role in the bus boycott won international attention. His example of mass, nonviolent protest was a model for fighting injustice in the United States for decades to come.

Im Dorothy Gundy.

Dorothy Gundy wrote on this story for Learning English.

Editor's Note: This story was first published in Jan. 2019.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

boycott  n. to refuse to buy, use, or participate in something as a way of protesting

indignation  n. anger caused by something that is unfair or wrong

spokesman  n. someone who speaks for or represents a person, company, etc.

courteous  adj. very polite in a way that shows respect

segregation  n. the practice or policy of keeping people of different races, religions, etc., separate from each other

decade  n. a period of 10 years

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section.
A judge sentenced a Veterans Affairs police officer to 16 years Friday for a Lowell mans fatal shooting last year.

Timothy R. Thomas, 41, of Highland, looked down as the sentence was given.

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A jury convicted him Nov. 24 of aggravated battery with a firearm enhancement in the Jan. 3, 2021, shooting death of Nicholas Lile, 42.

Judge Salvador Vasquez said Thomas, who was off-duty at the time, didnt meet his responsibility as a law enforcement officer by shooting Lile, then leaving his house without helping him.

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Thats a failure, he said.

A woman Thomas had been briefly dating, Angela Gauler, invited him Jan. 2 to her friend Jessika Liles home in Lowell where she and the Liles had been drinking in the basement for several hours.

Thomas and his lawyers contended the shooting was self-defense. He was afraid for his life, since Nicholas Lile grabbed Thomas by the neck, choked him and took him to the ground punching him, then threatened to kill him. Thomas pulled out a gun, identified himself as a police officer and fired a single shot, according to court records.

By contrast, prosecutors said Thomas overreacted and his injuries from that night did not justify what happened.

Thomas, an Army veteran, worked as a police officer for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, while Lile was a railroad engineer, a veteran Navy Corpsman once embedded with U.S. Marine units in deployments and humanitarian assignments around the globe.

Several members of Thomas family and an Army buddy spoke highly of him.

Patricia Thomas, his mother, said her son had to choose to live or die, while acknowledging the Lile familys grief.

I, too, have lost a child, she said.

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Debbie Ulerick, Liles mother, said she was robbed of several firsts after her son was killed. His daughter now 8, would have to grow up without him.

Jessika, Liles widow, recently gave her a beautiful necklace with his birthstone, birth and death date containing a small amount of his ashes.

This is all I have left of my son, she said.

Their family had been shattered by grief, and she didnt know how she would live with it for the rest of her life, Ulerick said.

You have your son, she told Thomas family.

Thomas ripped (the childs) life away from her when he killed her father, Jessika Lile said.

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She was alarmed that her daughters letter to the judge was mean, vengeful, hateful, telling how she was sad and depressed.

You changed the entire trajectory of our lives that night, Lile said.

She and her daughter suffered lingering psychological damage from living in the same house where Lile died.

This is PTSD, she said.

I have not found a way to forgive you and I dont think I ever will, Lile added, urging Vasquez to impose a maximum sentence.

Prosecutors said Thomas was fired as a Merrillville police officer in August 2006 after seven months due to overly aggressive approaches toward street work. Vasquez later said he would give no bearing to what happened 15 years ago.

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Thomas lawyers noted he had an 80% disability rating  diagnosed in 2013 with a traumatic brain injury, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder from his military service. The judge later noted it was impossible to determine what role, if any, PTSD could have played.

The shooting was a terrible tragedy, defense lawyer Benjamin Murphy said. Thomas did not want to do what he had to do.

Thomas should be held accountable, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Michelle Jatkiewicz said. The sentencing was not to decide who had a better family, she said. Both had people that loved them.

A jury already rejected the self-defense argument, she said. In his 911 call outside, Thomas first said he was a police officer, then waited a handful of minutes before he said Lile was shot, Jatkiewicz said.

Thomas wasnt the police that night, arguably, he wasnt the police at all, she said.

No one truly knew exactly what happened that night that led to the shooting, Vasquez said. The use of deadly force was not reasonable, he said.

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The case was much more tragic and unique; it gave him a lot of pause because it involved two honorably discharged war veterans whose lives were destroyed, shattered by what happened.

I dont know what happened that day, he said. I do know someone died.

Law enforcement officers are held to a higher standard. Thomas failed in that responsibility, Vasquez said.

The judge declined Murphys request for protective custody, but said he was put in Thomas file for Department of Corrections staff that he was a police officer.

Due to COVID-19 protocols, the high-profile hearing was broadcast online.
The article was reproduced with permission from CalMatters. Sameea Kamal covers the state Capitol and California politics and is also a production assistant for CalMatters. She joined CalMatters in June 2021 from the Los Angeles Times, where she was a News Desk editor. Sameea was one of three 2020 IRE Journalist of Color fellows, and previously worked for the Center for Public Integrity. She earned her bachelors degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and her masters degree in journalism from Columbia Journalism School. Sameea was born and raised in the San Gabriel Valley in Southern California and is one of the Maynard Institute's M200 fellows.
A 47-year-old man was arrested Saturday afternoon for allegedly shooting and killing an 8-year-old girl in Milwaukee, officials said.

Milwaukee police are investigating the shooting as a homicide. The names of the shooter and the girl have not been released.

The man was handling a gun that went off and hit the girl just before 2:30 p.m. in the 1800 block of West Highland Avenue, according to the Milwaukee Police Department.

The girl was taken to a local hospital, but she died from her injuries, the police department said. The Milwaukee County Medical Examiners Office said an autopsy is scheduled for Monday.

Police said criminal charges are expected to be filed against the 47-year-old man in the next few days.

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MILWAUKEE  Police say a pedestrian was struck and killed Saturday morning by a Wisconsin & Southern Railroad train in Waukesha.

The Journal Sentinel reports Waukesha police received calls from citizens and the Canadian National Railroad Company around 10:55 a.m. reporting the incident.

Lt. Chad Pergande said the man was beyond help when first responders arrived.

The death is being investigated and authorities are waiting to release the name of the man until his next of kin are notified.

In October 2019, a woman was struck and killed by a Canadian National train at the same intersection. Waukesha police later concluded that incident was a suicide.
Magic Valley's Missing and Murdered This story is the first in a multi-part series on unsolved cases of missing and murdered people in south-central Idaho. Each story will run in Sunday's Times-News and online at Magicvalley.com.

BURLEY  For two years, Tiffani Strelings whereabouts were a mystery.

Searches and candlelight vigils were held, reward money was raised, posters and message boards popped up asking people to help bring 21-year-old Tiffani home.

Then, in November 2017, came the news that human remains were found. A worker found Tiffanis skull at an excavation site a few miles from Milner Dam in Jerome County.

The news confirmed she was no longer alive, but it did not answer the questions continuing to haunt those who love her: Who was her killer and why did they do it?

Tiffani was last seen on May 16, 2015. No charges have been filed in her disappearance or death.

Can you help? Anyone who has any information on the case or if someone finds what they think maybe human remains, should call the Cassia County Sheriffs Office at 208-878-2251.

Tiffanis family grapples with loss

Ive healed quite a bit, Tiffanis mother, Melissa Belt, said. But I still think about getting justice and finding out who did it. Someone took something from me and nothing has been done about it.

At the Belt home, Melissa carefully takes the lid off a clear case containing a plush pink toy dog they gave to Tiffanis daughter, Saphire, who died in 2013 at one month old. The case also contains the molds of Saphires tiny foot and hand.

Portions of Tiffanis and Saphires ashes are inside the stuffed toy.

We may not be able to see her but we know shes here in spirit, Melissa said.

Tiffanis father, William Streling, and her stepmother, Stephanie Streling, also keep some of the ashes.

We still miss her a lot and we still celebrate her birthday, Don Belt, Melissas husband, said.

Don and Melissa spent time walking some of the area where her remains were found with the hopes of finding the rest of their daughter.

We have not heard anything from the police in three years, Melissa said.

I think someone needs to pay for this, Don said. And I also dont want it to happen to someone elses daughter.

Tiffanis stepmother, Stephanie Streling, said they still have some rough days.

The holidays are especially hard, she said. But as a family, we stick together and that helps us get through it.

Friendship cut short

The unknown details of that day also torment Tiffanis best friend, Ashley Savage, 28, of Aberdeen.

While Tiffanis life abruptly came to an end, Ashleys life continues to move forward.

Savage is engaged and has two daughters. She was pregnant with her younger daughter when her best friend disappeared. She named the now 5-year-old Tiffani.

Savage and Tiffani first met at White Pine Elementary School.

We were always friends but we became really close in high school, Savage said.

After high school, the friendship continued.

She was over all the time and wed hang out, Savage said. We worked at the Best Western together, and we lived together for a year. She was my best friend.

Savage said she did not have a good feeling about Tiffanis new boyfriend, James McLaws.

Their relationship was really new, Savage said. And they were fighting constantly. Shed even told me once jokingly If I ever disappear, it will be James that did it.

Savage instantly knew that something bad had happened to Tiffani when she disappeared  and she did not believe for a minute that Tiffani would just leave the area without telling anyone.

If she would have taken off, she would have called me or her dad, Savage said. We were each others person.

Fitting the pieces together

As the months unfolded after Tiffanis disappearance, her friends and family pieced together what they knew about her last day.

Tiffani had struggled a bit with depression since the death of her daughter, and she and her babys father, Jordan Defilippis, had broken up but remained emotionally close.

Tiffani had decided to give the relationship with McLaws another chance after wavering back and forth between him and Defilippis, Stephanie Streling said.

On the day she went missing, Tiffani and McLaws went to the Streling house to pick up some of her belongings because she intended to move into McLawss basement apartment.

Tiffani and James had only dated for 28 days, Streling said. There were a lot of red flags with James. He never came to a family function, and he was promising her everything, like houses and cars.

In the days prior to her disappearance, Defilippis spent time with Tiffani at the Streling home, and he was there the day Tiffani and McLaws came to pick up her things.

Tiffani found Defilippis hiding in a closet where she kept some of their babys things.

Savage had one missed call from Tiffani on May 16, but Tiffani had not left a message, and Savage guesses by the time of the call that it came after Tiffani found Defilippis in her closet.

Tiffanis phone has never been recovered.

McLaws asked Tiffanis dad if he wanted him to handle Jordan, Streling said.

Defilippis was well known by the family and left the home peacefully.

Savage said Tiffani and Defilippis had been together for years and he just wasnt ready to give up on the relationship.

I dont think he had any bad intentions though, Savage said.

When Tiffani and McLaws left the Streling home, she told her parents they would return in a couple of hours for dinner.

Where are the two men in Tiffanis life now?

McLaws and Defilippis could not be reached by the Times-News for comment.

McLawss former attorney, Dave Haley, said during a court hearing in 2015 that McLaws was considered a person of interest in the case because he was the last person to report seeing her.

Cassia County Sheriff George Warrell told the Times-News in late November that no suspects can be named at this time.

In July 2015, McLaws was arrested in Twin Falls after a police chase on an unrelated drug case after he failed to appear in court.

According to the Idaho Department of Correction, he spent time in prison on two separate charges of possession of a controlled substance. He was released on parole in September 2020 in Ada County.

McLaws has not been charged with anything involving Tiffanis case.

Idaho Court Repository records show that Defilippis has had only had minor brushes with the law in the state.

Streling said Defilippis moved to Washington state.

And hes doing very well there, she said.

Untangling the truth

James wouldnt ever talk to us afterward, Streling said. But, she said, He would show up to searches and make a big scene.

At times, she said, it felt like he was trying to lead them off course.

When they searched an area in Minidoka County, known as the tree, where some clothing was found, McLaws had someone on the river in a boat watching them, Streling said.

Cassia County Lt. Kevin Horak, who was the lead detective on the case in 2015, said they could never tie the clothing to Tiffani.

But, Melissa and Don Belt did have dinner with McLaws after Tiffanis disappearance  even though they were afraid of him  to find out what he knew.

He told them after the closet incident at the Streling home, Defilippis had followed them to McLawss apartment and confronted him.

McLaws said Tiffani told the two men to work it out between themselves and she went to take a shower.

Melissa said McLaws told them he drove Defilippis to a Burley boat dock to talk things over.

Melissa said when he told the story he named all the streets they drove down and said exactly where they turned.

He over-explained himself, she said.

When McLaws asked Defilippis about his relationship with Tiffani, Melissa said, McLaws turned the radio up like he didnt want to hear the answer.

McLaws told them Tiffani left his house to walk the few blocks to Savages house and he never saw her again, Melissa said.

She would always call me if she was coming over, said Savage, who does not believe McLaws story.

When Streling went to the police station to report Tiffani missing the next day, she discovered McLaws had already reported her missing in the middle of the night.

The next day, Savage felt like she had to get inside McLawss apartment to see if there was any evidence of what had happened to her friend.

He was really on edge and I was scared to be in there, Savage said. I just wanted to get his side of the story but he was freaking me out and I just wanted to get out of there. The hair on the back of my neck was standing up, and I thought if he did something to Tiffani, its really stupid for me to be here.

Streling said they also went inside McLaws apartment and nothing seemed out-of-order, but he began remodeling and tearing out carpet afterward, saying his apartment had flooded.

Melissa and Don had driven down the alley behind his apartment and felt suspicious of the rolled-up carpet, too.

It was picked up quickly and didnt stay there long, Don said.

When they asked police about the carpet they were told it was covering up some lawnmowers, he said.

Their worst fear, Don said, is that some of her remains or evidence of the crime was in that carpet and was buried at the landfill.

Savage said after Tiffani went missing, McLaws took Savages then-boyfriend for a ride in the desert west toward Twin Falls.

When her boyfriend returned home he told Savage that McLaws had stopped the vehicle and picked up a shovel that was stuck in the ground and went and did something.

The next day, Savage said, McLaws returned to their home and her boyfriend was terrified of McLaws and hid from him instead of talking to him.

A sad discovery

For two years, her family and friends held onto the hope that Tiffani was still alive.

In November 2017, their hopes crumbled when her skull was found in a rural part of Jerome County at an excavation site.

Don said the site is about two miles from Milner Dam where a canal was being reworked.

Her skull was found in a sagebrush area by an equipment operator and was on top of the dirt, Melissa said.

It looked like it had been placed there, Don said.

Cassia County Sheriff George Warrell said no other remains have ever been recovered.

We are actively pursuing and following leads and calls on this case, Warrell said.

Several detectives have been assigned to it.

Warrell said police can say little about the case at this point in order to ensure the case can eventually be prosecuted.

When remains were found in Jerome County, it kind of put the brakes on us, Warrell said.

Although the jurisdiction of the case is unclear at this point because it is unknown if the crime was committed in Cassia County or Jerome County, the Cassia County Sheriffs Office is still actively involved.

It doesnt matter at the end of the day, we all want to solve this case, Warrell said. It doesnt matter who is the lead, we will continue to investigate it until an arrest is made.

Writing a story about the case again, Warrell said, can help keep the investigation moving forward.

This will spark leads, he said.

Cases are sometimes solved years later when someone comes forward who has information that leads to an arrest, he said.

The crime not only ended Tiffanis life, but it caused her family and friends unimaginable pain.

Ive had major depression, Savage said. She was my other half and we were always together. I think about her all the time. I dont seek out close friendships now, its just me and my family.

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SAIHU gives hams to the Salvation Army

The Southern Idaho Association of Health Underwriters (SIAHU) recently donated 55 hams to The Salvation Army in Twin Falls. Each December, they contribute to different causes to help the families in the area. This year the organization chose the Salvation Army as their annual charity with the generous contributions of chapter members.

The National Association of Health Underwriters represents 100,000 professional health insurance agents and brokers.

We were pleased to be able to make this contribution to the Salvation Army and support our community, SIAHU President Jeremy Watson said.

Soil workshop opportunity in Mini-Cassia

Register now for a free soil health workshop sponsored by the soil and water conservation districts in the Mini-Cassia area. The workshop will be held on Thursday, Feb. 3 in Burley. Registration is available at minicassiaswcd.com, email at ewcswcd@gmail.com or, call 208-572-3375.

Twin Falls prosecuting attorney offers CSI scholarship

Drug-free student scholarships are offered to Twin Falls students graduating from any high school in Twin Falls County in the upcoming spring. They must attend the College of Southern Idaho full-time for the upcoming academic year and be enrolled in either an academic or a vocational education program leading towards a degree or certification.

Applicants will make an oral presentation on an essay they write titled What Can Be Done to Reduce the Use and Sale of Illegal Drugs in Twin Falls County? The first-place winner receives a full-tuition scholarship for the 2022-2023 school year. Second and third place winners receive full-tuition scholarships for one semester.

The deadline is March 1. Applications are available at all the high schools and at the Twin Falls County prosecutors office. For more information, call the prosecutor at 208-736-4020

Body Balance Physical Therapy Presents a Free Arthritis Workshop

Body Balance Physical Therapy will present a free arthritis workshop at the Twin Falls City Pool (756 Locust St. N.) on Jan. 29 from 10:30-11:30 a.m.

This class will feature physical therapist David Hutchinson, PT, MPT, and OCS, the companys arthritis pain expert. The class instruction will cover how physical therapy can treat arthritis pain effectively and demonstrate low impact strengthening exercises that can be done in a pool.

Workshop admission is free, but space is limited, so attendees must reserve a spot before the event. Visit bodybalancephysicaltherapy.com, call 208-736-9011, or text 208-271-4365.

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BOISE  Gov. Brad Little has proposed the addition of 21 social workers and three psychosocial rehabilitation specialists for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, along with a 7% pay increase for safety assessors and case managers. His proposal also increases reimbursement rates for foster families across Idaho.

The proposal will still need approval from the Idaho Legislature. The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee will consider the Department of Health and Welfares budget request in the coming weeks, and it will then receive a vote in the Idaho House of Representatives and the Senate.

The department told the Idaho Capital Sun in December it was planning to request 10 additional social worker positions and three psychosocial rehabilitation specialists from the Legislature. The recommendation comes a few weeks after current and former social workers warned of dire staffing shortages across the agency and increased pressure to perform with fewer social workers.

Certainly, the governor is aware of the challenges in the child welfare system and the difficulty theyve had in attracting and retaining talent, said Alex Adams, the governors budget chief. So in working with the department, the governor more than doubled the request and recommended those 21 social workers.

Caldwell child advocate says two more social workers quit last week

Turnover has been high across the agency in recent months. During the 2021 fiscal year, 83 people voluntarily quit their jobs in the Child Welfare division. At least 24 of those resignations were mid-level social workers, who said in their exit interviews that stress and workload was the primary reason they quit, particularly after workflow changes at the department that workers said made the job impossible with current staffing levels.

Department of Health and Welfare Deputy Director Miren Unsworth told the Idaho Capital Sun in December that the situation would be worse without the redesign, and that the department was working with recruiters and offering retention bonuses to try to address the issue.

Cindy Floyd, a member of the Citizen Review Panel for the Region 3 health district in Caldwell, said the proposal would be a huge step in the right direction, but more reforms will be needed. Two more social workers in Region 3 quit just last week, she said.

I think the money is going to perpetuate things to move forward, but I think theyre going to have to be open to listening to stakeholders and finding some solutions, because even if we have the money available, finding 21 social workers that are going to come back into that atmosphere is going to be challenging, Floyd said.

Problems with overworked social workers at the department have been publicly known since at least 2017, when the Office of Performance Evaluations completed a report for the Idaho Legislature showing between 57 and 77 more social workers were needed. That number was largely the same in 2007, when the department cited a need for 75 more workers.

Between 2007 and 2017, the report noted 18 full-time social worker positions were added. From 2017 to 2021, 16 additional social worker positions were requested, for a total of 24.

The 7% base pay increase comes in addition to the 2% Change in Employee Compensation increase recommendation for all state employees, along with potential merit increases.

Foster families will need more than rate increases, court advocate says

Along with social worker shortages, the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare is also dealing with a shortage of foster families for children who have been removed from their homes. Cameron Gilliland, administrator of the health departments Family and Community Services, said by mid-December, 67 foster children had been placed in Airbnb rentals and hotels because of a lack of foster parents. Most of those placements have occurred in the past six months, usually for up to 10 days but sometimes quite a bit longer than that, according to Gilliland.

Little in his State of the State address on Monday proposed reimbursement rate increases for all foster families in Idaho, with a 60% increase for families with foster children ages 12 and younger. Foster families currently receive between $395 and $584 per child each month, depending on the childs age.

Jenny Easley, a court-appointed special advocate for Region 3 who represents children in foster care cases, said those increases are a good start to address the problems in the foster care system.

Foster parents need to make more money, Easley said. I think more money could also be allocated for training foster parents and supporting them.

That includes behavioral health support, which is difficult to access, according to Easley. Wait lists for many Medicaid providers are between three and nine months long, and Idaho has a shortage of mental health care providers of all kinds.

Floyd, who is also a volunteer for Office Moms and Dads and sits with foster children while they await placement in a home, said more could be done to support children from the time they come into care, with a designated provider available to the department and a call center that would be available to foster families at all times when they run into behavioral issues with a child.

Foster parents are going to appreciate the rate increase, but I will say most foster parents dont do it for the money, Floyd said. I think they would also appreciate having somebody there when theyre in crisis.

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BOISE  Housing advocates had hoped Gov. Brad Little would announce a one-time $50 million allocation of funds to the Idaho State Housing Trust Fund for workforce housing developments, but the fund will likely remain empty this year.

Because the funds come from the federal American Rescue Plan Act, the recommendation will be to direct $50 million to a workforce housing development program to be administered by the Idaho Housing and Finance Association, said Alex Adams, Littles budget chief, on Monday.

Based on how the guidance came out from the Biden administration, it foreclosed the opportunity to put into the Housing Trust Fund, so the governor is not recommending funding for the Housing Trust Fund, Adams said.

The program would provide gap financing for developers who may still need another source of funding besides conventional financing and tax credits to build housing that is affordable for middle-income earners.

We envision a grant that could have something like equity investments, where a portion does come back to the state for years to come, Adams said.

While Republican leaders in the Legislature were enthusiastic about most of the governors budget proposals, they said they need more details on this one before it will receive their support. House Majority Leader Mike Moyle, R-Star, said the Republican caucus is cautiously optimistic, but the devil is in the details.

I dont know how you plug government money into the private sector in a fair way, said Speaker of the House Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, at a Monday news conference. Now, thats not to diminish that we need affordable housing, etcetera, but it needs to be available to all, it needs to be fair, and we need to answer the question of whether thats the appropriate use of Idaho state dollars.

At a news conference with Democratic leadership, House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, also said she wanted more details before expressing support for the plan  primarily because shed rather see the $50 million go to the trust fund. Idaho established a state Housing Trust Fund in 1992, intending to make it a source of matching funds for federal affordable housing programs. But state lawmakers never put any money into the fund, so it sat empty for nearly 30 years.

The lowest hanging fruit is the affordable housing trust fund, Rubel said. That would be really simple. Put funding in that fund, its ready to go. We have the money, lets put it in that fund.

Democrats also said they have more legislative proposals related to housing that they will roll out this session if committee leadership allows them to be heard. Senate Minority Leader Michelle Stennett, D-Ketchum, said one of those is an income tax incentive for property owners to keep a residence on the rental market rather than converting it to a short-term rental like Airbnb or VRBO.

Adams said the details of the gap financing proposal will be discussed at the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee meeting on Wednesday.

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On January 13, 2022, Premier Li Keqiang had a phone conversation with Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh at Ziguang Pavilion of Zhongnanhai leadership compound at the latter's request.

Chinese Premier and Vietnamese Prime Minister exchanged New Year greetings and wishes. Li Keqiang said that China and Vietnam are connected by shared mountains and rivers and share extensive common interests. In the past year, General Secretary, President Xi Jinping and the leaders of the Communist Party of Vietnam and the state have made many phone calls to consolidate strategic mutual trust and promote the stable and sound development of bilateral relations. In the new year, China is willing to strengthen strategic communication with Vietnam, deepen exchanges in various fields, continue to carry out cooperation in pandemic prevention and control, and properly manage differences, so as to continuously push forward the China-Vietnam comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation. Economic and trade cooperation is an important field between the two countries, and bilateral trade reached encouraging progress last year. China is willing to make it more convenient for Vietnam's high-quality agricultural products to be exported to China through customs clearance.

Li Keqiang pointed out that the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) entered into force as scheduled early this year, which helps promote the free flow of regional economic factors, boost trade and investment expansion and upgrade, and maintain the security and stability of the industrial chain and supply chain. China is ready to work with Vietnam and other RCEP member countries to jointly promote the effective implementation of RCEP and elevate the regional economic integration to a higher level, so as to better benefit all people in the region.

Pham Minh Chinh congratulated China on the successful achievement of its first centenary goal, saying that China is a special partner of Vietnam, and promoting the comprehensive and in-depth development of Vietnam-China relations is the top priority of Vietnam's diplomacy. Vietnam always adheres to the one-China principle, supports China's development and strength, a greater role in regional and international affairs, and successful hosting of the Beijing Olympic Winter Games. Vietnam stands ready to continue to strengthen strategic communication and political trust between the two parties and two countries, enhance the quality of cooperation in various fields, carry out close and effective cooperation in pandemic prevention, improve the efficiency of the customs clearance at border ports, strengthen coordination and cooperation in multilateral areas, properly handle differences, and promote the continuous deepening of Vietnam-China relations.

He Lifeng attended the event.
Recently Ive read several articles analyzing the new direction of our so-called Culture Wars, since armed insurrections no longer look like a winning long-term tactic.

Now, Im told, were entering Culture Wars 2.0, with the new targets being the utterly-not-ready-for-prime-time battlegrounds known as our local school boards.

Until recently, most of you probably couldnt name a single person on your school board, but thats changing rapidly. Self-appointed Cultural Warriors (hereafter CWs) are now packing school board meetings to save our innocent young minds from the rampaging intellectual thought-crimes burning their way through the libraries and classrooms of our public schools.

Wow. Who knew underpaid teachers and underfunded schools could cook up such perfidy? But evidently many local schools have books that reveal how non-white people sometimes feel about their life experiences in a country willing to grudgingly accept their presence, as long as they make no effort to exercise their American right to point out modern injustice, or the historical injustices that have contributed to their collective history.

Such voices, so the CWs arguments go, must have no place in our school classrooms and libraries. When asked for a reason, one rationale reigns supreme: Because students (translation: white students) might feel bad about what their reading. They might feel like theres something not-so-wonderful about being white.

Oh, please. Personally, my Scottish and German roots make me about as white as Wonder Bread with the peels cut off. And, just like you, I learned about slavery and the Civil War in my public school. I was taught that (spoiler alert) slavery is bad, and that the people who owned slaves (who, no surprise, were 99% white) lost a war trying to preserve a system that treated other human beings like cattle.

At no time during my education did I think that the stupid and immoral actions of the white people who wanted to preserve slavery meant that all white people (including myself) are bad. I felt no personal guilt for the events that led up to the Civil War. Nor did you. How could we? We werent there.

It true that as I grew older, I realized that (spoiler alert #2) prejudice still exists in America. But this knowledge motivated me to try to help improve things, not to feel bad about myself. This is what used to be called responsible citizenship.

It seems to me that every generation must grow up wide-eyed about the world in which we live, which means understanding the people and events that got us where we are. How can the next generation of students take their place in the world if they dont even know whats going on in it?

To offer only one of several national examples; author Brian Metzler, who is black, is the author of the I Am series of childrens books, highlighting individuals who have helped improve the world. Six months ago, a school district in York, PA, banned two of his books, I Am Martin Luther King, Jr. and I Am Rosa Parks. The same district also banned the autobiography of Malala Yousafzai. The reason in each case was that the books partially focused on the problems caused by the protagonists race.

Shocking, I know. In each case, the CWs rationale was the same: the only way to improve relationships between the races is to never, ever, discuss race.

To even bring up the subject of race, they fear, will make white students feel bad that theyre white.

This is not only nonsense, its stupid nonsense. We ignore history at our peril. Our students must be able to enter society with the ability to do more than stuff their fingers in their ears and shout LA-LA-LA-LA.

It is sadly true that there are stupid people in all racial groups. Learning about the past stupidities of white people doesnt make me ashamed to be white. But it has motivated me to not be part of the problem as we move forward. This isnt Critical Race Theory. Its just thoughtful, responsible citizenship, and training our children of all colors to be thoughtful, empathetic and responsible citizens is just one of the noble purposes of education.

Or, at least, it used to be.

Chris Huston is an author and award-winning columnist living in the Magic Valley. Connect with Chris on Facebook and Instagram at Chris Huston-Finding My Way and at chrishustonauthor.com.

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The UN Security Council condemned Friday the seizure by the Houthis of an Emirati ship, while calling for its immediate release.

In a statement adopted unanimously, the Fifteen members also stressed the importance of freedom of navigation in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, in accordance with international law.

The Council also urged all parties to de-escalate the situation in Yemen and to cooperate constructively with the UN Special Envoy in order to resume inclusive political talks.

As soon as the ship was captured early January, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates denounced an act of piracy against a civilian ship containing equipment for the construction of a hospital in the Yemeni archipelago of Socotra.

In a recent letter to the United Nations, the UAE said the crew of the seized ship was made up of 11 members, including seven Indians as well as nationals from Ethiopia, Indonesia, Myanmar and the Philippines.

The United States has also condemned the Houthis Ship Seizure, saying these actions interfere with freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and threaten international trade and regional security.

These Houthi actions come at a time when all parties should be de-escalating and returning to inclusive political talks, said the spokesperson for the State department in a statement.

We urge the Houthis to immediately release the ship and crew unharmed and to cease all violence that sets back the political process to end the war in Yemen, he added.

The Houthi rebels have rejected these requests to release the Emirati-flagged vessel, claiming it carried weapons.
A patient is pushed on a trolley outside the Royal London Hospital in the Whitechapel area of east London, Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022. The omicron variant is exposing weaknesses at the heart of Europe's public health system. In France and Britain, a sharp rise in coronavirus hospitalizations coupled with staff falling sick has led to a shortage of beds. Credit: AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File

A World Health Organization official warned last week of a "closing window of opportunity" for European countries to prevent their health care systems from being overwhelmed as the omicron variant produces near-vertical growth in coronavirus infections.

In France, Britain and Spain, nations with comparatively strong national health programs, that window may already be closed.

The director of an intensive care unit at a hospital in Strasbourg is turning patients away. A surgeon at a London hospital describes a critical delay in a man's cancer diagnosis. Spain is seeing its determination to prevent a system collapse tested as omicron keeps medical personnel off work.

"There are a lot of patients we can't admit, and it's the non-COVID patients who are the collateral victims of all this," said Dr. Julie Helms, who runs the ICU at Strasbourg University Hospital in far eastern France.

Two years into the pandemic, with the exceptionally contagious omicron impacting public services of various kinds, the variant's effect on medical facilities has many reevaluating the resilience of public health systems that are considered essential to providing equal care.

The problem, experts say, is that few health systems built up enough flexibility to handle a crisis like the coronavirus before it emerged, while repeated infection spikes have kept the rest too preoccupied to implement changes during the long emergency.

A medical staff member tends to a COVID-19 patient in the intensive care unit of the Strasbourg University Hospital, eastern France, Thursday Jan. 13, 2022. The omicron variant is exposing weaknesses at the heart of Europe's public health system. In France and Britain, a sharp rise in coronavirus hospitalizations coupled with staff falling sick has led to a shortage of beds. Credit: AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias

Hospital admissions per capita right now are as high in France, Italy and Spain as they were last spring, when the three countries had lockdowns or other restrictive measures in place. England's hospitalization rate of people with COVID-19 for the week ending Jan. 9 was slightly higher than it was in early February 2021, before most residents were vaccinated.

This time, there are no lockdowns. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a population health research organization based at the University of Washington, predicts that more than half of the people in WHO Europe's 53-country region will be infected with omicron within two months.

That includes doctors, nurses and technicians at public hospitals.

About 15% of the Strasbourg hospital system's staff of 13,000 was out this week. In some hospitals, the employee absentee rate is 20%. Schedules are made and reset to plug gaps; patients whose needs aren't critical must wait.

Nurses care for a COVID-19 patient in the infectious disease ward of the Strasbourg University Hospital, eastern France, Thursday Jan. 13, 2022. The omicron variant is exposing weaknesses at the heart of Europe's public health system. In France and Britain, a sharp rise in coronavirus hospitalizations coupled with staff falling sick has led to a shortage of beds. Credit: AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias

The French public hospital's 26 ICU beds are almost all occupied by unvaccinated patients, people "who refuse care, who refuse the medicine or who demand medicines that have no effectiveness," Helms said.

She denied 12 requests for admission Tuesday, and 10 on Wednesday night.

"When you have three patients for a single bed, we try to take the one who has the best odds of benefiting from it," Helms said.

In Britain, like France, omicron is causing cracks in the health system even though the variant appears to cause milder illness than its predecessors. The British government this month assigned military personnel, including medics, to fill in at London hospitals, adding to the ranks of service members already helping administer vaccines and operate ambulances.

At the Royal Free Hospital in London, Dr. Leye Ajayi described a patient who faced delays in his initial cancer diagnosis.

Medical staff observe a minute of silence while protesting a lack of resources outside the Strasbourg University Hospital, eastern France, Friday Jan. 14, 2022. The omicron variant is exposing weaknesses at the heart of Europe's public health system. In France and Britain, a sharp rise in coronavirus hospitalizations coupled with staff falling sick has led to a shortage of beds. Credit: AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias

"Unfortunately, when we eventually got round to seeing the patient, his cancer had already spread," Ajayi told Sky News. "So we're now dealing with a young patient in his mid-50s who, perhaps if we'd seen him a year ago, could have offered curative surgery. We're now dealing with palliative care."

Nearly 13,000 patients in England were forced to wait on stretchers more than 12 hours before a hospital bed opened, according to figures released last week from the National Health Service.

Britain has a backlog of around 5.9 million people awaiting cancer screenings, scheduled surgeries and other planned care. Some experts estimate that figure could double in the next three years.

"We need to focus on why performance has continued to fall and struggle for years and build the solutions to drive improvement in both the short and long term," said Dr. Tim Cooksley, president of the Society for Acute Medicine.

A medical staff member speaks with a COVID-19 patient in the infectious disease ward of the Strasbourg University Hospital, eastern France, Thursday Jan. 13, 2022. The omicron variant is exposing weaknesses at the heart of Europe's public health system. In France and Britain, a sharp rise in coronavirus hospitalizations coupled with staff falling sick has led to a shortage of beds. Credit: AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias

Having the capacity to accommodate a surge is crucial, and it's just this surge capacity that many in Europe were surprised to learn their countries lacked. The people in a position to turn that around were the same ones dealing with the crisis daily.

In the midst of the first wave, in April 2020, WHO's Europe office put out a how-to guide for health systems to build slack into their systems for new outbreaks, including identifying a temporary health workforce.

"Despite the fact that countries thought they were prepared for a pandemic that might come along, they were not. So it's building the ship as it sails," said Dr. David Heymann, who previously led the World Health Organization's infectious diseases department.

But France had been cutting back hospital bedsand doctors and nursesfor years before the pandemic. Building it back up in a matter of months proved too much when the current wave infected hospital staff by the hundreds each day. Even allowing symptomatic COVID-19-positive health workers to report for work hasn't been enough.

A paramedic opens the doors of an ambulance to take a patient into the Royal London Hospital in the Whitechapel area of east London, Jan. 6, 2022. The omicron variant is exposing weaknesses at the heart of Europe's public health system. In France and Britain, a sharp rise in coronavirus hospitalizations coupled with staff falling sick has led to a shortage of beds. Credit: AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File

Britain's NHS Confederation, a membership organization for sponsors and providers, says the public health service went into the pandemic with a shortage of 100,000 health workers that has only worsened.

The first wave of the pandemic pushed Spain's health system to its limit. Hospitals improvised ways to treat more patients by setting up ICUs in operating rooms, gymnasiums and libraries. The public witnessed, appalled, retirees dying in nursing homes without ever being taken to state hospitals that were already well over capacity.

After that, the Spanish government vowed not to let such a collapse happen again. Working with regional health departments, it designed what officials call "elasticity plans" to deal with sudden variations in service demands, especially in ICUs.

The idea is that hospitals have the equipment and, in theory, the personnel, to increase capacity depending on the need. But critics of government health policy say they've warned for years of inadequate hospital staffing, a key driver of the difficulty delivering care in the current wave.

Medical staff members speak in the intensive care unit of the Strasbourg University Hospital, eastern France, Thursday Jan. 13, 2022. The omicron variant is exposing weaknesses at the heart of Europe's public health system. In France and Britain, a sharp rise in coronavirus hospitalizations coupled with staff falling sick has led to a shortage of beds. Credit: AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias

"The key thing is flexibility, having flexible buildings that can expand, having staff that are flexible in terms of accepting task shifting, having flexibility in terms of sharing loads more of a regional structure," said Dr. Martin McKee, a public health professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Ultimately, though, McLee said: "A bed is an item of furniture. What counts is the staff around it," McKee said.

Helms, the Strasbourg intensive care doctor, knows that all too well. Her unit has space for 30 beds. But it has only enough staff to care for the patients in the 26 beds currently occupied, a situation unlikely to change quickly after omicron burns through the region.

In the same hospital's infectious diseases unit, frantic schedulers are borrowing staff from elsewhere in the facility, even if it means non-COVID-19 patients get less care.

Medical staff members care for a COVID-19 patient in the intensive care unit at the Strasbourg University Hospital, eastern France, Thursday Jan. 13, 2022. The omicron variant is exposing weaknesses at the heart of Europe's public health system. In France and Britain, a sharp rise in coronavirus hospitalizations coupled with staff falling sick has led to a shortage of beds. Credit: AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias

A nurse tends to a COVID-19 patient in the intensive care unit at the Strasbourg University Hospital, eastern France, Thursday Jan. 13, 2022. The omicron variant is exposing weaknesses at the heart of Europe's public health system. In France and Britain, a sharp rise in coronavirus hospitalizations coupled with staff falling sick has led to a shortage of beds. Credit: AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias

Medical staff members adjust their protective glasses in the infectious disease ward of the Strasbourg University Hospital, eastern France, Thursday Jan. 13, 2022. The omicron variant is exposing weaknesses at the heart of Europe's public health system. In France and Britain, a sharp rise in coronavirus hospitalizations coupled with staff falling sick has led to a shortage of beds. Credit: AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias

Nurse work in the intensive care unit of the Strasbourg University Hospital, eastern France, Thursday Jan. 13, 2022. The omicron variant is exposing weaknesses at the heart of Europe's public health system. In France and Britain, a sharp rise in coronavirus hospitalizations coupled with staff falling sick has led to a shortage of beds. Credit: AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias

"We're still in the middle of a complex epidemic that is changing every day. It's hard to imagine what we need to build for the future for other epidemics, but we're going to have to reflect on the system of how we organize care," said Dr. Nicolas Lefebvre, who runs the infectious diseases unit at the Strasbourg hospital.

He said Europe is prepared to handle isolated outbreaks as it has in the past, but the pandemic has exposed weakened foundations across entire health systems, even those considered among the world's best.

Frederic Valletoux, the head of the French Hospital Federation, said policymakers at the national level are acutely aware of the problem now. For 2022, the federation has requested more resources from nursing staff on up.

"The difficulty in our system is to shake things up, especially when we're in the heart of the crisis," Valletoux said.

Explore further As omicron spreads, Europe scrambles to shore up health care

 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
People wait in line at a COVID-19 testing site in Times Square, New York, Monday, Dec. 13, 2021. Scientists are warning that omicron's lightning-fast spread across the globe practically ensures it won't be the last worrisome coronavirus variant. And there's no guarantee the next ones will cause milder illness or that vaccines will work against them. Credit: AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File

Get ready to learn more Greek letters. Scientists warn that omicron's whirlwind advance practically ensures it won't be the last version of the coronavirus to worry the world.

Every infection provides a chance for the virus to mutate, and omicron has an edge over its predecessors: It spreads way faster despite emerging on a planet with a stronger patchwork of immunity from vaccines and prior illness.

That means more people in whom the virus can further evolve. Experts don't know what the next variants will look like or how they might shape the pandemic, but they say there's no guarantee the sequels of omicron will cause milder illness or that existing vaccines will work against them.

They urge wider vaccination now, while today's shots still work.

"The faster omicron spreads, the more opportunities there are for mutation, potentially leading to more variants," Leonardo Martinez, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Boston University, said.

Since it emerged in mid-November, omicron has raced across the globe like fire through dry grass. Research shows the variant is at least twice as contagious as delta and at least four times as contagious as the original version of the virus.

Omicron is more likely than delta to reinfect individuals who previously had COVID-19 and to cause "breakthrough infections" in vaccinated people while also attacking the unvaccinated. The World Health Organization reported a record 15 million new COVID-19 cases for the week of Jan. 3-9, a 55% increase from the previous week.

Along with keeping comparatively healthy people out of work and school, the ease with which the variant spreads increases the odds the virus will infect and linger inside people with weakened immune systems - giving it more time to develop potent mutations.

"It's the longer, persistent infections that seem to be the most likely breeding grounds for new variants," said Dr. Stuart Campbell Ray, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins University. "It's only when you have very widespread infection that you're going to provide the opportunity for that to occur."

Because omicron appears to cause less severe disease than delta, its behavior has kindled hope that it could be the start of a trend that eventually makes the virus milder like a common cold.

It's a possibility, experts say, given that viruses don't spread well if they kill their hosts very quickly. But viruses don't always get less deadly over time.

A variant could also achieve its main goal - replicating - if infected people developed mild symptoms initially, spread the virus by interacting with others, then got very sick later, Ray explained by way of example.

"People have wondered whether the virus will evolve to mildness. But there's no particular reason for it to do so," he said. "I don't think we can be confident that the virus will become less lethal over time."

Steven Grimmett, a microbiologist on the COVID-19 team at the Washington State Department of Health's Public Health Laboratory, is seen through a window of a machine that identifies positive and negative COVID-19 cases, Dec. 7, 2021, in Shoreline, Wash. Scientists are warning that omicron's lightning-fast spread across the globe practically ensures it won't be the last worrisome coronavirus variant. And there's no guarantee the next ones will cause milder illness or that vaccines will work against them. Credit: AP Photo/Ted S. Warren

Getting progressively better at evading immunity helps a virus to survive over the long term. When SARS-CoV-2 first struck, no one was immune. But infections and vaccines have conferred at least some immunity to much of the world, so the virus must adapt.

There are many possible avenues for evolution. Animals could potentially incubate and unleash new variants. Pet dogs and cats, deer and farm-raised mink are only a few of the animals vulnerable to the virus, which can potentially mutate within them and leap back to people.

Another potential route: With both omicron and delta circulating, people may get double infections that could spawn what Ray calls "Frankenvariants," hybrids with characteristics of both types.

When new variants do develop, scientists said it's still very difficult to know from genetic features which ones might take off. For example, omicron has many more mutations than previous variants, around 30 in the spike protein that lets it attach to human cells. But the so-called IHU variant identified in France and being monitored by the WHO has 46 mutations and doesn't seem to have spread much at all.

To curb the emergence of variants, scientists stress continuing with public health measures such as masking and getting vaccinated. While omicron is better able to evade immunity than delta, experts said, vaccines still offer protection and booster shots greatly reduce serious illness, hospitalizations and deaths.

Anne Thomas, a 64-year-old IT analyst in Westerly, Rhode Island, said she's fully vaccinated and boosted and also tries to stay safe by mostly staying home while her state has one of the highest COVID-19 case rates in the U.S.

"I have no doubt at all that these viruses are going to continue to mutate and we're going to be dealing with this for a very long time," she said.

Ray likened vaccines to armor for humanity that greatly hinders viral spread even if it doesn't completely stop it. For a virus that spreads exponentially, he said, "anything that curbs transmission can have a great effect." Also, when vaccinated people get sick, Ray said their illness is usually milder and clears more quickly, leaving less time to spawn dangerous variants.

Experts say the virus won't become endemic like the flu as long as global vaccination rates are so low. During a recent press conference, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that protecting people from future variantsincluding those that may be fully resistant to today's shotsdepends on ending global vaccine inequity.

Tedros said he'd like to see 70% of people in every country vaccinated by mid-year. Currently, there are dozens of countries where less than a quarter of the population is fully vaccinated, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics. And in the United States, many people continue to resist available vaccines.

"These huge unvaccinated swaths in the U.S., Africa, Asia, Latin America and elsewhere are basically variant factories," said Dr. Prabhat Jha of the Centre for Global Health Research at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto. "It's been a colossal failure in global leadership that we have not been able to do this."

In the meantime, new variants are inevitable, said Louis Mansky, director of the Institute for Molecular Virology at the University of Minnesota.

With so many unvaccinated people, he said, "the virus is still kind of in control of what's going on."

Explore further Experts discuss coronavirus variants

 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Every year the MLK Jr. Planning Committee, EmpowerMT and the Missoulian honor the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

This years MLK Day Youth Art and Essay Contest, now the Lynn Schwanke Youth Art & Essay Contest, centers around the Dr. King, quote:

"We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed."

A virtual MLK Jr. Community Celebration will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. Monday, Jan. 17, livestreamed on EmpowerMT's Youtube page featuring the presentation of the MLK Jr. Youth Art and Essay Contest Awardees. The keynote speaker will be Dr. Laurelle C. Warner. Youth speakers will be Lizzie Mills-Low and Brandon Pannell plus performances by Andre Floyde, Elijah Jalil Paz Fisher, and more.

The contest is now named after Lynn Schwanke, who began bringing the Newspaper in Education program into classrooms in 1982. She created youth pages that provided an outlet for elementary and high school students throughout western Montana to show off their writing and artistic skills, one of the pages being the MLK contest.

The MLK Planning Committee named the contest after Schwanke, who passed away in 2020, because of her many years of leading and supporting the contest as well as her dedication to young people.

The winners of the first contest were published in the Missoulian in 1996. "Lynn loved sitting in the audience at each year's celebration when the winners were announced and listening to the kids read their essays," said Lynn's husband, Bill Schwanke.

Lynn loved doing things with and for kids, supporting them in a most important way for their growth as people. The MLK Art and Essay Contest was a natural extension of what she had been doing for years, and the fact that it was tied to the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., who had a similar mission in life for ALL people, makes it a natural fit for the contest to be named for her. Even though she never sought recognition for all the things she did, I think she would be extremely happy in this case.

Third through fifth grade

First place, essay

Annie Ward, Rattlesnake Elementary School

"OUR FIGHT FOR FREEDOM"

Though we have been through the toughest of times, we will always come out stronger. In health or pain, in sunshine or rain, we all deserve freedom.

Our bosses and rulers may make us their slaves, but we will never let them. We will stand with our pride as it washes over us.

We will stay with our families as they stay with us. And we will always be there for the ones who need love and when we need love, someone will come.

We will demand for our freedom, and we will demand for our rights. Here we are. Look how far we've come. Are we ever going to let them take advantage of us? No. Because we are beautiful, and we are strong, and that is something no one can take away from us.

So this is us. This is who we are and this is what we're made of. This is our power of love, and our weakness of hate.

Is this what it's like to be free?

Second place, essay

Oliver Clayton, Rattlesnake Elementary School

"INJUSTICE"

If they want to cause us pain

They should not have the power to reign.

All people are equal

We don't want to have a sequel

Of our history in the past

Back then Black lives faded fast.

If we follow people like Rosa Parks

We could build a uniting arch

Between Black and White

We could avoid violence and not have to fight.

We should take care of every life

That way we could leave those worries and strife.

We could let all of our hopes and dreams

Shine like the brightest beams.

People should not be pushed around like cattle

That could start a large battle.

People who are full of unrest

Will want to protest.

People must fight for their cause

If there are still unfair laws.

Peace and prosperity

Gives us clarity

That we are safe and sound

And a great destiny is bound.

Everyone has a part

Let's work together and form a new start.

Third place, essay

Sylis Matteson, Missoula International School

"FREEDOM"

We should all have freedom.

Freedom is a right. It is something that we deserve. But the oppressors do not give freedom out like enchiladas they keep it for themselves and don't give it out like enchiladas so the oppressed must fight for freedom and not many make it out. And we can change that forever. And freedom will be given out like enchiladas.

Sixth through eighth grade

First place, essay

Isaiah Hudson, Missoula International School

"A CALL TO JUSTICE"

They won't give us liberty

We must demand

They won't let us be free

We must walk hand in hand

We must brave the storm

We must climb the hill

We may be ripped and torn

But we cannot stand still

Our freedom must be intersectional

We must fight as one

This discrimination is a chemical

It's like a loaded gun

We must not succumb

We must stand in unity

We must show them

We are better as a community

Our voice may be shattered

But we can pick up the pieces

We may be tattered

But we don't need to smooth out our creases

Let us sow who we are

The light that dwells inside

We will shine like a star,

So be yourself with pride

Don't be afraid to shout

Clear away the doubt,

Because we all have a dream

And sometimes you need to scream

Just to be heard

Second place, essay

Keira Kujawa, Sussex School

"RISE UP"

The crowd gathers

they scream

Their voices dead

as though their words are

bodies strewn across alleys

They ask

Do you hear us?

They fight the bonds

rising up united

They resist the puppet master

Stepping away from the shadows

emerging into the light

The scars of life reminding them

The silver blade of words in their hands

One voice

All chanting

Venom and love in the song

One heart beating

The rhythm of change

All unbreakable

All fighting

Will you hear us?

A new voice thrown into the books

the one always chanting

but never heard

the one who is there but always invisible

The world is tipping

Rise up and make it shatter

A new dawn

A fresh start

A blank page

A hurricane of change

there will not be an eye of the storm

no shelter from the wind

A final push

The chains break

A lone cry

A heart-wrenching cry of the innocent

A boy who has done nothing but walk down a street

A broken body

A shattered soul

A heart that beats for you

A heart that beats no more

A son

A Brother

Dead

Everyone thriving for something and nothing

Coming together for love

Hope as their guiding light

Eyes of each other, their eyes too

A long walk but a rewarding journey

A streak of light in a cloud of darkness

Will you let the puppet master control you?

Will you walk into the light or hide in the shadows?

Third place, essay

Nizhoni Thomas, Missoula Online Academy

Equality.

Demanded by many.

But never given by ones with the upper hand.

The dream we crave to jump into our life.

Discrimination and entitlement smothering that dream.

Racial mockery diseases the world, but the way people with the power

look away at the suffering of people of color

Sickens our world far more.

The eyes filled with contempt, being unworthy

Became a normality, resistance to that lie was abolished.

A fabricated truth was burned into minds,

If you were different or below the standards,

You were not worthy.

You were not worthy of freedom, and you were not worthy

Of the dream that is sought.

A hypnosis set on people who were defined as different.

And as far as the people who snapped out of that hypnosis,

And came to realize that this was intolerable.

They made their voices heard about this unjust civilization,

But were persecuted for knowing the truth.

Not fabricated, but the truth that people

With the power and so called entitlement, knew.

People lived in poverty.

And nobody came to aid.

No people of color would stand up for their rights

Because of how intimidating making your opinion heard was.

And the idea of making someone feel intimidated by the power you held

Was like a pharmaceutical drug, insidious in the hands of the wrong people.

But eventually the hypnosis fell short.

And the people with the loophole into that dream,

lifted from the darkness.

And shined light on the truth.

High School

First place, essay

Freya Jones, Big Sky High School

"PERSIST"

There's a woman whose body is the curve of a tractor's wheel. She sings despite the stalks of red that grow untended up her back, but she doesn't straighten, for fear that they will spread to her children's unmarred skin. Here, even her wounds do not belong to her. Freedom waits another forty years. Her children live to see it, but she bends too far towards the earth and a decade buries her.

Three hundred students march up manicured streets punctuated with exclamation marks of tear gas and billy clubs. They are ridiculed, beaten, handcuffed. Slow motion hours permanently alter their lives, but they also alter laws. Peace is preached and then punished. Ultimately, progress prevails.

The 14-year-old boy curled on the living room carpet wears his father's younger face. His grandmother sits on the couch and cries when she sees it. They watch a news reporter narrate in monotone. "White police officer who shot unarmed Black construction worker is acquitted on the grounds of self defense." The whole family goes to the protest that follows, but only the boy is arrested. In black and white his mug shot mimics the crime scene photo from his father's death.

Outside the boy's holding cell, a country rallies. New activists take to social media and the streets. Centuries-old questions are raised again. It isn't over yet? No, but change is a vine and once it begins to climb uprooting it is impossible. Let the hate be overgrown.

Second place, essay

Lotus Helland, Columbia Falls High School

Today I have decided is the day

The day of change

The day where reforming the world is in my hands for once

I have come to realize that I simply cannot wait any longer

They would never hand over the reins to me

I must be the one to take them for myself

I must fight

I must

I know I must

For those who haven't realized that they can

I have spent too much time simply waiting for the world to become safe

To become balanced

To become a utopia for all

I haven't spent enough time fighting for the freedom we all deserve

The power is there for the taking

I simply need to reach out my hand and take it

I need to be the change instead of waiting for the change

So for once I reach out my hand into the unknown

Third place, essay

Faith Barthel, Columbia Falls High School

"OPPRESSED"

They say that words are weapons,

But the only fatal words are the ones that lie.

We are always ruled by tyrants and overseers-

Whose decrees, oaths and pledges are only met with the promise that they'll be broken.

We are a people, whose hearts and bones have been crushed by the steel and stone-

Of an oppressors' wieldy might of cut corners, and stabbed spines.

These lies, these promises of crossed fingers,

They destroy us, to the point of an unremarkable demolitions victim.

It is only with the ones who still hope,

And still dream,

That will set us free of this brave eagle's cage drowning in a river of pointless, selfishly damned bloodshed.

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A homicide investigation is underway after two men were found dead in Three Forks early Saturday morning, according to the Gallatin County Sheriffs Office.

At approximately 3:28 a.m. on Saturday, deputies were dispatched to a shots fired call near the intersection of 6th Ave. East and Ash Street in Three Forks, said Gallatin County Sheriff Dan Springer in a Facebook live video recorded just before 10 a.m. Saturday.

Deputies found two men dead in the area.

Officers have since identified and located all the individuals who they believe were involved in the incident, according to Springer. Detectives are interviewing witnesses and any other people of interest.

The Gallatin County Sheriffs Office put out a public notice about the incident at approximately 6:45 a.m., Springer said. In a social media post, the county encouraged people in the area to stay in their homes with their doors locked and report any suspicious activity to 911.

In an update about an hour later, the sheriff's office wrote that there were "no current threats to the community related to this incident."

This is an ongoing investigation and there will continue to be a large law enforcement presence in the area for a while, the post said.

Springer said more information would be shared throughout the day. The Gallatin County Sheriffs Office is not releasing any names until family members have been notified.

These things are very technical, and we want to make sure we do it right, and we want to make sure we do the best for this community that we possibly can, he said.

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Vietnam opposes East Sea claims inconsistent with international law: spokesperson

Vietnam always opposes and does not accept all claims in the East Sea that are inconsistent with international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982 UNCLOS), spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Le Thi Thu Hang said on January 14.



Vietnam has repeatedly affirmed its consistent and clear viewpoint on East Sea disputes, both bilaterally and multilaterally, she noted.



Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Le Thi Thu Hang (Photo: VNA)





The spokesperson made the remarks while answering reporters question regarding Vietnams response to a Limits in the Seas study recently released by the US Department of State.



Vietnam acknowledges the US Department of States announcement of the study, the 150th in the Limits in the Seas series, Hang said.



On this occasion, Vietnam once again calls on parties concerned to respect its sovereignty, sovereign right and jurisdiction in the East Sea, as well as diplomatic and legal processes, and make active and substantive contributions to maintaining peace and stability, and safeguarding security, safety and freedom of navigation and aviation, the integrity of the UNCLOS, and the rules-based order, she said.
A roundtable meeting was held in Fuzhou on Friday to pool insights into the new investment trends in the digital economy.

A roundtable meeting was held in Fuzhou to pool insights into the new investment trends in the digital economy, Jan. 14, 2022. [Photo courtesy of the Institute for Fintech Research of Tsinghua University]

The roundtable was part of the 2022 Annual Conference in Digital Economics hosted by the Institute for Fintech Research of Tsinghua University.

Liu Gaochang, a chief computer industry analyst with the Research Institute of Guosheng Securities, noted that China's 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) and the Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035 proposed the digital transformation of industries and finding industrial applications for digital innovations. In his opinion, cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) were both promising investment opportunities in the medium and long term.

Wu Ronghui, founding and managing partner of the venture capital firm Tendence Capital (Beijing) Co., Ltd., emphasized infrastructure construction as being an essential part of the digital economy, including computing chips and potent processing capability.

Wu added that demand for the industrial internet, digital healthcare, and the security of data and algorithms would rise and attract investments. "In the future, medical diagnoses based on AI algorithms may be as accurate as a veteran doctor, which will greatly improve the medical level and efficiency."

Xu Yang, the CEO of Weiboyi, a platform offering advertising content for micro-blogging sites, focused on online shopping and e-commerce live streaming, and suggested transforming traditional enterprises. Furthermore, he called for equipping startups to help them deal with new consumption models in the digital age.

The guests also discussed what should be considered in terms of investment. Liu Gaochang thought that investors should consider an industry's life cycle, predict its potential competitiveness, assess the demand, and form a capable team, instead of jumping on the bandwagon on a whim.

Wu Ronghui underscored the importance of personnel for digital economy investment. She believed that excellent talents and teams are needed to develop effective technologies and then apply them.

Li Zhiguo, CEO of an online personal financial management platform Wacai.com, pointed out investment requires sufficient funds, and efforts should be made to guide the public to invest in the new industries of the digital economy.
Its wake up time. We have a governor with more game violations than any governor in our history. Last week 35 of the top biologists wrote a letter daylighting the damage done by Gov. Greg Gianforte and our Legislature. Fish, Wildlife & Parks Director Worsech won't speak up for sportsman and is just a yes man to Gianforte and the Legislature. And now Mike Thompson, arguably the best, most reasonable and experienced wildlife manager in MTFWP, was suspended and driven into retirement. Experienced, rational and resource centric persons need not apply.

I support grizzly bear delisting, but not after Gianforte had the audacity to propose delisting after he signed a plethora of laws that further threaten the bears. Ranchers and residents are working hard to coexist with bears and those efforts need to be recognized and pursued. Gianforte is the same guy who stacked the Fish and Game Commission with commercial interests and reduced at large sportsman representation. Our record of science- and experience-based wildlife management is over. The value of wildlife for Gianforte and Worsech is just another head for Gianfortes trophy room and killing (not hunting) opportunities for political sycophants. Our state's public wildlife resource is a facing a direct assault by a small group intent on power, privatization and personal profit.

Meanwhile, the Legislature and Gianforte decided that despite a statewide vote in support of marijuana legalization, any county that voted against legalization could opt out. So  why cant any county that didnt vote for Gianforte or our anti-wildlife legislators opt out of them?

When Worsech took over as FWP director last year, he wrote a very fluffy and disingenuous introduction in Montana Outdoors. I wrote Montana Outdoors pointing out this and the record low morale of FWP field staff.

Were seeing a radical shift away from science-based management and toward Gianfortes and the Legislatures political agendas and pet peeves. I never heard anyone say Montana hunting regulations were too complicated. When I saw the nonsensical changes that were proposed, it was clear they were proposed because the biologists were told to make changes, not because there were any significant issues with the existing regulations.

Wildlife management is a complex mix of biological, social, and economic demands and our regulations addressed that mix. But now the emphasis is fix them till theyre broke. Did I miss that voter mandate too?

Ive hunted here for over 40 years, spend a lot of days in the field, do pretty well and have never had a grizzly bear conflict and have only heard wolves a couple times. Some hunters blame their failure to kill an elk on predators, but Im hunting the same places and all you have to do is hunt to find game. Wildlife populations are dynamic and you cant expect the same results with the same tactics every year. Thats why they call it hunting. Its the experience and lifestyle, its not about killing the most, the fastest or the biggest.

Ive always supported FWP, but heres a vote of no confidence to their management and director. Hopefully the remaining biologists can somehow survive the purge.

What to do? We need to vote these guys out and in the meantime keep daylighting their activities as they tear down the value weve placed on our wildlife resource and Montana values. So speak up.

Andy Kulla is a resident who has hunted in Montana for over 40 years, and worked professionally in natural resource management for those same years.

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Santa and his reindeer will have plenty of company in the skies and on the roads this year as pent-up travelers embark on Christmas excursions, crowding roadways and airports from Dec. 23 to New Years Day.

The uptick in holiday traffic is largely due to a strong desire to travel among people who stayed home last year because of the pandemic, according to AAA. The organization does not expect the rise of the omicron variant, which was recently identified in Delaware, to impact the surge in holiday travel.

If there is one thing we have seen at AAA throughout the year, it is pent-up demand for travel, said Jana Tidwell, manager of Public and Government Affairs for AAA Mid-Atlantic. Whether people are hitting the road for an overdue visit with friends and family, or planning a more significant getaway, there is little discouraging them.

OMICRON IN DELAWARE: First cases of COVID-19's variant are in the state

An open top Hockessin Fire Company vintage fire truck takes part during the 57th Annual Wilmington Jaycees Christmas Parade Saturday, Nov. 27, 2021.

Like other recent holiday weekends, AAA expects the roads and airports to be extremely busy during this stretch of the holiday season. The overall increase in fuel prices is not expected to affect the end-of-year travel uptick that the organization is predicting.

Similarly, Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) anticipates about 934,624 passengers will pass through its terminals from Dec. 22 to Jan. 4, 2022, according to its website. Officials recommend travelers arrive at the airport at least three hours before their boarding time and make arrangements to avoid parking onsite.

Parking at the airport will be significantly limited during this peak holiday rush, given that the airports Economy Lot has been permanently closed and its other onsite garages offer about 12,000 spots. Passengers are encouraged to use offsite parking lots, public transportation or the goodwill of friends and family to arrive at the airport.

COVID-19 HOSPITALIZATIONS: COVID-19 hospitalizations are now over 300 in Delaware, a high not seen since February

Story continues

Travelers who intend on parking at the airport should arrive at least three hours early in order to find parking at one of the onsite garages or offsite locations, leaving time to go through security and board their flights.

Travelers are seen at Denver International Airport in this file photo from Nov. 30, 2021.

Travelers are in for a mostly sunny week with temperatures in the mid to upper 40s leading into Christmas Eve and Christmas Day when temperatures will rise into the 50s. A couple of showers are possible on Christmas Day with a 30% chance of rain predicted.

The peak of holiday travel comes about a week after Delaware reported the first four cases of the omicron variant on Dec. 17. All four of the cases were identified in New Castle County residents, half of whom were fully vaccinated.

None of the infected residents had recently traveled, according to the Delaware Division of Public Health.

The emergence of the new variant also comes as deaths and hospitalizations are on the rise with the state surpassing 300 COVID-19 related hospitalizations in recent weeks. The figure is the highest the state has seen since early February.

COVID-19 SURGE: ChristianaCare pauses elective surgeries as Delaware battles COVID-19 surge

As a result of the uptick in cases, ChristianaCare temporarily paused elective surgeries starting on Dec. 8.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people delay traveling until they are fully vaccinated and for them not to travel if they are sick, have been exposed to COVID-19 or test positive for the virus.

The CDC also provided additional tips for people planning to travel during the holidays:

Check the current COVID-19 situation at one's destination.

Make sure to understand and follow all state, local, and territorial travel restrictions, including mask-wearing, proof of vaccination, testing, or quarantine requirements. For up-to-date information and travel guidance, check the state or territory and local health departments website where you are, along your route, and where you are going.

If traveling by air, check if the airline requires any testing, vaccination or other documents.

Prepare to be flexible during the trip as restrictions and policies may change during your travel.

Contact the reporter at jcastaneda1@delawareonline.com or connect with him on Twitter @joseicastaneda.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Omicron variant won't stall holiday travel surge across Delaware
As someone who covers Southeast Asia startups and funding stories, the best word I can think of to describe 2021 is whoa! This was the year that global investors not only started to pay close attention to the regions tech ecosystems, but also began putting real money into them.

Backed by international LPs, Southeast Asia-focused venture firms like Alpha JWC, AC Ventures and Jungle Ventures raised their largest funds yet.

The Ken reported that American firms like a16z, Valar Ventures, Hedosophia and Goodwater Capital were also setting up (or planning) regional offices as exits like Grab and Seas initial public offerings fueled interest in Southeast Asias startup ecosystems. A comprehensive report from Golden Gate Ventures also forecasted a record number of exits, due in part to an increase in B and C rounds.

I always feel a bit silly using the term Southeast Asia because the region is so large and complex. Its the easiest option when Im trying to be succinct, but Southeast Asia consists of 11 countries, and obviously there are huge differences between, say, Singapore, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia.

As a global financial center, one could argue that Singapores startup ecosystem is in a category of its own when compared to its neighbors. And Indonesia in particular warrants special attention, as the fourth-largest economy in the world and the most populated Southeast Asian country with 273.5 million people. Both countries produced a fair amount of unicorns in 2021. In Singapore, for instance, Ninja Van, Carousell, Carro and Nium were among startups that hit unicorn status.

While Singaporean startups tend to focus on other Southeast Asian countries (or, in Niums case, the United States and Latin America), Indonesia-based founders, on the other hand, might have mid- or long-term plans for international expansion, but most of the ones I talked to plan to focus on expanding in the country for at least the next year or so. Not only is Indonesia very large, but it is also geographically complex, with more than 17,000 islands, of which about 6,000 are inhabited. Startups tend to launch in the Greater Jakarta area before expanding into other Tier 1 cities like Bandung and Surabaya, but many are eyeing smaller cities, especially fintech and e-commerce startups.

Story continues

Here are a few sectors that took off in 2021, and are worth keeping an eye on in 2022:

Investment apps

A crop of investment apps, many aimed at millennial and first-time retail investors, raised small early-stage rounds at the beginning of 2021, only to quickly pick up much larger follow-on funding a few months later. Some examples include Indonesia-based crypto-focused Pintu, robo-advisor Bibit, Ajaib and Pluang, and Singapore-based Syfe.

While rates of retail investment are still relatively low in Indonesia, that number is growing because of increased interest in financial planning during the pandemic and the popularity of stock influencers, despite concerns about the legitimacy of some.

Indonesian SME-focused startups dig deeper into fintech

According to government figures, there are 62 million SMEs (small to medium-sized enterprises) in Indonesia, but several founders told me this is likely an underestimate, especially since family-owned businesses or solo entrepreneurs tend to be undercounted. Regardless of their exact number, SMEs, many of which use Excel spreadsheets or paper ledgers to handle their accounting, present a lucrative opportunity for tech startups.

Most notably, BukuWarung and BukuKas, two competing bookkeeping apps, both raised significant amounts of funding this year. The two startups are similar in that they are initially focused on helping SMEs digitize, but eventually plan to expand their product roster into financial services like working capital loans, using data users have already entered into their software to judge creditworthiness.

Some other startups that target SMEs include earned wage access and payroll management platform GajiGesa and Wagely.

Social commerce

People who live in Indonesias largest cities have a large choice of e-commerce platforms to choose from, but the selection is much less in more remote regions. This is partly due to a fragmented logistics infrastructure (but startups are also working on that, including SiCepat, Advotics, Kargo and Waresix), which means it is costly and time-consuming to receive goods.

That is where social commerce startups like Super, Evermos and KitaBeli come in, hoping to replicate the success of Pinduoduo in China and Meesho in India. All focus on daily necessities like fast-moving consumer goods and food, and utilize the social commerce model to make the supply chain more efficient and affordable, since orders are made in batches by people who live in the same communities. In that sense, they can also be described as being at least partially logistics startups.

E-commerce aggregators

Startups that acquire small e-commerce brands, like Thrasio, have been attracting lots of funding in the United States and Europe for several years. But e-commerce aggregators took a little while longer to reach Southeast Asia.

This year, two e-commerce aggregators officially launched there with venture capital funding, and both raised follow-on rounds a few months later. While many e-commerce aggregators focus on Amazon sellers, Una Brands refers to itself as sector-agnostic." There is no dominant marketplace across APAC, so it has developed a system to find brands across platforms like Tokopedia, Lazada, Shopee, Rakuten and eBay. On the other hand, Rainforest focuses on Asia-based Amazon sellers, but differentiates from other aggregators with its goal of becoming the online version of consumer goods conglomerate Newell Brands. With so many e-commerce sellers based in Asia, expect both Una Brands and Rainforest to grow, and other aggregators to launch.
About

Dr. Vicki Crawford is Director of the Office of the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection and Professor of Africana Studies.

Dr. Vicki Crawford is Director of the Office of the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection and Professor of Africana Studies. In this position, she develops campus-based programming and community outreach initiatives that advance the teachings and nonviolent philosophy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In addition, she serves on the curatorial committee at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights which has oversight for rotating thematic exhibits of the King papers. Dr. Crawford is a civil rights scholar whose groundbreaking volume of essays, Women in the Civil Rights Movement: Trailblazers and Torchbearers, (1993) was one of the first publications to address the under-researched role of women in the African American freedom struggle. She has published numerous essays and book chapters on the Civil Rights Movement while teaching courses in African American history over the past three decades. Her publications also include a recently co-edited book with Dr. Lewis Baldwin titled, Reclaiming the Great World House: The Global Vision of Martin Luther King, Jr., published by the University of Georgia Press as a part of the Morehouse College King Collection Series on Civil and Human Rights. Dr. Crawford also serves as the General Series Editor. She holds a Ph.D. degree in American Studies from Emory University and has completed post-doctoral fellowships at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

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When I set out a couple of years ago to write my first novel, a historical fantasy called Mountain Folk, I decided to set most the action during the American Revolution. Its my favorite period in American history. After all, Im a native North Carolinian  which means I grew up surrounded by reminders of our nations founding era.

Our most-populous city, Charlotte, was named after King George IIIs wife. Its the county seat of Mecklenburg, named after Queen Charlottes home duchy in Germany. Our third-largest city, Greensboro, was named after General Nathaniel Greene, who commanded the Patriots southern field army during the final stage of the Revolutionary War. His name also adorns the city of Greenville and nearby Greene County.

Ranked fourth in population, Winston-Salem was half-named for another Revolutionary War hero, Joseph Winston, who served under Greene at the pivotal 1781 battle of Guilford Court House. As for Fayetteville, sixth in population, its namesake was the Marquis de Lafayette, the dashing French officer who served under George Washington at several key engagements, including Yorktown.

Here are some other founding-era personalities whose names now grace counties or municipalities in North Carolina:

Samuel Ashe. A native of Beaufort, Ashe practiced law before going into the family business of politics. Both his father and uncle had served as speakers of the North Carolina House. During the run-up to the Revolutionary War, Samuel Ashe served in the North Carolina Provincial Congress and helped draft the new states constitution. Then he was elected to the North Carolina Senate, where he served as that chambers first speaker. In 1795, the legislature elected him to the first of three one-year terms as governor. Asheville, Asheboro, and Ashe County all bear his name.

Griffith Rutherford. Born in Ireland and emigrating to North Carolina via Philadelphia (as many backcountry families did), Rutherford got his first taste of military service as a militia captain during the French and Indian War. Like Ashe, he served in the Provincial Congress that wrote the North Carolina constitution. Elected brigadier general of the Patriot militia in the Salisbury District, Rutherford then led the devastating 1776 raid against the British-allied Cherokees.

Later, he commanded troops at battles in Georgia and the Carolinas. Wounded during Americas 1780 defeat at Camden, Rutherford was captured and held as a prisoner of war in Florida for a year. After the war, Rutherford served in both houses of the new legislature. His name adorns Rutherford County and its county seat, Rutherfordton.

Cornelius Harnett. Born in Chowan County, Harnett became a leading merchant in Wilmington and served as a town commissioner. He twice represented the area in the North Carolina House, first in 1754 and then again on the eve of the war in 1775. He served as the first president of the North Carolina Provincial Council, essentially the executive branch of the new government, and then represented North Carolina in the Continental Congress from 1777 to 1779.

In early 1781, the British captured Wilmington. Some redcoats reportedly grabbed the congressman and threw him across a horse like a sack of meal. Harnetts health deteriorated rapidly. Although the British released him in April, Harnett died shortly thereafter. Harnett County was named after this martyr to the cause.

Edward Buncombe. Born on what is now the Caribbean island of St. Kitts, Buncombe came to North Carolina in 1768 after inheriting a plantation on the Albemarle Sound. He was elected colonel of the 5th North Carolina Regiment and fought in the Continental Army. Like Rutherford at Camden, Buncombe was wounded and captured during another British victory, this one at Germantown in 1777.

His battlefield wound wasnt immediately fatal. But a few months later, Buncombe went walking in his sleep, fell down a flight of stairs, and reopened his wounds, causing his death. From him, we got not only the name of Buncombe County but, indirectly, the word bunk, meaning a load of nonsense. That must remain, however, a tale for another day.

John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member and author of the new novel Mountain Folk, a historical fantasy set during the American Revolution.
Costs incurred while fighting the COVID-19 pandemic have pushed nursing homes to operate at a loss across the country, and Montana is no exception.

Nursing homes have notably struggled with anemic Medicaid rates and a slowly declining number of residents. But the rising cost of materials, wage pressures and the tapering off of government relief funds has left more than half of nursing home administrators unsure if their facilities will survive the coming months.

There are 68 certified nursing homes in Montana.

Valley View Home in Glasgow can hold on for only two or three more months without federal support, according to facility administrator Wes Thompson. After that, Thompson said he will consider a volunteer closure.

Its horrifying right now, Thompson said. Were praying for funding anywhere we can get it.

Valley View Home is a 96-bed facility with an average pre-pandemic population of about 70 residents. In 2019, daily cost of care was $239 per resident per day. Valley View Home, as well as other nursing homes throughout the state, were staying afloat. But now, nursing homes are facing the worst financial crisis yet, according to health experts.

Ive never seen them struggling the way they are now, said Rose Hughes, executive director at Montana Health Care Association. They are in crisis mode.

By 2021, daily care rates jumped to $379 per day at Valley View Home and Medicaid reimbursement for the year increased by only 65 cents.

Early on in the pandemic, federal relief funding helped cover the increase in costs for personal protective equipment and Medicaid and CARES Act funds allocated an additional $40 to Medicaid reimbursement to help offset financial loss from the decreasing number of residents.

In March 2020, daily cost of care jumped to $319 per day for each resident at Valley View Home. Without the federal support, most nursing homes wouldnt have survived the early shutdowns when new admissions ceased.

But now skilled nursing facilities are responsible for all additional PPE, cleaning and other infection control costs. And by May 2021, the CARES Act funding ran out and was replaced with a lump sum of $15 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, which breaks down to be a $16.82 addition to the Medicaid rate through May 2022 or a $40 a day add-on through Oct. 2021. The facilities have had only their regular Medicaid rate since then, which averages $211.71 per day.

At Valley View Home, the average cost of care is now $379 per day, meaning the facility is losing about $167 per resident, per day, when it comes to Medicaid funding. By the end of 2021, Valley View Home had lost about $1 million, according to Daryl Toews, who is on the board of directors.

The Legislature believed the pandemic was winding down and so should the payments as things got better. Unfortunately, things have gotten worse since the end of the legislature, not better, Hughes said.

The average actual cost per day in 2020 was $250 per day. If costs had increased 5% per year, the actual cost would have landed at about $275 per day in 2021 and 2022. Instead, costs increased by 15% to 20%, according to Hughes.

Nearly 70% of all nursing home residents are on Medicaid, which is why low Medicaid rates have such a severe impact on the ability of nursing homes to recruit and retain staff and provide care.

Now, facilities are responsible for the skyrocketing cost of fighting the pandemic including costs from constantly changing guidelines on how to manage outbreaks of infections.

An outbreak is defined by one positive COVID case among staff or residents. Some local health jurisdictions in Montana are still requiring facilities to stop admissions when there's an outbreak.

In outbreak mode, visitors are barred from the facility. Though more elderly people have opted to age with their family over the years, fear that a loved one could catch COVID in the congregate setting and the fear of being kept from visiting have boosted the cultural shift toward aging at home.

To add to the excruciatingly low census, many facilities are limiting the number of residents due to staffing shortages. Though shortages are not a new challenge for nursing homes, the pandemic has exacerbated the problem.

The changing guidelines have resulted in an increased need for health care workers, but as wages doubled in the last two years, nursing homes havent been able to afford more staff. And without more staff, facilities cant take on more residents. Without more residents, nursing homes cant hope to pay more staff.

There is no increase to reimbursement that matches increased regulations, Thompson said. Every rural non-profit (is struggling) to retain staff. So, they have to go to contract nurses.

And small rural facilities will be the first to go, Thompson said. He is caring for eight residents who came from out-of-county facilities forced to limit their available bed space due to staffing challenges. Thompson has six traveling nurses to help out despite having so few residents.

Gallatin Rest Home, a county-owned skilled nursing facility in Bozeman, has closed the rehabilitation portion of the facility due to staffing shortages, according to the facility administrator Darcel Vaughn.

Without the rehabilitation services, hospitals have minimal options for patients who require specialized therapy following a procedure.

The 69-bed facility is caring for only 31 residents.

To fill the gaps in staffing, three traveling licensed practical nurses (LPN) and six traveling certified nursing assistants (CNA) are working at Gallatin Rest Home. Prior to COVID, Vaughn paid traveling CNAs under $30 per hour. Now, the average cost for a traveling CNA in Montana is $60 to $150 an hour, according to data provided by Hughes.

Agencies that provide traveling staff to Montana nursing homes charge for a traveling registered nurse $105 to $250 per hour and for an LPN $75 to $250 an hour. The facility also pays for the workers' travel, lodging and meals.

Comparatively, an employed RNs base pay is $32 to $41 per hour; an LPNs pay is $24 to $34 per hour and a CNA's base pay is $16 to $23 per hour.

The wage imbalance has impacted morale. Vaughn has even had employees leave the facility, only to return as expensive travelers.

We wouldnt be in business if we werent county-owned, Vaughn said, adding that last year the facility was almost $1 million short, but the loss was covered by county funds.

It would have been worse if not for $1 million in federal COVID relief funds, Vaughn said.

The combination of low Medicaid rates and limited staff makes it hard to take on needy residents.

Someone may be turned away because they cost too muchits hard because its a service we should be providing for the community, Vaughn said. On calls with other administrators, I can hear the stress in their voice. There is no doubt there are facilities across the state in danger of closing.

Even with its diversified model, Immanuel Lutheran Ministries in Kalispell has felt the effects of limited funding and suffocating guidelines.

When the emergency funding stopped for nursing homes, they made us the lowest priority, said Jason Cronk, CEO at the Kalispell facility. (Funding nursing homes) is not something they thought was important.

Cronk also points to House Bill 702 as severely hobbling the nursing home industry in Montana. The bill prevents employers from requiring health care staff to get vaccinated for COVID-19 or the flu.

When transmission of COVID is high in a community, nursing homes must test unvaccinated staff on a regular basis. Asymptomatic staff became the reason Cronk could not take a new admission for over two months.

We take care of the most vulnerable population and were not as safe as we were a year ago, Cronk said.

About 90% of nursing home residents are fully vaccinated, but only 65% of staff are vaccinated according to the AARP dashboard.

The state and 'hero pay'

Hughes has pushed the Montana governors office, the ARPA Economic Transformation Commission and the ARPA Health Care Commission to provide help in two main areas: funding to provide bonuses for staff and infection control.

She has asked for funds to provide hero pay for direct care staff who have worked through the pandemic, sign on bonuses and retention bonuses.

A push for infection control has also been at the center of discussions. Hughes has asked for grants for facilities to improve ventilation systems, acquire portable systems and take other steps to improve infection control.

There is no indication we will receive the help weve asked for, Hughes said. We need direct subsidies for our workforce to recruit or retain.

The state Department of Public Health and Human Services is aware of the argument made by nursing homes, but has no plans to provide any additional emergency relief, according to DPHHS Director Adam Meier.

Theres a lot more that goes into revenue (than just Medicaid funds), Meier said. Sometimes whats being said isnt accurate.

Meier added that most nursing homes receive a large portion of funds from other sources.

Meier and Barb Smith, administrator of senior and long-term care for the state, pointed to government relief funds issued in fiscal year 2020 that temporarily pulled nursing homes out of the red. A report that analyzes the Medicaid nursing facility rates for fiscal year 2021 wont be available until May.

Smith added that not all nursing homes participate in Medicare, which would add more funding.

Gov. Greg Gianforte doesnt intend to direct ARPA funds toward rescuing nursing homes, according to Meier.

This is an evolving industrywe dont want to keep kicking the can down the road, Meier said.

Instead, the state is seeking ways to make long-term care a more sustainable model by identifying ways for the industry to be more profitable.

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NEW YORK (AP)  ABC News is under fire for its editing of a "Good Morning America" interview with CDC Director Rochelle Walensky that created uncertainty that's being exploited by vaccine critics.

In the interview, Walensky discussed a study that showed how most vaccinated people who died of coronavirus were also sick for other reasons. But the way the interview was edited, it wasn't clear she was talking about vaccinated people  and references spread widely online implying she was talking about all COVID-19 victims.

The interview was seized upon by figures like Donald Trump Jr., Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham to imply the Biden administration has been lying to the public about the importance of vaccines.

The network remained mum on Thursday about the controversy. However, experts say ABC News has a responsibility to talk to viewers about what happened and why, to prevent misinformation from spreading further.

Keep scrolling for answers to commonly asked COVID-19 questions

In the interview on Friday, Cecilia Vega asked Walensky about the "encouraging headlines" surrounding a study that showed how well vaccines worked to prevent severe illness. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director began by summarizing some of the findings.

But ABC edited out the summary, about 20 seconds of her answer. That made it appear that Walensky began by saying: "The overwhelming numbers of deaths, over 75%, occurred in people who had at least four comorbidities, so really these were people who were unwell to begin with."

Besides making what she was saying unclear, the edit made it easy for people to distribute the exchange to make it appear that Walensky was talking about all COVID-19 patients who had died, not just the vaccinated.

ABC's editing was a mistake, said Carol Marin, a veteran broadcast journalist and director of the Center for Journalism Integrity and Excellence at DePaul University.

In a situation like that, the network should make a quick fix and explain clearly to viewers why it was being done, Marin said Wednesday.

"It happens," she said. "There are times when we edit so fast that we're not sufficiently mindful of context."

Without taking control of the situation, "people are just going to write the narrative for you," said Kelly McBride, chairwoman of the Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank.

"I get that you can't spend every single minute in a defensive crouch, but people are asking more and more for transparency," McBride said.

Through a spokeswoman, Walensky had no comment on the edit.

Both Carlson and Ingraham aired Walensky's quote on Fox News Channel without making clear she was talking about vaccinated people, as part of segments suggesting government authorities were lying about the importance of vaccines.

Political commentator and Outkick founder Clay Travis wrote on Twitter: "The CDC director just said over 75% of 'covid deaths' occurred in people with at least four comorbidities. Since Biden can't shut down covid, suddenly all this data is getting shared publicly."

Twitter labeled the message as out of context and blocked it from being shared.

Donald Trump Jr. tweeted Walensky's quote, adding "how many people had 2/3 things that would likely kill them or were in late stage terminal cancer?" His tweet was shared more than 1,600 times before being deleted.

It's possible ABC News believes there was nothing wrong with its edit. When asked, the network would not comment on Thursday.

On Monday, ABC posted a version of Vega's interview on the "GMA" website that restored the portion that was cut. The only indication there was any difference came in a note at the end of the nearly four-minute clip that said the video had been updated.

"A shorter version edited for time was broadcast on Friday, Jan. 7," the note said.

The network has said nothing on the air about the issue.

Many television news producers hate corrections, said Tom Bettag, a longtime ABC "Nightline" producer who now teaches journalism at the University of Maryland. While newspapers generally put a correction inside the paper, when a newscaster has to discuss it, for television that's effectively on the front page.

In this case, it wasn't that ABC News spread misinformation, but that a false picture was allowed to take hold because of their own editing mistake or decision, said Yotam Ophir, a Buffalo University professor who studies misinformation in health and science.

Given the way Walensky's statement was used on social media, ABC News has a responsibility to discuss its editing decision, he said.

Without doing so, "they provide fuel to those adhering to conspiracy theories, who found an opportunity in the unfortunate mistake to spread additional misinformation," Ophir said.

"Remaining silent here doesn't do good to both ABC and science."

***

AP writer Angelo Fichera in Philadelphia contributed to this report.
You are here: China

A Hong Kong court on Saturday sentenced seven people to up to 40 months in prison for rioting near the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) in November 2019.

The District Court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) sentenced seven people to imprisonment ranging from 38 to 40 months and two others were sent to a training center.

The nine defendants were accused of participating in a riot with other unidentified persons outside the Diocesan Girls' School in Kowloon on Nov. 18, 2019.

Two of the defendants were found guilty of possessing offensive weapons or items fit for unlawful purposes.
Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith speaks to a reporter from One America News Network from a bus window after a tour around a section of the U.S.-Mexico border on a Texas Highway Patrol vessel in Mission, Texas, March 26, 2021.
The United Airlines check-in area at Amata Kabua International Airport in Majuro: the airline recently vacated its office behind the check in area due to safety hazards and a just-discovered two-year-old engineering report confirms the main terminal roof poses a danger of collapse.
The 40th fleet of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy set out from a military port in the city of Zhanjiang, south China's Guangdong Province, on Saturday to conduct an escort mission in the Gulf of Aden and the waters off Somalia.

The fleet is composed of the guided-missile destroyer Hohhot, the missile frigate Yueyang, and the supply ship Luomahu, with dozens of special-operation soldiers and two helicopters on board.

In preparation for the mission, the fleet conducted training on the use of weapons, counter-terrorism and anti-piracy, as well as replenishment at sea.

The PLA Navy began conducting escort missions in the Gulf of Aden and the waters off Somalia in December 2008.
Amazon is advertising over 200 jobs in South Africa, including technical, customer service, human resources, and business development positions.

Amazon has been growing its presence in South Africa over the last few years and plans to build a large new office in River Club, Cape Town, to accommodate this growth.

Cape Town has close links with the technology giant since South African Chris Pinkham built a team to develop Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) in the city in 2004.

The success of the Cape Town office gave the company the confidence to open a customer service operation in Cape Town in 2010.

Amazon then expanded its presence in South Africa by opening an AWS office in Johannesburg in 2015.

This was followed by the launch of Amazon CloudFront locations in Johannesburg and Cape Town in 2018. In 2020, Amazon launched an AWS region in Cape Town.

Many South African organisations are now using AWS for their cloud needs, including the Tshwane University of Technology, Sentech, and the Department of Social Development and Social Services Agency.

Industry speculation suggests that Amazon is now shopping around for warehouse space in South Africa.

The company could be looking to enter the local ecommerce sector, but this has not been confirmed.

Jobs in South Africa

Amazons growth in South Africa is excellent news for the local economy. It creates jobs, builds skills, and increases taxes.

Since Amazon announced in June 2020 that it is hiring 3,000 new customer service agents in South Africa, it has consistently advertised new positions.

However, the tech and retail giant is not only looking for customer support agents.

The company is currently advertising over 200 jobs in South Africa, which include:

55 in operations, IT, and support engineering.

52 in software engineering.

24 in customer support.

14 in solution architecture.

12 in human resources.

10 in project and programme management.

10 in sales, advertising, and account management.

6 in business development.

Most of these jobs are in Cape Town and Johannesburg, but there are also many positions where employees can work from home.

Applicants interested in work-from-home positions must have an existing and dedicated uncapped fibre line that supports 10Mbps upload speeds and 5Mbps download speeds.

People with ADSL, LTE, and Wi-Fi connections are not eligible for these roles.

Detailed proof of connectivity will be required. The Internet account must be in the applicants name at their home address, and it should confirm it is a fibre connection with a minimum 10Mbps speed.

Applicants must also be South African citizens, permanent residents, or hold the legal right to work in South Africa.

The table below provides an overview of some of the latest positions available from Amazon in South Africa. For the complete list of vacancies, visit this page.
The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) has reported significant interest from businesses in generating their own power, reports the Sunday Times.

This follows governments announcement in June 2021 that the threshold for self-generation had increased to 100MW.

There is a lot of interest expressed with the increase of the registration threshold to 100MW  we have received more than ten inquiries from the industry, Nersa spokesperson Charles Hlebela told the Times.

However, Hlebela said that while interest is high, Nersa has received far fewer actual applications to register for self-generation.

Six plants capable of producing over 1MW are set to go online in 2022, with the largest expected to have a capacity of 10MW.

Energy minister Gwede Mantashe amended the Electricity Regulation Act on 12 August 2021 to allow private individuals and businesses to generate up to 100MW of electricity without a licence from Nersa.

This came after President Cyril Rampahosa promised that government would relax the regulations in his State of the Nation address a month before.

Experts believe that lifting the self-generation threshold will enable businesses and communities hamstrung by load-shedding to reduce their dependency on Eskoms grid.

It will also help Eskom sustain a stable electricity supply while conducting maintenance on its ageing coal-powered generating fleet.

At its interim financial results presentation on 15 December, Eskom announced that it would lease the land near its power stations through an auction to private investors for renewable electricity generation.

The initiative will kick off in Mpumalanga, and private power producers may use the land to generate electricity for their own consumption or for sale to third parties.

Eskom explained that Mpumalanga was selected as the starting point for the project as it has the most coal-fired plants with established transmission and distribution infrastructure.

Eskom has applied for an electricity price increase of around 20.5%, which is not welcome news for South Africans who are already unhappy with the price of this utility.

However, Nersa claims that the actual jump in tariffs could be around 32.15% based on external factors not included in Eskoms calculations.

These include the following:

R14 billion for RCAs that had already been approved, but not realised, for the third multi-year price determination (MYPD3) period.

R3.5 billion from the 2019/2020 RCA and R742 million for the Short-Term Power Purchase Programme (STPPP).

A refund of R23 billion for an amount Nersa unlawfully deducted from Eskom as revenue was also factored into the regulators equation.

This would mean that Eskoms revenue from standard customers would be R302.98 billion instead of R261.9 billion.

With forecasted sales of 171,549GWh, Nersa calculated Eskom would have to charge around R1.77 per kWh to reach its allowable revenue  equating to a 32.15% tariff increase.

Eskom has been critical of Nersas approach to this calculation, but whichever percentage is correct, the end result is that the wallets of South Africans will feel the pinch.

Now read: Eskom to take Koeberg unit offline for 5 months
Experts have told the Sunday Times that the 2021 matric pass rate will likely be substantially lower than in 2020.

This is due to pupils losing over half a year of classes in Grade 11 and suffering a pandemic-affected 2021 matric year.

The crucially important foundation that Grade 11 work builds in preparation for Grade 12 was weakened, said Basic Education Director-General Mathanzima Mweli earlier this month.

We will therefore see the deleterious effect of lost teaching time, in particular on those subjects that are time intensive such as the languages, and subjects that are heavily dependent on language for utility, such as mathematical literacy.

Professor Chika Sehoole, dean of the University of Pretorias education faculty, believes that the pass rate will decline by five to 10 percentage points from its 76.2% pass rate in 2020.

Sehoole added that rural schools were affected more than their urban counterparts.

Urban schools were able to continue with online learning [during the lockdown] which mitigated the loss in terms of school attendance, whereas those opportunities werent available for schools in rural areas.

Professor Nicky Roberts from the University of Johannesburgs childhood education department agreed that 2021s pass rate would be lower than in 2020.

A matric is a two-year programme so the interruption in Grade 11 is significant. The matric class of 2021 had a far greater disruption to their matric year than the class of 2020, she said.

I think more interesting is the proportion of students who are passing at the National Senior Certificate level, higher certificate, diploma and bachelors pass levels, added Roberts.

Gabrielle Wills of Stellenbosch University said that the matric pass rate provided by government is not an accurate reflection of how the pandemic has impacted learning.

More informative matric metrics to consider include what proportion of Grade 10s in 2019 sat for the matric exam in 2021 and, of this group, what percentage passed; or identifying how high-level passes in maths and science have changed.

While the official pass rate provided by government for 2020 was 76.2%, the real pass rate was far lower.

The proportion of learners who began Grade 10 in 2018 and who matriculated in 2020 was just 44.1%  and this paints a far more worrying picture of the current state of matric education.

Education specialist Professor Mary Metcalfe agreed that the pass rate provided by government distracts from the underlying issues within South Africas education sector.

It detracts from an analysis of performance across the system, the dropout rate, and underlying inequalities in provincial comparisons, said Metcalfe.

Matric results for public schools are expected to be released on Friday 21 January. The IEBs said it would post its matric results on 19 January.
South Africas justice minister fired the latest salvo in a war of words between those who want President Cyril Ramaphosa to remain the ruling partys head and those who want him ousted in December at a conference where its members will vote on senior leadership positions.

Minister Ronald Lamola, a Ramaphosa ally, unleashed a verbal attack on Tourism Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, who is seen as positioning herself as a leader of an opposing wing of the African National Congress.

He was responding to Sisulus recent criticism that the nations top judges are mentally colonized. Lamola said her comments could not be passed off as debate but as an attack on the very institution that is to uphold the constitution and goes against the grain of everything that the ANC wanted to change before the nations first democratic elections in 1994.

Sisulu appears to be aligning herself with the wing of the party loyal to former President Jacob Zuma. That group has opposed Ramaphosas attempts to implement political and economic reforms and crack down on graft, which plagued Zumas time in office.

Key to Ramaphosas drive to renew the party after nine years of scandal under Zumas tenure is respect for the rule of law and the rebuilding of the institutions that underpin the constitution. Persistent attacks on the judiciary and a drumbeat of corruption scandals under Zuma undermined business confidence.

Zuma faces a trial over corruption charges linked to a 1990s arms deal and was last year sentenced by the Constitutional Court to 15 months in jail for refusing to testify at an inquiry into state corruption that the government said saw 500 billion rand ($32 billion) stolen during his rule.

His imprisonment sparked riots that triggered the worst violence since the end of apartheid, with more than 350 people killed. He is currently appealing an order to return to jail after his release on medical parole was ruled invalid.

While no one has formally announced the intention to run for party president in December, Ramaphosa is expected to seek a second term.

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Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub has warned that the impending court battle over the countrys much-anticipated spectrum auction will significantly impact the economy if it is not resolved urgently, the Sunday Times reports.

Telkom has applied for an urgent interdict to stop ICASA from proceeding with the auction, but MTN, Vodacom, and Rain have challenged this.

Key to Telkoms application is that the auction includes the 700MHz to 800MHz band, which is still used by broadcasters  meaning those who acquire this spectrum would not have immediate access to it.

This range of radio frequency spectrum is among the most sought-after for mobile operators. It provides greater indoor penetration and is used to cover larger geographical areas, making it helpful in rolling out coverage to rural areas.

While Telkom has substantially more spectrum than MTN or Vodacom overall, it does not have access to spectrum below 1,000MHz, which is why issues regarding this spectrum are a particular sticking point for the company.

Joosub argued that the auction is critical to improving South Africas economy, and delays will have severe economic implications.

These ongoing delays are holding South Africas development back and come at a time when the need for additional spectrum is getting increasingly desperate, said Joosub.

Its no secret that telecommunications infrastructure is key to the growth of any economy. This latest impasse needs to be resolved urgently, or another year of economic opportunity will be lost.

Telkom has other concerns regarding the spectrum auction, including a cap of 187MHz of overall spectrum per network operator.

Telkom already holds about 142MHz of spectrum for cellular technologies, meaning Telkom would only be allowed to acquire about 45MHz of spectrum under current auction rules.

Icasas mistake is that it assumes spectrum in the hands of each player has the same value and has the same impact on the market, Telkom regulatory affairs head Siyabonga Mahlangu told MyBroadband.

Mahlangu highlighted that the ITU suggests mobile network operators need 80-100MHz of spectrum to offer 5G services.

Since it would require an additional 62MHz to meet this minimum expectation, the rules effectively make it impossible for Telkom to launch efficient 5G services.

Icasa has been critical of Telkoms efforts to halt the spectrum auction.

It said that narrow and selfish commercial interests should give way to the overriding public good of cheaper data, universal access to efficient and reliable connectivity, and high-speed broadband transmission.

Competing mobile networks have also expressed their disdain for Telkoms tactics.

Delaying the process is not in the best interests of competition or consumers, especially with the demand created by the online migration and need to be connected, said Cell C chief legal officer Zahir Williams.

We cannot have a repeat of 2021, where the entire process was delayed for another full year, and that on the back of 14 years of no additional spectrum being added to the industry, said MTN SA CEO Charles Molapisi.

Additionally, Joosub has previously accused Telkom of doing everything in its power told to delay the spectrum auction because it wants to maintain its competitive advantage as the operator with the most spectrum and the most extensive fibre network footprint.
St. Helena City Manager Mark Prestwich announced Friday that he's resigning Feb. 21 to become city manager in Palos Verdes Estates.

"It has been an honor and privilege to serve as your City Manager for the past four and a half years; it is now time for me to pursue new challenges," Prestwich told the City Council in a letter.

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Prestwich was named St. Helena city manager in 2017, following a three-year stint as city manager in Nevada City. He previously worked for the cities of Napa and Sacramento.

Prestwich drew attention to the citys long-neglected infrastructure. He often said that while the citys finances are stable, it needs new long-term revenue sources to pay for crucial and long-deferred Public Works projects.

At Prestwichs suggestion, the council appointed the St. Helena Assets Planning Engagement (SHAPE) Committee to analyze the citys facilities and make recommendations to the council.

Also occurring on Prestwich's watch were the adoption of the General Plan, the removal of the Upper York Creek Dam, the evacuation of City Hall due to smoke damage, the successful defense of the city against the Glass Fire, the conversion of the St. Helena Fire Department to a full-time staffing model, a Phase II water emergency, and the negotiation of a lease with the Napa Valley College Upper Valley Campus for a new City Hall.

Mayor Geoff Ellsworth and Vice Mayor Paul Dohring released a statement Friday praising Prestwich's performance.

"St. Helena has been very fortunate to have Mark Prestwich as city manager for the previous four and a half years," they said. "His calm, inclusive and collaborative leadership style has advanced day-to-day city operations and helped us navigate through the pandemic, fires and a water shortage emergency. He has provided a sense of stability in city government and has allowed the city to be well positioned as we move into 2022 and beyond.

"In Mr. Prestwich's time here he has helped move St. Helena forward with an objective and responsive focus on transparent local governance and robust planning, inclusion and diversity, enhanced fiscal oversight, and water security. He has implemented sound economic strategies and policies, helped lower emergency response times, drawn attention to and moved forward on numerous long-neglected infrastructure needs, bolstered community programming, helped us adapt successfully to the challenges of a Zoom environment and engaged in important cross-jurisdictional dialogue.

"While Mr. Prestwich will be missed, we are fortunate that he has played an important role in creating a stable, resilient and adaptive governance structure that will ensure a smooth and successful transition to a new city manager.

"Our City Council and Mr. Prestwich will convene at the earliest opportunity to discuss the implementation of an orderly transition plan. Mr. Prestwich will remain with the City for the next month to help ensure this important transition."

The council met in closed session Tuesday morning to discuss transition plans.

You can reach Jesse Duarte at 967-6803 or jduarte@sthelenastar.com.

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Two men arrested by Napa Police face felony allegations of illegal firearm possession and gang participation, the department reported.

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At about 8:15 p.m. Thursday, detectives with Napa Polices Special Enforcement Unit saw a group of known street gang members in the 400 block of Soscol Avenue, according to Sgt. Pete Piersig. One of the men was identified as 19-year-old Angel Danny Delacruz, who had been on supervised release after pleading no contest a week earlier to possessing an unregistered and loaded firearm in public, according to Piersig, who said Delacruz was under orders not to associate with gang members.

Due to the size of the gathering, Napa Police patrol officers were called to the scene, where 21-year-old Genaro Aguilar-Covarrubias  also on supervised release  was found in a vehicle with another gang member, Piersig said via email.

Police detectives found a loaded and unregistered ghost gun in the car, as well as suspected cocaine, according to Piersig. Aguilar-Covarrubias told detectives the gun and drugs belonged to him, and the cars other occupant was not arrested, Piersig said.

A third man, 20-year-old Jaime Mendoza, also was contacted by police and found to be violating his gang-related probation, according to Piersig.

Later, police conducted a probation search of Delacruzs home in the 1300 block of Pueblo Avenue, where detectives found a ghost-gun pistol with a threaded barrel, a feature illegal in California on pistols that are not registered as assault weapons, Piersig said. Also found during the search were ammunition and gang-related items, Piersig added.

Aguilar-Covarrubias and Delacruz were detained and booked into the Napa County jail on numerous allegations including possession of an unregistered ghost gun, possessing an assault weapon, handgun and ammunition possession by a felon, and enhancements for gang membership.

Aguilar-Covarrubias was additionally booked for investigation of drug possession while armed, as well as gun and ammunition possession by an addict and gang-related criminal conspiracy.

Mendoza was detained and booked into jail on a probation violation, according to Napa Police.

The case in which Delacruz pleaded no contest was linked to a previous shooting on Pueblo Avenue, after which he was found with an illegal pistol, according to Piersig.

Since March 2021, Napa Police detectives have investigated more than a dozen shootings it believes were gang-related, Piersig said.

Anyone with information related to gang-related shootings is asked to contact Detective Kyle Cadena of the Napa Police Special Enforcement Unit at kcadena@cityofnapa.org or 707-257-9834.
The return to California classrooms after the winter holiday break has been rocky, as Covid infection rates continue to climb, schools run out of substitutes to take over classrooms for ill and quarantined teachers, and district officials and staff wrangle over safety protocols.

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But lessons continue  although some are happening in merged classes held in auditoriums or gymnasiums  and teachers have adapted them with safety in mind.

Hundreds of teachers have participated in sickouts to protest what they see as a lack of Covid protections in their schools. Thursday, San Francisco Unified schools were missing 900 teachers and aides, and last Friday the absence of 503 teachers ceased instruction at 12 Oakland Unified schools as teachers protested, seeking more stringent safety protocols on campuses.

Sixteen West Contra Costa Unified teachers from two different schools also walked off campuses on various days this week after teachers asked for increased testing, the hiring of more substitutes and KN95 masks, which filter out more particles in the air than cloth masks.

"Teachers just want safety measures for the students and the staff," said Victoria Canote, a third-grade teacher at Merritt Trace Elementary in San Jose Unified. "We are risking our health. The kids are risking their health."

She would also like to see San Jose Unified increase safety protocols at schools, including purchasing KN95 or N95 masks and take-home Covid tests for both teachers and students. Although the district is offering testing, lines are long, she said.

The state requires schools to provide a face covering to students who inadvertently fail to bring one to school, but it doesn't require they provide specific types of masks.

This week San Francisco Unified began distributing KN95 and surgical masks to students and staff. Oakland Unified has distributed KN95 and N95 masks to staff, and began distributing KN95 masks to students Thursday. West Contra Costa Unified is distributing KN95 masks to staff and surgical masks to students.

Canote, a self-proclaimed stickler for Covid protocols, teaches her class outside whenever she can and wears an N95 mask, which she pays for herself. She is constantly washing her hands or using hand sanitizer.

"There is no social distancing (in the classroom)," she said. "It's a mess. I have 27 kids and they are side by side. I've tried to space them out as much as I can. ... That is why I go outside a lot."

Currently, Canote says, at least two of her students are out sick with Covid.

District officials are having an even more difficult time than usual finding enough substitutes for teachers and other staff positions. The situation is so bad that Palo Alto Unified Superintendent Don Austin has asked parents to help.

"We need your help to volunteer as never before," he said in a video that was emailed to parents last weekend. "If you are able, please answer."

By Monday morning, 360 parents had responded, volunteering to do jobs that include signing in students at lunch, recess duty, light custodial duties, work in the office preparing materials and helping teachers.

Chris Evans, superintendent at Natomas Unified School District in Sacramento, is hoping Gov. Gavin Newsom's decision Tuesday to temporarily loosen substitute teacher requirements will help ease staffing shortages at schools. The executive order will let substitutes serve with only a temporary certificate instead of a substitute credential, will permit substitutes to be assigned to a class for up to 120 days and allows more flexibility for retired teachers to work as substitutes.

A shortage of substitutes in Natomas Unified last Thursday resulted in two classes being ushered into the Inderkum High School theater during third period and three classes during fourth period, so that they could share a teacher.

"It was safe to have kids in the theater, to keep kids spread out," Evans said.

Last Thursday was the only day this happened at Inderkum, although some elementary school classes have had to be combined this week because of teacher shortages, he said.

The district, which serves 15,700 students, has cushioned itself against the substitute shortage by hiring 53 long-term substitutes and hiking substitute pay to $265 a day temporarily.

"We are in tremendously good shape," Evans said, adding that he hasn't had to close a class or school yet.

So far only a few school districts have closed their doors for more than a few days or pushed back their return to school.

Milpitas Unified had planned to return to online learning Monday but changed course over the weekend after officials there learned they did not have the power to issue a districtwide quarantine.

Hayward Unified, which enrolls about 22,000 students, announced last Friday it would hold classes online Tuesday through Friday of this week due to the surging omicron variant. The district, in Alameda County, is hosting "learning hubs" at schools where limited numbers of students can access the internet. The district also is providing "grab-and-go" meals each day to help with social distancing.

Concerns about the contagious omicron variant have meant rule changes at some districts, like requiring students to wear a KN95 mask or a paper surgical mask, instead of less effective cloth masks. Some districts are now requiring masks be worn outside as well as inside.

A group of more than 1,200 Oakland Unified high school students have told district officials that they have until Monday to provide KN95 masks for every student, twice weekly Covid tests for everyone on campus and more covered outdoor spaces where students can have lunch, or they will walk off their campuses.

Los Angeles Unified, California's largest district, was one of the last to return from the holiday on Tuesday. Long lines were reported at some schools as staff verified Covid tests, according to media reports. The district required students and staff to test negative for Covid before they returned to campus.

"We know there is apprehension, and we've added the extra layers of protection for the return to school," the district's interim superintendent, Megan K. Reilly, said in a video address to families and staff. "There may be a few lines at the start of the school day and longer wait times for buses."

The district has assigned 4,000 administrative employees to schools to staff classrooms, cafeterias and other positions that may need to be filled because of illness or quarantine requirements.

Teachers are getting creative and adapting lessons to keep the students who come to school safe.

San Francisco drama teacher Keith Carames usually asks students at James Lick Middle School to act out a fairy-tale adaptation during the semester, but instead they will be performing shadow puppet theater. Instead of reading a play and acting out scenes from "The Crucible" they will analyze the play and learn scenic design.

Carames said it's too difficult to teach students to act with masks on because you can't see their facial expressions and because the material acts as a barrier between the voice and projection.

"Expectations have had to change," he said. "I've had to adapt my entire curriculum, and what used to work before can no longer. We've had to go from long-term planning to immediate day-to-day planning."

Carames, who teaches a semester-long class, said he has yet to meet about half of his students.

"It feels lonely," Carames said. "Your classes are half full. I'm constantly worried about my students. Sometimes you call home and they don't pick up the phone."

Carames said San Francisco Unified should have required students and staff to be tested for Covid before returning from the holiday break. Instead, he said, lessons are interrupted two or more times each class period by calls from the school office asking for students to be sent there for contact tracing.

Erika Cedeno teaches Spanish at Santa Clarita Valley International School in Castaic, which focuses on project-based learning. It's not easy for students to work safely in teams during a pandemic, so Cedeno has learned to improvise.

Instead of putting students in groups to discuss a poem by Antonio Machado, the students discuss the poem on the internet  each at their desk. Cedeno has adapted another lesson that calls for students to work together to produce a skit in Spanish to a lesson calling for students to individually perform and record a skit.

Next week the students will make a video while they talk about a recipe in Spanish while cooking it at home. They won't be able to share the food.

"That is so sad," Cedeno said. "But we must embrace the change."

Cedeno and her fellow teachers at the charter school are offering students as much flexibility as possible, including letting them turn in assignments late.

"We need to have a lot of empathy and compassion, seriously," she said. "All my colleagues are in the same boat. The kids say they appreciate that. They don't take advantage. We need to have compassion for each other."

Cedeno said about 10 of her students were missing from class Tuesday. She doesn't know if they have Covid. She said a lot of students are out because they fear contracting the virus.

Students who did return to school are wearing their masks and social distancing instead of sitting together and sharing snacks as they did before the holiday.

"They are afraid to go online again," she said. "That's why."

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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 Flash





Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks on Friday with visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian in Wuxi, east China's Jiangsu Province.





The two sides announced the launch of the implementation of a comprehensive cooperation plan.





Wang said China is ready to work with Iran to implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state, strengthen communication and coordinate actions, constantly enrich the connotation of China-Iran comprehensive strategic partnership and open a new era for the development of bilateral ties for the next 50 years.





Abdollahian, on behalf of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, said that Iran firmly supports China in safeguarding its core interests and firmly adheres to the one-China policy.





Iran highly appreciates and will actively participate in the joint building of the Belt and Road, said Abdollahian, adding that developing relations with China is Iran's top decision. The Iranian side is firmly committed to advancing Iran-China cooperation and staunchly supports the Beijing Winter Olympics.





The two sides jointly announced the launch of the implementation of the 25-year comprehensive cooperation plan and conducted in-depth discussions. Both sides agreed to step up cooperation on energy, infrastructure, production capacity, science and technology, and medical and health care.





They also agreed to expand cooperation in agriculture, fisheries and cyber security as well as promote tripartite cooperation, and deepen people-to-people and cultural exchanges in education, film and personnel training.





The two sides also exchanged views on the Iranian nuclear situation.





Wang said that the right and wrong of the Iranian nuclear issue is clear. The U.S. unilateral withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) has directly created the current difficult situation. The United States should bear the major responsibility and rectify its mistake as soon as possible





China will firmly support the resumption of negotiations on the implementation of the JCPOA and will continue to participate constructively in follow-up negotiations, he said.





It is hoped that all parties will overcome difficulties and meet each other halfway to advance the political and diplomatic settlement process, Wang said.





Lauding the constructive role played by the Chinese side, Abdollahian said Iran is committed to reaching a set of stable guarantee agreements through serious negotiations and is willing to maintain close communication with China.




Hostages freed in Texas synagogue standoff

Hostages freed in Texas synagogue standoff

All four people taken hostage in a more than 10-hour standoff at a Texas synagogue have been freed unharmed, police said late on Saturday, adding their suspected captor is dead.



The hostage siege in the small Texas town of Colleyville  in which the suspect was apparently demanding the release of a convicted terrorist  had sparked an outpouring of concern from US Jewish organisations as well as from the Israeli government.



Colleyville police chief Michael Miller told a news conference that a "rescue team breached the synagogue" on Saturday evening and rescued the three remaining hostages being held inside. A first hostage had been released unharmed a few hours earlier. "The suspect is deceased," Miller told reporters.



FBI Dallas Special Agent Matt DeSarno said the four hostages  who included a much-loved local rabbi, Charlie Cytron-Walker, were not in need of medical attention, would soon be reunited with their families. "He did not harm them in any way," he said.



There were reports from journalists at the scene of a loud explosion and gunshots at the synagogue shortly before the press conference.



Texas Governor Greg Abbott had announced that the remaining hostages were "out alive and safe".



That was more than 10 hours after police were alerted to the emergency at the Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, some 40 kilometers west of Dallas.



ABC News reported that the hostage-taker was armed and had claimed to have bombs in unknown locations. That was not confirmed by police although Miller said that "bomb techs are clearing the scene".



Quoting a US official briefed on the matter, ABC reported the man was demanding the release of Aafia Siddiqui, who has been dubbed "Lady Qaeda" by US tabloids.



DeSarno told the news conference the suspect had been identified but did not disclose his identity.



The FBI special agent did not confirm the suspect's demands, but said they were "focused on one issue that was not specifically threatening to the Jewish community"  and that he did not believe there was an ongoing threat. (AFP)
Since Nepal still hasn't recognised the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan, the relief materials will be handed over to the UN and its agencies working in the war-torn nation, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kathmandu.

The relief materials include food items, clothes, kitchen utensils and medical supplies, the Ministry added.

"As a member of the SAARC, Afghanistan is in crisis so it is our friendly and goodwill gesture to the people of Afghanistan who are facing hardship," Foreign Minister Narayan Khadka said.

"For the first time in Nepal's history, we are sending humanitarian assistance by chartered flight. We have received humanitarian assistance from several countries when we faced crisis in the past."

The Minister said this is an important mission in terms of "our international relations", adding that several organisations in Nepal, trade and business groups have contributed to the collection of the relief materials.

"When I saw the pathetic condition of Afghanistan people in the international media and the deepening crisis, it came to my mind that we should support them. Then I immediately took up the matter in Cabinet and started diplomatic initiatives on how to send the relief materials to Afghanistan," he added.

Besides Nepal, India and several other countries have donated similar kinds of humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.

--IANS ag/ksk/

( 252 Words)

2022-01-16-12:10:06 (IANS)
After the success of his first rap song 'Kheench Te Nach' from 'Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui', Brijesh Shandilya is all set to release 'Toota Dil', a romantic song about a soldier and his beloved, by the end of the month. It will be the first time that Shandilya will feature in a music video. About his new song, Shandilya said: "We had made this song approximately a month ago. Singing a sad romantic song is a completely new experience for me. I have been used to singing party songs and peppy numbers that make people dance." He said he has sung sad romantic songs only during jamming sessions or in private parties, but he has never released such a song commercially. "So my fans and audiences don't know that I even sing sad romantic songs," he added. But why a romantic song about a soldier? "We always associate soldiers with hardships on the borders or with wars, but they too have a romantic life," Shandilya pointed out. "This song is about a soldier and his love story, and how, on his return home, he and his wife have a misunderstanding between them." --IANS ila/srb ( 208 Words) 2022-01-15-22:52:04 (IANS)
Primetime Emmy award-winning actor Brian Cox called out several celebrities who have rubbed him the wrong way, including 'Pirates of the Caribbean' star Johnny Depp. As per Page Six, in his new memoir 'Putting the Rabbit in the Hat'- Scottish actor Brian Cox had called out many actors from the Hollywood film fraternity and specifically actor Johnny Depp for rubbing him the wrong way. "It would have been a money-spinner, but of all the parts in that film, it was the most thankless," Cox, wrote of turning down the part of the Governor in the 'Pirates' franchise, which eventually went to Jonathan Pryce. "Plus, I would have ended up doing it for film after film and missed out on all the other nice things I've done," he added. He continued in excerpts obtained by Page Six from GQ, "Another thing with 'Pirates of the Caribbean' is that it's very much the 'Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow' show, and Depp, personable though I'm sure he is, is so overblown, so overrated." The 'Succession' actor continued, "I mean, 'Edward Scissorhands.' Let's face it, if you come on with hands like that and pale, scarred-face make-up, you don't have to do anything. And he didn't. And subsequently, he's done even less." The Golden Globe-winner went on to suggest that Depp's star-power is slowly dimming, adding, "But people love him. Or they did love him. They don't love him so much these days, of course. If Johnny Depp went for Jack Sparrow now, they'd give it to Brendan Gleeson." Cox also took time to praise director Spike Lee, who according to the star, put actor Ed Norton "in his place" while filming 2002's '25th Hour.' "Ed Norton was in the film and he's a nice lad but a bit of a pain in the arse because he fancies himself as a writer-director," Cox wrote. "He and I had this scene set in the bar owned by my character. Spike set it up immaculately, but Ed came in and was saying, 'Now, I've done some work on the script and I've got a few ideas and I'd like you to think about them. I've rewritten a few things in there ...' the actor said. "Spike was like, 'Oh, good, let me see.' He had a look at Ed's notes and then said, 'Well that's very interesting. Okay, so what we're going to do now is ...' and put Ed very firmly in his place," Cox concluded. (ANI)
 Flash

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Friday sent a congratulatory message to Alikhan Smailov on his assuming office as Kazakh prime minister.





In his message, Li said China supports Kazakhstan's efforts to safeguard national security, social stability and people's well-being.





Li expressed his belief that under the leadership of Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and the Kazakh government, Kazakhstan will restore stability and unity as soon as possible, and step towards its development goals.





Noting that since the establishment of the diplomatic ties 30 years ago, China-Kazakhstan relations have always maintained high-level development, Li said China is ready to work with the Kazakh side to implement the consensus reached by the two heads of state, and continuously deepen practical cooperation, so as to lift the China-Kazakhstan permanent comprehensive strategic partnership to a new level for the benefit of both nations and peoples.




Actor Tanushree Dutta has expressed her discontent with her Wikipedia profile description and she is unable to change it. Taking to her Instagram handle on Sunday, the actor shared how the profile describes her only as an "Indian Model". She wrote, "Hey Guys...there's something that's been bothering me for a while. It's the Wikipedia profile on me. So it's got a lot totally wrong about me and calling me just an "Indian Model" and diminishing my credentials. I tried changing but it keeps coming back to the same stuff." She detailed her accomplishments and expressed her dissatisfaction with her profile. "I'm a Miss India Universe & Bollywood actress/star so dunno why it says " Indian Model". It's the first thing people check when they google a public figure for work/awards etc & mine is all weird & shit. Imagine after doing so much in just one life I can't even have a straightforward, uplifting & accurate Wikipedia presentation," she wrote. She concluded by asking if anyone could help her out to fix it. She wrote, "Maybe the scriptures are right & my rewards & recognition are going to be in Heaven after all. Anyways I've renounced losing my shit with this kind of weird stuff coz looks like I can't do much about it! If anyone can help pls do...btw...I think great & amazing stuff is going to happen for me in 2022..." The actor, who spearheaded India's #MeToo movement in 2018, had to move out of the film industry in India after the alleged harassment incident post which she tried to establish herself in the US. Meanwhile, as per her Instagram posts, the actor might make her Bollywood comeback soon. (ANI)
Ariana DeBose has finally made her 'Saturday Night Live' hosting debut, where she shined in a night full of fun-filled and hilarious sketches. According to People Magazine, at the start of the program, DeBose performed an opening monologue that celebrated her roots. "It is great to be here representing not only the Latino community as an Afro-Latina but also the Broadway community," she said. "Obviously, Broadway has been through a lot these last past couple of years ... but we are a community that perseveres. I believe Broadway changes lives, and hey, it changed mine. Broadway has this magical ability to bring people together," DeBose added. The actor then channelled her 'West Side Story' character Anita and sang a selection of songs from the film alongside Kate McKinnon, including 'Tonight' and 'I Feel Pretty'. Later in the episode, DeBose performed alongside the SNL cast in a series of sketches. In another segment from the late-night comedy series, DeBose spoofs the 'Sound of Music' at a time when Maria (played by McKinnon) is "stretched quite thin." Leading the von Trapp children with a lesson on how to sing, DeBose performs 'Do Re Mi' with the inclusion of various pop culture references, including Queen Latifah, Ray Romano, and Homer Simpson. Earlier this month, SNL announced that the second half of season 47 would premiere on January 15 with DeBose as host and Roddy Ricch as musical guest. Ricch, however, was forced to pull out from performing days later after he was exposed to COVID-19. He was replaced by Jack Antonoff's band Bleachers. According to People Magazine, SNL previously closed out 2021 with a quieter show amid the spread of the omicron variant. As COVID-19 cases surged in New York City where the show is filmed, SNL slimmed down its December 18 show with a limited cast and crew, as Paul Rudd celebrated his fifth time presenting. Charli XCX, who was set to perform on Rudd's episode as the musical guest, had to cancel her set altogether. Saturday Night Live airs weekly on NBC. (ANI)
Maharashtra experienced a slight lull in new Covid-19 and Omicron cases on Saturday though deaths again increased, health officials said here. After a record high of 46,723 (January 12), the number of daily Covid infectees fell for the second day, from 43,211 on Friday to 42,462 on Saturday. However, the fatalities increased from 19 a day earlier to 23 on Saturday, and the mortality rate fell from 1.98 per cent to 1.97 per cent. After notching a peak of 238 Omicron cases on January 14 the state infections of the variant went down to 125 for the day, sparking concerns among the health authorities. The government is continuing the intensive surveillance of passengers arriving at the three international airports -- Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur -- since December 1. A total of 281,459 travellers have landed here, including 43,106 from the "high risk" countries from where 531 have tested positive and another 604 from other countries, with all their reports sent for genomic sequencing to confirm if they are afflicted by Omicron. Another staggering 4,792 positive samples from field surveys conducted since November 1 have been sent for genomic sequencing with the results of 71 are awaited, the officials said. Omicron has spread extensively across several districts in the state, and out of the 1,730 cases till date, 879 have recovered. Pune district led the state with 693 cases of the variant, followed by 653 in Mumbai, 100 in Thane, 90 in Nagpur, 59 in Sangli, 19 in Kolhapur. 18 each in Raigad and Amravati, 14 in Satara, 11 each in Osmanabad and Akola, 6 each in Palghar and Buldhana, 5 in Aurangabad, 4 in Ahmednagar, 3 each in Nanded, Nashik, Jalna, Gondiya and Latur, 2 each in Solapur, Gadchiroli and Nandurbar, and 1 each in Jalna and Wardha. Of the 42,462 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, Mumbai Metropolitan Region alone accounted for 20,924 infections, while Mumbai city remained at a high, with 10,661 fresh cases. The next is Pune Circle's 11,519 infectees, Nashik Circle 2,917, Nagpur Circle 3,021, Kolhapur Circle 1,388, Latur Circle 1,093, Aurangabad Circle 867 and Akola Circle's 733. The number of people sent to home quarantine shot up hugely - from 19,10,361 on Friday to 22,00,108 now, and another 6,102 have been shunted to institutional quarantine. Mumbai, Pune, Thane, Raigad and Palghar remain at the top with the highest number of 'active cases' currently in the state, with the afflictions shooting up from 261,658 a day before to 264,441 on Saturday, with the recovery rate remaining steady at 94.28 per cent. The state's cumulative figures of Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic in March 2020 now stands at 71,70,483 cases and 141,779 deaths, while a total of 67,60,514 patients have fully recovered till date. --IANS qn/pgh ( 472 Words) 2022-01-15-23:04:03 (IANS)
Of the new cases, 552 were in the community, 404 were imported cases, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Health on Saturday.

A total of 692 new Omicron variant cases were confirmed on January 10, of whom 541 were local and 151 were imported, the Ministry said.

Some 181 cases are currently warded in hospitals, with nine cases requiring oxygen supplementation and 12 cases being in the intensive care unit (ICU), Xinhua news agency reported.

Three more patients have died from complications due to Covid-19 infection, bringing the death toll to 843.

--IANS int/khz/

( 127 Words)

2022-01-16-01:44:04 (IANS)
The nationwide death toll grew by 723 to 320,634, while the number of recoveries increased by 26,584 to 9,835,884.

Meanwhile, Moscow, Russia's worst-hit region, reported 6,555 new cases, taking its total to 2,082,224. The Russian capital was followed by Saint Petersburg with 3,314 new cases, Xinhua news agency reported.

The level of herd immunity in the country stands at 63.7 per cent, data released on Friday showed.

Over 80.1 million Russian citizens had received at least one dose of a vaccine and over 76.5 million of them had been fully vaccinated, according to data released on Friday.

The Russian government is formulating measures in urgent response to an upcoming wave of Covid-19 infections caused by the Omicron variant, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said on Wednesday.

--IANS int/khz/

( 166 Words)

2022-01-16-02:18:01 (IANS)
An international team of researchers recently studied the sensitivity of Omicron to antibodies compared with the currently dominant Delta variant. The study about this variant has been published in the 'Nature Journal'. The new COVID-19 Omicron variant is more transmissible than the Delta variant. However, its biological characteristics are still relatively unknown. In South Africa, the Omicron variant replaced the other viruses within a few weeks and led to a sharp increase in the number of cases diagnosed. Analyses in various countries indicate that the doubling time for cases is approximately 2 to 4 days. Omicron has been detected in dozens of countries, including France, and became dominant by the end of 2021. In a new study supported by the European Union's Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA), scientists from the Institut Pasteur and the Vaccine Research Institute, in collaboration with KU Leuven (Leuven, Belgium), Orleans Regional Hospital, Hospital Europeen Georges Pompidou (AP-HP) and Inserm, studied the sensitivity of Omicron to antibodies compared with the currently dominant Delta variant. The aim of the study was to characterize the efficacy of therapeutic antibodies, as well as antibodies developed by individuals previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 or vaccinated, in neutralizing this new variant. The scientists from KU Leuven isolated the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 from a nasal sample of a 32-year-old woman who developed moderate COVID-19 a few days after returning from Egypt. The isolated virus was immediately sent to scientists at the Institut Pasteur, where therapeutic monoclonal antibodies and serum samples from people who had been vaccinated or previously exposed to SARS-CoV-2 were used to study the sensitivity of the Omicron variant. The scientists used rapid neutralization assays, developed by the Institut Pasteur's Virus and Immunity Unit, on the isolated sample of the Omicron virus. This collaborative multidisciplinary effort also involved the Institut Pasteur's virologists and specialists in the analysis of viral evolution and protein structure, together with teams from Orleans Regional Hospital and Hospital Europeen Georges Pompidou in Paris. The scientists began by testing nine monoclonal antibodies used in clinical practice or currently in preclinical development. Six antibodies lost all antiviral activity, and the other three were 3 to 80 times less effective against Omicron than against Delta. The antibodies Bamlanivimab/Etesevimab (a combination developed by Lilly), Casirivimab/Imdevimab (a combination developed by Roche and known as Ronapreve), and Regdanvimab (developed by Celtrion) no longer had any antiviral effect against Omicron. The Tixagevimab/Cilgavimab combination (developed by AstraZeneca under the name Evusheld) was 80 times less effective against Omicron than against Delta. "We demonstrated that this highly transmissible variant has acquired significant resistance to antibodies. Most of the therapeutic monoclonal antibodies currently available against SARS-CoV-2 are inactive," commented Olivier Schwartz, co-last author of the study and Head of the Virus and Immunity Unit at the Institut Pasteur. The scientists observed that the blood of patients previously infected with COVID-19, collected up to 12 months after symptoms, and that of individuals who had received two doses of the vaccine, taken five months after vaccination, barely neutralized the Omicron variant. But the sera of individuals who had received a booster dose of Pfizer, analyzed one month after vaccination, remained effective against Omicron. Five to 31 times more antibodies were nevertheless required to neutralize Omicron, compared with Delta, in cell culture assays. These results help shed light on the continued efficacy of vaccines in protecting against severe forms of the disease. "We now need to study the length of protection of the booster dose. The vaccines probably become less effective in offering protection against contracting the virus, but they should continue to protect against severe forms," explained Olivier Schwartz. "This study shows that the Omicron variant hampers the effectiveness of vaccines and monoclonal antibodies, but it also demonstrates the ability of European scientists to work together to identify challenges and potential solutions. While KU Leuven was able to describe the first case of Omicron infection in Europe using the Belgian genome surveillance system, our collaboration with the Institut Pasteur in Paris enabled us to carry out this study in record time," commented Emmanuel Andre, co-last author of the study, a Professor of Medicine at KU Leuven (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) and Head of the National Reference Laboratory and the genome surveillance network for COVID-19 in Belgium. "There is still a great deal of work to do, but thanks to the support of the European Union's Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA), we have clearly now reached a point where scientists from the best centres can work in synergy and move towards a better understanding and more effective management of the pandemic," added Emmanuel. The scientists concluded that the many mutations in the spike protein of the Omicron variant enabled it to largely evade the immune response. Ongoing research is being conducted to determine why this variant is more transmissible from one individual to the next and to analyze the long-term effectiveness of a booster dose. (ANI)
Soon after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced that the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will be contesting the upcoming state assembly elections from Gorakhpur, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday took a dig at the BJP stating that now since the saffron party has sent him back to his stronghold, he should stay there. Addressing a press conference, the SP chief said, "Earlier they used to sometimes say 'he will fight from Ayodhya' or 'he will fight from Mathura' or 'he will fight from Prayagraj'. I am thankful to BJP. They have already sent him home even before polls, though people would have done it. Now Yogi should stay there. There is no need for him to come back." He further said that he would not let any more BJP MLAs or ministers join the SP. "Let me tell BJP that I will not take any BJP MLA, minister anymore. They can deny tickets (to their leaders) if they wish to," said Yadav. Putting all speculations to rest, the BJP had announced that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will contest from his stronghold Gorakhpur which elected him to Lok Sabha for five straight terms till 2017. The BJP fielded deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya from Sirathu constituency in Prayagraj while minister Shrikant Sharma will contest from Mathura. There was speculation earlier that Adityanath, who never contested Assembly elections before, could contest either from Ayodhya or Mathura. BJP leader Harnath Singh Yadav had written to party national president JP Nadda and urged him to field the chief minister from Mathura. Adityanath had fought the general election for the first time in 1998 from Gorakhpur when he was 26 and became the youngest MP in the 12th Lok Sabha. He is the head priest of the Gorakhnath temple in the city. He took over this position in September 2014 after the death of his spiritual "father", Mahant Avaidhnath. Notably, the BJP won the 2017 elections winning over 300 seats in the 403-member Uttar Pradesh Assembly without announcing a chief ministerial face. Adityanath, who had played a crucial role in the BJP's poll campaign, took over as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh on March 26, 2017. Uttar Pradesh assembly elections will be held in seven phases from February 10 to March 7. The polling in Uttar Pradesh will be held on February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27 and March 3 and 7. The counting of votes will take place on March 10. (ANI)
Hours after KTR, as the minister is popularly known, invited Elon Musk to bring the popular electric vehicles to India, several Twitter users heaped praise on him.

"Hey Elon, I am the Industry & Commerce Minister of Telangana state in India. Will be happy to partner Tesla in working through the challenges to set shop in India/Telangana. Our state is a champion in sustainability initiatives & a top notch business destination in India," tweeted KTR.

His tweet was in response to Elon Musk's tweet on bringing EV to India. His tweet read "Still working through a lot of challenges with the government".

Eminent personalities including actors, journalists and industry leaders backed KTR's tweet and supported the idea.

"Love this car so much Elon Musk. Feels like hope is around the corner," wrote actor Genelia Deshmukh.

"Elon Musk, Come to Hyderabad - India! It will be epic to have you. The Government here in Telangana is terrific too," tweeted actor Vijay Devarakonda.

"Elon Musk sir you have best land & infrastructure in Telangana of course best Minister & Administration KTR," said Tollywood director Meher Ramesh.

Another film director Gopichand Malineni tweeted "Dear Elon Musk, we would love to have Tesla in Telangana... as we have the best infrastructure and the leading business hub of India."

"Hyderabad has just pipped Bengaluru to post in #Tesla race. Full marks to KTR for inviting Elon Musk," said well-known journalist Pankaj Panchauri.

Senior journalist Vikram Chandra called it an innovative invite.

"An innovative Twitter invite to Elon Musk from KTR after the Tesla head said he was facing "challenges" in dealing with the government. Are we going to see a Tesla factory in Telangana?!"

--IANS ms/pgh

( 321 Words)

2022-01-15-22:36:02 (IANS)
"Police have arrested a hate-monger Mir Mushtaq Ahmad, son of Abdul Gani resident of Bonora Pulwama for hate campaign, bullying and anti-national activities on social media platforms in South Kashmir's Pulwama district," police said.

Police said Mir Mushtaq through his social media account is indulging in activities which are "pre-judicial to sovereignty, integrity and union of India and Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir" and "advocates abets unlawful activities and commits offences which are likely to disrupt the public tranquillity and harmony".

"Besides, he is involved in criminal intimidation on social media and also involved in cyber stalking and cyber bullying," police said.

Police have registered a case and further investigation into the matter has been initiated.

--IANS zi/pgh

( 158 Words)

2022-01-15-22:54:06 (IANS)
Ace athlete Saikhom Mirabai Chanu, who won the silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics in Women's 49 kg category in weightlifting in July last year, on Saturday joined as the Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) in Manipur police. Chanu's father Saikhom Kriti Meitei and mother Saikhom Tombi accompanied her when she took charge of the new assignment with in the official uniform. The Manipur government had earlier appointed her as ASP (Sports) after her performance at the Olympics. The 27-years-old Olympian after taking the charge of ASP (Sports) made a courtesy call to Chief Minister N. Biren Singh, who earlier gave her a reward of Rs 1 crore. "Our Nation's pride, Olympian Silver medalist, Mirabai Chanu has taken charge as the Additional Superintendent of Police (Sports), Manipur Police and called on me at my office today," Singh tweeted. She also expressed her happiness after joining as the ASP (Sports). "It is an honour to have joined the Manipur Police as the Additional Superintendent of Police (Sports). I would like to thank the state of Manipur and our Chief Minister N. Biren Singh Sir, for giving me this opportunity to serve the country and its citizens," she tweeted. Tagging the photographs of her parents, Mirabai in another tweet said: "Proud moment for me and my parents who have supported me in every step of my journey as I join office with the Manipur Police as the Additional Superintendent of Police (Sports). Thank you mom and dad for your sacrifices, I feel happy to make you both proud." --IANS sc/pgh ( 272 Words) 2022-01-15-23:16:04 (IANS)
With this, the tally of positive police personnel rose to 1,312 in the city.

A total of 126 personnel have died so far from the infection, said the Mumbai police.

Also, 31 police personnel tested COVID-19 positive on Saturday in Pune city. With this, the number of infected police personnel in the city rose to 465, said Pune police.

Mumbai on Saturday reported 10,661 new cases and 11 deaths. There were 73,518 active cases in the city.

Meanwhile, Maharashtra reported 42,462 new cases and 23 deaths in the last 24 hours, the state health department informed on Saturday.

The active caseload stands at 2,64,441 in the state.

The state also reported 125 Omicron infections, taking the case tally of the coronavirus variant to 1,730. (ANI)
Ever since the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) came into force in Punjab for the Assembly elections, various enforcement teams have seized valuables worth Rs 40.31 crores in violation of the code till January 14, 2022, said Punjab Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), S Karuna Raju, on Saturday. Giving details in this regard, Raju said that the surveillance teams have seized 2.72 lakh litres of liquor worth Rs 81 lakh. Similarly, the enforcement wings have also recovered psychotropic substances amounting to Rs 38.93 crores besides confiscating unaccounted cash of Rs 14 lakhs, he added. The Chief Electoral Officer revealed that as many as 1064 highly sensitive areas have been identified. Besides this, 2222 persons have been identified as probable sources of trouble, he said adding that out of these persons preventive action had already been initiated against 894 persons while the remaining would also be brought to book. He also informed that from a security point of view preventive measures had been taken against 118 persons. He informed that as many as 2064 cases of non-bailable warrants have been executed, while execution in 239 cases are under process. As many as 3692 nakas are operational across the State, he added. The MCC teams have also removed as many as 53610 defacements of public properties, while 14911 on private properties. As per the directions of the election commission, Dr Raju said till date 323102 licensed weapons have been deposited in the state, whereas 20 without licenses weapons were seized in the state. He also informed that 84.3 per cent of staff to be deployed in election duties have got their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, while 49.9 per cent staff are fully vaccinated. Punjab will go to the polls on February 14 and the counting of votes will take place on March 10. In the 2017 Assembly polls in the state, Congress won an absolute majority by winning 77 seats and ousted the SAD-BJP government which had been in power for 10 years. (ANI)
According to the police, a car registered on Lucknow number was caught by the flying squad team from the Ramadevi intersection in the Chakeri area police station.

On the information of the flying squad team, the team of the Directorate of Income Tax Investigation reached the spot.

"The vehicle is of Amin Raine, resident of Bajaria police station of Orai district. The Scorpio vehicle was taken to the police station Chakeri and Amen Raine was questioned about the cash till late night," said police.

"Police flying squad team has seized cash worth Rs 50 lakh from a Scorpio car during checking in view of Assembly polls in the state. The driver claimed that the money belongs to a company, Raj Frozen Products. IT team has been called," said DCP East Pramod Kumar Singh.

Further investigation is underway. (ANI)
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who earlier urged everyone including BJP leaders to move away from the Personal Security Officer culture and also drastically cut his security strength, on Saturday publicly reprimanded the Deputy Commissioner of Nagaon district for blocking the traffic on highway during his visit and directed not to repeat the same during the chief minister's movement. The Chief Minister on his way to an official function suddenly stopped his convoy and alighted from his car at Gumothagaon on National Highway-37 and said: "DC sahab yeh kya natak hai ? Gari kyun rukwaya hai. Koi raja maharaja jaa raha hai kya? Aisa mat karo again. Logo ko kasht ho raha hai. Gari jane do (What is this drama? Why the vehicles have been stopped? Is a king passing through here? This should not happen again. People are suffering a let. Let the vehicles go)." After the Chief Minister's intervention many stranded vehicles including several passenger buses had started moving. Later, Sarma tweeted: "In our state we want to create a culture where DC, SP or any govt servant/public rep-irrespective of background,intellectual capacity or popularity will work only for the people Changing babu mindset is a tough, but we are determined to achieve our goal-Janta hi Janardhan." Sarma had earlier announced to cut down his convoy from a fleet of 22 vehicles to seven to eight while moving in Guwahati. The Assam cabinet in a recent meeting, chaired by Chief Minister, also decided that PSO would be deployed based on core security review and constitutional post. "Over 4,240 PSOs are now being posted with the politicians, in-service and retired officials, businessmen, surrendered militants, tea estate owners and others. Annually, Assam spends Rs 400 crore for the PSOs. This cannot continue," Sarma had said. --IANS sc/pgh ( 308 Words) 2022-01-16-00:08:02 (IANS)
"Personally, 'Pariksha Pe Charcha' is a fantastic learning experience. I get the opportunity to connect with our dynamic youth, understand their challenges and aspirations better," the Prime Minister said in a tweet.

'Pariksha Pe Charcha' is an event where the Prime Minister responds to queries related to examination stress and other related issues during a live programme.

The Prime Minister further said that it also gives him the opportunity to discover the emerging trends in the world of education.

The first edition of the Prime Minister's interaction programme with school and college students was held at the Talkatora Stadium in Delhi on February 16, 2018.

The registration process of the fifth edition of Prime Minister's interaction programme with school students, teachers and parents is currently online and will end on January 20.

"Exams are approaching and so is Pariksha Pe Charcha 2022'. Let's talk stress-free exams and once again support our brave #ExamWarriors, their parents and teachers. I urge you all to register for this year's #PPC2022," Modi tweeted.

--IANS uj/arm

( 215 Words)

2022-01-16-00:14:03 (IANS)
India Meteorological Department (IMD) is looking at conducting a pilot project in 2023 for using drones for weather observations across India. Ever since the Ministry of Civil Aviation notified the liberalised Drone Rules, 2021, in August last year, there have been talks of the immense potential that using drones will have for multiple applications. Although this included talks about observational forecasting by the IMD, it was the Minister for State for Earth Sciences, Jitendra Singh, while speaking at the 147th Foundation Day event of the IMD on Friday, brought the issue to the forefront. He had said that his Ministry will deploy and use drone-based observation technology in a big way for strengthening the localised forecasting, besides adopting the high-resolution models. IMD Director General, Mrutyunjay Mahapatra told IANS: "It is still at a very initial state. We are looking at a pilot study in about a year." The IMD releases 63 balloons everyday uniformly distributed across India. Those reach up to an altitude of four to five km but the equipment that goes with it is lost. "Instead, with drones that can go up to six km vertically, our equipment can be reused," Mohapatra said. Experts welcomed it as a positive development but were also wary of its limitations in terms of endurance and payload but most of them were welcoming of the development as something for which the time is right. Former IMD Director General, K.J. Ramesh pointed out how the US and Israel are already extensively using drones and said that for India, drones can be useful in remote areas such as Ladakh or coastal areas. "Drones of three to four hours of endurance (having) horizontal radial scan range of 40-50 km and vertical range of 4-5 km capability that the Defence Research and Development Organisation developed and are being operated by Indian Navy in naval yards or by the Army in hilly regions will have to be used with meteorological instruments payload," Ramesh said. Terming it as a new vista for technology around the unmanned aerial vehicle to play a significant role in weather data management, Nilamadhab Prusty, Mentor Director, Strategy Centre at the Centre for Development and Disaster Management Support Services, said, "Instrumented drone can perform this role. It can help forecast the air pollution menace." --IANS niv/khz/ ( 401 Words) 2022-01-16-00:38:01 (IANS)
Narendra hails from Savalyapuram which falls in Vinukonda assembly constituency in Guntur district,

Objecting to the imprisonment of the Narendra during Sankranti festival season, Naidu also demanded that that ruling Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) government led by Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy to tender an apology to the farmer's family alleging that the family was "wronged and disrespected" during festival season.

"The farmers' community would not forgive the Jagan Reddy regime for putting so much pain to a family of 'Annadathas' (food givers)," Naidu said in an official statement.

He also said that Narendra was a "highly concerned farmer", who sought remunerative prices for crops.

"However, instead of positively responding to his plea, the Jagan Reddy Government started insulting and humiliating the entire farmers' community," Naidu said.

Alleging that an illegal case to arrest the farmer was filed at the behest of the ruling YSRCP MLA of Vinukonda, Naidu demanded the state government to suspend Vinukonda Rural CI Ashok Kumar.

The TDP chief also demanded that the state government to pay compensation to the farmer's family for causing them "agony." (ANI)
There are currently 1,31,007 active COVID-19 cases in Tamil Nadu. The cumulative death toll of the state stood at 36,967. While the cumulative recoveries in the state stood at 27,47,974.

Earlier on Tuesday, Tamil Nadu Health Minister MA Subramanian said that there is no need for a lockdown in the state amid rising COVID-19 cases.

"There is no need for full lockdown as of now. CM has asserted that the economy should not be affected, restricted lockdown enough for now," Subramanian had said on Tuesday

Earlier on Monday, the Tamil Nadu government extended COVID-19 restrictions till January 31 in order to contain the transmission of the virus.

According to the state government circular, devotees will not be allowed in all places of worship between January 14 and January 18. The special inter-district buses for Pongal will run at 75 per cent capacity.

The night curfew will continue in the state is extended till January 31 and will remain effective from 10 pm to 5 am from Mondays to Saturdays. A total lockdown will be in force on January 16 (Sunday), barring essential services. (ANI)
Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Uttrakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami will be present in the meeting along with the party's National President Jagat Prakash Nadda, State president Madan Kaushik, state election incharge Pralhad Joshi, election co-incharge RP Singh and others.

Meanwhile, Dhami on Saturday had said that he will contest the upcoming Assembly polls in the state from the Khatima constituency and said that the list of candidates will be announced soon.

The Chief Minister added that they have set a target of winning more than 60 seats out of the 70 seats in the Assembly through a slogan ''Abki Baar 60 Paar'.

In the last Assembly election, BJP secured the win on 57 seats out of 70 Assembly constituencies in Uttarakhand.

Polls to elect the 70-member State Legislative Assembly are scheduled to be held on February 14. The counting will take place on March 10. (ANI)
Ahead of the Goa Assembly polls, Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party National Convener Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday listed a 13-point agenda for the State. In the 13-point agenda, the party will bring reforms in the areas of education, health, trade and industry, livelihood, Mining and infrastructure. "Goa public is looking forward to the upcoming elections on February 14. AAP is fresh hope. They didn't have any choice except BJP or Congress earlier, they want a change and are frustrated," he said in a press conference. Under the 13 point agenda, the AAP has proposed employment to the people or an 'unemployment allowance' of Rs 3000 per month. The party has also promised to provide land rights to the families who are deprived of it. "Employment will be provided to youth; those who do not get, they will get the aid of Rs 3000 per month. Mining has huge vested interest, we will start mining within six months of coming into power," he added while stating that, "we will provide a corruption-free government in Goa". Talking about the health infrastructure model of Delhi, the AAP leader said, "Just like Delhi, mohalla clinics and hospitals will be opened in every village and district of Goa, for better and free healthcare. Farming issues will be solved after discussing with the farmer community". Besides, livelihood, the party has promised to provide free electricity and water for 24 hours to the people of Goa if it wins the upcoming assembly elections. The AAP leader also promised to provide Rs 1000 to every woman above 18 years of age, improved condition of roads and free education in all government schools. The AAP leader also promised to solve the issues pertaining to agriculture by having a dialogue with the farmers. "Every family in Goa will get a benefit of Rs 10 lakh at the end 5 years if AAP comes to power," he added. "We will give free electricity that would be saving Rs 6,000 per year. Women will get a Rs 1000 allowance. If there are two women in a family then they would get an allowance of Rs 24,000 per year. We will give livelihood to people and the people who will not have livelihood then we will give Rs 3000 per month allowance to them," he said. "Every family will save Rs 40,000-50,000 on health services. The families would be able to save approximately 22,000 on the education of two students. If you add all this then roughly it comes around Rs two lakh per year. That means every family will save Rs 10,00,000 lakhs in five years," he announced. (ANI)
Roads in Karnataka's Hubli wore a deserted look and market places fell silent on Sunday morning with the weekend curfew clamped in the state to contain the spread of COVID-19. The police had barricaded most arterial roads and stopped motorists without valid reasons for travelling. Karnataka recorded 32,793 new cases of Covid-19, and 7 fatalities on Saturday, taking the tally to 31,86,040 and the death toll to 38,418. In view of the surge in COVID cases, the Karnataka government had decided to extend guidelines till the end of the month. The decision has been taken after Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Tuesday chaired a review meeting on the COVID situation via video conferencing in Bengaluru. Ministers Dr K Sudhakar, BC Nagesh, Araga Dnyanendra and senior officials attended the meeting.The rise in cases among school children was also discussed in the meeting. A decision was also taken to authorise the Deputy Commissioners of respective districts to take a call on closing schools based on the number of cases, reports from the BEOs and Health officers. Officials are instructed to arrange children's ward, ICUs and other treatment facilities for children at Taluk and District hospitals. Education and Health department officials asked to conduct a general health checkup in schools every fortnight. Karnataka has effectively leveraged technology in Covid battle and so far about 2.5 lakh healthcare and frontline staff have been trained through online platforms so far. This is model to the entire country, said Health and Medical Education Minister Dr.K.Sudhakar. Dr.Sudhakar inaugurated the virtual training program being conducted in association with StepOne for about 10,000 medical, dental and ayush students to train them in home isolation care and addressed the students. During the first wave it was necessary to provide training to healthcare workers about the new virus. But due to lockdown and other reasons when it was not feasible to conduct physical training we trained about 2.5 lakh healthcare and front line staff though online with the help of RGUHS. Even Central govt had appreciated Karnataka's efforts to leverage technology.(ANI)
The FICN smuggler namely Aladu alias Matahur SK, a resident of Haruchak village in Mojampur area in Malda, was arrested on Saturday. Aladu had been absconding since 2019.

"Yesterday, NIA in a joint operation with BSF arrested a notorious absconding FICN smuggler namely Aladu from his native place in connection with an ongoing case against him," the NIA said in a statement.

The arrested accused was wanted in a case registered on September 16, 2019, by Malda unit of Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) following recovery of high-quality FICNs of face value Rs 1.99 lakhs from the possession of another accused.

Subsequently, NIA had re-registered the case and taken up the investigation on October 29, 2019.

Earlier, NIA had filed a charge-sheet against four accused persons including Aladu for his role in FICN trafficking.

The arrested FICN trafficker had been involved in the procurement of high-quality FICNs from his Bangladeshi associates and further circulating the same in India with an intention to damage the economic stability of the country, said the agency. (ANI)
"The guardian of all of us, the former Chief Minister of Jharkhand, respected @ShibuSorenJMM has become COVID-19 positive and has currently isolated himself. He is recovering well. I pray to God for his speedy recovery," tweeted Gupta today.

India recorded 2,71,202 fresh COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Saturday. The daily positivity rate is at 16.28 per cent.

The fresh infections are 2,369 more than yesterday. On Saturday, India logged 2,68,833 fresh COVID-19 cases. (ANI)
Deputy Superintendent of Police Sadar, Satya Prakash Sharma on Saturday told ANI, "Three accused have been arrested after 28 kilograms of explosives were recovered from their possession by the Chilla Police Station under Banda district during in a checking last night."

"The explosives have been seized and three persons have been arrested," he said.

The police has registered a case.

Further probe in the matter is underway. (ANI)
Congress candidate from Uttar Pradesh's Hastinapur, Archana Gautam, who is a winner of various beauty pageants including Miss Bikini India 2018, has given a befitting reply to the critics who questioned her credential as a politician. Talking to IANS, Gautam, 26, said: "Those who are commenting on my candidature, I would like to tell them that, I have not committed a crime. I have represented India in various beauty contests. Nor have I hurt anyone's sentiments, so why comment like this on me? "There are also BJP leaders who have been associated with the film industry. Two of them are Smriti Irani and Hema Malini. They have acted in films and have worn short clothes. They never represented India in any contest. But I contested against candidates from 30 countries and attained the first place." After Archana's name was announced as a Congress candidate from Meerut's Hastinapur Assembly seat, her pictures in bikini started flooding on social media. Archana is a model and has acted in films as well. Because of her career, she lives in Mumbai. She won the title of Miss UP in 2014 and Miss Bikini India in 2018. She has also represented India in Miss Cosmos. Apart from Bollywood films, she has also acted in a couple of south films. She said: "I am going to start a new life with the people of Hastinapur. But some people are indulging in my character assassination, judging me by my clothes. In today's world, girls are equal with boys every step of the way. No one has the right to judge my character on the basis of my clothes. "Everyone has seen my 'reel life' not 'real life'. People didn't see how much I struggled, I came from a poor family and achieved this position on my own." Archana joined the Congress in November last year, and two months later she was made a candidate. She said: "I was born in Nagla Harairu of Mawana, Meerut, so I am the daughter of Hastinapur. Just like a daughter serves the family, I will serve Hastinapur." "There are so many ancient temples in Hastinapur, but they have not been developed as tourist places. This also affects the employment as there is no development in Hastinapur. Traffic problem in the city is huge, there is no railway station and no major bus stand," she told IANS while talking about her priorities if she wins. "If I win from Hastinapur, I will first fix the traffic issue and will work to develop tourist places in the city. Flood situation every year is a big problem. The BJP government built a dam to prevent this, but the dam collapsed in the first rain. Roads are also of poor quality, no work has been done here," she said further. The Congress has announced candidates for two out of seven seats in Meerut and both the declared candidates are women. --IANS msk/skp/ksk/ ( 504 Words) 2022-01-16-09:16:01 (IANS)
Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have decided to contest the upcoming Goa Assembly elections together in alliance, Shiv Sena leader and MP Sanjay Raut said on Sunday. Speaking to ANI, Raut said, "Shiv Sena and NCP will contest together in Goa assembly elections. There will be a discussion on seat sharing on January 18. NCP's senior leader Praful Patel will discuss seat-sharing formula in Goa on January 18. Only after that, it will be clear who will contest on how many seats." "Political dynamics are different in Maharashtra and Goa. NCP, Shiv Sena, Congress are in alliance in Maharashtra. However, at the moment Congress has decided to contest alone without forming an alliance with any other party in the state," he said. Goa elections are set to be held in a single phase on February 14. The counting of votes will be held on March 10. In view of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, Shiv Sena leader did not comment much on Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's decision to contest from Gorakhpur. "I will not make any comment on Yogi ji's decision to contest from Gorakhpur. He has been fielded from his native constituency. So, it is a good thing. I have heard that Aparna Yadav is going to join BJP. It's good to know," he said. Yadav is the daughter in law of Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav. Meanwhile, elections for the 403 assembly constituencies in Uttar Pradesh will be held in seven phases starting February 10, the Election Commission said. The polling in Uttar Pradesh will be held on February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27 and March 3 and 7 in seven phases. (ANI)
As India marks one year of the COVID vaccination drive on Sunday, Union Home Minister Amit Shah stated that if the government and the people of a country unite to achieve a common goal, then the country can conquer every challenge. Shah also lauded the leadership and determination of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the continuous efforts of the people in the country. "Leadership and determination of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the continuous efforts of the people in India have proved that if the government and the people of a country unite to achieve a common goal, then the country can conquer every challenge and make the impossible possible," Shah tweeted in Hindi. Earlier in the day, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya had called the COVID vaccination drive the "most successful" in the world. Taking to Twitter, he wrote, "Today the world's largest vaccination campaign completes one year. Started under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi, with everyone's efforts, today, it is the most successful vaccination campaign in the world. I congratulate all the health workers, scientists and countrymen." India's cumulative COVID-19 vaccination coverage has exceeded 156.76 crore in a span of a year. India commenced its nationwide COVID vaccination drive on January 16, 2021. Starting initially by inoculating vaccines to healthcare workers, it was then expanded to frontline workers, followed by people above 60 years of age and those above 45 years with comorbidities. Later it was also expanded to all above 45 years of age and then those above 18 years of age. The vaccination drive for those between the age group 15-18 was started on January 3, 2022 and for administering the precautionary doses to the healthcare workers, frontline workers and sixty plus individuals then commenced on January 10 this year. As per Union Health Ministry, 1,56,76,15,454 vaccine doses have been administered to eligible beneficiaries, as per provisional reports till 7 am on Sunday. In the last 24 hours, more than 66 lakh vaccine doses were administered. (ANI)
One year ago today, India set out on the challenging journey of vaccinating its massive 1.38 billion-strong population against Covid-19 and it takes more than just physical strength to administer vaccines to elderly villagers, especially eligible children, existing in harsh weather conditions, and the onset of a third wave, on the other side of the lofty mountains of Himachal Pradesh. It also takes grit and determination and both are in abundance amidst the health workers, who are trudging the snow-clad mountains to vaccinate the villagers in some of the most remote villages. Unfazed by the harsh weather conditions, the healthcare workers are vaccinating children between 15-18 years of age and people above the age of 60 years at their doorsteps by navigating through snow-clad mountains. "The snow-laden paths may look charming, but they are very slippery and harsh," remarked Kavita Negi, a healthcare worker in Chitkul, the last inhabited village in Kinnaur district near the India-China border. Slinging blue vaccine boxes over their shoulders, Kavita along with other healthcare workers was on a two-hour trek down and up to remote villages. Last week's moderate to heavy snowfall cut off the road network to several remote villages and hamlets for several days largely in Lahaul-Spiti, Kinnaur, Chamba, Kullu, Mandi and Shimla districts. The Press Information Bureau of India has released an inspiring video where healthcare workers, trudging through snow-laden paths, are visiting villages for the vaccine shots. Likewise, a video tweeted by Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya shows healthcare workers walking through snow in Kinnaur to reach a school to vaccinate children aged 15 to 18 years. It's hard work but he is determined to protect the children. "Since the last heavy snowfall on January 8, we have been providing vaccine to children in schools," Block Medical Officer Tenzin Norbu, who is posted in Kaza, the headquarters of Spiti which is about 350 km from the state capital Shimla, told IANS over phone. He said the healthcare workers have to wade through over a feet of snow for hours, or days, to reach remote government schools to vaccinate students, who were also facing problems to reach the school owing to piling of snow on the paths. Today (January 14) his team left for Losar village, some 50 km from Kaza, to deliver the vaccine. "We sent the first vaccination team to Losar that has been cut off from the rest of the district owing to heavy snowfall. Our team has to trek several kilometres through over two feet of snow from the nearest roadhead to reach the government school where we are expecting to vaccinate 50-60 children," Norbu, who feels proud to do this job to serve the community, added. Remote and tribal communities such as those in this Losar village are among the most vulnerable to the spread of the virus as they are reluctant to go to hospitals owing to a belief that they will get treated automatically with the blessing of a local deity. Kaza, which is home to 650 children in the age group of 15-18 years, was the first in the state to sanitise the entire block to prevent the spread of the pandemic in 2020. A total of 275 children were vaccinated till January 14. The picturesque Spiti Valley, a cold desert dotted with tiny hamlets spread over the Himalayan peaks, adjoining Tibet, takes you to a land of Buddhism and virgin nature. It is populated mainly by tribals, who are largely farmers growing barley, potatoes, wheat and black peas. The climatic conditions of the district are harsh as much of the land forms part of a cold desert where the mercury drops below minus 20 degrees Celsius during winters. But the health authorities are determined not to let roadblocks come in their way. They plan to take the immunisation programme to new heights by traversing on horseback or even airlifting the vaccine to reach remote habitations like in the previous pulse polio programmes. Officials told IANS that vaccinating the elderly with a booster dose will be a challenging task as a large population lives in rural areas and ferrying the vaccine there would be a big hurdle. Health officials say their staff will have to traverse at least three days on foot from the nearest roadheads to the remotest hamlet Bara Bhangal in Kangra district for the vaccination programme. The journey to Bara Bhangal, part of the Dhauladhar Wildlife Sanctuary that remains cut off from the rest of the world for over six months due to heavy snow, is 65 km from the last village that is connected by road. Since the entire region is under heavy snow cover, it won't be possible to send a team there on foot, a health official added. Airlifting the vaccine is the only option. Bara Bhangal has a population of around 400. During winters, a large population migrates to Bir village in Baijnath tehsil, near Palampur town, some 250 km from state capital Shimla. Bara Bhangal is accessible on foot through the Thamsar Pass, located at an altitude of 4,700 metres. Last month Himachal Pradesh became the first state to fully vaccinate 100 per cent of its eligible population against the coronavirus. Health officials told IANS that at least 30 villages in Lahaul-Spiti and an equal number in Kinnaur are located at altitudes ranging from 9,000 feet to 15,000 feet above mean sea level. The Pangi segment in Chamba district has over a dozen such villages. Kunnu and Charang villages in Kinnaur's Pooh sub-division, known for growing peas, are among the remotest habitats where locals have to trudge some 15-20 km to reach a nearby health centre. While Charang has 50 households, Kunnu has 30. There are several hamlets across Lahaul-Spiti district and Pangi in Chamba district where locals have to trek more than 10 km to reach the health centre. Kinnaur and Lahaul-Spiti are part of the sprawling Mandi parliamentary constituency that covers almost two-thirds of the hill state. The Buddhist-dominated districts in the Himalayan terrain, with elevations ranging from 15,000 feet to 20,000 feet above the mean sea level share a porous border with China. Himachal Pradesh has a target to vaccinate about 357,450 children aged 15-18 years. A total of 4,259 educational institutions would be covered under this campaign which includes 2,801 government, 1,402 private and 56 other educational institutions. (Vishal Gulati can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in) --IANS vg/bg ( 1082 Words) 2022-01-16-09:34:01 (IANS)
In the year since the country's vaccination drive began, the country has administered 1,56,76,15,454 doses of COVID-19 vaccines. The country has also started administering the 'precautionary doses' to the healthcare workers, frontline workers and beneficiaries above the age of 60 years.

India kicked off the world's largest vaccination drive by initially inoculating vaccines to healthcare and frontline workers and now it is vaccinating the beneficiaries aged between 15 to 18 against the COVID-19.

A lot has happened since the first vaccine dose was administered on January 16, 2021. The country has battled vaccine hesitancy and vaccine shortage.

The timeline of the "world's largest vaccination drive" -

January 16, 2021: Vaccination drive began for healthcare workers

February 2, 2021: Vaccination drive began for frontline workers

March 1, 2021: Vaccination drive began for beneficiaries aged above 60 years and those with co-morbidities in the 45-60 years age group

April 1, 2021: All beneficiaries aged above 45 years became eligible for COVID-19 vaccination

May 1, 2021: All beneficiaries aged above 18 years became eligible for COVID-19 vaccination

October 21, 2021: India reached the milestone of administering 100 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses

January 3, 2022: Beneficiaries in the age group of 15-18 years became eligible for COVID vaccination

January 10, 2022: Administration of precautionary dose began for frontline workers and vulnerable people above the age of 60 years

To inoculate the country's huge population, the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) gave the green light to Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine--Covishield (manufactured under license by Serum Institute of India) and Covaxin (India's indigenous vaccine developed locally by Bharat Biotech), on January 3.

India has also granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to three other vaccines by Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and Zydus Cadila.

On October 12, the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) of the drug regulator also recommended granting an emergency use authorization to Bharat Biotech's Covaxin for children aged between 2-18 years as well.

As India faces the third wave of COVID-19, the vaccination drive will continue to play a decisive role in the battle against the pandemic. (ANI)
Senior Congress leader Bhupesh Baghel kickstarted door to door campaign in Uttar Pradesh's Noida on Sunday after the election commission extended the ban on public rallies up to January 22 due to rise in the COVID-19 cases. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel expressed confidence in his party securing a win in the upcoming Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh. Speaking to ANI, Baghel who is also an observer for the UP Assembly election said, "The situation of Congress is strong in Uttar Pradesh. Under the leadership of Priyanka Gandhi, the organisation has become strong and has fought for the farmers, workers and women. There is great support on the ground for Congress. We are complying with the guidelines of the ECI. We are doing door to door campaign. We are adhering to the guidelines of the commission." Talking about this party's chances in the Assembly polls scheduled to start from February 10, Baghel said that Congress is working on the ground for the common man and believed that the people will vote for them. "The Congress is working for the common man, gave appropriate rate for the crops. Issued separate manifesto for women under the "Ladki Hoon Lad Sakti Hoon" campaign. I am confident that people will vote for Congress in the upcoming polls," he said. Asked about the leaders changing the parties weeks ahead of the beginning of the election, Baghel said that the sitting ministers leaving the BJP is on the basis of their experience of five years working in the government. "When there is an election, the leaders may change their parties. Three MLAs of the Samajwadi Party also joined the BJP. But the most important thing is that if as many as 14 leaders including the ministers leave the party accusing the government of neglecting the Dalits, farmers and backward classes, then this is the crux of their experience of the five years," he said. "The BJP which had been seeking votes in the name of religion has been exposed that they have done nothing for them. So the common people are upset with the BJP," the Congress leader added. Meanwhile, former Samajwadi Party leader and Congress candidate from Noida, Pankhuri Pathak hit out at the sitting MLA Pankaj Singh and said that he could not be seen among the people during the entire duration of the COVID pandemic. "Pankaj Singh, son of Union Minister Rajnath Singh was not seen among the public for the whole five years. During the COVID pandemic, we worked for the people of the constituency, I did the sanitisation work with the resources that I had," she said. On Thursday, the party rolled out its first list of 125 candidates for the assembly elections which are due to be held in seven phases in Uttar Pradesh from February 10 and the list includes 50 women candidates. Elections for the 403 assembly constituencies in Uttar Pradesh will be held in seven phases starting February 10, the Election Commission said. The polling in Uttar Pradesh will be held on February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27 and March 3 and 7 in seven phases. The counting of votes will take place on March 10. (ANI)
Sources have said that the former minister wants to be considered for a ministerial post in the next cabinet expansion in Karnataka.

However, Jarakiholi after the meeting said that he had meet Deshpande just to convey him his festival wishes.

Opportunities in the cabinet are being discussed for newcomers, such as Mahesh Kumathalli for a ministerial position in expected cabinet expansion.

Ramesh Jarakiholi was forced to leave his ministerial post due to his alleged involvement in 'sex for job' scandal last year.

A case was registered against Jarkiholi for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman.

Addressing reporters, the complainant Dinesh Kallahalli, who is a social activist, had said, "I have lodged a complaint with police, demanding a probe into a sex scandal involving Ramesh Jarkiholi."

Jarkiholi has denied the allegations. (ANI)
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Sunday said that in a joint operation with Border Security Force (BSF) it has arrested one Aladu alias Mathur, a resident of West Bengal, Malda in connection with running fake Indian currency racket. The gang was being operated from cross border. The main accused were sending fake notes to India from Bangladesh. A senior NIA official said they busted the gang last week and had arrested an aide but he managed to give the agency a slip and since then they had been working to nab him. "The case was registered by DRI Unit Malda, West Bengal regarding recovery of high quality fake Indian currency notes of Rs 1,99,000, from the possession of an accused. Subsequently, NIA had re-registered the case and had taken up the investigation," said an NIA official. After completing the probe, the NIA had filed charge sheet against four accused persons including Aladu for his role in FICN trafficking. The NIA had shown a number of evidences and recovery to prove their claim. Apart from this the NIA also had mentioned a number of witnesses' statements to prove the case of the prosecution. The NIA found that Aladu had been involved in procurement of High Quality FICNs from his Bangladeshi associates. He had been circulating the same in India with an intention to damage economic stability of the country. "The arrested accused Aladu had been absconding since 2019," said an NIA official. Further investigation in the matter is on. --IANS atk/skp/ ( 265 Words) 2022-01-16-12:28:04 (IANS)
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging him to include the tableau of freedom fighters from the state in the Republic Day parade on the 75th year of India's independence. The Chief Minister, through the letter, expressed her disappointment by the decision to abruptly exclude the proposed tableau of the West Bengal Government. "It is even more baffling for us that the tableau was rejected without assigning any reasons or justifications," she wrote. The proposed tableau was commemorating the contributions of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and his NIA's 125th birth anniversary year and was carrying portraits of some of the most illustrious sons and daughters in this country - Vidyasagar, Rabindranath Tagore, Vivekananda, Chittaranjan Das, Sri Aurobindo, Matangini Hazra, Birsa Munda, Nazrul Isla, the letter read. "All the people of West Bengal are deeply pained by this attitude of the Central Government. Bengal was at the forefront of the Indian freedom struggle and has paid the heaviest price for the country's Independence through the partition," she added. She further urged PM Modi to reconsider the decision and said, "the tableau which showcases the sacrifices and contribution of the lakhs of freedom fighters will be the most befitting way to pay our respect and homage to all those great souls who fought for our freedom." Republic Day is celebrated in India every year on January 26 to commemorate the day the Constitution of the nation came into effect. (ANI)
As per the official statement, a large number of people gathered on the Amritsar-Jalandhar road to welcome Majithia.

The case was registered at Sultanwind police station under Disaster Management Act 2005, Epidemic Diseases Act 1897 and IPC 1860.

The SAD supporters were seen honouring the former Punjab minister with garlands and "siropas" and these activities were captured on camera, the statement read.

It stated that Majithia and his supporters violated all the COVID-19 protocols as well as restrictions imposed by the Election Commission of India.

Police will begin action in accordance with the law following the registration of FIR against the SAD leader, it added.

Earlier on Saturday, the EC extended the ban on physical rallies and roadshows till January 22 in all the five poll-bound states in view of rising COVID-19 cases. (ANI)
A Delhi court on Sunday rejected the bail plea of Sulli Deals app creator Aumkareshwar Thakur. Metropolitan Magistrate Vasundhra Chhaunkar has dismissed the bail plea of Sulli Deals app creator Aumkareshwar Thakur. The IFSO unit of Delhi Police's Special Cell arrested the mastermind of the Sulli Deals app from Indore last week after receiving information about him from Bulli Bai app case mastermind Neeraj Bishnoi during the investigation. The Court noted that the investigation in the case is at an initial stage and the accused has been arrested after great and time-consuming efforts following the MLAT process. "The accused had consciously used Top Browser to disclose his identity and various complaints have been received against the 'Sulli Deals' app throughout the country. The investigation is at a nascent stage where crucial evidence and further chain of events are yet to be conclusively unearthed," the Court observed. According to the Court, granting bail to the accused at this juncture will prejudice a fair investigation. "Therefore, in the opinion of the Court, the accused is not entitled to bail at this stage, " the court said. "On the basis of above observations and reasons, bail application of accused Aumkareshwar Thakur is dismissed," the court said. In July 2021, the 'Sulli Deal' app was made on the Github platform to auction Muslim women. The matter came to light when Delhi Police took suo moto cognisance of this matter. The Delhi Police were investigating the case for the last six months but the first arrest in the case came after Bulli Bai app case mastermind Niraj Bishnoi was apprehended from Assam's Jorhat. Delhi Police, during the investigation, found out that the Bulli Bai mastermind Niraj Bishnoi and Aumkareshwar Thakur were virtually connected over the internet through chat rooms. (ANI)
It was speculated that the Samyukta Samaj Morcha, which was carved out of the farmers' protest movement, and the Aam Aadmi Party would contest the Punjab assembly polls together, but they have ended up fighting against each other. The differences became more apparent when they could not agree on seat sharing at a "dinner meeting" between Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and SSM president Balbir Singh Rajewal at the former's residence. Earlier this month, addressing a press conference, Rajewal had said, "Samyukta Samaj Morcha will not form an alliance with the AAP for Punjab Assembly polls." Till two weeks ago, there were speculations about this political front that emerged from the farmers' movement that they may have an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party. There was even discussion that Aam Aadmi Party can make Balbir Singh Rajewal as its chief ministerial candidate in Punjab. But now both the parties are openly up against each other. It was speculated that Aam Aadmi Party can make Balbir Singh Rajewal as its Chief Minister face. However, even after the announcement of the Rajewal faction to contest all 117 seats, the Aam Aadmi Party leaders remained in touch with them. According to the sources, Arvind Kejriwal and Rajewal had a meeting at the Chief Minister's residence on the night of January 1, 2022. Discussions were held on the distribution of seats, however, it could not take a final shape. This was mentioned by Arvind Kejriwal in his recent Punjab visit. During a press conference in Chandigarh, asked about this, Kejriwal said that by the time Rajewal had come to his residence, the AAP had already announced tickets on 90 seats. "By the day Rajewal came to my house, we had announced 90 tickets. He demanded 60 tickets. We said that there are 27 tickets left, you may take 10-15 tickets, it is not right to take back the tickets from the ones whom we have already given," Kejriwal said. "If SSM fights alone, it would divide the votes of the Aam Aadmi Party," he added. Speaking to ANI over phone, General Secretary of SSM Omkar Singh hit back at Kejriwal and said that SSM has fought for the people of Punjab and AAP is scared of this. "The people of Punjab know that we are farmers and we have fought for their rights, so they stand with us. Aam Aadmi Party is scared of this fact. We were not contesting elections for seats but for the rights of the people of Punjab," he told ANI. Notably, AAP leader Raghav Chadha had accused the ECI of making changes in the rules at the behest of BJP to register the SSM. Speaking to ANI over phone, Chadha said, "Everyone knows that Aam Aadmi Party is going to form government in Punjab, that's why BJP wants to stop us with some excuse or the other. When none of their measures worked, now they want to create trouble for us through this Morcha. As far as registration is concerned in their commission by changing the rules, they just want to divide the vote of the farmers." Speaking to ANI, Omkar Singh had denied the allegations and said that this has happened in the past as well during the West Bengal Assembly elections. Both the parties are up against each other in the Punjab Assembly polls. On one side, AAP has announced their candidates on 109 out of 117 seats with Arvind Kejriwal set to announce the chief ministerial candidate next week. SSM has announced its candidates on 10 seats. Punjab will go to the polls on February 14 and the counting of votes will take place on March 10. (ANI)
The Nagar Kotwali police arrested Mahamandaleshwar Yeti Narsimhanand Maharaj of Juna Akhara from Sarvanand Ghat in Haridwar where he was reportedly fasting at Sarbananda Ghat demanding the release of Wasim Rizvi, former chairman of the Uttar Pradesh Central Shia Waqf board who was earlier arrested in this same case.

Altogether there are three cases registered against Swami Yeti Narsimhanand in Haridwar Kotwali. He has also been sued for making indecent remarks on women.

On Thursday, Wasim Rizvi alias Jitendra Narayan Tyagi was also arrested and sent to jail. Yeti Narsinganand was reportedly fasting at Sarbananda Ghat demanding the release of Wasim Rizvi. A protest meeting was also called by the seers at the Ghat on Friday.

Religious leader Yeti Narsinganand apparently called for the genocide and use of arms against Muslims while speaking at an event in Haridwar from December 17 to 19, 2021. An FIR was also registered against him along with many others in the case.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued notice to Uttarakhand and Delhi Police on a petition seeking an independent enquiry into the Haridwar Dharam Sansad speeches allegedly inciting violence against minorities. (ANI)
For tackling rising Covid-19 cases, Tamil Nadu Minister TM Anbarasan on Sunday said that the Government has made an arrangement of 950 beds with the oxygen support where the preference will be given to the frontline workers for the treatment of the disease. The arrangement has been made at the Chennai trade centre to accommodate COVID patients. "An arrangement of 950 beds with oxygen support has been done in the Chennai trade centre to accommodate Covid19 patients. The front line workers are given first preference to be treated here," Anbarasan said. Meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu Government on Sunday declared a holiday in schools for all classes till January 31. The State Government has also postponed the exams that were scheduled to be held on January 19. "Schools have been declared shut in Tamil Nadu for all classes, due to an increase in the number of COVID19 cases in the State. The exams which were supposed to be held on January 19 are now postponed," read the release from Tamil Nadu government statement. Meanwhile, there are currently 1,31,007 active COVID-19 cases in Tamil Nadu. The cumulative death toll of the State stood at 36,967. While the cumulative recoveries in the state stood at 27,47,974. (ANI)
Roads were deserted in Rajasthan on Sunday as the state government imposed a Sunday curfew amidst a surge in COVID-19 cases. According to the state order, the curfew begins from 11 pm on Saturday night and continues till 5 am on Monday morning. Following the curfew order, the roads were seen deserted from 8 o'clock on Saturday night. However, milk, fruits and vegetable shops were allowed to open on Sunday. The police had also conducted route marches in many areas on Saturday asking people to stay at home during curfew hours. The Rajasthan Police made special arrangements for the weekend curfew on Sunday. "More than 500 policemen have been deployed throughout the day. Three to four checkpoints have been made by each police station", stated the police. "Police have intensified patrolling, raised barricades in Jodhpur to check violations of weekend curfew in view of the surge in COVID-19 cases. Strict action is being taken in case of non-emergency movement in the middle of weekend curfew", said Sunil Charan, Police Officer, Khanda Falsa Police station. "Those leaving home without work are being stopped at these checkpoints. Action is being taken against those who are roaming unnecessarily. They are being fined", added the police officer. "The people who are out on road despite the curfew have to provide valid documents to sustain their movements", said Sunil Charan. Three to four points were made in the police station area, where ASI rank officers and jawans have been stationed. (ANI)
The Rajasthan Government has decided to hand over the Alwar rape case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), said Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Sunday. This decision was taken after a high-level discussion in this case with the police officers through video conferencing. "A recommendation will be sent by the state government to the central government soon", added the CM. The Alwar case, where a specially-abled girl was found lying in a distressed condition, took a political turn on Saturday after the opposition parties started blaming the ruling Congress for suppressing the case. Earlier, the Police said that medical reports of the girl had ruled out rape. (ANI)
Andhra Pradesh government has been taking care of the students' health and paid keen attention to the prevention of COVID-19 spread in the educational institutions, the release read.

The Education Minister further informed that the state government has administered the COVID-19 vaccine to more than 90 per cent of the students aged between 15 to 18.

He also added that the government was giving equal priority to both the health and education of the students in the State.

Meanwhile, sources in the department informed that the government will review the status of the health and COVID-19 related issues in the educational institutions on Monday.

Andhra Pradesh reported 4,570 new COVID-19 cases during the last 24 hours, said the state health department on Sunday. With this, the total count of COVID-19 cases in the state has gone up to 21,06,280.

Only one death was reported during the last 24 hours, taking the death toll in the state due to the disease to 14,510. There are currently 26,770 active COVID-19 cases in the state. (ANI)
Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami are also present in the meeting along with the party's National President Jagat Prakash Nadda, State president Madan Kaushik, state election in-charge Pralhad Joshi, election co-in charge RP Singh and others.

In the meeting, 70 assembly seats of Uttarakhand are to be discussed.

Meanwhile, Dhami on Saturday had said that he will contest the upcoming Assembly polls in the state from the Khatima constituency and said that the list of candidates will be announced soon.

The Chief Minister added that they have set a target of winning more than 60 seats out of the 70 seats in the Assembly through a slogan ''Abki Baar 60 Paar'.In the last Assembly election, BJP secured the win on 57 seats out of 70 Assembly constituencies in Uttarakhand.

Polls to elect the 70-member State Legislative Assembly are scheduled to be held on February 14. The counting will take place on March 10. (ANI)
Though COVID-19 cases are rising across the country, Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb on Sunday clarified that in view of the economic aspect, the state government has no intention to impose curfew in the daytime. He advised that people should strictly follow the COVID-19 guidelines and stay in self-isolation if they observe any related symptoms. Briefing the media persons on the sidelines of his visit to a COVID-19 vaccination centre at Camperabazar area under West Tripura district, Deb said, "This is, indeed, true that the positivity rate in Agartala Municipal Corporation area has taken an alarming turn. Yesterday, the positivity rate of the AMC areas was 28.23 per cent which is much higher than normal." "But we should not panic in the situation. Patients can easily be cured by staying in home isolation and in case of any emergency, the health workers, ASHA workers are there to assist," the Chief Minister said. On the day curfew, he said the overall positivity rate in Tripura stands at 13 per cent and the night curfew has been imposed to contain the spread to an extent, but, at this point of time, the state government is not willing to impose day-time curfew taking its economic implications into consideration. "The way we are trying to drive Tripura towards economic development should not get halted in middle. I would rather appeal to the people of Tripura to maintain the guidelines and strictly follow the restrictions like wearing masks, avoiding gatherings etc," Deb added. "I hope whether it is Omicron or the third wave of the Covid 19, people of Tripura shall fight it back successfully", said the Chief Minister. Deb also thanked PM Modi for gifting India with two "Swadeshi (indigenous)" COVID-19 vaccines. "Today, over 157 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered so far. A total of 76 crore doses were given to womenfolks of India. This is a big achievement as today is the first anniversary of the vaccination drive", he added. Sharing a brief detail of the COVID-19 vaccination coverage in Tripura, he said that around 99.53 per cent of eligible beneficiaries in Tripura received the first dose of the vaccines while 82.35 per cent of people are fully vaccinated with two jabs. "Tripura is far ahead of the national average and in terms of the 15 to 17 years children, our achievement is 42 per cent at par with the national average," he said. "The exams are over and physical classes till 7th standard have already been suspended. Now, we shall initiate a drive-in mission mode to complete the vaccination of children in the age group of 15 to 17 years in schools," Deb said. Deb also physically inspected the site of a new hospital being built at Camperbazar and said that Rs 3 crore had been sanctioned to convert the sub-centre into an urban primary health centre. According to the daily COVID-19 media bulletin, a total of 1,070 new positive cases were detected in the past 24 hours as a result of 8,752 total tests. Three persons have died due to COVID-related complications. (ANI)
Gazi died of heart problems, said the sources. He was suffering from diabetes, hypertension and other ailments.

Gazi was one of the accused in the 1993 serial blasts of Mumbai that had rocked the commercial capital of the country claiming lives of 257 people while leaving 713 injured.

He was accused of abetting the blast and soon after the incident, he had fled to Pakistan along with other gang members of Dawood Ibrahim.

Since then, Indian authorities failed to nab him.

Last year, Yusuf Memon, brother of Tiger Memon, one of the conspirators of the blast, had died at Nashik Road Central Jail.

Another convict Mustafa Dossa had died in 2017.

About 257 people had died while 713 others were injured after a series of bomb blasts in Mumbai on March 12, 1993. (ANI)
While the Delhi High Court is hearing petitions on marital rape, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday took to Twitter to speak about it. He wrote, "Consent is amongst the most underrated concepts in our society. It has to be foregrounded to ensure safety for women." According to Gandhi, 'consent' is not given its due value in physical relationships. While stressing on criminalising marital rape on Friday, Amicus Curiae argued that when a husband forces himself on his wife, he is not engaging in lovemaking. Curiae said that the Supreme Court has observed that nobody can compel a woman to love. However, Delhi High Court has earlier observed marital rape as a crime of cruelty in India. (ANI)
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday ordered to keep all educational institutions like schools, colleges, universities, technical education institutions closed till January 23 in view of rising COVID-19 cases in the state. However, classes will continue via online mode. "Chief Minister @myogiadityanath has given instructions to keep all educational institutions - schools, colleges, universities, technical educational institutions etc. closed till January 23 and study only in online mode," said a tweet from the Chief Minister's office. (ANI)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair a crucial meeting at the BJP headquarters on January 19 evening to finalise candidates for the upcoming Goa Assembly polls scheduled next month, said sources in the party. Union Home Minister Amit Shah, party national president JP Nadda, Goa election in-charge Devendra Fadnavis, Co-in charge G Kishan Reddy, Co-in charge Darshana Jardosh and other top leaders would be present in the meeting. According to the sources in the party, the first organizational meeting was held today at the party headquarters regarding the Goa elections. The next important meeting will be held on January 19 regarding ticket distribution, which will be chaired by the PM himself. The sources told ANI that BJP will contest on all 40 seats in Goa and the party may axe a couple of sitting MLAs as well. The brainstorming for the ticket distribution will be completed in a day. "BJP has been in power in Goa for 10 years. In such a situation, it is our full responsibility to maintain the status quo of our government and we are fully prepared for that. As far as the Aam Aadmi Party, Trinamool Congress or Congress are concerned, everyone is trying their best but victory will be ours," said the sources. Earlier, BJP's National General Secretary and Goa in-charge CT Ravi had said in an interview to ANI that the assembly elections are near and the party is ready to hit the hattrick of a win in the state. "We will go to the people on the basis of three issues of social harmony, law and order, and development and am confident that we will come back to power,' Ravi said. Notably, the party that wins 21 seats in Goa forms the government, but last time no party was able to reach this figure. Congress had won the most seats 17 and 13 seats were bagged by the BJP. Apart from BJP and Congress, many other parties including TMC, NCP, Shiv Sena and Aam Aadmi Party will field their candidates in the Goa Assembly elections to be held on February 14. The counting of the votes will take place on March 10. (ANI)
According to a press release by the police, the incident took place at around 6.40 pm. Police official SgCt Mehraj Ahmad sustained "splinter" injuries and a civilian, who was identified as Sartaj Ahmad Bhat hailing from the area where the attack took place, was also hurt.

"Both of them were shifted to the hospital for the treatment where their condition is stated to be stable," said the release.

"Senior police officers immediately reached the terror crime spot. The area has been cordoned and search in the area is going on," further said the release.

The police have registered a case in this regard under relevant sections of law.

Further investigation into the incident is underway. (ANI)
Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP president JP Nadda, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, Uttarakhand BJP president Madan Kaushik, election in-charge Prahlad Joshi, in-charge Dushyant Gautam, co-in-charges RP Singh and Locket Chatterjee were present in the meeting.

The meeting, which started at 6 pm in the BJP office went on till 10 pm.

A panel of three names was sent to Delhi, which was discussed in the core group meeting today. The 70 seats which have been discussed today would be taken forward in the CEC meeting to be held on January 19. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will also be part of the meeting.

As per sources, by January 20 to 21 the list of 70 candidates will be released for Uttarakhand.

At present, the BJP has 57 assembly constituencies in Uttarakhand's 70-seated assembly. This time the party has given the slogan 'Abki Baar 60 Paar'.

Earlier in the afternoon, the party discussed the 40 seats for the Goa Legislative Assembly. Goa CM Pramod Sawant, election in-charge Devendra Fadnavis, G Kishan Reddy along with organization ministers were present.

Sources say that the Bharatiya Janata Party is going to contest 38 out of the 40 assembly seats in Goa this time. The party has decided not to field its candidates in 2 Christian majority seats. (ANI)
Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij said on Sunday that seven lakh children aged between 15-18 have been vaccinated against COVID-19, adding that children in this age group will not be allowed to attend physical classes without getting vaccination once the schools open. "Seven lakh children aged 15-18 have been vaccinated till yet in the state. Once the schools open, children aged 15-18 will not be allowed without receiving their vaccination," Vij told ANI. The minister said that the state government is fully alert of rising COVID-19 cases in the state. "50 per cent of the cases come in Gurugram, Faridabad and Sonipat as they are adjacent to Delhi and the infection is spreading fast in Delhi. We are completing all healthcare related arrangements in our state. No matter if patient is from Delhi or anywhere else, we will treat them," he added. Responding to Akhilesh Yadav's statements on Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath contesting assembly election from Gorakhpur, Vij said, "He should worry about his own party. Yogi Adityanath will registered a huge win no matter from where he is contesting." Putting all speculations to rest, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday announced that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will contest from his stronghold Gorakhpur which elected him to Lok Sabha for five straight terms till 2017. The polling in Uttar Pradesh will be held on February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27 and March 3 and 7 in seven phases. The counting of votes will take place on March 10. (ANI)
A Police SWAT team in the southern US state of Texas is negotiating with a man who appears to have taken hostages at a synagogue in the town of Colleyville, Dallas. The police department in Colleyville said in a tweet at 11:30 (16:30 GMT) that it was "conducting SWAT operations" at the address of the Congregation Beth Israel. Two hours later the department said the situation remained "ongoing". A live stream of the Shabbat morning service at the synagogue on Facebook captured audio of a man talking loudly when the incident started. According to the law enforcement officials, the hostage-taker demanded the release of the Pakistani scientist Aafia Siddiqui, who was convicted of trying to kill US military officers while in custody in Afghanistan. Siddiqui is currently being held at FMC Carswell, a federal prison in Fort Worth Texas. According to reports, the suspect demanded to speak with his sister on the phone amid the ongoing hostage situation. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that an angry man could be heard ranting and talking about religion at times during the Livestream, which didn't show what was happening inside the synagogue. Shortly before 2 pm, the man said, "You got to do something. I don't want to see this guy dead." Moments later, the feed cut out. The man, who used profanities, repeatedly mentioned his sister, Islam and that he thought he was going to die, the Star-Telegram reported. Law enforcement officials in Texas are trying to determine whether or not the person holding the Rabbi and potentially others hostage is in fact related to Siddiqui. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki put out a tweet announcing President Joe Biden has been briefing about the hostage situation in Texas. "@POTUS has been briefed about the developing hostage situation in the Dallas area. He will continue to receive updates from his senior team as the situation develops. Senior members of the national security team are also in touch with federal law enforcement leadership." (ANI)
Jalil Rahimi Jahan-Abadi, a member of the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, made the remarks on Saturday in a Twitter post adding the move will have important impact on reducing regional tensions and fostering solidarity among Muslim states.

Earlier, in an interview with Al Jazeera English-language news channel, Iranian Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian said Iran has so far held four rounds of positive and constructive talks with the relevant Saudi officials in Iraq, Xinhua news agency reported.

"What we have stated as our official position is that relations between the two countries would return to normal whenever the Saudi side wishes. Iran is ready and welcomes the reopening of the embassies and consulates," Abdollahian added.

On May 10, 2021, the Iranian Foreign Ministry confirmed that Tehran and Riyadh had been holding talks in Iraq to defuse tensions between the two countries.

--IANS int/khz/

( 182 Words)

2022-01-16-00:48:01 (IANS)
Reacting to the US move, Chinese experts said that it is another political move of the US against the backdrop of its attempt to contain China's growth, but it will not obstruct the development of China's rare-earth sector, reported Global Times.

It is not a surprising move given Washington's series of moves aiming to set up its own rare-earth supply chain, Liu Enqiao a senior analyst at Beijing-based Anbound Consulting, told the Global Times.

The broader context behind the move is the deteriorating US-China relations. Moreover, the US rely heavily on China's supply of rare earth, a crucial raw material for high-tech products including weapons.

China holds 44 million tons of rare earth reserves, accounting for 36.7 per cent of the global stockpile. In 2020, China produced 140,000 tons of rare earth, accounting for nearly 60 per cent of global output, reported Global Times. (ANI)
"Shortly after 5:00 pm, a male hostage was released uninjured. This man will be reunited with his family as soon as possible and he does not require medical attention. FBI Crisis Negotiators continue contact with the subject," the Colleyville Police Department said in a statement.

On Saturday, at approximately 10:41 am, the Colleyville Police Department received a Call for Service in the 6100 block of Pleasant Run Road.

Officers arrived on the scene and observed an emergency situation that warranted evacuation of the surrounding areas end an external perimeter was established.

The Colleyville Police Department is on the scene, along with the FBI's Dallas Field Office the Texas Department of Public Safety, North Tarrant Regional SWAT Team, and other neighbouring agencies, read the statement.

In addition to the subject, law enforcement has confirmed there are others inside but no injuries have been reported.

FBI Crisis Negotiators are in communication with the subject. It remains an active operational and investigative scene.

A Police SWAT team in the southern US state of Texas is negotiating with a man who appears to have taken hostages at a synagogue in the town of Colleyville, Dallas.

A live stream of the Shabbat morning service at the synagogue on Facebook captured audio of a man talking loudly when the incident started.

According to the law enforcement officials, the hostage-taker demanded the release of the Pakistani scientist Aafia Siddiqui, who was convicted of trying to kill US military officers while in custody in Afghanistan. Siddiqui is currently being held at FMC Carswell, a federal prison in Fort Worth Texas. (ANI)
Four school children have died in a fire outbreak in the Ugandan capital Kampala, Police has said. Luke Oweyesigyire, Police Spokesperson for the Kampala Metropolitan area, on Saturday told Xinhua that the fire started at around 3 a.m. on Saturday from one of the female students' dormitories at New Crest Junior at Kibedi Day and Boarding Primary School in Kawempe division, a Kampala suburb. "Four of the female students have been confirmed dead while three are seriously injured and rushed to Kyadondo hospital located in Kisowera zone," Oweyesigyire said, noting that investigations have started into the cause of the fire. He added that the owners of the school failed to alert the police after the fire outbreak, which was an act of gross negligence that caused death and injuries, Xinhua news agency reported. "I was sleeping when our teachers came into our dormitory and told us to get out of the dormitory and converge in the compound. Our teachers started to pour water in the dormitory as I saw them pulling out students who were dizzy now," Ibrahim Ssegawa, a primary three student, told Xinhua. Several parents rushed to the scene to collect their children that survived, although police and school authorities blocked them from accessing the place. Mansul Ssentongo, a parent at the school, said he lost his daughter, Husna Nakawuki, a primary three student in the inferno. "I brought my daughter on Monday after the opening of the school. I got a telephone call in the morning from school directors, saying that my daughter had died in the fire outbreak. I am stuck here at the gate of the school because I am not allowed to access the scene," Ssentongo told Xinhua. Schools in Uganda reopened on January 10 after close to two years of partial or full closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic. School fires are common in Ugandan schools although most of them are not fatal. The last fire was in 2018 when at least nine students were killed in a fire that broke out at a high school in central Uganda. Before the 2018 incident, another fatal school fire happened in 2008, killing 19 students at Budo Junior School in the Wakiso district in the central region. --IANS int/khz/ ( 387 Words) 2022-01-16-02:26:01 (IANS)
At least four people were taken hostages by a man at a synagogue in the town of Colleyville, Dallas for more than ten hours on Saturday.

A live stream of the Shabbat morning service at the synagogue on Facebook captured audio of a man talking loudly when the incident started. According to the law enforcement officials, the hostage-taker demanded the release of the Pakistani scientist Aafia Siddiqui, who was convicted of trying to kill US military officers while in custody in Afghanistan. Siddiqui is currently being held at FMC Carswell, a federal prison in Fort Worth Texas.

However, the Colleyville Police Department later in a statement said that one male hostage has been released.

"Shortly after 5:00 pm, a male hostage was released uninjured. This man will be reunited with his family as soon as possible and he does not require medical attention. FBI Crisis Negotiators continue contact with the subject," the Colleyville Police Department said.

On Saturday, at approximately 10:41 am, the Colleyville Police Department received a Call for Service in the 6100 block of Pleasant Run Road.

Officers arrived on the scene and have observed an emergency situation that warranted evacuation of the surrounding areas end an external perimeter was established. (ANI)
The AU's position was conveyed to Chairman of Sudan's Sovereign Council, Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan by AU Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security (AU-PAPS), Bankole Adeoye on Saturday during a meeting in Sudan's capital Khartoum, the Council said in a statement.

The envoy stressed the AU's readiness to support Sudan in the political transition, and reaffirmed its commitment to working closely with the government, people and all stakeholders of Sudan toward amicable political solution to the current stalemate, Xinhua news agency reported.

Reiterating the AU's full respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Sudan, he urged concerned parties to avoid any form of violence, and focus on stability, peace and prosperity of Sudan.

He called for "strong efforts by all stakeholders" to seek a solution to the ongoing political crisis in the country.

Sudan has been suffering a political crisis after Al-Burhan, also the General Commander of the Sudanese Armed Forces, declared a state of emergency on October 25, 2021, and dissolved the Sovereign Council and the government.

--IANS int/khz/

( 209 Words)

2022-01-16-04:46:04 (IANS)
Dozens of people arrived Friday evening at the Metropolitan Transportation Center in the city and set out at dawn on their way to the border with Guatemala, Xinhua news agency reported.

Local media showed images of hundreds of migrants who began their journey on foot, others on buses or hitchhiking.

This is the first caravan of this year, with the most recent one forming in March 2021, though it was dissolved by Guatemalan authorities.

More Hondurans have been leaving the country over the past year as a result of the progressive lifting of restrictions aimed at containing the spread of Covid-19 pandemic.

Most migrants are fleeing poverty and violence in search of better opportunities.

--IANS int/khz/

( 144 Words)

2022-01-16-05:00:03 (IANS)
As international condemnation increases over the China's crackdown of the Uyghur minority, a growing number of experts and activists in Turkey are criticizing Ankara over it's deliberate silence on Uyghur issue and said that Beijing's economic and political clout is the reason behind it. Around 50 thousands of Uyghur people are estimated to live in Turkey- the Diaspora largest outside of Central Asia. Uyghur people share ethnic, linguistic and religious bonds with the Turkish people. Thus, Turkey should naturally be the most outspoken country about the persecution of the people living in Uyghur area in China, according to Samakal. However, Beijing's economic and political clout has enabled Turkey to be swayed by it's influence largely overlooking the cause of the Uyghur community. Nevertheless, it has not dampened the spirit of Uyghurs in Turkey who continue to highlight human rights violations committed by Chinese authorities in Xinjiang where at least 1 million Uyghurs, have been illegally detained in so-called 're-education centres', according to the United Nations. Earlier, on January 04, 2021, Uyghurs in Turkey demanded the closure of "concentration camps" in China and filed a criminal complaint accusing Chinese officials of genocide and other crimes in Xinjiang Autonomous Region writes Dr. MD Hossain for the Samakal. Meanwhile, Uyghurs living in Turkey have criticized Ankara's approach to China after the two nations signed an extradition treaty in March 2021. Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu had then said that the deal was similar to those Turkey has with other states and denied it would lead to Uyghurs being sent back to China. However, his claim turned out to be Further, Ankara has more than once distanced itself from the Uyghur associations operating in Turkey. Beijing's growing economic leverage over Ankara means Turkish officials are afraid that any strong position toward Xinjiang will likely cost the Turkish economy even as China escalates its campaign against Uyghur community. Today, Turkish-Uyghur camaraderie is largely outweighed by political, security and economic considerations between Turkey and China writes Dr. MD for the Samakal. Earlier Uyghur in Turkey filed a criminal case with a Turkish prosecutor against Chinese officials for committing genocide in Xinjiang province. Uyghur families including volunteer Turkish lawyers, gathered at the Istanbul Court of Justice in Istanbul's district of Caglayan and held banners that "Where are our families ?" and "China, free my brother," Further, some Turkish opposition leaders have also accused the government of overlooking Uyghur rights in favour of other interests with China. (ANI)
Despite the boycott of the National Security Division's briefing on the policy to the Parliamentary Committee on National Security early last month, Yusuf said that he would always be ready to present the policy before parliament or house committees to build a larger consensus, Dawn newspaper reported.

On January 14, Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan has signed the public version of the first-ever National Security Policy, for the years 2022-2026.

"For the first time, the National Security Division has developed a consensus document which defines national security in a proper way", said Khan at the inauguration ceremony, which took place in Islamabad, reported Samaa TV.

The National Security Policy covers all internal and external security aspects, including the situation in Afghanistan and its impact on the neighbourhood.

According to Pakistani media, the draft puts economic and military security at the core of policy and outlines the challenges and opportunities facing Pakistan in the coming years.

The NSC is Pakistan's highest forum for coordination on security matters and is attended by key federal Ministers, the national security adviser, services chiefs and intelligence officials. (ANI)
Bach Long Vi island district get aid prior to Lunar New Year

The High Command of the Vietnam Coast Guard Region 1 has organised several activities to the tune of 200 million VND (8,800 USD) to support local residents in Bach Long Vi island district on the occasion of Tet (Lunar New Year).



They include visiting units of armed forces in the district, offering gifts worth 1 million VND each to policy beneficiary families and outstanding students with difficult circumstances.





The High Command of the Vietnam Coast Guard Region 1 organises Zero dong market to assist local residents on the occasion of Tet (Lunar New Year). (Photo: VNA)


Pakistan has once again emerged as a terror-sponsoring country after reports of the man who took hostages of four people at a synagogue in the town of Colleyville, Dallas, linked to the Pakistani Scientist Aafia Siddiqui who was serving sentence in US prison, came to light, according to an analysis by American Enterprise Institute. In Pakistan, Siddiqui became a cause celebre. Pakistan's president, prime minister, and foreign minister all brought up her case with their American counterparts, and the Pakistani senate called on the US to release her. While the news of Aafia Siddiqui's arrest passed with little notice in the US, her conviction led to widespread anti-American demonstrations in Pakistan and to demands that Pakistani authorities suspend the delivery of supplies for the war effort in Afghanistan. Her incarceration occupied headlines in Pakistan for months, according to the AEI's analysis. With Muhammad Siddiqui attack on the Beth Israel synagogue, the prominence of her case will increase. While groups like Al Qaeda or the Islamic State are filled with citizens of other countries whose governments denounce them, Aafia Siddiqui is different: Pakistani officials at all levels of government endorse her and treat her like a hero. Inevitably, many on the Pakistani street will now celebrate her brother or, at the very least, excuse his actions writes Michael Rubin, Senior Fellow AEI. Meanwhile, Pakistan's embrace of Aafia is just the tip of the iceberg. The Pakistani government continues to let those responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks--terrorist attacks which killed Americans--to roam free. Pakistan's intelligence service knowingly provided Al Qaeda leader Usama Bin Laden with safe haven, according to AEI's analysis. Earlier, the Biden administration discusses the Taliban taking over of Afghanistan as if it occurred in a vacuum, the reality is that the Taliban's rampage through Afghanistan last August was effectively a Pakistani invasion, writes Michael Rubin, Senior Fellow AEI. Meanwhile, the suspect who took hostages at the synagogue in the town of Colleyville, Dallas, demanding the release of a Pakistan scientist convicted of trying to kill US military officers while in custody in Afghanistan, is dead. The "The suspect is deceased," Colleyville Police Chief Michael Miller said during a press conference on late Saturday (local time), explaining that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) rescue team had entered the synagogue in Colleyville and that all the three remaining hostages were rescued unharmed, according to Sputnik News Agency. Earlier, Texas Governor Greg Abbott tweeted that all hostages had been released from the synagogue and were alive and safe. (ANI)
US President Joe Biden has condemned anti-Semitism after several people were taken hostage at a synagogue in the town of Colleyville, Dallas, and pledged to do everything to prevent "the rise of extremism" in the country. "Let me be clear to anyone who intends to spread hate - we will stand against anti-Semitism and against the rise of extremism in this country. That is who we are, and tonight, the men and women of law enforcement made us all proud," Biden said in a White House statement on Sunday. The US President also noted that law enforcement officers had acted cooperatively and fearlessly to rescue the hostages and thanked them for their "tireless work." At least four people were taken hostages by a man at a synagogue in the town of Colleyville for more than ten hours on Saturday. A live stream of the Shabbat morning service at the synagogue on Facebook captured audio of a man talking loudly when the incident started. According to the law enforcement officials, the hostage-taker demanded the release of the Pakistani scientist Aafia Siddiqui, who was convicted of trying to kill US military officers while in custody in Afghanistan. Siddiqui is currently being held at FMC Carswell, a federal prison in Fort Worth Texas. However, the suspect who took hostages, demanding the release of a Pakistan scientist convicted of trying to kill US military officers while in custody in Afghanistan, has been killed. "The suspect is deceased," Colleyville Police Chief Michael Miller said during a press conference on late Saturday (local time), explaining that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) rescue team had entered the synagogue in Colleyville and that all the three remaining hostages were rescued unharmed, Sputnik News Agency reported. (ANI)
Nepal has sent humanitarian aid to Afghanistan as the situation in the country deteriorates after the Taliban takeover in August last year. "Nepal is determined to provide humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan and is sending through a special aircraft," Nepali Foreign Minister Dr Narayan Khadka said during a meet at the Tribhuwan International Airport in Kathmandu. As per the Minister, the Himalayan Nation has sent 12 tons of humanitarian aid, relief materials, including medicines and clothes following protocols as provided by the United Nations. "As per the list provided by the United Nations which includes medicines, household materials and clothes, as it is chilling cold out there, these three category materials has been dispatched to Afghanistan," Minister added. According to him, relief materials and supplies will be handed over to UN representative in Kabul and would be distributed accordingly as the nation faces a crunch of supplies and aid. However, the Foreign Minister clarified that this step of Nepal doesn't mean the recognition of the Taliban government and claimed it solely as a humanitarian gesture. "There is nothing as we would recognize the government there. We have been in close and direct contact with UN representatives there and it would be distributed through UN agencies only. As per my information, there are over five hundred bodies working there, their deployment there would be made by United Nations," he said. The UN agencies on January 11 have asked USD 4.4 Billion in humanitarian aid for 2022 for the world's worst humanitarian crisis making it first nation in the world to seek assistance. As per the UN, 23 million Afghans more than half the population face acute hunger, with nearly nine million one step from famine, according to the World Food Programme (WFP). It also said that up to one million children under five are at risk of dying from malnutrition. (ANI)
Citing a source, Sputnik reported that a bomb exploded in a car belonging to the Taliban in the Bagram district in the central part of Kabul Province.

"The bomb exploded ... around 12:00 local time (07:30 GMT), killed two children and injured several civilians," the eyewitness said.

Meanwhile, reports say that 38 people were killed and 16 others injured in separate incidents in Afghanistan's Kabul, Herat, Faryab, Laghman, and Nangarhar provinces during the last week. (ANI)
Moscow [Russia], January 16 (ANI/Sputnik): Computer systems of several Ukrainian government agencies and non-profit organizations have been infected with malware disguised as ransomware, Microsoft said. "Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) has identified evidence of a destructive malware operation targeting multiple organizations in Ukraine. This malware first appeared on victim systems in Ukraine on January 13, 2022," the company wrote on its security blog on Saturday. The malware has impacted "multiple government, non-profit, and information technology organizations, all based in Ukraine," according to the IT company. The MSTIC said that the malware was supposed to resemble a hijacking program but did not have a ransom recovery mechanism. Instead of securing a ransom, the program was designed to incapacitate target devices, the company said. Microsoft has not yet identified any significant association between this activity and those of other malware groups the company is tracking. "Given the scale of the observed intrusions, MSTIC is not able to assess intent of the identified destructive actions but does believe these actions represent an elevated risk to any government agency, non-profit or enterprise located or with systems in Ukraine," the company said, urging all organizations to "immediately conduct a thorough investigation" and build up their defenses. On Friday, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry's spokesman, Oleg Nikolenko, said that the ministry's websites and those of several other government agencies were down due to malicious cyberactivity. The website of the Education Ministry displayed a message about an alleged leak of Ukrainians' personal data. The Ukrainian State Service of Special Communication and Information Protection later said that most of the websites had been restored and personal information had not been leaked. The service called the attack the worst in the past four years. The Ukrainian Ministry of Culture and Information Policy claimed Russia was behind the hacking attack. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN that Russia "had nothing to do" with the incident. (ANI/Sputnik)
"Three rockets fell in the area of the Turkish base northeast of Mosul. Turkish artillery responded with return fire," the source said, as quoted by the media.

No Turkish soldiers were not injured in the attack, the agency's source added.

On Saturday, the surroundings of the Turkish Zlikan base were also fired upon by two Katyusha rockets.

The presence of Turkish troops in the Zlikan camp has been a topic of long-standing controversy between Baghdad and Ankara, which justifies its presence in the region as a need to fight the Kurdistan Workers' Party outlawed in Turkey. (ANI/Sputnik)
He announced the pledge during a visit to the border county of Goseong, 466 km northeast of Seoul, referring to a program that was suspended in 2008 following the death of a South Korean tourist at the mountain by a North Korean guard, reports Yonhap News Agency.

"I will reopen the doors of tourism to Mount Kumgang as soon as possible," Lee said at an observatory overlooking the mountain range.

He also pledged to establish a special international tourism zone straddling the border and push for an ecotourism program inside the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas.

Lee also pledged to establish a special international tourism zone straddling the border and push for an ecotourism program inside the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas.

"Starting with exchanges in nonpolitical areas, such as tourism and sports, I will pursue inter-Korean coexistence through practical North Korea policies that benefit both the South and the North," he said.

--IANS ksk/

( 206 Words)

2022-01-16-09:48:04 (IANS)
According to the survey of 500 people operating restaurants, retail and other service businesses by the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI), a major business lobby group, 40.8 per cent said that they are considering discontinuing their operations, reports Yonhap News Agency.

Of them, 28.2 per cent cited declining sales and profits as a major reason.

Difficulty in securing funds and increasing burdens from loans came next with 17.8 per cent, the survey showed.

Small merchants and self-employed people have been hard hit by the protracted social distancing rules and curbs on business operation hours put in place to fight the pandemic.

The government plans to maintain a 9 p.m. curfew on restaurants and cafes, while raising the limit on the size of private gatherings to six from the current four from Monday through February 6.

Of those surveyed, 30.7 per cent voiced concerns over subdued consumer sentiment as the pandemic continues to affect their spending.

Tight social distancing rules and restricted store operations came next with 22.9 per cent.

--IANS ksk/

( 216 Words)

2022-01-16-09:54:03 (IANS)
The sit-in staged by the JI will be continued outside the Sindh Assembly building on its 17th day, according to ARY news.

In the protest, Shara-e-Faisal's track from the airport to Saddar will be blocked and the traffic will be diverted to alternate tracks of Karsaz road and Shaheed Millat Road to Tipu Sultan Road.

Ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and Jamaat-e-Islami have held two rounds of talks over the contentious Sindh local government law.

A committee of Sindh government led by provincial minister Nasir Hussain Shah had approached the JI leadership for dialogue over the issue.

The third round of talks between the two sides is scheduled on Monday.

JI Karachi chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman, who is leading the protest, announced Thursday that Shahrea Faisal will be blocked at 3:00 pm on January 16 (Sunday) to press for the party's demand on the local government law.

Rehman, earlier said that some PPP ministers, either on the behest or keeping the top leadership in the dark, were trying their level best to sabotage the dialogue process.

He further said that the JI's struggle is aimed at safeguarding the future generations of the country from feudalism, according to ARY news.

The JI leader added that the feudal mindset has taken over the Pakistan People's Party. It has already captured the rural areas of the province and now it has aimed at taking control of urban areas in Sindh, he said. (ANI)
Washington is using freedom of speech, human and women's rights and inclusive government as a pretext to harshly hit the Afghan people, Khaama Press quoted Wang as saying on Saturday in a meeting with Afghanistan's acting minister of Interior Sarajudin Haqqani.

Stressing that America has been defeated in Afghanistan, Wang said that Washington is revenging its defeat by imposing economic sanctions on the country.

Wang and Haqqani held the meeting in the Ministry of Interior Affairs in Kabul.

Chinese envoy pledged to provide humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people, not interfere in Afghanistan's internal affairs, said Deputy spokesman of the Interior Ministry Engineer Izam.

He also said that Wang has vowed to support Afghanistan's future government that will be established based on the traditional and Islamic principles of Afghanistan, according to Khaama Press.

Emphasising that Afghanistan's soil will not be used against any country, Izam said that Haqqani welcomed the Chinese ambassador's remarks. The spokesperson also said that the recognition of the Taliban government was also discussed during the meeting. (ANI)
Taking to Twitter, Tolo News reported that Muttaqi along with his accompanying delegation also dicussed trade and economic projects, as well as security cooperation with Meredov.

"Acting FM Amir Khan Muttaqi and his accompanying delegation met with Turkmenistan FM Rashid Meredov on Saturday in Ashgabat and discussed political and diplomatic relations, trade and economic projects, as well as security cooperation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said," Tolo News tweeted.

Earlier, "the delegation flew to Ashgabat at the invitation of Turkmenistan to hold talks with Turkmen officials on bilateral trade, energy, railway, the TAPI project and scholarships," reported Sputnik citing a source in the foreign ministry as saying.

The Taliban took over control of Kabul on August 15 and following this the country has been battered by deepening economic, humanitarian and security crises.

Afghanistan's economy has crashed since the Taliban seized power as foreign aid has been suspended and the freezing of Afghan government assets, and international sanctions on the Taliban, has further plunged the country into a deep crisis.

The international community, from governments to non-governmental organizations, has been providing various assistance to the Afghan people. (ANI)
The internal turmoil in the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) lawmakers is apparent with each passing day causing discomfort to the Imran Khan government at a time when opposition is trying to build up pressure on the government. Earlier this week, two leaders of the PTI became defiant against their own federal government's policies and performance with one of them holding his own party responsible for 'present chaos' in the country. Before this, a PTI ticket holder from Sargodha in Punjab joined Pakistan People's Party (PPP) following his meeting with the party leader Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, according to News International. At the same time, Islamabad is rife with rumours that over two dozen lawmakers of PTI are either in contact with opposition's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) or Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) before formally joining either of these two parties, according to News International. On last Thursday, Defence Minister Pervez Khattak who is also the central leader of PTI and former chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) in the parliamentary party meeting of ruling party had entered into hard argument with Prime Minister Imran Khan over shortage of natural gas and ban on new connections of the utility in north western province. A day after, PTI Member of National Assembly from Peshawar Noor Alam Khan also became critical of his own government and while speaking on the floor of National Assembly, accused the cabinet members including PM himself for 'present chaos' in the country and proposed to place their names on the no-fly list to get the country out of this situation. However, it is crystal clear that PTI lawmakers will keep on trying to put more pressure on their own government to get maximum development funds and new connections of gas and other utilities to woo their voters before next polls. It is a fact that electables do not stay long in any party and they keep on looking for other options to grab any opportunity. They always join the new party that has more bright chances to come into power. Many of the politicians and lawmakers belonging to PTI are also weighing their options for 2023 election, according to News International. (ANI)
The army entered the district's central town on Saturday and now is combing the areas surrounding it, the source told Xinhua news agency.

Meanwhile, the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya TV reported that the coalition carried out 33 airstrikes on Marib in the past 24 hours, destroying 21 vehicles of the Houthi militia and killing 190 militants.

The Houthi is yet to officially comment on the developments.

The Houthis seized Harib and several other districts in the government-controlled province last year.

Last week, the Yemeni army recaptured three districts in the adjacent province of Shabwa from the Houthi militia after a 10-day battle, taking the whole province of Shabwa from the militia.

Yemen has been mired in a civil war since late 2014 when the Houthi militia seized control of several northern provinces and forced the internationally recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi out of the capital Sanaa.

--IANS ksk/

( 184 Words)

2022-01-16-12:46:02 (IANS)
Belgrade [Serbia], January 16 (ANI/Sputnik): Serbs from Kosovo can vote in a Sunday referendum on constitutional changes in four cities in the central part of Serbia, the Republic Electoral Commission (REC) said. On January 16, Serbian citizens are voting on the amendments to the country's basic law related to the judiciary. Proposed changes include the elimination of several offices, expansion of the public prosecutor's office to become a collective body, and changes regarding the election of judges. Voting in the referendum will take place at 8,029 polling stations throughout Serbia, with the exception of breakaway Kosovo and Metohija. The decision on the results of the referendum will be made by a simple majority of votes. According to REC, voters from Kosovo and Metohija will have to travel to polling stations in four cities of central Serbia, namely Kursumlija, Raska, Novi Pazar and Vranje. A delegation from the European Union and the embassies of France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States welcomed Serbia's constitutional referendum as a step towards the country's accession to the EU and the strengthening of the national judiciary. The countries also expressed regret that the Kosovo government has not allowed Serbs living on the territory of the self-proclaimed republic to vote, urging the authorities to change the decision and all sides to refrain from increasing tensions. (ANI/Sputnik)
Earlier on Sunday, Somalian news portal Garowe Online reported that a suicide bomber attacked a vehicle with the Federal Government Spokesperson in the Somalian capital city of Mogadishu, which resulted in the latter being injured.

"The PM H.E Mohamed Roble strongly condemns the odious terrorist attack targeting Government Spokesman, Mr Mohamed Ibrahim Moalimuu who sustained injuries today but is in stable condition. The PM wishes Mr Moalimuu a quick recovery," the office tweeted.

According to Garowe Online, the radical Islamist al-Shabaab movement, affiliated with al-Qaeda (terror group banned in Russia), has claimed the responsibility for the attack, threatening to carry another attack next week.

The Al-Shabaab group is engaged in an armed conflict against the central government of Somalia and prevents UN humanitarian activities in the country.

Somalia collapsed as a unified nation in 1991 with the downfall of Siad Barre's dictatorship. The international community recognized the federal government as the only legitimate authority in the country, which controls the capital Mogadishu and several other areas. The rest of Somalia is controlled by unrecognized state entities or self-governed, including the unrecognized Republic of Somaliland in the north and the autonomous Puntland region in the east. (ANI/Sputnik)
Political change is visible in Pakistan with the sudden outburst by Defence Minister Pervez Khattak against federal Minister Hammad Azhar and Prime Minister Imran Khan at the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI ) Parliamentary party meeting. Pervez Khattak could pose a potential threat to the Leader of the House and Prime Minister Imran Khan in the near future as he enjoys the support of 80 lawmakers in the lower house for a change within the house, according to the Nation. Further, Pervez Khattak denied any differences; a day after his mysterious absence from the national security policy launch has given strength to reports of serious cracks within the ruling party. If both Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Pakistan People's Party are unable to forge any unity for moving no trust motion then Pervez Khattak would move forward and take away his loyal MPs with him by making a forward bloc which would pose the biggest challenge to the survival of Imran Khan Khan in the parliament, according to the Nation. Imran Khan is gradually losing the support of his allies in the parliament as well. In the parliamentary party meeting, allies also complained about the mini-budget and wanted the Prime Minister to review it. Winds of changes are not restricted to Islamabad alone and it's reaching Karachi and Peshawar within no time. More voices such as Noor Alam Khan would appear in both houses of the Parliament, which are clear indicators that Member of Parliaments wants the change of the leader of the house of their party, according to the Nation. (ANI)
A court heard that 31-year-old Muhammad Gohir Khan was hired as a "hitman" by figures said to be based in Pakistan.

He was arrested last June and pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to murder.

Lawyers said the intended victim, Ahmad Waqass Goraya, had set up a blog on Facebook making fun of the Pakistani military and detailing alleged human rights violations, the report said.

Kingston Crown Court heard that Goraya, who was living in Rotterdam at the time, "was known for speaking out against the activities of the Pakistani government and appears to have been targeted for that reason", the report added.

The jury was told that Khan, a supermarket worker from East London, was heavily in debt - with the prosecution alleging he reacted "enthusiastically" to a proposal by a man named only as "MudZ" to kill the Pakistani political activist in exchange for 100,000 pounds.

Leading the prosecution, Alison Morgan QC, said in December 2018, Goraya had received information from the FBI that he was on a "kill list" and that he had received threats online and in person, some of which he believed "were being orchestrated by ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence)", Pakistan's intelligence agency.

--IANS san/ksk/

( 236 Words)

2022-01-16-13:24:05 (IANS)
According to Dawn, farmers hailing from Bhong, Rahimabad and Nawazabad areas organised a rally. The rally, led by Pakistan People's Party MPA Mumtaz Ali Chang, reached Taj Chowk on Bypass Road where the participants blocked the national highway and staged a sit-in.

Chang, PPP district president Sardar Habibur Rehman Gopang and Kissan Board general secretary Shahid Iqbal Terhaili spoke to the farmers.

They strongly criticised the Tehsil and district administration for not addressing the shortage and black marketing of urea. They alleged that Assistant Commissioner Kalim Yousuf and the assistant director (agriculture) had totally failed to overcome the fertiliser crisis, said the Pakistani publication.

The speakers also complained of the unavailability of irrigation water in canals which would affect the wheat crop. They alleged that farmers were being kidnapped and their tractors and motorcycles snatched by gangs of robbers in the Kacha area of Sadiqabad, Dawn reported.

The Pakistani publication further highlighted that the national highway remained suspended for more than three hours.

Meanwhile, Rahim Yar Khan Deputy Commissioner Mehtab Wasim Azhar told Dawn that he suggested to the protesters that he will meet their delegation on Monday along with the district police officer and the superintending engineer (irrigation) to solve all their matters.

Talking about the fertiliser issue, Azhar said the district is receiving 19,000 to 25,000 bags of urea against the 33,000 demand. He said supply would be increased in a couple of days after the upgraded distribution mechanism, Dawn reported. (ANI)
The Taliban used force against Afghan women who once again took to the streets of Kabul to protest violations of their rights and a set of regulations imposed on them, reported Sputnik citing a protester.

"We came out for women's rights. We protested peacefully, said the protester, adding, "The Taliban harassed me."

It came after the Taliban's Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice last week issued posters in Kabul ordering Afghan women to cover up.

The ministry had also prohibited women from travelling without having their faces covered in public transport. The new rulers in Kabul had also banned women from appearing in media and attending educational institutions without conforming attire, said Sputnik.

Following the Taliban's power grab in Kabul, Afghan women have repeatedly protested in a number of cities in the country, asking that their rights be respected and for representation in the government and local authorities. (ANI)
A freight train from North Korea arrived in Dandong, China on Sunday, Kyodo News reported citing sources close to the matter said

North Korea has cut off land traffic to and from China due to worries that the virus, first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, could enter its territory.

However, North Korea claims that no COVID-19 cases have been found in the country.

In Dandong, the customs office near the Yalu River has been effectively closed as North Korea has banned its citizens from visiting China. So far, the suspension of a train link between them was believed to have continued for more than a year, said Kyodo News.

Due to the pause in the trade between the two countries, restaurants and shops run by Koreans in the Chinese border city have been shuttered.

Apart from North Korea's choked trade with China, experts raise concerns that North Korean citizens might not be receiving adequate food or daily necessities due to agricultural devastation by powerful typhoons and flooding.

North Korea is completely dependent on China for its trade as Beijing accounts for Pyonyang's 90 per cent of trade.

But the infectious disease seems to have made North Korea vulnerable against a backdrop of chronic shortages of food and medical equipment triggered by international economic sanctions, said Kyodo News. (ANI)
PM Modi will address the WEF at 8:30 PM IST via video conference on Tuesday, the office said in a press release. The virtual event will be held from January 17-21.

Several heads of state will address the event including Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and EU Commission's chief Ursua von der Leyen.

The event will also witness the participation of top industry leaders, international organisations and civil society, who will deliberate on critical challenges being faced by the world today and discuss how to address them. (ANI)
Moon, who is in Dubai for a three-day visit as part of his week-long trip to the Middle East, made the remarks at a business forum attended by Suhail bin Mohammed Al Mazrouei, the nation's Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, and other senior UAE officials, reports Yonhap News Agency.

Since South Korea won a $20 billion contract in 2009 to construct four nuclear reactors in Barakah, UAE, the two nations have been seeking to expand cooperation in other sectors.

"South Korea and the UAE have made many achievements throughout deeper cooperation in traditional energy sectors, including oil and nuclear power plants," he told the forum.

The countries UAE will "expand energy cooperation into the hydrogen sector, a core energy resource in the age of carbon neutrality", the President added.

Also on Sunday, Moon plans to pay a visit to a "Day of Korea" ceremony at the Expo 2020 Dubai and hold a meeting with the country's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

During the talks, Moon and the UAE Prime Minister plan to discuss ways to expand cooperation in infrastructure, efforts to tackle climate change and space.

The two leaders will also discuss South Korea's bid to host the 2030 Expo.

In Dubai, Moon will step up South Korea's campaign to host the Expo in the nation's southeastern port city of Busan.

--IANS ksk/

( 282 Words)

2022-01-16-15:22:03 (IANS)
Almaty [Kazakhstan], January 16 (ANI/Sputnik): The unrest that swept over Kazakhstan in early January left 149 civilians and 11 law enforcers dead in the city of Almaty, the head of the city police department, Kanat Taimerdenov, said Sunday. "Eleven officers of law enforcement agencies and 149 civilians," Taimerdenov told a briefing when asked about the death toll. During the several days that Almaty was shaken up by riots, there were seven attacks on the city's morgues, and rioters stole 41 bodies of their accomplices, Taimerdenov said. Mass protests began with people in the west of the country rallying against a steep hike in fuel prices. The unrest then spread to other areas, including the country's former capital of Almaty in the south of Kazakhstan. Protests turned violent in Almaty --there was looting and attacks on government offices. The government declared a state of emergency until January 19. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev requested help from the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which sent peacekeepers into Kazakhstan. The CSTO mission wrapped up earlier this week and peacekeepers began to withdraw on Thursday. (ANI/Sputnik)
"There are Russian troops on the territory of the Russian Federation, next to Ukrainian borders. We find it necessary to keep those troops [due to] a very tense situation and very unfriendly environment," he said.

The spokesman cited NATO military build-up, exercises and routine missions of fighter jets and reconnaissance aircraft near the western Russian border.

"We have to respond, we have to take measures of precaution. That's why we have our military on our territory there," the spokesperson added. (ANI/Sputnik)
The US stands in solidarity with the Congregation Beth Israel community and the entire Jewish community on the hostage incident at Texas synagogue, said US Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday. "This morning, we are grateful that four people held hostage in a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas are safe and going home to their families," Harris said in a statement on Sunday. Harris thanked the "brave men and women" in federal, state, and local law enforcement and said, "We stand in solidarity with the Congregation Beth Israel community and the entire Jewish community". "While we will learn more about the hostage taker's motivation, we know this: what happened yesterday at Congregation Beth Israel is a reminder that we must speak up and combat antisemitism and hate wherever it exists," Harris said "Everyone has a right to pray, work, study, and spend time with loved ones not as the other - but as us," she added. At least four people were taken hostages by a man at a synagogue in the town of Colleyville for more than ten hours on Saturday. A live stream of the Shabbat morning service at the synagogue on Facebook captured audio of a man talking loudly when the incident started. According to the law enforcement officials, the hostage-taker demanded the release of the Pakistani scientist Aafia Siddiqui, who was convicted of trying to kill US military officers while in custody in Afghanistan. Siddiqui is currently being held at FMC Carswell, a federal prison in Fort Worth Texas. However, the suspect who took hostages, demanding the release of a Pakistan scientist convicted of trying to kill US military officers while in custody in Afghanistan, has been killed. (ANI)
Moscow [Russia], January 16 (ANI/Sputnik): Russia is not considering military action if security talks with the United States and NATO fail, but it will be ready to take counteractions if its concerns are ignored, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN. "We are not speaking about military action... No one is threatening anyone with military action. This would be just madness to do that. But we will be ready to take counteractions," he said. Peskov cited NATO's reluctance to promise not to take in Ukraine as a member or deploy offensive weapons in its territory or to stop moving military infrastructure to the Russian border as some of the red lines. He said that the Kremlin wanted NATO to start taking its concerns into account. "We do not want to see a process for the sake of the process. We do not want to see months-long or years-long negotiations discussing our disagreements. We want to feel for the beginning of readiness to take our concerns into account. Right now, unfortunately, we fail to do that," he said.( ANI/Sputnik)
Kyiv [Ukraine], January 16 (ANI/Sputnik): The Ukrainian Ministry of Digital Transformation said on Sunday that there was evidence pointing to Russia's alleged involvement in recent cyberattacks against the country's government websites. On Friday, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said its website, as well as websites of some other government bodies, were unavailable because of a cyberattack. The Ukrainian Security Service and the National Police opened a criminal investigation into the attacks. The Ukrainian law enforcement agencies said Russian special services may have been involved. "So far, it can be said that all the evidence indicates that Russia is behind the cyberattack," the ministry said in a statement. The ministry urged Ukrainians not to panic, saying that their personal data is safeguarded by the government. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN that Russia "had nothing to do" with the incident and that such claims were groundless. He added that Moscow is "nearly accustomed to the fact that Ukrainians are blaming everything on Russia, even their bad weather". (ANI/Sputnik)
The US President Joe Biden on Sunday (local time) termed synagogue hostage-taking incident in the Texan city of Colleyville as an "act of terror." "This was an act of terror, and not only was he (44-year-old British national Malik Faisal Akram) related to someone who had been arrested, I might add, 15 years ago and had been in jail for 10 years," said Biden. At least four people were taken hostages by a man at a synagogue in the town of Colleyville for more than ten hours on Saturday. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Dallas Division on Sunday (local time) identified the man killed as 44-year-old British national Malik Faisal Akram. According to the law enforcement officials, the hostage-taker demanded the release of the Pakistani scientist Aafia Siddiqui, who was convicted of trying to kill US military officers while in custody in Afghanistan. Biden said he had spoken to Attorney General Merrick Garland about the hostage crisis. "Regarding Texas and the synagogue, I spoke this morning with the Attorney General, and we got a rundown. He said there was overwhelming cooperation with the local authorities and FBI, and they did one hell of a job," said the US President. Biden applauded FBI and local authorities and reiterated that the US has the capacity to deal with such assaults. "And they did just a great job. I also told him that I wanted to make sure that we got the word out that synagogues and other places of worship are not going to tolerate this. We have the capacity to deal with the assault on particularly," said Biden. "The Attorney General is focused that we deal with these kinds of acts. And thank God we had such professional FBI as well as local cooperation," added Biden He also said that he will talk to the Rabbi who was taken hostage. When asked about how the gunman obtained weapons, Biden said "I don't have all the facts." He said the idea of background checks was critical but nothing stopped shooters from buying guns on the street. "The Attorney General -- allegedly the assertion was that he got the weapons on the street, that he purchased them. As it turns out there were apparently no bombs, even though he said he had bombs as well. He apparently spent the first night in a homeless shelter -- I don't have all the details, so I'm reluctant to go into much more detail, but allegedly he purchased it on the street," said the President. Biden also insisted on background checks on the sale of weapons in the US. He said, "Guns are -- they need to be -- the idea of background checks is critical, but you can't stop something like this if someone is on the street buying something from someone else on the street. There are so many guns that have been sold in this way it's ridiculous because of the failure to focus as hard as we should, consistently should on gun sales, ghost guns, a whole range of things." Biden also added that there was not sufficient information on why the gunman had targeted the synagogue. "I don't think there is sufficient information to know why he went to that synagogue and why he insisted on the police releasing a person who had been in prison for 10 years. I just don't have enough facts," added Biden. (ANI)
Joyce Watkins is the first Black woman to be exonerated in Tennessee history

A 74-year-old Nashville woman and her late boyfriend have been exonerated for the rape and murder of her great-niece after she served nearly 30 years behind bars.

According to court documents, Joyce Watkins and Charlie Dunn were convicted of first-degree murder and aggravated rape after her four-year-old niece, Brandi, died from brain and vaginal injuries while in their care.

The couple only had Brandi for a few hours before she fell unresponsive, but prosecutors alleged that Brandis injuries were sustained while she was with them.

A Black couple in TN wrongly imprisoned for 25 years for rape/murder were exonerated.



Joyce Watkins is now 74. Charlie Dunn died in prison.



A DA says they were convicted on debunked evidence after taking a niece to hospital for wounds she suffered before being in their custody. pic.twitter.com/1zYoAMGtP8  AJ+ (@ajplus) January 13, 2022

In June 1987, the couple picked up Brandi from Kentucky, where she was being watched by her other great-aunt, Rose Williams, for two months.

The next morning, Brandi was unresponsive and Watkins took her to the Nashville Memorial Hospital.

After discovering her injuries, doctors ruled that Brandi had been raped while with the couple.

The next morning, Brandi died from her injuries and the two served 27 years in prison before they were both granted parole in 2015. Dunn passed away in prison before he was released.

Watkins is the first Black woman to be exonerated in Tennessee history, and the third woman overall. Dunn was given a posthumous exoneration.

Watkins had been on a mission to clear her and Dunns name for a while.

She enlisted the help of the Tennessee Innocence Project, a non-profit that helps those wrongfully accused of crimes, and the Davidson County District Attorneys Office.

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She just showed up at the office and said, Let me tell you my story. I need your help, said senior legal counsel with the Tennessee Innocence Project, Jason Gichner to CNN.

The request for the convictions to be vacated was filed on November 21.

(Photo: Adobe Stock)

The filing clarified several points including a retraction from the medical examiner, the failures of the prosecution and the sketchy occurrences at Williams house.

During the court trial, medical examiner Dr. Greta Harlan told the jury that Brandis injuries had been sustained within nine hours of her being brought to the hospital, but at one point, she had stated that the injuries could have been sustained up to 48 hours or more prior to her death.

The ruling noted that Harlan recognized and acknowledged her error in evaluating the time of injury years after the trial.

The ruling also revealed how detectives did not question many other people who were involved or had access to Brandi while she was with Williams.

Williams lived on a military base where dozens of adults had access to her, the report said.

In addition, a neighbor reported to the Kentucky Department of Social Service that they suspected that Brandi had been abused while she was with Williams.

Joyce Watkins and Charlie Dunn are innocent, said District Attorney Glenn Funk. We cannot give Ms. Watkins or Mr. Dunn their lost years but we can restore their dignity; we can restore their names. Their innocence demands it.

It is not known if Watkins or Dunns estate will be compensated for the false conviction.

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The post 74-year-old Nashville woman exonerated after 27 years in prison appeared first on TheGrio.
Trump delivers remarks at a major rally hosted by the Alabama Republican Party in Cullman, Alabama in Cullman, AL, United States on August 21, 2021. Peter Zay/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Pima County officials examined 151 potential incidents of voter fraud, none of which resulted in charges.

It was the latest example of Arizona officials rebutting claims of mass fraud in the state.

The announcement was made Friday, a day before Trump appeared in the state and pushed fraud claims.

The vast majority of voter fraud claims being investigated in Arizona were dismissed with no criminal charges brought, officials announced Friday, a day before former President Donald Trump arrived for a rally in the state.

Investigators in Pima County, which includes Tucson, examined 151 incidents of residents casting more than one ballot in the 2020 election, none of which resulted in criminal prosecution, the Pima County Attorney's Office said in a statement.

The cases accounted for more than two-thirds of all incidents that were reviewed by Arizona officials, the Associated Press reported.

"While PCAO's investigation documented instances of these voters knowingly submitting more than one ballot, there is little to no evidence that they acted with the awareness that their actions would or could result in multiple votes being counted," Pima County Attorney Laura Conover said in a statement. "What our investigation revealed was the genuine confusion about the electoral process, particularly relating to mail-in and provisional ballots, and the genuine fear, for a variety of reasons, that their initial vote would not count."

The statement listed examples, including one person who said she thought her first ballot was stolen from her mailbox, prompting her to request a replacement ballot. Another person said he lost his first ballot and requested a second, and believed someone else may have found his first ballot and sent it in.

"To be clear, the additional ballots cast in these incidents were not counted in the final tally of votes and did not impact the election results for any candidate or ballot measure, and PCAO uncovered no conspiratorial acts in the incidents investigated," the statement said.

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The statement also said one-third of the 151 were given a more intensive review, and that those ballots related to 23 registered Republicans, 15 registered Democrats, and 13 registered as unaffiliated/other.

Pima County's announcement came one day before Trump's rally in Florence, Arizona, where he repeated false or unsubstantiated claims about the 2020 election. Trump lost Arizona to President Joe Biden, a fact that has been confirmed by multiple audits, including one ordered by GOP lawmakers in the state.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi holds talks with visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian in Wuxi, east China's Jiangsu Province, Jan. 14, 2022. (Xinhua/Ji Chunpeng)

NANJING, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks on Friday with visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian in Wuxi, east China's Jiangsu Province.

The two sides announced the launch of the implementation of a comprehensive cooperation plan.

Wang said China is ready to work with Iran to implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state, strengthen communication and coordinate actions, constantly enrich the connotation of China-Iran comprehensive strategic partnership and open a new era for the development of bilateral ties for the next 50 years.

Abdollahian, on behalf of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, said that Iran firmly supports China in safeguarding its core interests and firmly adheres to the one-China policy.

Iran highly appreciates and will actively participate in the joint building of the Belt and Road, said Abdollahian, adding that developing relations with China is Iran's top decision. The Iranian side is firmly committed to advancing Iran-China cooperation and staunchly supports the Beijing Winter Olympics.

The two sides jointly announced the launch of the implementation of the 25-year comprehensive cooperation plan and conducted in-depth discussions. Both sides agreed to step up cooperation on energy, infrastructure, production capacity, science and technology, and medical and health care.

They also agreed to expand cooperation in agriculture, fisheries and cyber security as well as promote tripartite cooperation, and deepen people-to-people and cultural exchanges in education, film and personnel training.

The two sides also exchanged views on the Iranian nuclear situation.

Wang said that the right and wrong of the Iranian nuclear issue is clear. The U.S. unilateral withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) has directly created the current difficult situation. The United States should bear the major responsibility and rectify its mistake as soon as possible

China will firmly support the resumption of negotiations on the implementation of the JCPOA and will continue to participate constructively in follow-up negotiations, he said.

It is hoped that all parties will overcome difficulties and meet each other halfway to advance the political and diplomatic settlement process, Wang said.

Lauding the constructive role played by the Chinese side, Abdollahian said Iran is committed to reaching a set of stable guarantee agreements through serious negotiations and is willing to maintain close communication with China. 
The Daily Beast

Claudio Peri/Pool/ReutersROMESince the beginning of Russias invasion of Ukraine, Pope Francis has floated the idea that he wants to take a trip to Kyiv to try to broker a ceasefire. But now he says he would prefer to go to Moscow to try to talk some sense into Vladimir Putin, who he has not outwardly condemned in the now nearly three-month-old war and only did so lightly in a lengthy interview with an Italian newspaper.I feel that before going to Kyiv, I must go to Moscow, he told Corriere D
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden will meet virtually on Friday with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida discuss the two nations' economies, security matters, climate change and other bilateral issues, the White House announced on Sunday.

"The meeting will highlight the strength of the U.S.-Japan alliance, which is the cornerstone of peace, security, and stability in the Indo-Pacific and around the world," the White House said in a statement.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Nick Zieminski)
Rapper Big Daddy Kane shared a personal video explaining that he mistook an ASL interpreter for a concert-goer who had walked onstage during his performance. (Photo: Johnny Nunez/WireImage)

Big Daddy Kane is apologizing for pushing an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter back from the stage during a performance on Friday evening.

The rapper, 53, took to Instagram to share a personal message about the incident, describing it as a misunderstanding because he had no idea anyone would be onstage with him during the performance. He also offered a "sincere apology" to the interpreter, whom he identified as Billy Sanders. Sanders has previously gone viral thanks to the nickname #ASLBae.

"So I know a lot of people out there saw this," Kane said, before launching into a video clip showing him repeatedly pushing Sanders, who was translating his performance behind a large pile of concert equipment.

"But see what y'all didn't see was this," said Kane, who flashed back to the video, which shows him shaking hands with Sanders after the song was over. On the video, Kane can be heard saying that "they didn't tell me what was going on" and telling the audience "understand and understood, I want everybody to enjoy it, you feel me?"

Kane continued, explaining that the incident was simply a case of mistaken identity.

"I've done a lot of crazy stuff in my life. But I would never try to disrespect an interpreter that's doing sign language for the deaf community onstage," he explained. "No one told me what was going on. No one told my manager that there was going to be an interpreter. We were clueless, so when I came on stage and saw someone just mouthing the lyrics, I was trying to get them off the stage."

The initial video of the musician pushing the man, taken by a concert-goer, gained significant traffic on the internet, causing some to criticize Kane's actions.

"But no one showed the clip of me apologizing to the brother and allowing him to stay on stage and finish the show. No one showed the clip of me apologizing to the crowd. Because as I said in the clip, I want everyone to enjoy the show, and that means even those who cant hear it," Kane shared in his video message.

Kane closed out his personal video be reiterating his support for all concert-goers, including those who are hearing-impaired.

"Anyway though, much respect to the deaf community. I would never disrespect y'all, and once again, much love to that interpreter," he said. "Again, I apologize, my brother."
Alan Gosling has been told he can't keep ducks for at least a year. (SWNS)

The UK's bird flu "patient zero" has been left heartbroken after being banned from keeping birds for a year.

Alan Gosling, 79, contracted bird flu after adopting a flock of ducks and taking them into his home.

The flock has since been culled while the retired engineer and father of three was forced to self-isolate at his home in Buckfastleigh, Devon, after testing positive for the disease.

He went on to test negative and was planning to adopt more ducks but his family have now revealed that he has been told he cannot keep any pet birds for a whole year.

Watch: Thousands of chickens killed and disposed off due to bird flu outbreak

Gosling's daughter-in-law Ellesha Gosling, 26, told Mail Online: "When the ducks were killed, his only bit of hope was that he'd be able to get more."

But she said he had now been told it was not safe for any more birds to go onto his land for at least a year, leaving him distraught.

She added: "It really hurt him because that's what was keeping him going. They took away all his friends and now he has been left with nothing."

People were told not to feed the ducks in Buckfastleigh, Devon, where Gosling lives. (SWNS)

Read more: Council searches for landlord to be crowned 'king' or 'queen' of 300-year-old pub on remote island

Gosling previously spoke of the heartbreak of having his pet ducks culled, comparing them to his family.

He said: "I miss them like hell. They broke my heart, they have been with me for such a long time.

"All of them were very, very close to me, they knew exactly what I was doing. I used to call them and they'd come, it was like having a dog really."

Gosling's ducklings which were culled after they were found to have bird flu. (SWNS)

The 79-year-old had more than 100 Muscovy ducks living outside his home and noticed several falling ill before Christmas.

Tests carried out by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Animal and Plant Health Agency (Apha) found the animals had the H5N1 strain of avian flu, prompting them to be culled.

Gosling tested positive for the flu virus and also the H5N1 strain of avian flu, a UK first for humans, making him the UK's 'patient zero'.

Watch: Bird flu outbreak kills over 5000 cranes in Israel's deadliest wildlife disaster
The Texas Military Preparedness Commission on Tuesday approved a grant request from the city of Abilene to provide 50% of funding for improvements to broadband connectivity at Dyess Air Force Base, the Abilene Military Affairs Committee said in a news release Thursday.

Through the grant, the state will provide $375,000 for a $750,000 project to expand fiber optic and 5G infrastructure at the base. The Development Corporation of Abilene has allocated another $300,000 for the project, with the remainder provided by a variety of additional sources, the release said.

Connectivity improvements at facilities used by base personnel and their families will be funded through local private contributions.

The state's funding will be provided through the Defense Economic Adjustment Assistance Grant program, through which governmental entities can apply for aid to improve infrastructure at military installations. Abilene has receive three other DEAAG grants in the past five years, which helped to fund improvements to the perimeter security fence, expansion of the Visitors Access Control Center and new security gates.

"The state of Texas award of the DEAAG grant just exemplifies the city of Abilene's dedication to the mission, airmen, and families of Dyess who protect this great nation," Mayor Anthony Williams said in the release. "We could not be prouder to play part in that."

Eula High School students Dillon Moore, Morgan Alderson, Avery Meers, Ashton Cooley, Hannah Smithwick, Cheyanne Ross, Asher Bolin and Masen Stephenson - with sponsoring teacher Madison Galle - won the grand prize in the Workforce Solutions of West Central Texas Careers in Action student video contest.

Workforce Solutions presents contest prizes to area classrooms

Workforce Solutions of West Central Texas recently present prizes totaling more than $16,000 in value to area middle and high schools that participated in the 2021 Careers in Action video contest.

Through the contest, students - under teacher direction - submitted short videos highlighting jobs in selected industries in the region, with winning submissions selected by guest judges from area businesses, media and schools.

Finalists were selected from five industry categories and divisions, with separate classifications for middle schools and high schools and large schools and small schools.

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The grand prize was awarded to Madison Galle's class at Eula High School for their video on HVAC. Other winners were submitted from schools in Abilene, Wylie, Anson, Clyde, Highland, Ira, Coleman and Munday districts.

Finalists were awarded prize packages of their choosing valued at $700, with possible items including an iPad Pro or DSLR camera.

The awards presentation can be viewed at wfswct.org/cia.

Texas State Technical College to help train Hendrick Health staff

In partnership with Practice Management Institute, Texas State Technical College will train Hendrick Health staff members on new business practices and systems, the school said in a Tuesday news release.

According to the release, TSTC was recently awarded a grant of $255,586 from the Texas Workforce Commission to facilitate the training, which will be provided to Hendrick employees in Abilene and Brownwood.

TSTC and PMI employees will present courses on topics including clinical documentation and medical and billing coding systems.

This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: Business notebook: Abilene gets $375,000 for Dyess tech project
Celine Dion announced that she is forced to cancel the North American leg of her "Courage World Tour" due to ongoing health issues.

The show dates, scheduled from March 9 to April 22 will not go on as the singer is suffering from "severe and persistent muscle spasms which are preventing her from performing," read a statement posted to her website and social media on Saturday.

"I was really hoping that Id be good to go by now, but I suppose I just have to be more patient and follow the regimen that my doctors are prescribing," Dion said in the statement. "Theres a lot of organizing and preparation that goes into our shows, and so we have to make decisions today which will affect the plans two months down the road."

The singer said she is looking forward to getting back to full health and getting past the pandemic. Dion completed the first 52 shows of her "Courage World Tour" in support of her new album of the same title before the pandemic hit in March 2020.

"... I cant wait to be back on stage again," she said. "Meanwhile, Ive been very touched by all the words of encouragement that everyones been sending to me on social media. I feel your love and support and it means the world to me."

Dion, 53, previously delayed the reopening of her Las Vegas residency due to these health issues. She said in an October 2021 Instagram post that she was "heartbroken" that her shows at Resorts World Theatre in Las Vegas would not go on as planned.

"...Im especially sorry for disappointing all the fans whove been making their plans to come to Las Vegas," said Dion. "Now, I have to focus on getting better"
The east Gainesville plaza where a Bravo community grocery store was proposed.

What's on your mind? Call Sound Off, our weekly column of community comments, at 352-337-0368.

 It comes as no surprise that the company who was going to put a grocery store out on Hawthorne Road has backed out. Any business developer or investor who has dealt with the city of Gainesville knows of the endless restrictions and conditions the city constantly will present to clients small and large. The worst thing about it is that they have an attitude as if they are doing you a complete favor.

 To those people who are advocating for having us switch to electric cars, school buses, etc., I would suggest that first you direct your energies to getting GRU and UF  and all other utilities, for that matter  to stop using fossil fuels to produce electricity. Thats whats happening here locally, so any electric vehicle charged locally is not clean because the electricity it is using was produced by burning fossil fuels and emitting pollutants into the air.

 Superintendent of Alachua County Public Schools, you cant tell the board how you want to be evaluated. Theyre your boss. Board members, yall need to get rid of her.

 The Suns editors do a decent job of limiting outright lies in letters, calls and columns that appear on its editorial pages, but they arent perfect. One lie Ive seen published too often is the assertion that Democrats made Trump-like fraud complaints in 2000. The truth is that election officials in a few Florida counties used flawed punch-card systems, most notably the awful butterfly ballot in Palm Beach County. Gore and Democrats pushed for careful recounts of the confusing ballots, but there were no fraud claims, no Proud Boys and no Cyber Ninjas that year.

 Gov. DeSantis is now preaching that testing of COVID-asymptomatic people is ridiculous and unnecessary, contrary to what the scientists say. He says that, Whoever heard of testing someone before youre sick? Well, has he ever heard of mammograms for breast cancer? Of prostate exams and PSA blood tests to detect prostate cancer? Pap smears to detect cervical cancer? Prevention saves a lot of lives.

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 Charlie Crist as a Democrat couldnt even defeat Rick Scott. Now hes trying to run against a much better organized and funded DeSantis. Democrats need to abandon that dead horse and pick a winner.

 For the person who said that he is grateful to Mr. DeSantis for no vaccines and no mask mandates, let me bring you up to date because your Mr. DeSantis politicizing COVID like his past president did, we are in the ship of people dying. Feel lucky if you have lost no one to COVID. We did in September. We loved him and miss our friend, neighbor and our dentist too, very much. Please get your vaccine so that your life can be spared.

 Its become quite obvious that our Gov. DeSantis does not understand medicine, but now that he is touting monoclonal antibody therapy and ignoring touting vaccines, I guess he doesnt understand money either because monoclonal antibodies cost on average $4,000 a dose. Vaccines are $24 a dose.

 Waaahh! I dont like the president or former president and Im sad because not everyone agrees with me! Ugh  get a real identity that doesnt revolve around politics and youd all be much happier people.

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Sound Off for Jan. 16, 2022




Canadian officials warned residents against traveling to Ukraine amid the current conflict with Russia, Reuters reported.

"We have changed the risk level for Ukraine to avoid non-essential travel due to ongoing Russian aggression and military buildup in and around the country," Canada said in a travel advisory statement on Saturday.

Russia has stationed more than 100,000 troops on the Ukraine border, sparking concerns about an invasion and prompting crisis negotiations last week with the U.S., NATO and major European countries.

Canada's Foreign Minister Melanie Joly is set to visit the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv next week and meet with Ukraine Prime Minister Denys Shmygal to affirm her country's support for Ukraine amid "aggressive actions" by Russia.

Joly will also travel to the western part of the country to speak to a 200-strong Canadian training mission that has been stationed in the country since 2015, Reuters noted.

A State Department spokesperson said Canadian Deputy Foreign Minister Marta Morgan and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman pledged during a Friday meeting to continue close coordination in their efforts to de-escalate the situation.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also held a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Tuesday, in which he pledged "serious consequences" and "coordinated sanctions" should Russia invade.

Canada, which has a sizable population of Ukraine migrants, has taken a hard line toward Russia since the 2014 annexation of Crimea, imposing punitive measures toward 440 individuals and entities involved in the operation, Reuters noted.
BEIJING  The Chinese city of Xian has gradually begun lifting restrictions after over three weeks of lockdown as authorities sought to stamp out a local outbreak before the Beijing Winter Olympic Games are due to start.

State-owned broadcaster CCTV reported Sunday that certain counties and development zones in Xian had begun restoring production.

Officials told a news conference that lockdown measures had been either partially or completely lifted in some communities that have been designated as lower risk, allowing people to leave their homes for a limited time to purchase daily necessities.

The city went into strict lockdown on Dec. 22, following a coronavirus outbreak that officials attributed to the delta variant. Xian, with a population of 13 million and a major tourist site for the famed Terracotta Warriors, has reported over 2,000 infections since December last year.

Xian is about 600 miles southwest of Beijing.

China is seeking to stamp out local transmission of the omicron and delta variants with its zero COVID policy. Several municipalities and cities in the southern province of Guangdong as well as Beijing have in recent days reported local cases of the more contagious omicron variant.

Beijing reported its first local omicron infection on Saturday, according to state media, just before it hosts the Olympics starting on Feb. 4 and around two weeks before the start of Lunar New Year celebrations.

The infected person lives and works in the citys northwestern district of Haidian and had no travel history outside of Beijing for the past two weeks. The individual experienced symptoms on Thursday and was tested on Friday for Covid-19, officials said in a news conference Saturday.

The patients residential compound and workplace have been sealed off and authorities are mass-testing people linked to either location. Some 2,430 people had been tested as of Saturday night, according to The Global Times, a state-owned newspaper.

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Beijing Daily reported Sunday that the capital will require travelers to take nucleic acid tests within 72 hours of entry starting Jan. 22.

Officials across the country also urged residents to stay in their cities for the new year, instead of traveling back to their hometowns.

China reported 119 new cases on Saturday, of which 65 were domestic. The country has reported 104,864 infections since the beginning of the pandemic.


BEIJING, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- China Development Bank (CDB), one of the country's major policy banks, granted a total of 70 billion yuan (about 10.99 billion U.S. dollars) of special loans last year to facilitate scientific innovation and basic research.

The loans were offered to support major national scientific innovation projects, pursuits of breakthroughs in core technologies, cutting-edge basic research, applied research and the application of scientific and technological achievements, according to the CDB.

The loans were part of a special lending scheme, which was set up in March last year and is expected to provide up to 300 billion yuan of loans for scientific innovation and research in the 2021-2025 period.

The CDB said it will improve financial services for eligible tech firms and provide them with long-term funding, as basic research usually takes a longer time, requires more funds but lacks collateral. 
Cineteve Sales, the global distribution branch of Paris-based production banner Cineteve, has scored a raft of international sales for non-fiction projects presented at this years Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Paris. Among the titles brought to market at this years edition  the first to welcome film and television buyers under the same roof  include a doc about Michael Haneke, an ambitious ecological series, and the third season of popular modern history title History Uncovered.

A fixture on the French scene since 1982, Cineteve launched its international arm in 2020, bringing on industry vet Gorka Gallier (previously of Doc & Film International) to lead a sales team that has since expanded. Under Gallier, the team has sought co-production opportunities while looking to fill new niches in the global television market.

More from Variety

Gallier points toward Michael Haneke, Cineaste of our Times, a doc produced in partnership with Arte and Austrian public broadcaster ORF, as an example of his teams larger strategy. [Alongside broadcast partners,] we also contacted Hanekes traditional theatrical distributors to offer them the film, Gallier tells Variety. It could be a kind of bonus for them, and could help us put the project before a different set of eyes.

Produced by Fabienne Servan Schreiber and Laurence Miller, and directed by Marie-Eve de Grave, Michael Haneke, Cineaste of our Times will offer a portrait of the two-time Palme dOr winner that mixes interviews with the filmmaker and his key collaborators (actors Juliette Binoche and Isabelle Huppert are both already confirmed) alongside excerpts from his films. Cineteve also brought on Hanekes traditional producer Les Films du Losange as a co-production partner, offering the project in depth access to his oeuvre.

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Due for delivery early this year  in time to celebrate the auteurs 80th birthday  the title has already locked in pre-buys from the U.S. (TCM), Poland (Canal Plus), and German-speaking Switzerland (SRF).

Cineteve could bank on an even greater degree of investment in its title History Uncovered. As season three finishes production, the prior season  which covered such topics as denazification, the British empire, and the presidency of Ronald Reagan in six, 53 minute installments  has already sold to more than 20 territories, with many re-upping for the subsequent season.

Season two territories including Australia (Foxtel), Belgium (RTBF), Catalonia (TV3), French Canada (Radio Canada), Germany (Viasat) and the Arabian Peninsula (Al-Arabiya).

Showrun by Olivier Wieviorka and David Korn-Broza, the third season will examine topics like the sub-prime mortgage crisis, the Vietnam War, and the creation of the state of Israel, and is slated for delivery in April.

Looking further ahead, Cineteve used the occasion of this years Rendez-Vous to launch Of Trees and Forests: The Invisible World. Benefiting from a 1.4 million ($1.6 million) budget, the six-episode series will go into production this summer, with each episode focusing on a particular international forest.

The forests forms an ecosystem, and each episode will uncover the different processes and interactions that trees have between them with the wider natural world, Gallier says. The idea is to shoot in six forests from all over the world, detailing the unique form of communication that trees share between them, which is often called the Wood Wide Web.

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A sign welcomes visitors to downtown Chardon.

Chardon and its surrounding townships are known for their maple syrup industry, which kicks off with Tapping Sunday in March and is celebrated with a four-day Geauga County Maple Festival on the town square in April. But its also an area rich in history and culture, with a New England-style public square surrounded by government offices, quaint shops and diverse restaurants, and playing host to events throughout the year.

Location

Located in the northwest corner of Geauga County, Chardon is on U.S. 6 and 10 miles south of Lake Erie. It was formed from and is surrounded by the townships of Chardon, Hambden, Claridon and Munson.

Highlights

The American flag blows in the wind in front of the Geauga County Courthouse clocktower.

Chardons forefathers considered several names for their new settlement, including Brookfield, Brookville, Marshall and Chardonia. In the end, they decided to name it after Peter Chardon Brooks, who donated land to build the historic Chardon Square using a New England pattern.

Like the fate of many 19th century cities, Chardon lost its entire business district to fire in 1868. Many of the buildings that rose from the ashes still exist today, including the county courthouse.

A handful of movies have filmed in the area. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" from 1987 has a scene in Claridon Township, with Steve Martin and John Candy riding in the back of a pickup truck down Taylor Wells Road. The 2021 thriller The Marksman with Liam Neeson also filmed in the area, including a scene at the Little Eagle Drive-Through Beverage on Auburn Road in Chardon Township.

Notable residents include Hector Chef Boyardee Boioardi, who is buried in All Souls Cemetery; John Popper, frontman for the rock band Blues Traveler; Cleveland Indians pitcher Mel Harder; American entomologist and bug book author JoAnn Tenorio; and Nick Schuyler, survivor and author of Not Without Hope.

Attractions

Please note: As COVID-19 pandemic continues, many businesses are altering their hours of operation. Be aware that the information reported in this list may change.

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A sculpture titled "Echo of the Heart" by artist Matthew Allen Albright was installed at Chardon Living Memorial Park to memorialize the 2012 Chardon High School shooting.

 The Chardon Living Memorial Park was created to honor the three students killed and others wounded in a 2012 shooting at Chardon High School. It features an outdoor fitness center, playground, a walking nature trail and a reflection center with a heart-shaped sculpture titled Echoes of the Heart. The 17-acre park is at 220 Basquin Drive, a short walk east of the high school.

 Antiques on the Square has three floors and more than 6,000 square feet of antique furniture, glassware, clothing, military memorabilia and more. Located at 101 Main St., its open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. http://chardonantiquesonthesquare.com

 Pioneer Waterland & Dry Fun Park, 10661 Kile Road, is a waterpark, kids fun zone and sports arena. Food is available but you can also bring your own picnic and use their grills. Single day or season passes available. The park is open Memorial Day weekend through September, so bookmark https://pioneerwaterland.com to get ready for spring.

Visitors can shop year-round at Sage's Apples Orchard and Farm Market in Chardon.

 Sages Apples is a sixth-generation apple orchard and farm market, growing more than 50 varieties. The farm market is open year-round and also stocks local favorites, including maple products, jams, honey, cheeses and popcorn of all kinds. It's located at 11355 Chardon Road East, just east of the city. Open Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Sundays 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. https://www.sagesapples.com

 Bass Lake Tavern and Inn, 426 South St., is a longtime establishment, offering fresh and local seasonal menus for lunch, dinner and weekend brunch. Behind the tavern is Bass Lake Inn, with 12 rooms offering fireplaces, Jacuzzis and kitchenettes. Find the taverns hours and menu and a list of the inns amenities at https://basslaketaverne.com.

 Square Bistro, 205 Main St., is an upscale dinnertime eatery featuring fresh locally sourced cuisine in a quaint and casual setting. Reservations are recommended. Hours are from 4-9 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and 4-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Find a menu at http://www.square-bistro.com.

 Beans Coffee Shop & Bistro, 121 Main St., is a local gathering spot for breakfast and lunch, with a changing specials menu. Theres also a bakery on site, with pastries, cakes and muffins. It closes most days by 2 or 3 p.m.; check the schedule at https://www.beans-coffee.com.

 If you can find a day nice enough for a stroll, youll find much more all around the historic Chardon Square. Other spots worth checking out on Main, South and Water streets include the vintage collection at Circa, the Mane Street Shoppe for equine-related items, Mountain Road Cycles, The Nest gift store, the salt cave lounge Salty and additional restaurant choices like Element 41 Kitchen & Bar and Noce Gourmet Pizzeria.

 Joeys Italian Grill, 209 Center St., is known for its huge portions of traditional Italian fare, pizza, burgers and specialty salads. The dining room is only open for dinner Tuesday through Saturday from 4 to 9 p.m, but for lunch as well on Sundays, from noon to 8 p.m. http://joeysitaliangrille.com

 Maple Highlands Trail has three sections stretching a total 21 miles across the entire county and features a pair of covered bridges. One place to start is 9280 Ravenna Road in Chardon Township. Learn more at https://www.geaugaparkdistrict.org/park/the-maple-highlands-trail.

 Big Creek Park, 9160 Robinson Road in Chardon Township, is 644 acres and features nine trails with a view of diverse landscapes, including gorges and ponds. There are also shelters, a lodge, an amphitheater and a nature center open weekdays only. Learn more at https://www.geaugaparkdistrict.org/park/big-creek-park

 Another Geauga Park District choice is Whitlam Woods, a peaceful 187-acre park at 12500 Pearl Road in Hambden Township. Looking for a simple hike? The three trails here add up to just 1.1 miles. https://www.geaugaparkdistrict.org/park/whitlam-woods

 Park opportunities continue with Walter C. Best Wildlife Preserve, a 101-acre park with a 30-acre lake and rich in plant and animal life diversity. Three trails total 1.6 miles. Located at 11620 Ravenna Road in Munson Township. https://www.geaugaparkdistrict.org/park/walter-c-best-wildlife-preserve

 Chardon Lakes Golf Course is just two minutes from the square at 470 South St. The course opened in 1931 with nine original holes designed by Bert Way, the guy who designed Firestone North. Visit https://www.chardonlakes.com for course information or to book a tee time.

 Chips Clubhouse is an 18-hole miniature golf course one mile from Chardon Square, at 214 5th Ave. It serves Smith's Dairy ice cream, soft drinks and snacks, and has a room dedicated for birthday parties as well as a shaded picnic area. Open April through October, find more information at https://www.chipsclubhouse.com.

A woman walks under the marquee for the Geauga Theater Community Arts Center in Chardon.

About Chardon and surrounding communities

Founded: 1812. When Chardons population passed 5,000 in 2000, it became Geauga Countys first city.

Population: City of Chardon, 5,100. Chardon Township, 4,600. Hambden Township, 4,600. Claridon Township, 3,200. Munson Township, 6,600.

School and mascot: Chardon Local Schools, the Hilltoppers

Website: https://www.chardon.cc

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Take a sweet trip to Chardon, best known for its maple syrup industry
After going virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic this past year, an annual march in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will be in-person Monday  with some precautions.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr. He was born Jan. 15, 1929, and was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1968. The holiday is marked on the third Monday in January. It was first celebrated in 1986.

The march begins at 9 a.m. Jan. 17 at Jordan Valley Ice Park, 635 East Trafficway before walking over the historic Martin Luther King Jr. Bridge to Park Central Square where a program will take place. Masks and social distancing will be required, and a vaccination clinic at Pitts Chapel will follow the event.

Hundreds of people turned out to participate in the Martin Luther King Jr. Day March in Springfield on Monday, Jan. 20, 2020.

The Springfield Branch of the NAACP is hosting the "Creating the Beloved Community" march to honor the life and work of King.

"What we're looking forward to Monday is we're glad to still find a way to gather with the community," said Kai Sutton, president of the local civil rights organization, in a phone interview.

Kai Sutton is president of the Springfield branch of the NAACP.

It's important to keep King's mission at the forefront, which is "fighting for the same basic voting rights that Dr. King, Congressman Lewis and countless other civil rights leaders" have done, Sutton said.

"As the King family reminds us, in 2022, we should not have to march to restore the fundamental rights that Dr. King, John Lewis, and other activists began securing in the 1960s. We must act," Sutton added.

Calvin Allen carries a portrait of Martin Luther King Jr., and other civil rights leaders as he marches during the Martin Luther King Jr. Day March in Springfield on Monday, Jan. 20, 2020.

The "rain or shine" event was originally planned to march to the Gillioz Theatre with the program taking place inside; however, the rising cases of the omicron variant encouraged the NAACP to rethink the finish.

"We moved it outdoors so that way it's safer for the community with the COVID surge," Sutton said.

The program will include a range of guests, such as the MLK Celebration Singers led by Robert T. Gibson, Sanctuary of Praise Pastor T.J. Appleby, Springfield Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Grenita Lathan, members of the NAACP youth chapter, Dr. Lyle Foster and more.

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Along with the march and the program, the NAACP will be collecting donations of socks, coats and gloves at both the ice park and square. Cash donations for the purchase of these items will also be accepted.

"We definitely want to stand with the community during these trying times because there is so much going on across the nation," Sutton said, speaking on racism, police brutality, and the unsheltered homelessness population.

Support for voting rights extends past just Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Sutton encouraged folks to learn more about the history of the civil rights movement, join your local NAACP chapter and keep up with the Springfield Branch through their website https://www.naacpspringfieldmo.org/home.html or social media https://www.facebook.com/NAACPSpringfieldMissouri.

Springfield Multicultural Festival will live-stream at 12:30 p.m. Monday

The 25th Springfield Multicultural Festival is slated to live-stream at 12:30 p.m. Monday with music and dance performances, representing cultures from around the world.

"Because of the enduring COVID pandemic and in consideration of public safety, the decision has been made, once again, to celebrate virtually, including a live-stream mix of new on-stage video performances for a unique virtual festival experience," according to the festival's website.

This event will be free and available to all. To stream the event, visit https://www.facebook.com/SGFMulticulturalFestival/

Visit https://springfieldmulticulturalfestival.com/ for more details.

Sara Karnes is an Outdoors Reporter with the Springfield News-Leader. Follow along with her adventures on Twitter and Instagram @Sara_Karnes. Got a story to tell? Email her at skarnes@springfi.gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: 'Creating the Beloved Community' march to honor life, work of Martin Luther King Jr. Monday
Australia sent Novak Djokovic home, but opinion remains divided worldwide on the No. 1 men's tennis player and whether he should have been allowed to compete in the Australian Open despite not being vaccinated against COVID-19.

At a tennis center in Phoenix on Sunday, employee Stan Taylor said the lobby was abuzz with just one question as players arrived: What do you think about Novak Djokovic?"

There was no consensus on whether the No. 1 men's player had tried to game the system in seeking an exemption to Australia's strict vaccination rules or had the right to defend his title at the Open. In the end, the country's immigration minister revoked his visa on public interest grounds, and Djokovic was deported Sunday.

Taylor said he knows Djokovic has favored unconventional approaches all his life, but he wanted to see the tennis star display leadership in the polarizing COVID-19 vaccine debate.

I love to watch him do battle, said Taylor, who lives in Phoenix and has closely followed the saga. Ive watched him snatch victory from the mouth of defeat. .... So he loves the game, but this thing was not something to get on the soapbox about. He chose the wrong fight, and he lost.

Djokovic received an exemption to vaccination rules to play in the Australian Open, based on a previous coronavirus infection. But upon arrival, border officials said the exemption was not valid and moved to deport him  sparking a 10-day legal battle and an ongoing political drama.

Djokovic has overwhelming support from his home country of Serbia, whose president said Australia embarrassed itself and urged his countryman to return where he would be welcomed.

The tennis player has also been held up as a hero by some in the anti-vaccine movement. One protester raised a poster in support of the tennis star at a rally in the Netherlands on Sunday.

Others were quick to criticize. One of Italys greatest tennis players, Adriano Panatta, called Djokovic's expulsion from Australia the most natural epilogue of this affair.

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I dont see how Australia could have granted the visa. He committed big errors, he created an international case when he could have done without that, Panatta said to the Italian news agency LaPresse.

French tennis player Alize Cornet, meanwhile, expressed sympathy while reserving judgment.

I know too little to judge the situation, she posted on Twitter. What I know is that Novak is always the first one to stand up for the players. But none of us stood for him. Be strong.

British player Andy Murray said he hoped that such a situation wouldn't be repeated at the next tournament.

At this stage, Djokovic could still play in the next Grand Slam tournament, the French Open in May-June  if virus rules don't change before then. Sports Minister Roxana Maracineanu confirmed earlier this month that Djokovic would qualify for a health bubble that allows unvaccinated players to train and play.

The same could be true for Wimbledon. England has allowed exemptions from various coronavirus regulations for visiting athletes, if they remain at their accommodation when not competing or training. The U.S. Tennis Association, which runs the U.S. Open, has said it will follow whatever rules are set out by the federal, state and local governments when it comes to vaccination status.

A Djokovic appearance at those tournaments certainly would attract those who want to see great players in action, said Dillon McNamara, who runs a tennis academy in Las Vegas.

"Im not a Novak Djokovic fan at all ... but I would have really liked to see him play, he said, arguing the Australian Open could have put measures in place to keep the tournament safe beyond barring the unvaccinated.

Perhaps there is only one thing everyone can agree on. As Murray put it: The situation has not been good all round for anyone.

___

Associated Press writers Joseph Wilson in Barcelona, Spain; Howard Fendrich in Washington; Dusan Stojanovic in Belgrade, Serbia; Rob Harris and Sylvia Hui in London; Jerome Pugmire in Paris; and Frances D'Emilio in Rome contributed to this story.
MILAN (Reuters) - Human rights group Amnesty International urged Italy to change tough anti-COVID restrictions to avoid discrimination against unvaccinated people.

In a recent decree Mario Draghi's government made vaccination mandatory for everyone over the age of 50 and for use of public transport and a range of other services, one of very few countries to take similar steps, in an attempt to ease pressure on Italian health services and reduce fatalities.

Amnesty International asked for the provision of alternative measures, including the use of masks and COVID-19 testing, to allow the unvaccinated population to continue to go to work and to use public transport "without discrimination", the group said in a statement issued late on Saturday.

Under current rules, which will run until June 15, wearing a mask and having a negative COVID-19 test is not sufficient to access public transportation or, for people over the age of 50, to their workplaces.

Amnesty International Italia, the local chapter of the human rights group, said that mandatory vaccination could be justified but needed to be limited in time and "proportionate" to a legitimate aim of public health protection.

"The government must continue to ensure that the entire population can enjoy its fundamental rights, such as the right to education, work and medial treatment, with particular regard to non-COVID patients who need urgent surgery," it said.

(Reporting by Giulio Piovaccari; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
Former President Donald Trump speaks a rally at the Canyon Moon Ranch festival grounds on January 15, 2022 in Florence, Arizona (Getty Images)

Former president Donald Trump held his first rally of 2022 in Arizona, one of the focal points of his Big Lie that the election was rigged. Throughout the rally, Mr Trump raged against his enemies as much in the Republican Party as well as President Joe Biden and the media.

Heres five takeaways from Mr Trumps event in Arizona.

Trump still runs the GOP

Kari Lake, a former Arizona news anchor and gubernatorial candidate, gave one of the rallys opening speeches and joined Mr Trump onstage.

Before the former president arrived in Arizona, Kimberly Yee, the Republican state treasurer and also a candidate for governor, announced she would end her campaign and instead would run for state treasurer. Mr Trump also railed against Arizonas outgoing Republican Governor Doug Ducey, whom he has loathed for not decertifying the 2020 election results.

Hes never going to get my endorsement, he said, amid rumors Mr Ducey is considering a run for the Senate against Democratic Senator Mark Kelly.

Mr Trump also danced on the graves of retiring Republicans who voted to impeach him for inciting the US Capitol riot on January 6, most recently Rep John Katko of New York. He vocally criticized Reps Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, both of whom sit on the select committee investigating the riot and the latter of whom is not seeking reelection.

Theyre falling fast and furious. Were getting rid of them fast, he said.

The Big Lie is now an article of faith

Mr Trump opened the rally by saying The Big Lie is a lot of bulls***.

Throughout he spoke of how he won the election and continued to spread repeated lies on the 2020 presidential race to thunderous applause.

I ran twice and we won twice and we did better the second time. We did much better the second time, Mr Trump said.

He also dismissed concerns about the January 6 attempted insurrection by his supporters and instead continued to repeat claims of impropriety and that Democrats used measures during the pandemic to enable mail-in voting to steal the election.

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Why arent they investigating November 3rd a Rigged and Stolen Election, he said. The people are very angry. They got duped and they found out what happened. The people have to be free to find the answers and if not, they will never trust again and our country will be absolutely decimated.

Trump openly espoused conspiracy theories about January 6 and sympathy for rioters

The former president has long promoted conspiracy theories unrelated to the election. But throughout the rally, Mr Trump openly espoused the conspiracy theory that Ray Epps - previously on the FBIs most wanted list - was a government informant and goaded people to come into the Capitol.

Exactly how many of those present at the Capitol complex on January 6 were FBI confidential informants, agents or otherwise, working directly or indirectly with an agency of the United States government, he said. People want to hear this.

He also expressed sympathy for some rioters who are currently in jail awaiting trial for their actions at the US Capitol and said they are living in hell.

The bathrooms are horrible, he said, adding that If we think theyre innocent, we should help them defend themselves.

He also repeated his sympathy for Ashli Babbitt, the pro-Trump rioter who was shot and killed by a Capitol police officer after she stormed the building.

Letitia James is target #1, even above Biden

One target of Mr Trumps ire stood out from all the rest on Saturday, thanks to the former presidents social media and graphics teams.

The nearly two-hour rally was interrupted about halfway through for a pre-produced video that the former president showed his fans. In the video, which was up for less than a minute, statements made by New York Attorney General Letitia James about her desire to go after Mr Trump for longstanding accusations of fraud were highlighted.

The moment stood out, as it marked the only time in the rally that Mr Trump relinquished the microphone other than to allow remarks from Kari Lake, his favoured candidate for Arizona governor.

Ms James was also the only one of Mr Trumps Democratic rivals, including Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, to get the pre-produced attack video treatment.

The New York Attorney General is currently involved in a case pursuing the Trump Organization for fraud claims.

Impeachment supporters are still on Trumps mind

Normally, it would make little sense for a president to call out a retiring, low-profile GOP congressman by name and bring him on onstage at a rally located on the opposite side of the country from their home district.

But typical logic rarely applies to Trump rallies. On Saturday, Mr Trump named and shamed Representative John Katko, a Republican from New York, over his announcement that he would retire and not seek reelection this year.

The move would normally be seen as a blow for the Republican Party, which hopes to retain control of Mr Katkos district (which leans slightly Democratic) and retake the House this fall.

But not so for Mr Trump, de facto leader of the GOP, who sees Mr Katko as the enemy following the latters support for the second impeachment of the former president last year in the wake of the January 6 riot.

Theyre falling fast and furious. The ones that voted to impeach, were getting rid of them fast, he told his supporters.

Naming the New York congressman, he added: And John Katko is now gone, we just got rid of Katko.

The announcement was met with a smattering of applause. However the majority of the crowd appeared not to associate the name with the effort to impeach Mr Trump, as it did with bigger-name Republicans like Reps Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.

The presidents second impeachment trial ended without conviction but nevertheless saw the greatest defection by a presidents party of any impeachment effort in history.
By Garba Muhammad

KEBBI, Nigeria (Reuters) -Dozens of gunmen on motorbikes ransacked a village and killed more than 50 people in the latest violence in northwest Nigeria, residents said on Sunday.

Gangs have been terrorising areas of the northwest in recent years, forcing thousands to flee and gaining global notoriety through mass kidnappings at schools for ransom.

Local elder Abdullahi Karman Unashi told Reuters that the men entered Dankade village in Kebbi state on Friday night and exchanged gunfire with soldiers and policemen.

Security forces were forced to retreat, leaving the attackers to burn shops and grain silos and take cattle into the early hours of Saturday, he said.

"They killed two soldiers and one police officer and 50 villagers. (They) kidnapped the community leader of Dankade and many villagers, mostly women and children," Karman said.

It came a week after armed men killed 200 people https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/death-toll-attacks-nigerias-zamfara-state-around-200-residents-2022-01-08 in the nearby state of Zamfara.

Didzi Umar Bunu, son of the abducted community leader, said the gunmen had returned early on Sunday and torched more houses.

"They have not called or made any ransom demand. Dankade village is littered with dead bodies," he said on the phone.

Nafiu Abubakar, police spokesperson for Kebbi, did not respond to calls and messages to his phone.

Kebbi shares a border with Zamfara, where the government in September started a military offensive and imposed a telecoms blackout to rid the state of gangs it calls terrorists.

Violent crime has compounded the challenges in northern states, which are typically poorer than in the south.

President Muhammadu Buhari said in a statement that the military had started a major military operation in Niger state, next to Kebbi, to clear bandits and Boko Haram insurgents running from a government offensive.

(Additional reporting by Felix Onuah in Abuja; Writing by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Andrew Cawthorne)
UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Saturday expressed his deep concern after reports of a tsunami and ash affecting Tonga following the eruption of an undersea volcano near the Pacific nation.

Tsunami warnings have been issued in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the United States.

"The United Nations offices in the Pacific are closely monitoring the situation and are on standby to provide support if requested. The secretary-general is grateful to countries that have already offered their support," Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the secretary-general, said in a statement.

According to the Tonga Geological Services, a massive underwater volcano erupted just before sunset on Friday with plumes reaching more than 12 miles (19 km) above sea level. A cloud of ash and steam reached about 150 miles (241 km) across, an event captured by satellite images that have been shared by various meteorological agencies.

There was not immediate report of injuries or damage due to the nation's current lack of connectivity. 
Rep. Troy Balderson

Rep. Jim Jordan

WASHINGTON  Here's a look at how area members of Congress voted Jan. 7 through Jan. 13:

Along with roll call votes, the Senate also passed the Haiti Development, Accountability, and Institutional Transparency Initiative Act (H.R. 2471), to measure the progress of post-disaster recovery and efforts to address corruption, governance, rule of law, and media freedoms in Haiti.

House

House Vote 1:

GI BILL EDUCATION AID: The House has passed the Guard and Reserve GI Bill Parity Act (H.R. 1836), sponsored by Rep. Mike Levin, D-Calif. The bill would include service time in the National Guard or the military's reserves as counting toward a military member's eligibility to receive funds to help pay for the member's education. Levin said the change would work "to deliver some basic fairness in the way we provide GI Bill benefits for the men and women who serve our nation." The vote, on Jan. 12, was 287 yeas to 135 nays.

NAYS: Bob Gibbs R-OH (7th), Troy Balderson R-OH (12th), Jim Jordan R-OH (4th)

House Vote 2:

FEDERAL ELECTION PROCEDURES: The House has passed the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act (H.R. 5746), sponsored by Rep. Donald S. Beyer Jr., D-Va. The bill would make numerous changes to voting and election procedures for federal offices, including making the November election day a legal holiday and requiring that formerly imprisoned criminals be able to vote. Beyer called the bill a "stand against efforts to manipulate voting rules in favor of the few and take our essential democratic privilege away from all Americans." An opponent, Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., said that giving Congress direct control of elections administered by the states was a violation of the Constitution. The vote, on Jan. 13, was 220 yeas to 203 nays.

NAYS: Gibbs R-OH (7th), Balderson R-OH (12th), Jordan R-OH (4th)

Senate

Senate Vote 1:

DIGITAL ECONOMY: The Senate has confirmed the nomination of Alan Davidson to serve as the Commerce Department's assistant secretary for communications and information. Davidson was a lobbyist for Google from 2005 to 2012, then was a senior official at the Commerce Department and at the Mozilla Foundation. A supporter, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said Davidson had abundant experience in the public and private sectors, and he would "help effectively and speedily to get broadband deployed to both sectors of our economy." The vote, on Jan. 11, was 60 yeas to 31 nays.

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YEAS: Sherrod Brown D-OH, Rob Portman R-OH

Senate Vote 2:

RAILROADS: The Senate has confirmed the nomination of Amitabha Bose to serve as administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). Bose has been a senior official at the FRA and the Transportation Department, and before that, the New Jersey government. The vote, on Jan. 12, was 68 yeas to 29 nays.

YEAS: Brown D-OH, Portman R-OH

Senate Vote 3:

APPEALS COURT JUDGE: The Senate has confirmed the nomination of Gabriel Sanchez to serve as a judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. A California state appeals court judge since 2018, Sanchez was previously a legal affairs official in that state's gubernatorial branch and a private practice lawyer. A supporter, Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., said Sanchez "has long been held in high esteem in California's legal circles. He brings thoughtfulness and empathy to every decision that he makes." The vote, on Jan. 12, was 52 yeas to 47 nays.

YEAS: Brown D-OH

NAYS: Portman R-OH

Senate Vote 4:

GAS PIPELINE SANCTIONS: The Senate has rejected the Protecting Europe's Energy Security Implementation Act (S. 3436), sponsored by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. The bill would have required the imposition of sanctions against entities building the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline, which would carry gas from Russia to Germany. Cruz said that by helping block the pipeline, the sanctions would aid Ukraine in its struggle to prevent domination and possible invasion by Russia. An opponent, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., said that by cutting off talks with Europe on how to oppose Russia, the sanctions "would drive a wedge between us and our allies, particularly between the United States and Germany, at a time that we cannot afford it." The vote, on Jan. 13, was 55 yeas to 44 nays, with a three-fifths majority required for approval.

NAYS: Brown D-OH

YEAS: Portman R-OH

This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Here's how area members of Congress voted Jan. 7-13
TEHRAN, Iran (AP)  Iran confirmed on Sunday that it has again imprisoned a French-Iranian researcher and anthropologist who had been furloughed with electronic monitoring bracelet, state media reported.

The judiciary news website Mizan.news quoted deputy head of the judiciary Kazem Gharibabadi as saying the prisoner, Fariba Adelkhah, dozens of times violated judicial restrictions during her furlough.

Gharibabadi said Adelkhah was aware of the restrictions.

On Thursday, Frances foreign ministry condemned Adelkhah's recent new imprisonment and demanded her immediate release, saying her case has negative consequences on the relationship between Paris and Tehran.

Gharibabadi said Irans judiciary considers Adelkhah an Iranian national. Iran does not recognize dual nationality.

Adelkhah was given a five-year sentence for gathering and collusion against Irans security after her arrest in 2019. She was granted a furlough with no deadline in October 2020 and was required to stay at her sisters house in Tehran, wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet.

In addition to Adelkhah, French tourist Benjamin Briere, 36, has been imprisoned in Iran since 2020 after taking pictures in a desert area where photography is prohibited and asking questions on social media about Irans obligatory Islamic headscarfs for women.

Briere was charged in March this year with spying and spreading propaganda against the system. He began a hunger strike in late December to protest his mistreatment in prison, according to his sister and his lawyer.

Rights groups accuse hard-liners in Irans security agencies of using foreign detainees as bargaining chips for money or influence in negotiations with the West. Tehran denies it, though there have been such prisoner exchanges in the past.

In March 2020, Iran and France swapped French researcher Roland Marchal for Iranian engineer Jalal Ruhollahnejad. Marchal was arrested in June 2019 alongside Adelkhah.
By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is negotiating a plea bargain to end his corruption trial, a source briefed on the matter said on Sunday, but talks have snagged over a condition that would remove him from politics.

Netanyahu, who lost power in June after 12 consecutive years as premier and is now opposition leader, has pleaded not guilty to charges of bribery, breach of trust and fraud in three cases for which he was indicted in 2019. All are being tried together.

The source said Netanyahu, 72, was discussing a deal with Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit under which he would plead guilty to reduced charges and have any resulting jail term commuted to community service.

But the talks have hit a bump over Netanyahu's demand to be spared a conviction carrying a "moral turpitude" clause, which under Israeli law would force him to quit politics for years, said the source, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The State Attorney's Office declined to comment. A lawyer for Netanyahu, who has denied all wrongdoing and accused prosecutors of a politically motivated witch-hunt, did not immediately reply to a request for a comment.

Netanyahu has vowed to unseat his successor, Naftali Bennett, a nationalist straddling a coalition of highly diverse parties.

Likud failed to form a new government last year in part because kindred parties refused to join Netanyahu, citing the ongoing trial.

With his legal troubles behind him, Netanyahu might in theory be able to muster a broad new rightist coalition. If he were barred from politics, right-wing members of Bennett's coalition could opt to form a new government with a Likud party under new leadership.

The idea of a plea bargain was promoted by a former Supreme Court president, Aharon Barak.

He told Kan radio it would ease the pressure on the justice system, which has spent years defending itself against allegations from Netanyahu loyalists that he was being denied due process.

A spokesperson for Netanyahu's conservative Likud party said he did not know about any such negotiations.

(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Kevin Liffey)
Kansas City police are investigating the citys third homicide of 2022.

Officers were called just before 9:30 p.m. Saturday to the 1800 block of East 78th Street, near Hickman Mills Drive, on the sound of gunshots, Sgt. Jake Becchina, a spokesman with the Kansas City Police Department, said in an email.

Once there, police were shown to the front yard of a home where a vehicle had come to a stop, Becchina said.

A man who had been shot was unresponsive inside the vehicle, police said. He was declared dead at the scene.

Becchina said after an initial investigation, police believe the man was shot while inside the vehicle, which then rolled to a stop in the yard. The victim has not yet been publicly identified.

An investigation into the killing is ongoing.

Anyone with information on the shooting is asked to call the homicide unit at 816-234-5043 or the anonymous TIPS Hotline at 816-474-8477.

Gun violence is the subject of a statewide journalism project The Star is undertaking in Missouri this year in partnership with the national service program Report for America and sponsored in part by Missouri Foundation for Health. As part of this project, The Star will seek the communitys help.

To contribute, visit Report for America online at reportforamerica.org.
The omicron-fueled surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations had at least one Kansas hospital leader checking morgue capacity ahead of legislative debates over the health care staffing emergency.

"It's going to be a rough couple weeks," said Catherine Satterwhite, the region's health administrator for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said in a University of Kansas Health System media briefing.

It is unclear when the omicron case surge will peak.

Kansas Department of Health and Environment data released Friday show a seven-day average of nearly 7,900 new cases a day, as well as about 45 new hospitalizations and nine new deaths each day.

The highly contagious omicron variant appears to have become the dominant strain in Kansas in recent weeks. However, only a small fraction of positive tests undergo genomic sequencing to determine the virus strain. Omicron has been confirmed to be in 59 of the state's 105 counties.

Satterwhite said the numbers of unvaccinated and un-boosted people will impact the severity of the omicron surge.

Public health officials continue to struggle to convince more people to get vaccinated. The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the OSHA vaccine mandate for large employers, but allowed the CMS vaccine mandate for health care workers.

Inside the COVID-19 intensive care unit at Stormont Vail Health, patients are seen in and out of consciousness in varying levels of condition. Health officials are predicting a "rough couple weeks" as COVID cases surge in Kansas.

Federal data on Kansas vaccination rates, as of Thursday, show the following:

70% of population has had a first dose.

58% of population is fully vaccinated.

37% of the fully vaccinated population has gotten a booster.

48% of the 12-17 population is fully vaccinated.

15% of the 5-11 population is fully vaccinated.

For the 65 and older population, 88% are fully vaccinated, and 60% of the fully vaccinated senior citizens have gotten a booster.

Pulmonologist and critical care specialist Tim Williamson said it is "good news" that the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the federal vaccine mandate for health care workers to continue. KU hospitals have already implemented their own requirement.

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More: A mixed bag: Kansas officials respond to Supreme Court halting one Biden vaccine rule, upholding another

"It's the right thing to do for our employees, providers and patients and to keep everybody safe," said Williamson, who is also the health system's vice present of quality and safety.

Experts expect to see a sharp decline eventually, but are unsure when that will come as cases across the region continue on a steep trajectory. Once that happens, it will still be about 14 days until the peak in ICU admissions and about 21 days before the peak in deaths, Satterwhite said.

"Even though we may see a rapid decline in cases, even in the next few weeks, there will be a lag in hospitalizations and ultimately in those very severe outcomes, including death, that we really want to prevent by preventing infection in the first place," she said.

AdventHealth Shawnee Mission chief medical officer Lisa Hays said her hospital went from 46 to 82 active COVID-19 patients in about a week. The emergency department was holding 25 patients, with the longest hold waiting 48 hours for a hospital bed.

"The other issue that's a new thing for me is morgue capacity," Hays said in a KU briefing. "Had to learn how many bodies our morgue could hold yesterday and determine whether that was going to be adequate for what our needs are."

KDHE data show more people have gone to hospital emergency rooms seeking treatment of COVID-19 than at any prior point in the pandemic. About 13% of all emergency department visits in the past week were for COVID-19.

Flu prevalence at ERs is also the highest it has been since March 2020.

A Kansas Hospital Association report on Wednesday showed COVID-19 hospitalizations are worse now than at any previous point in the pandemic. The report covers all of Kansas, plus the Kansas City metro area.

Adult hospitalizations now are 28% higher and pediatric hospitalizations are quadruple than at the same point a year ago. Many hospital leaders have said the vast majority of patients are unvaccinated or did not get a booster shot.

Kansas legislators advance COVID staffing emergency bill

State lawmakers have advanced a bill designed to address the staffing emergency at hospitals and nursing homes.

Gov. Laura Kelly's 15-day emergency declaration and two executive orders provide temporary regulatory relief. But without legislative action, the provisions would expire at the end of the week.

The House is scheduled to debate a bill on Tuesday that would codify the measures into a temporary statute through May 15. The House Judiciary Committee unanimously approved the bill.

The executive orders and proposed bill allow certain people, such as medical students and military personnel, to volunteer in certain hospital settings, among many other provisions tied to staffing.

Asked whether her orders would lead to a lesser quality of care for patients, Kelly said it beats the alternative of no care.

"Right now we have an issue because of the staffing shortage," she told reporters after announcing the orders. "So is it ideal? No. But it's better than what's going on where people are not getting treated."

Tara Mays, a Kansas Hospital Association lobbyist, told House and Senate judiciary committees on Thursday that health care administrators statewide support the temporary regulatory relief.

"Kansas hospitals, as you might imagine, we certainly never would have wished to be here and didn't think when we all adjourned back in May that we would be here where we are today," Mays said.

She said the executive orders "have really begun to provide our Kansas hospitals with some of the needed tools to address some of the concerns and challenges that we are experiencing in being able to ensure access to care for patients during this time with historic patient volumes."

The regulatory flexibilities will help address what hospitals view as a temporary staffing crisis.

"Unfortunately, we believe that the reality is that the peak of our hospitalizations has likely not yet been reached," Mays said.

The hospital association does not have a specific end date they would like to see for the regulatory relief.

"We are really focused on getting through the next few months," she said.

Sen. Mike Thompson, R-Shawnee, suggested that hospitals are "creating a bottleneck" by "relying on false information" from COVID tests.

"The FDA finally ended the emergency authorization use of the PCR test because they admitted that it could not differentiate between COVID and influenza," Thompson said.

A USA Today fact check determined a similar claim "badly mangles the facts." In reality, the CDC decided to withdraw its own PCR test "because the demand for it has decreased with the authorization of other diagnostic tests  not because it confuses viruses."

Mays said patient screenings for COVID and other respiratory viruses are important because staff must take additional precautions.

More: Fact check: CDC is withdrawing its PCR COVID-19 test, but not because it confuses viruses

Nursing home residents, staff behind on boosters

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services data on federally licensed nursing homes, released Wednesday, show that in Kansas, 87% of care facility residents are fully vaccinated, as are 75% of staff.

Weekly CMS statistics show the current surge nationwide has seen more residents infected than at any point since January 2021, and more staff infected than at any prior point in the pandemic.

Federal data show that for many Kansas facilities, not all vaccinated residents got boosters. Booster uptake has been especially poor among staff.

Below is a searchable database of the most recent CMS nursing home vaccination rate data for federally-license Kansas facilities.

State data show many nursing home clusters statewide.

Active COVID outbreak locations

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment on Wednesday reported 218 active coronavirus clusters statewide. Long-term care facilities and schools are the most common cluster locations, with 121 and 26 outbreaks, respectively.

State prisons are experiencing large outbreaks. Kansas Department of Corrections Secretary Jeff Zmuda suspended in-person prison visitation last week, citing spread of COVID-19 among staff and inmates.

"As we need to make every effort to mitigate further spread of the COVD-19 virus, and as our staffing levels are critical, we must take the step of again suspending in-person visitation at all juvenile and adult correctional facilities," Zmuda said.

Below is a list of the active outbreak locations publicly identified by KDHE. Not all outbreaks are public information. Case counts are for the past 14 days.

The health department publicly identifies certain outbreaks "in an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19," according to agency policy.

"This publication is in keeping with the KDHE effort to stop the spread of COVID-19 disease by notifying the public of recent risk of exposure," the KDHE policy states. "Notifications of this type are provided when the KDHE believes that the notification will benefit the public and aid in stopping the spread of the disease."

Corrections

Crawford County Jail in Girard, 6.

El Dorado Correctional Facility, 56.

Ellsworth Correctional Facility, 16.

Hutchinson Correctional Facility, 5.

Kansas Juvenile Correctional Complex in Topeka, 40.

Lansing Correctional Facility, 64.

Riley County Correctional Facility in Manhattan, 13.

Sedgwick County Jail in Wichita, 17.

Sedgwick County Juvenile Detention Facility in Wichita, 16.

Shawnee County Jail in Topeka, 15.

Topeka Correctional Facility, 30.

Wichita Work Release Facility, 35.

Winfield Correctional Facility, 52.

Day Cares

Home Daycare in Great Bend, 6.

Lets Grow in Merriam, 8.

Little Learners East in Overland Park, 7.

Little Sunshine Overland Park, 5.

Mini Masters Learning Center in Topeka, 8.

Wee Workshop in Overland Park, 7.

Government.

Miami County Sheriff's Office in Paola, 7.

Group Living

Kansas Neurological Institute in Topeka, 15.

KidsTLC in Olathe, 6.

Lakemary in Olathe, 17.

New Jerusalem Missions in Newton, 6.

ResCare Community Living in Newton, 24.

St. Francis Center at Salina, 12.

Starkey Inc. in Wichita, 30.

Topeka Rescue Mission, 15.

Union Rescue Mission in Wichita, 81.

Wichita Children's Home, 30.

Health Care

Meadowbrook Rehab Hospital in Gardner, 5.

Russell Regional Hospital, 5.

Long-Term Care Facilities

Aberdeen Village in Olathe, 13.

Addington Place in Prairie Village, 8.

AdventHealth Care Center in Overland Park, 9.

Anthology of Overland Park, 16.

Avita Health and Rehab at Reeds Cove in Wichita, 13.

Bethany Home in Lindsborg, 6.

Brewster Place in Topeka, 7.

Brookdale College Square in Overland Park, 13.

Brookdale East Wichita, 32.

Brookdale Overland Park, 20.

Brookdale Rosehill in Shawnee, 6.

Catholic Care Center in Bel Air, 8.

Cedar Lake Village in Olathe, 8.

Cherryvale Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Cherryvale, 20.

Chisolm Place Memory Care in Wichita, 21.

Colonial Oaks at Leawood in Leawood, 6.

Colonial Village in Overland Park, 12.

Delmar Gardens of Lenexa, 11.

Delmar Gardens of Overland Park, 10.

Derby Health and Rehabilitation in Derby, 6.

Diversicare of Sedgwick, 45.

Edwardsville Care and Rehab in Edwardsville, 5.

Evergreen in Olathe, 26.

Family Health and Rehab in Wichita, 15.

Garden Terrace in Overland Park, 21.

Good Samaritan Society in Olathe, 12.

Healthcare Resort of Leawood, 5.

Healthcare Resort of Olathe, 15.

Heritage of Overland Park, 13.

Hillside Village of DeSoto, 13.

Hoeger House in Olathe, 10.

Homestead Estates in Wichita, 10.

Hutchinson Health and Rehab, 5.

Lakeview Village in Lenexa, 36.

Lamar Court in Overland Park, 18.

Larksfield Place Health Center in Wichita, 21.

Lexington Park Health and Rehab in Topeka, 14.

Life Care Center in Kansas City, 16.

Meadowlark Hills in Manhattan, 14.

Medicalodge in Great Bend, 32.

Medicalodges Gardner, 15.

Meridian Health and Rehab in Wichita, 16.

Merriam Gardens in Merriam, 6.

Midland Care in Topeka, 20.

Neuvant House Lawrence, 7.

Osawatomie State Hospital Nursing Facility for Men, 19.

Overland Park Care Center, 11.

Parkview Care Center in Osborne, 7.

Pine Village in Moundridge, 21.

Pioneer Ridge Health and Rehab in Lawrence, 8.

Plaza West Healthcare and Rehab in Topeka, 5.

Prairie Elder Care in Overland Park, 13.

Premier Living by Warden in Wichita, 11.

Presbyterian Manor in Salina, 13.

Regent Park Assisted Living in Wichita, 5.

Regent Park Rehabilitation in Wichita, 6.

Rolling Hills Health and Rehab in Wichita, 13.

Sedgwick Plaza in Wichita, 11.

Sharon Lane in Shawnee, 6.

Shawnee Gardens in Shawnee, 102.

Shawnee PARC in Overland Park, 29.

Silvercrest at College View in Lenexa, 8.

Smith County Health and Rehab in Smith Center, 9.

Stratford Commons in Overland Park, 15.

Sunrise of Leawood in Leawood, 8.

The Cedars McPherson, 14.

The Healthcare Resort in Kansas City, 8.

The Healthcare Resort Assisted Living in Topeka, 8.

The Village at Mission in Prairie Village, 11.

Topeka Center for Rehabilitation and Healthcare, 16.

Trinity Manor in Dodge City, 5.

Via Christi Village Ridge Assisted Living in Wichita, 23.

Villa St Francis in Olathe, 11.

Village Shalom in Overland Park, 16.

Wheatland Healthcare Center in Kingman, 6.

Windsor Place in Coffeyville, 10.

Private Businesses

Johnson County Developmental Services CRL in Lenexa, 6.

Koch & Company in Seneca, 8.

Vortex - Solids & Bulk Handling Components in Salina, 7.

Schools

Anthony Elementary School in Anthony, 7.

Children's Village Monessori in Overland Park, 5.

Heartspring School in Wichita, 25.

Marion Middle/High School in Marion, 7.

North Fairview Elementary School in Topeka Seaman, 7.

Oak Hill Elementary School in Overland Park, 5.

Peabody Burns High School in Peabody, 6.

Soderstrom Elementary School in Lindsborg, 7.

USD 321 - Rossville, 16.

USD 417 Elementary School in Council Grove, 6.

Wamego Schools, 32.

Sports

Shawnee Mission West High School in Overland Park, 9.

Wabaunsee Junior High in Paxico, 14.

Jason Tidd is a statehouse reporter for the Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached by email at jtidd@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @Jason_Tidd.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas hospital checks morgue capacity as COVID variant omicron surges
Steve Barnes

It occurred to Keith Ingram about a year ago, during the 2021 regular session of the General Assembly: He was wincing more than winking.

In committee or on the Senate floor, in the cloakroom or in the Capitol corridors, the utter absurdity of what so often passed for issues was beginning to gnaw at him. The state was failing to address the needs of its developmentally disabled, was holding public school appropriations to the absolute constitutional minimum and effectively encouraging student debt by funding higher education with similar indifference. Arkansas teen pregnancy rate remained dismayingly high while acceptance of COVID-19 vaccines was frighteningly low, and as attempts to control the pandemic hit one political roadblock after another. Complicating matters: For better or for worse, the Republican majorities in the House and Senate were turning against a governor of their own party and sometimes against one another.

As in every legislative body, every political forum, there had always been, always will be grandstanding: Speeches, delivered with a wink, intended strictly to soothe the folks back home; bills and resolutions, introduced with a wink, designed by their authors to die in committee. A lawmakers plea for a colleagues assistance in passing a piece of legislation often had an occasional counterpart  help me kill my bill and Ill help you kill yours. A wink. And the business of serious governance would go forward.

Now Ingram was wincing at what posed as seriousness: critical race theory, election integrity, restroom regulation and transgender phobia. State sovereignty. Guns, guns, guns; abortion, abortion, abortion.

Ingram, a Democrat of West Memphis, had represented his Delta district in the House and Senate for a dozen years, having never had a Republican opponent and winning the odd primary election by stupendous margins. He had followed his father both as mayor of West Memphis and in the statehouse; his older brother, too, served in the Senate. His seat was secure, one of the few safe blue seats. He would not so much run for another term as claim it.

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He would do neither. On Jan. 7, Ingram announced that he has had his fill. The General Assembly, and the Senate in particular, was now held hostage by those who are reckless, selfish and short-sighted. In recent months, Ingram continued, I spent more time trying to defeat foolish, divisive measures than working to pass substantive, meaningful legislation.

Later, in an interview, The Senate always had the reputation of being the place where bad legislation was sent to die, Ingram said (exaggerating to some extent the chambers success at paternalism). Thats not true any longer.

Part of the problem, Ingram told me, was the nationalization of most every issue of any significance, and the creation of issues that were anything but. He long ago grew accustomed to Republican colleagues stopping by his desk to whisper their apologies for voting for one or another inanity.

Theyre afraid theyll be primaried, Ingram sighed  not without some justification. With rare exceptions  in the Delta, in Pulaski County, in a few northwest Arkansas districts  the legislature has become no place for moderates. The latest redistricting, no surprise, tilts to the right. The center, in raw numbers, has become the fringe.

We used to pride ourselves on our independence, Ingram said, as voters and elected officials. A senator could speak on the floor and maybe change a vote or two, no matter which party was in control of the chamber. And weve lost that.

Take for example, Ingram offers, the legislatures wresting of power from local governments (inhibited to some extent, if perhaps temporarily, by the courts).

Voter fraud! There might be a [spurious] absentee ballot or two, but nothing that would make any difference in any election. But now weve given a tremendous amount of authority to the state election commission. We would raise so much Cain if the Feds did to [the state] what we did to local governments in last two sessions  Tenth Amendment, indeed.

It is too early to get a firm read on the metabolism of Arkansas next Senate. Conservative, of course; and the minority Democrats will have to scramble to compensate for the loss of institutional memory brought about not only by Ingrams departure but the absence of Joyce Elliott of Little Rock, term-limited.

To be considered also is the decision by fire-breathing Republican Trent Garner of El Dorado to step aside, the primary challenge to fellow arch-conservative Bob Ballinger of northwest Arkansas, and the new and possibly less hospitable district that now awaits Mark Johnson in, primarily, Faulkner County.

I think the pendulum will eventually swing back to the center, Ingram believes, but its going to be a bumpy road. Some time, in other words, before there is again more winking than wincing.

Steve Barnes is the host of "Arkansas Week" on Arkansas PBS.

This article originally appeared on Fort Smith Times Record: Keith Ingram has had his fill | Steve Barnes
TAMPA  After blocking a puck against the Flames on Jan. 6 and missing the next three games, defenseman Ryan McDonagh returned to the lineup tonight against the Dallas Stars. He skated in a pairing with blueliner Zach Bogosian.

In the third period against Calgary, McDonagh stood in the way of Rasmus Anderssons shot, which was flying toward goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy on the Flames power play. McDonagh took the puck off the lower part of his right leg.

Also out with lower-body injuries: Forward Ondrej Palat missed his third straight game, while defenseman Erik Cernak is out after blocking a shot in the third period against the Canucks on Thursday.

Entering tonight, McDonagh had played in 36 games, logging two goals and 11 assists. He has also logged the second-highest time on ice  not counting Vasilevskiy  per game (22:38) behind Victor Hedman (25:01).

Here are the pre-game lines from warmups:

Forwards:

Corey Perry-Brayden Point-Nikita Kucherov

Alex Killorn-Anthony Cirelli-Steven Stamkos

Pat Maroon-Pierre-Edouard Bellemare-Mathieu Joseph

Boris Katchouk-Ross Colton-Taylor Raddysh

Defensemen:

Hedman-Jan Rutta

McDonagh-Bogosian

Mikhail Sergachev-Cal Foote

Goaltenders:

Andrei Vasilevskiy

Brian Elliott

Contact Mari Faiello at mfaiello@tampabay.com. Follow @faiello_mari.

  

The Tampa Bay Times has commemorated the Lightnings second consecutive Stanley Cup title with a new hardcover coffee table book, Striking Twice. Order now.

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Lori Loughlin, 57, and husband Mossimo Giannullis, 58, Los Angeles-area home was burglarized in early January, a spokesperson for the couple confirmed to TODAY via email on Sunday.

The rep also reported that the couple and their daughters, Olivia Jade, 22, and Isabella Rose, 23, were not present when the house was broken into.

Although some items were taken from the property, the spokesperson told TODAY that the exact value of the possessions is currently unknown.

TODAY has reached out to the Los Angeles Police Department for further details about the incident and will update this post if they get back to us.

The burglary comes after the 2019 college admissions scandal in which Loughlin and her husband admitted to paying $500,000 in order to help their daughters Olivia and Isabella get admitted to the University of Southern California by falsely portraying them as rowing recruits. The actor plead guilty to a federal charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud in addition to receiving a $150,000 fine and 100 hours of community service required to complete upon her release from prison.

Giannulli, who also plead guilty to an additional charge of conspiracy to commit honest services wire and mail fraud, served a five-month sentence, while Loughlin was sentenced to a two-month prison term and was released at the end of December 2020. She will continue to be under supervised release for two years after her served sentence.

Earlier this week, Loughlin released a statement reacting to the death of her Full House co-star Bob Saget following news of his sudden death at the age of 65.

Words cannot begin to express how devastated I am, Loughlin said in a statement to TODAY. Bob was more than my friend; he was my family. I will miss his kind heart and quick wit. Thank you for a lifetime of wonderful memories and laughter. I love you, Bobby.
Ministers have been accused of washing their hands of child asylum seekers by operating an age assessment process that often wrongly labels them adults (AFP via Getty Images)

Child refugees are being forced to share rooms and even beds with adults they do not know as increasing numbers are incorrectly placed in accommodation meant for over-18s by the government, The Independent can reveal.

Hundreds of unaccompanied male and female asylum seekers who say they are children have been discovered in hotels intended for adults in recent months, with many fearful of leaving their rooms and some driven to suicidal ideation, while others have run away.

In one case, an Ethiopian girl believed to be 16 who said she was repeatedly raped on her journey to the UK was placed in a mixed-gender hotel with adult men after being judged by Home Office staff to be 23. In another, a male who says he is 17 had to share a double bed with an adult man.

Ministers have been accused of washing their hands of child asylum seekers by operating an age assessment process that often wrongly labels them adults, leaving local authorities to pick up the pieces and take them into childrens services when the decisions are found to be incorrect.

Children have had to live among adults, sometimes sharing rooms with strangers, for weeks or months before they have come into contact with a charity that has advocated to get them moved into care, at which point they undergo a formal age assessment and are often recognised as minors.

Maddie Harris, founder of Humans for Rights Network (HRN), said: The Home Office is placing children in adult hotels all over the country, completely washing their hands of them. Theyre waiting for them to self-refer to an organisation like ours, and then the local authority has to do something about it.

The charity has supported 73 young people in the past seven months who say they are children and appear to be under 18 but have been placed in adult hotels. The majority are now in local authority care after the charity referred them to lawyers, though this process takes several weeks.

Ms Harris said some age disputed minors were having to share rooms with adults, with one forced to share a double bed with a man he does not know. Clearsprings, the Home Office contractor managing the hotel, declined to comment. The Home Office did not deny that room-sharing was taking place.

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Hannah Marwood, of Care4Calais, said the charity has come across 421 cases of age disputed minors in hotels since September 2020, with a significant increase in recent months. She said they were often scared and confused and that in some cases they had run away. The majority have been moved into care following the charitys intervention.

One young person who spent a month in an adult hotel in the northwest of England after being judged to be an adult on his arrival in November, despite his claimed age being 17, told The Independent he felt frightened.

The asylum seeker, who was transferred to childrens services earlier this week after charity Kurdish Umbrella intervened, said: I was the only child in the hotel. Everyone else was between 30 and 50. I was scared to leave my room. The older people would drink at night. They would yell and shout.

Text messages from underage asylum seekers were sent to charity workers where they pleaded for legal help (Supplied)

Other teenagers said they were contemplating suicide (Supplied)

One child said everyone else at the hotel was between 30 and 50 (Supplied)

Text messages from other young people sent to charity workers, seen by The Independent, read: I am in a hotel, all bigger [than] me, all cigarettes [] I am afraid, Im afraid among the big people and I cant be here anymore. Ill kill myself. Please help me. Im so scared. Im not compatible with these men.

One young female from Ethiopia who says she is 16 has been in a mixed-gender hotel in London since October 2021 after she was deemed by the Home Office to be 23. She recently made contact with charity Daaro Youth, to whom she disclosed that she was raped repeatedly during her journey to the UK.

Daaro Youth referred her to the local council this week and she is due to be taken into care on Monday. Benny Hunter, coordinator of the charity, said: It gravely concerns me that there has been no safeguarding for someone who identified herself as a child. She is a potential victim of trafficking and sexual violence in a hotel with older adult men, at risk of further exploitation.

After crossing the Channel, asylum seekers who say they are children undergo a short age assessment by social workers recruited by the Home Office or are visually assessed by Border Force officials. If judged to be over the age of 18, they are referred on to adult accommodation, usually hotels. If not they are sent to childrens services or hotels designated for minors.

The Home Office age assessment process is currently facing a legal challenge, with lawyers from Instalaw Solicitors arguing that it is unlawful on the basis that the assessments are being carried out without the required safeguards in place, and on a number of other grounds.

Martin Bridger, of Instalaw Solicitors, said he had represented a number of young people who had been placed in hotels but, following legal intervention, were confirmed to be children by social services. He cited one recent case whereby a young person claiming to be 14 was deemed 25 by the Home Office, but later had their claimed age accepted following legal intervention.

Priti Patel, the home secretary, claimed last week that asylum seekers were blatantly abusing the asylum system by falsely claiming to be children and announced plans to introduce new scientific methods for assessing age. She cited government data showing that 66 per cent of those who say they are children are found by the Home Office to be adults.

Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said these figures failed to take into account the alarming number of those deemed by the Home Office to be adults who are later found to in fact be children, and placed in hotels that are neither safe nor appropriate for them.

He told The Independent he was deeply concerned by the governments proposed move towards scientific age assessments, saying they were simply not reliable.

Charlotte Ramsden, president of the Association of Directors of Childrens Services (ADCS), said it was aware of too many instances where children have been wrongly assessed as adults and that local authorities were picking up the pieces where decisions made by Home Office are found to be incorrect.

This is placing additional pressure on us and our staff at a time when childrens services and social workers are already stretched. It is also a scary and worrying time for children who are far from home and initially placed in unregistered and unregulated settings, namely hotels, she said.

The Home Office has not responded to a request for comment.
A medical worker takes a swab sample from a citizen for nucleic acid test at a COVID-19 testing site in north China's Tianjin, Jan. 15, 2022. North China's Tianjin Municipality launched the third round of citywide nucleic acid testing at 7 a.m. Saturday. (Xinhua/Zhao Zishuo)

BEIJING, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese mainland on Saturday reported 65 new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases, the National Health Commission said in its daily report on Sunday.

Of the new local cases, 33 were reported in Tianjin, 29 in Henan, and one each in Beijing, Guangdong and Shaanxi, the commission said.

Also reported were 54 new imported cases in nine provincial-level regions, according to the commission.

Nine new suspected cases arriving from outside the mainland were reported in Shanghai, and no new deaths from COVID-19 were reported on the day, it added. 
All of the hostages who were held for hours inside Congregation Beth Israel, a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, were released and are safe, Gov. Greg Abbott said Saturday evening.

The announcement came more than five hours after one hostage, an unidentified man who was uninjured, was released, according to a police statement. He did not need medical attention.

The status of the hostage taker was not immediately clear.

The hourslong standoff outside the DallasFort Worth area began Saturday morning and drew a massive police presence, including a SWAT team from Colleyville police, FBI negotiators, state public safety officers, and agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

At least four people were being held hostage, potentially including the rabbi, law enforcement officials told AP. Police were called at 10:41 a.m. local time. Residents in the immediate area were evacuated, and no injuries were reported.

A livestream of the Sabbath service played on the synagogues Facebook page at 10 a.m. Saturday. Jessika Harkay, a reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, tweeted that before the livestream stopped, a man interrupted and could be heard shouting, What the fuck is wrong with America? and "Don't fucking cry on me. I have 6 beautiful kids ... There are hostages in the synagogue who are going to die.

"Don't cry on the fucking phone with me," audio from the live stream says. "Don't fucking cry on me. I have 6 beautiful kids ... There are hostages in the synagogue who are going to die. ... What are you crying for?" 07:46 PM - 15 Jan 2022

The man reportedly demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a neuroscientist who was convicted of attempting to kill US soldiers and FBI agents and is currently serving an 86-year sentence at a nearby federal prison. According to US intelligence, she was suspected of being associated with al-Qaeda.

Story continues

Despite reports that the man was asking for the release of his sister, the Daily Beast reported that a lawyer who previously represented Siddiquis biological brother said he is not the person in the synagogue.

The FBI office in Dallas did not respond to BuzzFeed News requests for comment.

Heidi and I are praying for those at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville and for the SWAT team and all other law enforcement on the scene responding.My staff and I are closely monitoring the situation and are in close contact with local and national authorities. 09:23 PM - 15 Jan 2022

Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson tweeted that police officers were monitoring the citys synagogues. The LAPD tweeted that it would be doing the same for LAs synagogues.

Synagogues have been the site of multiple mass shootings in recent years, including Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh in 2017, Chabad of Poway synagogue near San Diego in 2019, and an attack in Halle, Germany, the same year.
CANTON  A 31-year-old man was killed Saturday night when his vehicle crashed into a pole in the 2200 block of Allen Avenue SE, police said.

Police identified the victim as Joshua A. Bennett of Canton. When police arrived at the scene at 11 p.m., they discovered Bennett had been ejected from the vehicle.

The victim was pronounced dead at the scene. Police on Sunday did not provide additional details regarding the crash, which remains under investigation.

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Joshua Bennett killed in Canton crash
ZANESVILLE  People in the community are pitching in to help those affected by the Masonic Temple fire last week.

Ron Cole is selling prints and T-shirts on his website of Masonic Temple paintings.

Multiple funds have popped up since the Jan. 6 fire destroyed the downtown Zanesville building that housed 60 artist studios and small businesses.

There are also additional resources for tenants who were affected, including mental health services and aid for those who lost tax documents in the blaze.

Artists, businesses: Masonic Temple tenants mobilizing to raise funds, find new work spaces

There are several ways the public can contribute to the cause too.

Here is a list of funds for donations, benefit events and resources for tenants looking for assistance:

MCCF Community Cares Fund

The Muskingum County Community Foundation (MCCF) has an established fund that they direct to certain people in times of emergency, the Community Cares Fund.

Right now all the contributions are being directed to the tenants of the Masonic Temple.

Go to www.mccf.org/Community-Cares-Fund/ to donate. Names of contributors will be listed at the bottom of the webpage.

A Day of the Arts

Secrest Auditorium will host an event on Jan. 29 to benefit the cause. All proceeds will go straight back to the Masonic Temple tenants.

A Day of the Arts will feature a variety show, rock bands, vendor booths a silent auction and an art show.

It starts at 1 p.m. and lasts throughout the day. Information about tickets will soon be available on the Facebook event page.

Businesses or individuals can become sponsors of the event, with four levels of donations: Platinum for $500; high gold for $250; gold for $150; and silver for $75.

Donations may be made payable to Serenity Holistic Community and mailed to Serenity Holistic Community at 2782 Maple Ave. in Zanesville.

Ron Cole online sales

Zanesville artist Ron Cole is selling T-shirts on his website with proceeds going to the artists impacted and displaced by the destruction of the temple.

The T-shirt features original artwork by Cole of the temple, which has been designed with a phoenix rising from it "to portray the spirit of a new beginning in the history of the Temple artist's community."

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The $18.48 shirts come in sizes small through 4XL. They are being sold at cost plus $5, which will be donated directly to the tenants.

Prints of that artwork are also being sold for the cause. So far he said he's raised over $5,000.

Both the prints and T-shirts are available on roncole.net.

Zanesville businesses to display artists' work

Several local businesses have stepped up to help the cause as well.

Winerak and Y-City Brewing are offering wall space to artists who want to display their work for the public to purchase.

Winerak is located at 2336 Maple Ave. and is open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Y-City Brewing is open Friday 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. and Saturday 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. It is located at 1417 Linden Ave.

Fieldhouse owner Alainna Amicone-Durfee, who is a Masonic Temple tenant herself, said she will be planning an art show for the tenants in the future.

Right now the fitness center is accepting donations that will be taken directly to MCCF.

IRS, tax help

The fire left many businesses in a lurch ahead of tax season: Many businesses lost invoices and other necessary documentation required by the IRS to file taxes.

Business impact: Zanesville Masonic Temple fire 'devastating' for small business owners

The IRS offers a list of tips on its website if those documents are lost.

Case workers are also available at Congressman Troy Balderson's office to navigate processes like filing taxes after disasters.

Constituents are encouraged to call the representative's office at 614-523-2555 to speak with someone who can assist.

Free mental health services

The Masonic Temple posted on its Facebook page that Muskingum Area Mental Health & Recovery Services Board is offering counseling services at no cost to artists and businesses impacted by the fire. They can receive between one and three sessions.

To register contact Executive Director Misty Cromwell at mistc@mhrs.org or 740-454-8557, ext. 104.

ecouch@gannett.com

740-450-6752

Twitter: @couchreporting

This article originally appeared on Zanesville Times Recorder: Here's how to help Zanesville Masonic Temple artists, small businesses
Though Melanie Lynskey and Christina Ricci are sharing the screen in Showtimes critically acclaimed psychological drama Yellowjackets, there was a period of time early in their career where they were competing for the same roles in Hollywood.

During a new interview with Rolling Stone this week, Lynskey reflected on her career following her breakout role at 16-years-old in the 1994 movie Heavenly Creatures. After the premiere, Winslets fame skyrocketed when Titanic released three years later, while Lynskeys effectively went back to normal.

I was the person who was sort of just sitting there while everyone was excited about somebody prettier, Lynskey said of Winslet. She was very confident, she found it very easy to do interviews. And it was hard for me. I was so shy.

It just felt like (Kate) was somebody who knew how the world worked, and knew how to be a beautiful woman, she added. And I felt like, Im never gonna be that. She just felt magical to me.

'Coyote Ugly' premiere screening at the Ziegfeld Theatre. From the film, actress Melanie Lynskey. (Evan Agostini / Getty Images)

The actor graduated from high school and went to college for one year, studying film and television, but she remembers that time of her life being difficult.

Its hard to have a dream come true and do this thing that feels so special and amazing and then have to just go back to your pretty small town, she said. I felt like an impostor.

Once Lynskey got an agent, they convinced her to send some tapes to casting directors in Hollywood. One of the first roles she ended up auditioning for was the 1996 cult classic The Craft. It was around this time when she began to audition for the same parts as Ricci. Now, she can laugh about, but their competition for roles typically ended with the same outcome, with Lynskey commenting, though she usually got them.

In the same interview, the 44-year-old actor recalled the enduring criticism she has faced as a woman in Hollywood regarding her body and sex appeal. She recalled the difficult audition process for "Ever After," explaining, It was the mid-90s and there was a look that was popular and it wasnt this chubby, dark-haired New Zealander.

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Actor Melanie Lynskey of

Lynskey struggled for years with the pressure to meet Hollywoods standards. In a 2016 interview with People, the actor opened up about her body image issues, explaining, I was losing my mind trying to conform to something that was not physically possible for me.

I was very unwell for a long time, the "Don't Look Up" star said. I had eating issues and at a certain point I was like, Im not going to survive  not like I was on deaths door or anything, but I was so unhappy and my hair was falling out.

The actor was able to get to a point of acceptance, saying, I was like, I just need to look the way Im supposed to look and have faith that people are going to want to put someone in a film or on a show who looks like this. I did have to truly become comfortable with myself, because you cant fake it.

Actress Melanie Lynskey and actor Jason Ritter attend the 2017 Creative Arts Emmy Awards at Microsoft Theater on September 10, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (David Livingston / Getty Images)

Even still, it was an uphill battle for her to reach that point as she continued to receive a barrage of commentary in the media.

In 2012, she landed the leading role in the movie Hello I Must Be Going, wherein she portrayed a divorcee in her 30s who has a fling with a teenager, played by actor Christopher Abbott. After its release, criticism surfaced surrounding her characters affair, with some saying she didnt have enough sexual gravitation transcending age to attract Abbotts character.

In the decade since, celebrities including Reese Witherspoon and Beanie Feldstein have spoken out against body-shaming, misogyny, and sexism in Hollywood, but these issues still exist today. Theres even been criticism online surrounding the plausibility of the affair that her character in Yellowjackets, Shauna, has with with a young, attractive artist named Adam, portrayed by Peter Gadiot.

Im just like, Wow, really? Thats where peoples heads are at, that the most important thing is being thin or young? she said.

In addition to the online commentary, she faced body-shaming remarks during the filming of Yellowjackets made by a member of the shows production team. She recalled their comments, saying, They were asking me, What do you plan to do? Im sure the producers will get you a trainer. Theyd love to help you with this.

Despite an unspoken competition decades prior, Ricci had her back, along with co-stars Tawny Cypress and Juliette Lewis. The three actors pooled their support for Lynskey, with Lewis even penning a letter to the producers on her co-stars behalf.

102 - F Sharp (Kailey Schwerman / SHOWTIME)

It's comments like this, though, that motivate her to shift this harmful perception in the industry.

It was really important to me for (Shauna) to not ever comment on my body, to not have me putting a dress on and being like, I wish I looked a bit better," she said. I did find it important that this character is just comfortable and sexual and not thinking or talking about it, because I want women to be able to to watch it and be like, Wow, she looks like me and nobodys saying shes the fat one. That representation is important.
The Milwaukee Police Department is asking for the public's help in locating a critically missing 11-year-old girl named Serenity Carr.

A critically missing 11-year-old girl has been located safely, the Milwaukee Police Department said Sunday night.

Milwaukee Police had asked for the public's help in locating Serenity Carr Sunday morning.

Carr had last been seen around 6:20 p.m. Saturday on the 3100 block of North 40th Street, according to police.

Contact Hannah Kirby at hannah.kirby@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HannahHopeKirby.

Our subscribers make this reporting possible. Please consider supporting local journalism by subscribing to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee Police: Critically missing 11-year-old girl located safely
MILWAUKEE (AP)  Deandre Gholston scored 21 points and reserve Tafari Simms scored 19 on 7-for-9 shooting and Milwaukee clobbered IUPUI 89-54 on Saturday.

The Panthers (6-12, 4-5 Horizon League) shot 62.3% (33 for 53) which is the seventh-highest, single-game percentage in program history. Milwaukee's 89 points is a season high.

Milwaukee built a 21-7 lead and never trailed.

Bakari LaStrap and Azariah Seah each scored nine points for IUPUI (1-14, 0-6).

___

More AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/Collegebasketball and https://twitter.com/AP https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball and http://twitter.com/AP_Top25
Get on up, Mobile! It's Monday, so let's get you started with everything you need to know going on in Mobile today.

First, today's weather:

Warmer with plenty of sun. High: 57 Low: 33.

Here are the top four stories today in Mobile:

Despite the rain, volunteers turned out for MLK Day of Cleanup on Saturday, which was King's birthday. Many volunteers across the Port City, including students from the Alabama School of Math and Science, showed up to help collect trash. This event took place in all of the seven city districts. (FOX10 News) The Mobile Police Department is searching for a missing teen and her son. Enma Lorena Cacao-Tot, 17, and her 1-year-old son, Jose Adriel Xoi-Cacao were last seen on Saturday, Jan. 15 at around 4:30 p.m. leaving the group home on Schillinger Road. It is believed they are in Enterprise, Alabama; anyone with information is encouraged to call. (FOX10 News) Mobile and Baldwin County hospitals are facing staff shortages due to the Omicron variant. The highly contagious Omicron variant is infecting more doctors, nurses, and other hospital staff. Dr. Scroggie, Chief Informatics Officer with Infirmary Health in Mobile and Baldwin County, said the hope is Omicron in our area will follow trends seen elsewhere in the world; quickly burning out and producing fewer hospitalizations. (WEAR) A woman's car was hit by a live power line in the Taco Bell parking lot at Cottage Jill and Lloyd's Lane on Friday morning. Alabama Power says that it doesn't have the exact cause, but it is thought to be a mechanical failure. The traffic light connected to the power line will take about a week to fix and a temporary stop sign has been put up on Lloyd's Lane. (NBC 15 WPMI)

From our sponsor:

Today's Mobile Daily is brought to you in part by Newrez, a leading nationwide mortgage lender. Make a smart move for your future and refinance with Newrez today. Call 844-979-1707 to connect with a Newrez loan officer. Newrez, LLC (NMLS #3013)

Story continues

Today in Mobile:

How To Improve Your Memory - IrisReading.com (1:00 PM)

From my notebook:

The Mobile Fire-Rescue Department (MFRD) proudly announces Firefighter/EMT Ann Williams as the December 2021 Firefighter of the Month . (Facebook)

The Mobile County Animal Shelter will be closed through Monday, Jan. 17 in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. (Facebook)

Most MCHD & Family Health facilities will be closed Monday, Jan. 17, in observance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. COVID-19 vaccine and testing will still be available that day from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., at the Festival Centre, Suite 101-A. (Facebook)

More from our sponsors  thanks for supporting local news!

Featured businesses:

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That's it for today. I'll see you back in your inbox tomorrow with a new update!

 Sean Peek

About me: Sean Peek is a writer and entrepreneur with a degree in English Literature from Weber State University. Over the years, he has worked as a copywriter, editor, SEO specialist, and marketing director for various digital media companies. He currently co-owns and operates content creation agency Lightning Media Partners.

This article originally appeared on the Mobile Patch
Photo credit: FRANCK FIFE - Getty Images

Nasser Al-Attiyah and co-driver Mathieu Baumel have won the car category of the 2022 Dakar Rally, Al-Attiyah's fourth win in the event. It was Al-Attiyah's second win with Toyota's Gazoo Racing Hilux, the truck he has driven in every Dakar since 2017. In addition to winning this rally and the 2019 edition with Toyota, he also finished second in 2018, 2020, and 2021.

Al-Attiyah had been in complete control of the rally from the middle of the first week, winning both opening stages while every other competitive entry suffered some sort of catastrophic delay in the event's opening days. His final margin of victory, 27 minutes, is actually deceptively small; Al-Attiyah spent the entire final week of the rally avoiding risks to ensure a safe finish without a serious mistake early.

Sebastian Loeb and Fabian Lurquin finished second with Prodrive's BRX Hunter T1+ program, another 30 minutes clear of the Yazeed Al-Rajhi and Michael Orr Toyota entry that rounded out the podium. Mattias Ekstrom and Emil Bergkvist, the lead car from Audi's ambitious RS Q E-Tron program, finished nearly three hours back in a distant ninth. However, the Audi program rallied from serious misfortunes on the rally's opening stages to win four stages and prove the car's potential on the open road.

This year's Dakar Rally was held in Saudi Arabia, the third event in the desert since relocating from South America in 2020. The Dakar Rally has not actually run on its traditional Paris-to-Dakar route since 2001 and has not been held on the continent of Africa at all since 2007.

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Members of Nigerian Armed Forces attend the Armed Forces Remembrance Day ceremony in Lagos, Nigeria, on Jan. 15, 2022. On Jan. 15 every year, Nigeria remembers the members of the armed forces who died in active service, fighting to defend the country's unity. (Photo by Emma Houston/Xinhua)

Members of Nigerian Armed Forces attend the Armed Forces Remembrance Day ceremony in Lagos, Nigeria, on Jan. 15, 2022. On Jan. 15 every year, Nigeria remembers the members of the armed forces who died in active service, fighting to defend the country's unity. (Photo by Emma Houston/Xinhua)

Members of Nigerian Armed Forces attend the Armed Forces Remembrance Day ceremony in Lagos, Nigeria, on Jan. 15, 2022. On Jan. 15 every year, Nigeria remembers the members of the armed forces who died in active service, fighting to defend the country's unity. (Photo by Emma Houston/Xinhua)

Members of Nigerian Armed Forces salute during the Armed Forces Remembrance Day ceremony in Lagos, Nigeria, on Jan. 15, 2022. On Jan. 15 every year, Nigeria remembers the members of the armed forces who died in active service, fighting to defend the country's unity. (Photo by Emma Houston/Xinhua)
Novak Djokovic has lost his battle with the Australian courts (Reuters)

Novak Djokovic says he is extremely disappointed to have lost his fight to stay in Melbourne and play in the Australia Open after his final bid to reinstate his visa was rejected by a federal court.

Three judges deliberated for two hours on Sunday before reaching a unanimous decision to uphold the special ruling by immigration minister Alex Hawke to cancel Djokovics visa.

The courts verdict means Djokovic will now be deported back to Europe and could face a ban of three years from Australia, leaving the 34-year-old of the possibility of never again playing in his most successful Grand Slam where he has won nine times.

A statement from the Serbian read: I will now be taking some time to rest and to recuperate, before making any further comments beyond this. I am extremely disappointed with the Court ruling to dismiss my application for judicial review of the Ministers decision to cancel my visa, which means I cannot stay in Australia and participate in the Australian Open.

I respect the Courts ruling and I will cooperate with the relevant authorities in relation to my departure from the country. I am uncomfortable that the focus of the past weeks has been on me and I hope that we can all now focus on the game and tournament I love. I would like to wish the players, tournament officials, staff, volunteers and fans all the best for the tournament.

Finally, I would like to thank my family, friends, team, supporters, fans and my fellow Serbians for your continued support. You have all been a great source of strength to me.

Speaking on Sunday at around 6pm in Melbourne, Chief Justice James Allsop said the ruling came down to whether the ministers decision was irrational or legally unreasonable, adding: It is no part of the function of the court to decide upon the merits or wisdom of the decision.

The panel of judges did not provide written explanations for their decision on Sunday. Those would be released in the coming days, Allsop said. This is not an appeal against the decision of the executive government. It is an application to the court as a separate arm of the government ... to review ... the lawfulness or the legality of the (ministers) decision.

Story continues

Djokovic was also ordered to pay the governments court costs.

The court process that Djokovic had hoped would to keep his aspirations alive for a 21st Grand Slam title was extraordinarily fast by Australian standards. Within three hours of Hawkes announcement on Friday afternoon that Djokovics visa was cancelled, his lawyers were before a Federal Circuit and Family Court judge to initiate their challenge to the decision.

The case was elevated to the Federal Court on Saturday and submissions were filed by both sides that same day. The three judges heard the case over five hours on Sunday and announced their verdict two hours later.

Between the end of the hearing and the verdict, Tennis Australia, the tournaments organiser, had announced that Djokovic was scheduled to play the last match on Monday at the Rod Laver Arena. He was due to play Miomir Kecmanovic, a fellow Serb ranked 78th in the world. Tennis Australia had no immediate comment on the star players legal defeat.

The minister cancelled the visa on the grounds that Djokovics presence in Australia may be a risk to the health and good order of the Australian public and may be counterproductive to efforts at vaccination by others in Australia.

Djokovics visa was initially cancelled on 6 January at Melbournes airport hours after he arrived to compete in the first Grand Slam of 2022. A border official cancelled his visa after deciding Djokovic didnt qualify for a medical exemption from Australias rules for unvaccinated visitors.

Additional reporting by AP
(REUTERS)

Novak Djokovics wait to learn his Australian Open fate went on as three judges retired to consider their verdict in his appeal against the cancellation of his visa at the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia.

Lawyers for the world number one and Immigration Minister Alex Hawke put their cases before the judicial triumvirate following Hawkes decision on Friday to re-cancel Djokovics visa.

As more than 80,000 people watched on YouTube Chief Justice James Allsop told the court he expected to be in a position to announce a decision by late afternoon or early evening, but the case could yet drag on into Monday morning.

Djokovic, who spent another night at the Park detention hotel on Saturday, is due to face compatriot Miomir Kecmanovic in the first round at Melbourne Park on Monday.

Djokovic was freed from detention six days ago after an initial decision to cancel his visa his last week was quashed, but Hawke used his personal power to reimpose the sanction.

The nine-time Australian Open champion immediately mounted another legal challenge and the parties were back in court on Sunday morning.

Hawkes decision on Friday was unexpectedly based not on the validity or otherwise of Djokovics exemption from Covid-19 vaccination but on the notion his presence in the country could stoke anti-vaccination sentiment, making him a danger to public health, as well as civil unrest.

To succeed in an appeal, Djokovics legal team had to prove that Hawke had either acted outside his powers or that his decision was irrational.

Nick Wood, acting for the Serbian, focused on three aspects  that there was no evidence his presence would stoke anti-vaccination sentiment, that evidence was also lacking for the idea Djokovic opposes vaccination and that Hawke had not considered whether deporting the nine-time Australian Open champion would lead to increased support for the anti-vaccination cause.

Wood said: Not a single line of evidence in the material provided any specific or logical foundation whatsoever that the mere presence of Mr Djokovic in Australia in itself may somehow foster anti-vaccination sentiment.

Story continues

Djokovic created global headlines early in the pandemic for being quoted as saying he was opposed to vaccination, although he later clarified that he was against being forced to take a vaccine to travel to tournaments and would keep an open mind on the issue.

Even before vaccines were available he was against it - his prima facie position was to be against them.

Stephen Lloyd for Immigration Minister Alex Hawke

Wood criticised Hawke for not referencing that clarification, while he argued the response to the overturning of the initial visa cancellation, which included police pepper spraying Djokovic supporters on the street, demonstrated that deporting him could have a negative impact on public health and public order rather than the other way around.

The clearest and most attractive window through which to view the error is the public interest lens, he said. It is irrational or unreasonable to look at only one side of the coin.

Hawkes lawyer Stephen Lloyd spent a considerable amount of time countering that argument.

The minister was aware his decision to cancel would result in some level of further unrest but the minister was principally concerned that Mr Djokovics presence would encourage people to emulate his position and that would put the health of Australians at risk, said Lloyd.

On the issue of whether it was fair to present Djokovic as taking an anti-vaccination stance, Lloyd said: His ongoing non-vaccination status is open to infer that a person in the applicants position could have been vaccinated if he wanted to be.

Even before vaccines were available he was against it  his prima facie position was to be against them.

(AP)

He made reference to anti-vaccination groups treating the applicant as a hero as he moved on to Hawkes central claim of Djokovics presence having the potential to negatively impact public health.

Lloyd said: Hes a high-profile person who is in many respects a role model for many people. His presence in Australia would present more strongly to Australians his anti-vaccination views.

People use high-level athletes to promote ideas and causes all the time. His connection to a cause, whether he wants it or not, is still present.

He concluded: We would say each of the grounds should be dismissed and there should be an order that the applicant pay the ministers costs.

Wood said Djokovics legal team would seek the Serbians release from detention within half an hour should the appeal succeed.
Field supervisor and crane operator Josh Haug climbs into a crane at FruhQuip's facility near Zanesville. The company works hard to retain its highly-skilled employees amid a nationwide labor shortage, which Ohio Means Jobs officials say can no longer simply be attributed to the pandemic's effects on the economy.

ZANESVILLE  Retaining employees is a high priority at FruhQuip.

The Zanesville-based industrial services company knows it is hard to come by the skilled laborers required for the rigging, heavy machinery moving, construction contracting and maintenance jobs that workers do every day.

"Its a smaller workforce, so we try to emphasize: Let's take care of our people so were not one of those companies that loses that skilled person if they get a better offer or better boss," CFO John Collet said.

The company has had success with that strategy. But many employers are still having trouble getting people on the payroll to begin with, according to Troy McCollister, director of Ohio Means Jobs Muskingum County.

Muskingum County labor shortage: Local companies pining for workers

The county continues to face a labor shortage across a wide range of industries. There are more than 3,000 open jobs within a 20-mile radius of Zanesville, according to Ohio Means Jobs, a free job-seeking service provided through the state's Jobs and Family Services.

The county's unemployment rate was 3.4% in November, down from the same time the year prior.

So why are companies still scrounging for workers?

It's complicated, but the COVID-19 pandemic and its early unemployment benefits aren't the only things to blame, McCollister said.

In fact, the labor shortage trend may be permanent.

"This is something  where it may be a scarcity of available people to fill the jobs  is something were going to have to deal with," he said. "Theres got to be a better way to find them."

Theories for labor shortage emerge

A lack of workers can be attributed to a shrinking workforce overall.

That's something that OMJ has had to adjust to. The purpose of the government department is to assist employers in finding candidates, and vice versa.

"Our old message always worked really, really well: People post jobs, people come to us. People and jobs were really easy to match up," he said. "People and jobs are becoming harder to match up."

Story continues

Troy McCollister

Baby Boomers are hitting retirement age. Couples are realizing they can make it on one income instead of two after adjusting to job loss early in the pandemic.

Jobs across all industries can be found on OMJ. Hundreds of listings for entry-level retail positions exist in the area, as well as warehouse positions, manufacturing, banking and more. Candidates with commercial driver's licenses are needed across many industries.

Health care jobs are in particularly high demand.

Health care worker shortage: $2.3M Genesis employee retention program among local ARPA grants

McCollister noted the younger generations are just not as big as the Baby Boomer generation, leaving the current adult workforce size at a disadvantage.

OMJ has had to adjust by putting ads on television and social media to attract potential jobseekers. It appears to be a problem that won't just persist in the pandemic, though.

"Were just getting ready to go down this road," McCollister said. "Things are changing."

Skilled labor hard to come by

Industries seeking commercially licensed drivers continue to suffer from a lack of qualified applicants, McCollister said.

It's not just trucking companies who need CDL candidates. Construction, warehouse distribution, and other industries also offer services that require that expertise.

'It affects everyone': Southeast Ohio impacted by nationwide truck driver shortage

That's why FruhQuip tries so hard to retain its 14-employee staff.

"Our biggest challenge is most of the skill sets we need, is most of those people are gainfully employed," Collet said.

The company is not currently hiring, but Collet said applications are accepted if interest arises.

"Its not necessarily about money," he said of employee retention. "Theres a lot more to it with a company trying to support a person whos trying to raise a family."

To find local job listings and learn about other OMJ services, visit www.muskingumcountyjfs.com/Ohio-Means-Jobs/.

ecouch@gannett.com

740-450-6752

Twitter: @couchreporting

This article originally appeared on Zanesville Times Recorder: Pandemic isn't only culprit in Muskingum County labor shortage
An aerial view of Congregation Beth Israel synagogue under siege Saturday. (Brandon Wade / Associated Press)

Shalom, in Hebrew, can mean both hello and peace. To say Shabbat shalom, therefore, is to greet the Sabbath and describe its serenity. Or perhaps, to say hello to peace.

I am not religious. I do not keep Shabbat in the traditional sense. But like many other Jews, Ive found it to be an opportunity for rest and reflection.

Shabbat was a tradition at a summer camp I used to attend. Counselors led campers in song. My friends and I put our arms around each other. We swayed. Our heartbeats slowed.

In September 2019, I ran through a Jerusalem park toward the setting sun as Shabbat approached. Families of all faiths played with their children in the last wisps of light.

At Stanford University, Shabbat dinners demarcate the boundary between week and weekend. I catch up with friends. I forget about my to-do list. The air I breathe feels different. Unburdened.

On Saturday, Shabbats serenity was shattered: A man entered Congregation Beth Israel, a Texas synagogue in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and took four people hostage. Thankfully, none of them was physically harmed. But it was still violence that deeply hurt the Jewish community.

Shabbat is a tenuous project in the best of times  an attempt to construct a bubble outside the normal rhythm, stresses and work of daily life. The hostage-taker punctured that bubble. He undermined the idea of Shabbat and upended Jews already precarious sense of security.

The almost 11-hour standoff resurfaced memories of the 2018 terror attack on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and the 11 lives lost. This latest assault occurred as antisemitism is rising, in the U.S. and around the world. Once again, an act of terror, as President Biden called it, has eroded our confidence that we can be safe in public spaces.

What can we say at a moment like this? What can we do? My best answer to the helplessness I feel is a tool that unites my Jewish identity with my progressivism: hoping far ahead.

In his 1918 The Spirit of Utopia, the German Jewish philosopher Ernst Bloch wrote that what is left for us here, we who suffer and are dark, is to hope far ahead. Hope is the weed that grows in cracks of cement. At times it is lonely, the only living thing left when all else has been steamrolled. Yet its growth inspires us to imagine that, far ahead, other things may thrive and live again.

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Suffering and hope are the twin strands that weave the Jewish story. Rarely, however, are hopes fulfilled within a lifetime. Moses, for example, did not live to reach Israel. Jonathan Sacks, who was a prominent rabbi in the United Kingdom, wrote that in the Tanach (the Hebrew Bible), the Jewish story ends, as Moses life ended, with a glimpse of the land not yet reached, a future not yet realized. Jewish hope, like Jewish suffering, is intergenerational.

A more modern illustration of hoping far ahead is Raphael Lemkin, the one-man legal machine who coined the term genocide and worked to ban it under international law. Forty-nine members of Lemkins family, including his parents, were murdered in the Holocaust. After the war, Lemkin continued his longstanding crusade against mass murder in the halls of the new United Nations. You and I, we must change the world, he pleaded with diplomats and journalists.

Lemkin saw his hopes partially vindicated. In December 1948, 55 yesses thundered through the Palais de Chaillot in Paris as the U.N. adopted its first human rights treaty. Lemkin, crying in a darkened assembly hall hours later, declared its passage as an epitaph on his mothers grave. Yet in 1959 Lemkin died at 59 alone, poor, and having witnessed America  the country he once idealized  fail to ratify the convention, a step it would take only decades later.

Lemkin recognized that hopes arc is longer than a single lifetime. History, he argued, is much wiser than lawyers and statesmen. Lemkin also knew, however, that the world does not become more just or safe simply because we believe it will. The wisdom of history is won through the work of people like him, people who pound against walls of indifference again, and again, and again.

To hope far ahead, then, is not just an expectation that things will improve. Hope is something we do.

My grandfather, Itzhak Ziv, often told the story of his escape from a Siberian gulag during World War II. Trudging through snow, he stopped to rest under a tree. He knew that if he fell asleep he would freeze to death. And so he put a stick under his chin. When he nodded off, the stick prodded him awake. He survived, found a new home in Israel, started a new family with my grandmother and accomplished so much more  all because he acted to create hope with a single stick.

Im thinking of that stick as I try to process the attack on Congregation Beth Israel. Im thinking of how even if we do not live to see our hopes fulfilled, the future existence of a better world is at least partially within our control, today. Im thinking of how small actions are invisible threads we can cast out of the present darkness, tiny tendrils of hope growing through cracks of cement.

Nadav Ziv is a senior majoring in international relations at Stanford University. @nadavsziv





This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi is a Democrat from House District 23 in Warwick.

The challenges of the pandemic have required an all-hands-on-deck approach, and I am proud that my colleagues in the General Assembly rose to the occasion last year, again and again. Through the emergencies of 2021, there was an emergence of solidarity and collaboration in the House. Simply put, we got a lot of great work done together, essentially passing two years' worth of legislation in only six months.

And, our work never stopped. There is no such thing as an off-session for legislators anymore. Although we went on recess in July, throughout the months leading to the start of our 2022 session, 10 different legislative committees and commissions held dozens of bipartisan hearings, paving the way for many of the issues the House will address this year.

We also have spent months analyzing the complex issue of marijuana legalization. The House and Senate intend to soon have draft legislation ready which will serve as a framework to begin a thorough public hearing process. We may not be the first state to legalize marijuana, but our goal is to do it in the way that is best for Rhode Island.

Our efforts during the recess meant that when the House officially kicked off its session on January 4, we were ready to hit the ground running. Almost immediately, we passed a budget amendment to make the first investment, of $119 million, from Rhode Islands American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding.

This funding, which our Finance Committee scrutinized over the past few months in a series of public meetings, includes $44.5 million to support children, families, and social programs  an increase of $6 million more than the $38.5 million originally proposed; $32 million to assist small businesses impacted by COVID-19; $29.5 million to promote affordable housing, housing stability supports and broadband; and $13 million for hard-hit tourism, hospitality and event industries.

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Like the one before it, our 2022 session is already shaping up to a truly historic year. A good deal of our work, as was the case last year, will focus on the health and economic issues related to the pandemic, which still has us in its grip.

Our hospitals  and, for that matter, the entire field of health care  are straining under the pressure of the pandemic, burnout and staffing shortages. Businesses continue to struggle to retain workers and to keep customers and staff safe throughout ever-evolving guidelines as we all adapt to new virus strains and related precautionary measures. And, parents, teachers and children alike have modified their routines on the fly to accommodate distance learning.

We know that many Rhode Islanders are struggling.

Already, we have made certain that immediate needs are being addressed: last month, along with the governor, we announced the immediate allocation of more than $3 million in CARES Act dollars to support critical Early Intervention services. We also announced $57.4 million of federal medical assistance funding to support thousands of home and community-based direct-care workers.

And, we're ready to do more. We are ready to make the appropriate investments with federal funding, through ARPA and other federal programs, to boost our economy and assist families and businesses.

Although we continue to face a multitude of challenges caused by the pandemic, we also have an historic opportunity to make critical long-term investments. The influx of federal funding gives us a truly once in a lifetime ability to make investments that will change the landscape of our state.

By thoughtfully leveraging our federal funding, we will ensure that Rhode Island is a better place for generations to come.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Opinion/Shekarchi: Despite challenges, RI has historic opportunities
Tami Springer wears one of the "Tiger King" t-shirts available on the website she created and manages for the subject of the Netflix documentary, Joseph "Joe Exotic" Maldonado-Passage.

An Indiana University journalism professor said that Indiana will work its way into every story. Happy, sad, good, bad. There is a Hoosier connection. Probably not all the time, but it does seem to come up that way.

Heres the next one: "Tiger King." Yes, that one. Tami Springer, of Osceola, manages the website store for Joe Exotic and is his executive assistant and power or attorney. No one believes me. They think Im crazy, she said. It all started when she began to write to him.

The full name of the series is Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness. That says a lot right there. Murder and mayhem always lead to big issues.

Mr. Exotics real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage. He has a blond mullet and speaks his mind, according to Tami. Very blunt. You may know of him if you have Netflix or if you came out from the basement in the last two years. He owned the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park in Oklahoma. The park is now closed.

Tiger King was a success for Netflix. It premiered on March 20, 2020, just as everyone was staying home to avoid COVID. It was wildly successful. On the other side of that, it did receive negative remarks from animal activists. He did have a lot of big cats there. It was estimated at more than 200.

Big cats, big hit: Netflix adds triple the subscribers it expected as more people stay home and stream shows

For the Netflix-challenged, Joe had an ongoing battle with Carole Baskin. She runs another exotic park in Florida, Big Cat Rescue, and believed Joe was abusing the big cats. Carole and Joe didnt get along too well going back to 2005.

It got ugly at times, and costly. He was convicted of attempted murder (murder for hire of Baskin) and wild life offenses. He also was ordered to pay Carole for trademark infringements regarding their two different animal parks. He also has other big legal fees.

Dont worry, Carole is all right. She even was on Dancing With the Stars in 2020. She lasted there for three weeks.

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On the other hand, Joe is currently in prison in North Carolina and his being treated for prostate cancer. He will be having a resentencing hearing in Oklahoma on Jan. 28. The judge made a mistake in calculation of the prison time.

Joes attorney also will be asking for a new trial based on witnesses who now claim they lied in statements and in court. That gets everyone up to date on Joe.

Tami Springer leads a demonstration on the Oklahoma courthouse steps in 2021. The Osceola resident is the executive assistant to Joe Exotic of "Tiger King" fame.

Now back to Tami. Like everyone else with Netflix, she watched the documentary. Her daughter suggested it to her in 2020. From there, she wrote to his fan page. He then wrote back. There were more exchanges of notes and email and phone calls. She has not met him in person, but she does talk to him daily.

Tami said he is a kind man, but he does speak his mind. He has his friends and foes from his time with the animal park. He has fired people he didnt trust anymore. He doesnt trust a lot of people.

He trusts her. She even worked on getting a pardon for Joe from the last president. That didnt work.

August 2020: 'Tiger King' zoo closes after animal treatment investigation

Still in prison, he asked her to set up a website and sell his merchandise. With some Exotic money, she set up a website and worked with a local designer to create some goods. That was February 2021. The site is joeexoticusa.com. There is a wide range of shirts and hoodies, facemasks and skin care. She receives a percentage of each sale.

She does have a full time job.

Joe gave Tami power of attorney after not being happy with the last person who had that job.

Tami said she knows he can be off-putting. He is blunt, but that makes him popular. Her job is to improve his image and to see him out of prison. He is very normal and he has a good heart. He has his causes and he makes donations. On Christmas, he cried on the phone.

She has gotten mixed reviews from friends and relatives about the business relationship.

Never in my life did I think this would happen, she said. She never expected to get an answer when she first wrote. She contends she has a loyal friend in Joe and she is loyal to him. He wants me to run the website when he gets out of prison.

We will all be waiting to hear about the hearing in January and filing for a new trial. Get the popcorn out for the next edition of Joe Exotics life.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Osceola woman works to help 'Tiger King' subject Joe Exotic
MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippines is buying 32 S-70i Black Hawk helicopters from Poland-based Sikorsky Aircraft subsidiary PZL Mielec to beef up its existing fleet of 12, the country's defence chief said on Sunday, as it seeks to boost its disaster response capabilities.

Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said a notice of award was issued on Dec. 28 for the purchase of brand new helicopters under a project that comes with logistics support and a training package for pilots and maintenance crew at a cost of 32 billion pesos ($624 million).

The contract was now being drafted, with the delivery of the first five units expected in 2023, Lorenzana said on Facebook. The remaining ones will be delivered in three batches, 10 units in 2024, 10 units in 2025, and 7 units in 2026, he said.

"The lack of transport planes and helicopters have never been more acute during the pandemic and in the aftermath of Typhoon (Rai)," Lorenzana said.

"This was exacerbated by our aging Hueys that have become uneconomical to maintain."

Rai, last year's 15th and deadliest typhoon to hit the Philippines, left more than 400 people dead and caused widespread damage in central and southern regions of the country in December.

The United Nations' Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on Sunday said in a statement that hundreds of thousands of people still needed food and clean water, shelter and protection support, one month after the world's second deadliest disaster of 2021 hit the Philippines.

(Reporting by Enrico Dela Cruz; Editing by Tom Hogue)
MANILA (Reuters) - Deposed Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi is "indispensable" in restoring democracy to the military-ruled country and must be included in any peace talks, regardless of her conviction, the Philippines' foreign minister said on Sunday.

In a strong rebuke of the Myanmar junta that overthrew Suu Kyi's elected government last year, Teodoro Locsin condemned last week's sentencing of the Nobel laureate and accused the military of using the judicial system to crush its opponents.

Locsin said he would "adopt" verbatim the remarks of Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt in demanding the junta free political prisoners, halt violence and respect human rights.

"I am deeply concerned about the suffering of the civilian population," Locsin said in a statement. "We also call on the military leadership to participate in an inclusive dialogue and resume the democratic transition process."

His statement comes as Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members turn up the heat on the Myanmar military after a turbulent end to 2021, during which junta boss Min Aung Hlaing was excluded from a leaders' summit for failure to honour commitments to an ASEAN-led peace plan.

Myanmar says its efforts are being derailed by "terrorists" seeking to destroy the country.

Locsin said dialogue would be meaningless without Suu Kyi. She has been sentenced to six years so far in an ongoing trial featuring more than a dozen cases, from corruption to official secrets violations, which she denies.

"Aung San Suu Kyi must be there, despite her conviction. The armed forces of Myanmar have nothing to fear, and much to gain, from the democracy it introduced to Myanmar," he said.

"Suu Kyi is indispensable in a democratic restoration that will pose no threat of anarchy, dissolution and civil conflict."

Locsin also pledged "wholehearted support" for Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, the new ASEAN chair, for visiting Min Aung Hlaing in Myanmar earlier this month, a controversial trip that some members were concerned could indicate ASEAN recognition of the junta, according to Malaysia's top diplomat.

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Locsin said the Philippines will push for progress in ASEAN's five-point consensus on the crisis in Myanmar, an agreement that includes peace talks, ceasing hostilities, and allowing humanitarian aid.

He stressed that accord be the only plan, and not be tied to any roadmap, referring to the five-stage process to restore democracy that the junta announced when it seized power.

(Writing by Enrico dela Cruz and Martin Petty; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)
MOGADISHU, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- A huge blast went off in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, Sunday, according to a local police source.

The police source said the blast targeted the Somali government spokesman Mohamed Moalimuu.

No more detailed information about the explosion is available. 
Talk show host Michael Jackson worked in radio and television in the U.S. for more than 50 years. He is seen here in 2009 with a plaque commemorating his 1984 star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Michael Jackson, the onetime dean of Los Angeles talk radio whose voice graced Southern California airwaves for more than half a century, died Saturday. He was 87.

Jackson, who had Parkinsons disease, died peacefully at home surrounded by his three children, a family spokesperson said.

Jackson was best known for his collegial and non-combative style as he interviewed presidents, celebrities, authors and ordinary Angelenos, most notably during his reign at the top of local ratings while at KABC-AM from 1966 to 1998.

His unmistakable British accent was heard by millions of listeners across several continents, with his lengthy list of accolades including a place in the Radio Hall of Fame, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and even an honor from the queen of England.

The world knew and adored our Michael Jackson. But Michaels home was California, Los Angeles, America. For that we are grateful, former U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, who was a frequent guest on Jackson's show, said in a statement provided by Jackson's family.

Jackson's friendly demeanor and desire for balance in his on-air discussions of news and events stood in stark contrast to the brash partisan talk radio hosts who rose in popularity in the early 1990s. Jackson was reassigned in 1997 at KABC because of low ratings against conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh before resigning a year later.

Despite that, Jackson said he refused to sacrifice his signature civility for a bump in ratings.

"I think sometimes Ive been overly polite to guests, showing them greater deference, but Im not going to become less polite," Jackson told The Times in 1992. "Rudeness is such an easy excuse for not doing your homework.

Born in England in 1934, Jackson occasionally shared with his loyal listeners the fear he felt as a child when Germany launched air attacks against the United Kingdom during World War II in what would be known as the Blitz bombings. At the time, his father served as a Royal Air Force navigator trainer, and Jackson's fear was compounded by worries about his father's safety.

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Amid the uncertainty, Jackson said he would huddle with classmates in the dining room of the boarding school he attended to listen to the radio.

"The headmaster would call for silence, and we would listen to the BBC news," Jackson told The Time in 2014. "Then he would announce the [former students] who had been killed or wounded in battle. We little kids didnt really understand."

Following the war, Jackson's family moved to South Africa, where he began his career at 16 years old as a disc jockey by lying about his age, claiming to be 22.

Jackson's family left South Africa in 1958, arriving in the United States, where he soon began working as a DJ in San Francisco. Jackson moved to Los Angeles to work at KHJ-AM and then news station KNX-AM, before landing at KABC, where he would remain for 32 years, wearing a coat and tie every day to the studio.

After leaving KABC, Jackson worked at various stations until retiring at the age of 73.

It was a testament to Michael, that so many of the guests and celebrities preferred to actually come in the studio, rather than do phoners, said Lyle Gregory, who worked as Jacksons show producer for 30 years and is a close family friend. With his British accent and boyhood charm, Michael made people comfortable, they opened up. That was his gift. Michael molded an interview into conversation, news and information."

Gregory said there has been an outpouring of condolences since news of Jackson's passing, including from former President Clinton, who was among the presidents the radio host had interviewed on his show.

"Michael Jackson was both an essential voice for Los Angeles and a huge influence on me as a host," said Larry Mantle, host of KPCC's "AirTalk." "Hes the one who made me want to host a talk show. Michael had a remarkable skill set that combined wide-ranging knowledge, deep curiosity, empathy for the listener, and a quick wit."

Mantle said growing up in Los Angeles it was well known that Jackson's show was where "the conversation was happening," adding that the host himself became influential because so many prominent Angelenos listened to Michael.

"He clearly understood that appreciating ones listeners goes hand-in-hand with serving them," Mantle said. "Michaels enthusiasm for L.A. and care about our region came through whether talking with elected officials, actors, businesspeople, or loyal listeners."

Jackson was preceded in death by his wife, Alana Ladd. He is survived by his children Alan Jackson, Alisa Magno and Devon Jackson, their respective spouses, Heidi, Tom and Sarah, and his grandchildren Taylor, Emily, Adeline, Amelia and Hugo.

In a statement, Jackson's children said they hoped people would honor their father by "being polite and good to one another," an attribute that the radio host most cherished. For those wishing to pay tribute to Jackson, the family asked that donations be given to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinsons Research in Memory of Talk Radio Broadcaster Michael Robin Jackson.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court made a groundbreaking decision to uphold a stay on the President Joe Biden administration's vaccine mandate, previously implemented by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's new policies.

The new OSHA policy, initially enforced by the federal government, mandated private companies with at least 100 employees to require their workers to be vaccinated or be tested weekly for COVID-19.

The case, "National Federation of Independent Business, et al., Applicants v. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, et al." was argued last week by the Supreme Court before justices voted, 6-3, that the mandate cannot be enforced by private companies.

NFIB is the largest small business association in the U.S., headquartered in Nashville.

However, the justices decided to allow a vaccination requirement for health care workers at facilities that receive federal Medicare and Medicaid dollars.

Top local Republican leaders opposed the mandate, including Rep. Scott Cepicky, R-Culleoka, and Sen. Joey Hensley, R-Hohenwald, Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles and the Maury County Republican Party. Gov. Bill Lee also opposed the mandate.

The case went through a couple of federal circuit courts before reaching the Supreme Court.

On Nov. 5, Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery and six other attorneys general filed a lawsuit before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, challenging the mandate.

On Nov. 12, the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit granted a motion to stay OSHAs Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) and ordered that OSHA take no steps to implement or enforce the mandate until further court order.

Then, in opposition, the U.S. Department of Labor filed a motion to lift the stay.

In response, on Dec. 17, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Cincinnati-based Sixth Circuit dissolved the Fifth Circuit 's ruling to stay the mandate, which had put the OSHA mandate on hold.

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On Dec. 18, Tennessee and 26 other states file an application with the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the mandate.

The Columbia Daily Herald asked citizens: What is your reaction to the Supreme Court's ruling to block the implementation of the federal vaccine mandate? They responded as follows:

"We support people being able to make their own free choices."

- Megan White, Spring Hill

Ephraim Julius

"They need to do more research and look at the facts. People getting the booster and are who are vaccinated are still catching COVID. Now, what's the point of having a mandate? I think we should keep doing what we are doing, including staying sanitary and taking precautions such as washing hands and sanitizing. Keeping the immune system healthy and exercising are also very important factors."

- Ephraim Julius, Columbia

"I am a healthcare worker, and I wish that the court had taken their decision to t he next level, saying that healthcare workers didn't have to be mandated."

- Katie P., Spring Hill

Eliot Ovsiew, Mt. Juliet

"I think we avoided federal government overreach with the Supreme Court's decision. Like Benjamin Franklin said, 'Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.'"

- Eliot Ovsiew, Mt. Juliet

Robert Shaffer, Columbia

"We moved here from Los Angeles six months ago to get away from unnecessary oppressive COVID policies. But just from a constitutional standpoint, it was apparent that the OSHA mandate was to attempt to work around how our constitution is set up without going through the right channels. Taking my feelings out of it, it was the right ruling. Even if I disagreed, the Supreme Court should uphold the Constitution whether we like it or not."

- Robert Shaffer, Columbia

This article originally appeared on The Daily Herald: Porch Talk: Maury County residents weigh-in on Supreme Court decision
The princes legal team said Virginia Giuffre may be suffering from false memories (AFP/Getty)

Prince Andrew has been accused of victim blaming after new court documents revealed that his lawyers have demanded to see Virginia Giuffres mental health records and confidential notes from counselling sessions.

The Duke of Yorks legal team has asked to interview Dr Judith Lightfoot, a psychologist, and Ms Giuffres husband Robert under oath to obtain information relating to alleged emotional and psychological harm and damages.

In the new court documents, his lawyers suggest that Ms Giuffres civil action against Prince Andrew, accusing him of sexually abusing her when she was a teenager, may be based on false memories.

Ms Giuffre claims to have been abused by Prince Andrew on three separate occasions  in London, in New York, and on Epsteins private island in the Caribbean. The Duke of York vehemently denies all allegations against him.

Dr Charlotte Proudman, a barrister and Cambridge academic specialising in violence against women, accused the duke of gaslighting victims of trauma, adding that his lawyers behaviour is the ultimate in victim-blaming.

She said: A lot of victims of abuse understandably reach out for therapeutic support.

[Andrews lawyers] are trying to discredit her. They are trying to find something she might have said to the psychologist that potentially undermines the claims she has made or to show potential inconsistencies.

A victim cant win - if theyve suffered trauma then theyve misremembered the abuse. But if they havent suffered trauma, then they cant have been abused. Go figure.  Dr Charlotte Proudman (@DrProudman) January 15, 2022

Dr Proudman called it one of the lowest forms of tactics that can be used.

Nazir Afzal, the former chief prosecutor in the Rochdale grooming scandal, said: [The] problem with Prince Andrews attempt to get his accusers therapy records to suggest that she has false memory is that Epstein admitted to abusing her, hence the settlement.

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The records will show she was traumatised like all abuse victims. Finally, it smacks of desperation.

Anna Birley, of the Reclaim These Streets campaign group for womens safety, added: It should never be a question of how the victim behaves, what she wears, how much she drank or what she shared with her therapist. Abuse is never OK and the focus should be on the actions of the perpetrator.

A similar strategy was attempted unsuccessfully by Ghislaine Maxwell against Ms Giuffre and other child sex abuse victims.

As Prince Andrews case looks set to head to trial later this year, he no longer holds his honorary military titles or royal patronages after being stripped of them earlier this week. He has also faced calls to lose his Duke of York title.

The Daily Mirror reported that the duke was left tearful after being told by the Queen he was being stripped of the roles.

A plaque in honour of Prince Andrew has also been removed from a wall at Torquay Police Station in Devon following a public complaint.

Senior officers said they took the decision to remove the plaque in line with the duke being stripped of his military titles along with the right to have His Royal Highness in front of his name.

Ms Giuffres lawyers are requesting testimonies from Robert Olney  Andrews former equerry, a royals personal assistant  and a woman called Shukri Walker, who claims to have seen the duke in Tramp nightclub in London, where Ms Giuffre said she went with him in 2001.

The documents say Ms Walker has stated publicly that she was a witness to Andrews presence at Tramp nightclub with a young woman who may have been Ms Giuffre.
A rabbi who is reportedly being held hostage inside a Texas synagogue is originally from Michigan and once worked in Detroit, according to the synagogue and a congressman in Michigan.

Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, who has been the rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, since 2006, is being held hostage by a man calling for the release of a convicted terror supporter, Aafia Siddiqui, according to the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram.

Cytron-Walker is originally from Lansing, according to a biography of him on the website of the synagogue. He attended the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, graduating in 1998.

Law enforcement officials block a residential street near Congregation Beth Israel synagogue where a man took hostages during services on Jan. 15, 2022, in Colleyville, Texas.

During college in Michigan, he spent "forty-eight hours on the streets as someone who was homeless and danced for over twenty-four hours as a part of a Dance Marathon," according to the synagogue's website.

He once worked for FOCUS:Hope in Detroit, a nonprofit formed in 1968 after the 1967 riots to fight racism and poverty that has job training programs.

"Learning the rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel is from Michigan and beloved by many in our district," said U.S. Rep. Andy Levin, D-Bloomfield Township, in a tweet. "This is so upsetting. ... there is NO excuse for this violence against our community."

U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Rochester Hills, said she's been in touch with the rabbi's family.

"I spoke with members of Rabbi Walkers family here in his home state of Michigan," Stevens wrote on Twitter. "I let them know I  and our entire community  are here for them. Please keep him, his congregants, and the Jewish community in your thoughts tonight."

Law enforcement officials gather at a local school near the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue on Jan. 15, 2022, in Colleyville, Texas.

After living in Michigan, the rabbi moved to Massachusetts, where he worked at the Amherst Survival Center, which has a food pantry and soup kitchen. He started at Congregation Beth Israel, a Reform congregation located in the Ft. Worth-Dallas metro area, in 2006.

More: Texas synagogue hostage-taker demands release of Aafia Siddiqui; 1 hostage released

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All we can do right now is pray for those members inside the congregation, for the whole community, and for our friend, Rabbi Cytron-Walker and his wonderful family, said an email sent by Rabbi Brian Zimmerman and President Russ Schultz of Beth-El Congregation in Fort Worth to their congregation, reported the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram.

Cytron-Walker attended Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion at its campuses in Jerusalem and Cincinnati, the synagogue said. He received his rabbinical ordination in 2006 and M.A. in Hebrew Letters in 2005.

It's unclear why the suspect has targeted the Texas synagogue.

Police secure the area around Congregation Beth Israel synagogue on Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022 in Colleyville, Texas. Authorities say a man has apparently taken hostages at the synagogue near Fort Worth, Texas. The Colleyville Police Department tweeted Saturday afternoon that it was conducting SWAT operations at the address of Congregation Beth Israel.

Known as "Lady Al-Qaeda," Siddiqui is a native of Pakistan who is currently serving an 86-year sentence at a federal women's prison in Fort Worth, reported the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. Her case has drawn widespread support in Pakistan.

A Jewish leader in metro Detroit expressed concern about the rabbis and others inside the synagogue.

"This terrible hostage taking in a Texas synagogue is striking fear in not only synagogues across America and the entire Jewish community, but all religious communities that cherish worship services and the safety of their congregations," said Asher Lopatin, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Metro Detroit/American Jewish Committee. "Synagogues, temples, churches and mosques must be cherished safe space as our schools must be as well. ... We are all praying for the safe release of all the hostages."

Contact Niraj Warikoo:nwarikoo@freepress.com or Twitter @nwarikoo

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Rabbi being held hostage in Texas is originally from Michigan
Danae King serves as the faith and values and immigration reporter at The Dispatch.

Danae King: Why I became a journalist

From a young age, Ive loved a good story. I read everything I could get my hands on. Eventually my love of reading turned into a love of writing and, coupled with my natural curiosity, a desire to be the person telling the stories, not just reading them.

As I started to find every opportunity to write, I began to realize my love for journalism went beyond telling stories and became more about making sure the truth is told. For me, journalism is about ensuring that someone is watching those in power, raising consciousness about injustices against those without power and getting the chance to educate people about things they may never otherwise hear or know about.

Danae's work:'There's no escape': Memories of being raped by Catholic priest haunt Columbus man

I started in high school, like many journalists I know, at my student paper. But, when that didnt satisfy my desire to tell stories, I began freelancing for two small papers in my hometown.

I never stopped writing and reporting through college, where I was heavily involved in the student newspaper. The more stories I got to tell, the more people I learned about and interviewed, the more I wanted to continue to be a journalist.

Danae King, Columbus Dispatch reporter photographed Thursday, Feb. 11, 2021.

What I like best about my job

I love so many aspects of my job: constantly getting to meet new people, telling stories people may not otherwise hear and giving a voice to the voiceless. But, what I like best about being a journalist is the public service aspect. When journalists look into a topic, they are able to hold people accountable, uncover injustice and cause change.

Danae's work: 'Back to being a refugee': Family displaced from Columbus apartments feels trauma again

The best part of being a journalist is the ability to help people.

A story I have worked on that has had a lasting impact on me

The Columbus Dispatch Assistant Metro Editor Ryan Smith takes a selfie while at the Driving Park library branch Mobile Newsroom with reporters Danae King and Mark Ferenchik.

So many stories I have written have impacted me and my views on certain topics. However, the one that makes me most thankful to be a journalist and that illustrates what I love most about it  it's impact and the change it can cause  is the coverage I have done on priest sexual abuse of minors in Columbus.

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In March 2019, when the Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus released a list of the priests who had been accused of abuse of a minor and had served in the diocese, I dug in.

Danae's work: Why arent Ohio officials investigating Catholic sex abuse cases?

Throughout the spring and into the summer, I reported on the diocese's handling of priest sexual abuse and built a database to show people information the diocese wasn't sharing: where accused priests had worked in the area.

The stories culminated in a project titled "Catholic Secrecy."

Columbus Dispatch reporter Danae King interviews a woman about a program to aid immigrants.

But, more than that, the stories caused change.

Before I started reporting on how the diocese works with abuse survivors and those accused of abuse, survivors had to report their abuse to a priest  something survivors' groups and experts said would deter people reporting at all, and could be re-traumatizing.

Danae's work: Database of priests accused of sexual abuse of a minor in the Columbus diocese

After my reporting, the diocese hired a counselor and lay person, not in the uniform of many survivors' abusers, and she is now the one who takes abuse reports.

Though it was a difficult topic to report on, what kept me going is the fact that I knew it must be even more difficult for the victims of abuse to tell their stories so others may be spared what they went through.

In May 2021, a survivor of priest sexual abuse contacted me to tell his story. He's working hard to change the laws in Ohio that make it so he, and others, can seek justice against their abusers and the church.

What is the biggest challenge I face?

The biggest challenge I face is that there are so many great stories to tell in central Ohio, sometimes it can be hard to find the time to tell them all. I'll never stop trying, though!

Dispatch Reporter Danae King takes a selfie with Reporter Erica Thompson while at the Driving Park library branch's mobile newsroom.

What I like to do when I'm not working

I love to read, hang out with my Goldendoodle puppy Ace and, COVID-permitting, spend time with my friends and attend the many fun events central Ohio has to offer in non-pandemic times.

Favorite event or central Ohio tradition:

Columbus Dispatch reporter Danae King on January 5, 2022.

The longer I live in Columbus, the more I love it. So, this is a hard one to pinpoint, but I think my favorite part about living here is getting to go see the Blue Jackets and the Clippers play. Anyone who knows me knows I'm not super interested in sports, but I love the atmosphere and the fun that is going to Columbus games. I also always have a hankering for cotton candy. The hot dogs don't hurt, either.

Why journalism matters

There are so many reasons. Chief among them, though, is it's unique ability to bring light to important topics people may not otherwise know about. For instance, I wrote recently about refugees who are being forced to leave their homes during the pandemic and winter. Once readers found out, many offered their help and support. I think that illustrates the incredible power of journalism to bring people together.

I also believe journalism, and storytelling specifically, can bring people together, create compassion and connect people to those they may think they have too many differences with to relate to.

Share your story: The Storytellers Project is coming to Columbus

That's why I recently joined the Storytellers Project and I am part of a team of reporters and editors organizing four annual live storytelling shows in Columbus this year. The themed shows each feature five storytellers from the community telling a personal story intended to inspire community connection.

Five Ohioans told their stories of a time when they experienced growth at the Columbus Storytellers Project event held Wednesday, March 9, 2022 at the Columbus Athenaeum in Downtown Columbus. Telling their stories were James Fuqua, Mallory Golski, Ramona Reyes, Chris Suel and Holly Zachariah. Columbus Dispatch Opinion and Community Engagement Editor Amelia Robinson, not pictured, hosted the event with Danae King, pictured, a Dispatch reporter and Columbus Storytellers Project Lead.

On March 9, June 15, September 14 and November 16 community members can attend shows at the Columbus Athenaeum, see the local schedule of shows and buy a ticket here, or apply to tell a story here.

You can support the work of Danae King and other local journalists with a subscription to The Dispatch. Read more about our staff:

Meet Mike Wagner: Dispatch projects reporter will go anywhere to do work that matters

Meet Mark Ferenchik: Reporter is news man on top of local issues

Meet Holly Zachariah: Dispatch reporter: 'Every day I meet someone who teaches me.'

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Meet Danae King, Columbus Dispatch faith, values, immigration reporter
Illinois State Rep. Avery Bourne, R-Morrisonville, questions Illinois State Rep. Lisa Hernandez, D-Cicero, on House Bill 2777, the bill redrawing the legislative districts in Illinois, on the floor of the Illinois House of Representatives at the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield, Ill., Friday, May 28, 2021.

Several news outlets, including the Chicago Tribune, are reporting that Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin will join the Republican gubernatorial primary contest as early as Monday, with State Rep. Avery Bourne of Morrisonville as his running mate for lieutenant governor.

If so, Irvin would join a field that already includes State Sen. Darren Bailey of Xenia and former State Sen. Paul Schimpf of Waterloo, and businessmen Gary Rabine of Woodstock and Petersburg native Jesse Sullivan.

See also: 'He was always encouraging': Freedom Rider Charles Person reflects on King, making history

Irvin most likely would have the backing of Ken Griffin, the founder of Citadel financial group and a political rival of Gov JB Pritzker. Pritzker announced his reelection bid in July and made a $90 million contribution to his campaign reflected by filings on the Illinois State Board of Elections website.

A hedge fund billionaire, Griffin had pledged to go "all in" to support a candidate against Pritzker.

Bourne, who at 22 became the youngest legislator to be sworn in to the Illinois General Assembly when she took office in 2015, has not publicly announced her plans for the 2022 election.

Bourne took Wayne Rosenthal's 95th district seat in the House when he left to become director of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources under Gov. Bruce Rauner. Bourne was then a first-year student at Washington University School of Law.

The 95th district includes Montgomery County as well as portions of Christian, Macoupin and Madison counties. Bourne lives in the newly drawn 108th district, which now includes the western and southern parts of Sangamon County, as well as part of Christian, Montgomery, Macoupin and Madison counties.

Bourne interned for U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, during his 2014 campaign. Bourne is married to Davis spokesman Aaron DeGroot.

Bourne didn't immediately return a phone call from The State Journal-Register.

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More: Springfield Police Chief Kenny Winslow announces retirement effective Jan. 28

Irvin was elected as Aurora's first Black mayor in 2017. If Irvin secures the nomination, he would be the first Black gubernatorial nominee from either major party in the state's history.

The Illinoize website reported that Irvin, 51, would likely make an announcement via video as early as Monday, which is Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Illinois State Rep. Avery Bourne, R-Morrisonville, speaks in opposition of Senate Bill 539, an omnibus ethics package, as representatives debate Gov. JB Pritzker's amendatory veto on the bill on the floor of the Illinois House of Representatives at the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield, Ill., Thursday, September 9, 2021. [Justin L. Fowler/The State Journal-Register]

Griffin spent just over $53.7 million in the 2020 campaign against a proposed constitutional amendment to allow the state to implement a graduated income tax.

Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788, sspearie@sj-r.com, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Morrisonville state rep Avery Bourne reportedly running for lieutenant governor
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

The owner of Innovo Kitchen said he caught Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand maskless on the premises.

John La Posta expressed his frustration after she ignored the state's mask mandate.

"I guess Senator Gillibrand thinks [...] she is special and above the rules," he said in a post.

A restaurant owner expressed his frustration after he caught New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand failing to comply with the state mask mandate.

Since December 10, masks have been required in all indoor public places in New York state unless businesses or venues implement a vaccine requirement.

John La Posta, the owner of Innovo Kitchen in Latham, said that during a visit to the restaurant, Gillibrand hurried past a large sign that read "masks required to enter."

Speaking to The New York Post on Saturday, La Posta said his staff didn't have the chance to ask her to wear a mask as she moved swiftly past them toward the tables.

Innovo Kitchen upholds a strict mask policy according to its website, where it states that all staff must wear them, as are customers whenever they are not seated.

"Gillibrand is part of the system that put the mask mandate in place. She thinks she's above the law," La Posta told The Post.

He said the incident was recorded by a surveillance camera, which he later posted to Instagram.

"The problem with NY politics in a nut shell. My Senator blowing past my manager before she can even ask her to put a mask on," La Post wrote on the post.

He added: "I guess Senator Gillibrand thinks that the Governor is wrong or she is special and above the rules."

Innovo Kitchen did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

In a statement issued to Fox News, Gillibrand said: "We all need to do our part to help stop the spread of Omicron and that means following state and local guidance. That includes me and I will do better going forward."

Across New York City, COVID-19 cases have been spreading rapidly in recent weeks. In December, the city recorded more than 270,000 positive cases amid a surge of the Omicron variant, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed.

This month, New York reported more than 11,500 COVID-19 hospitalizations, which is close to a record high. But experts cautioned that the latest figures include people who were admitted to the hospital for conditions unrelated to COVID-19, then later diagnosed with the disease.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Rupert Grint has compared JK Rowling to an aunt who he doesnt necessarily agree with as he addressed his tricky relationship with the author.

The British actor is among the Harry Potter stars to have spoken out against Rowling in the past regarding her views on transgender people.

In 2020, Grint joined his former co-stars Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson and issued a statement of response, reading: I firmly stand with the trans community and echo the sentiments expressed by many of my peers.

Trans women are women. Trans men are men. We should all be entitled to live with love and without judgement.

Writing in The Times What Ive Learnt column on Saturday (15 January), Grint explained that his current relationship with Rowling was complex.

I liken JK Rowling to an auntie, he said.

I dont necessarily agree with everything my auntie says, but shes still my auntie. Its a tricky one.

Last year, Grint defended his decision to speak out in support of the trans community following comments by Rowling.

I am hugely grateful [for] everything that shes done. I think that shes extremely talented, and I mean, clearly, her works are genius, he said. But yeah, I think also you can have huge respect for someone and still disagree with things like that.

Grint recently reunited with his Harry Potter castmates for an anniversary special titled Return to Hogwarts.

While Rowling did not appear in person alongside the cast, she was shown in a VT, while a number of the actors also spoke about the writers impact.

Luna Lovegood actor Evanna Lynch this week dismissed rumours of a rift between Rowling and the films cast, saying that while everyone on set held strong beliefs, she had not been given the cold shoulder.

In a recent interview, Emma Watson admitted that she was taken aback by a particular comment made by Grint during the reunion special.
Rachel Prado peers into a telescope aimed at the darkening sky above Agoura Hills on April 15, 2020. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

For at least 3,000 years, humans have documented patterns in the night sky. The periodic motions of celestial bodies across the sky told our ancestors when to hunt certain foods and plant crops, and how to navigate the oceans. Less than a century ago, everyone could look up and see a starry sky. Thats no longer true. Widespread urban light pollution has made it hard to see more than a handful of stars in many cities around the world.

A set of relatively new interlopers, artificial satellites, is causing more light pollution with each passing year. As they reflect sunlight from their high-altitude orbits, these satellites look just like stars moving across the sky. As of now, satellites are a novelty to be tracked and pointed out, but were about to transition from gawking at them to seeing them overrun the night sky in the next three to five years.

While this will continue to be annoying for casual stargazers, it will be devastating for research astronomy.

SpaceXs Starlink program has about 1,840 satellites in orbit, with provisional approval to launch 40,000 more, which is 10 times the total number of satellites currently in orbit. The purpose of this new megaconstellation of satellites, also called a satcon, is to provide internet access to customers worldwide, particularly rural dwellers who are struggling without it during the work-from-home years of the pandemic.

SpaceX is at the forefront of a new space race among private companies, with credible progress being made toward having at least 65,000 satellites in the sky operated by multiple companies. What might this future night sky look like?

Within two hours of sunrise or sunset, dozens to hundreds of satellites will be visible to the naked eye, creeping across the sky in all different directions in front of the stars, according to research my colleagues and I published last month in the Astronomical Journal.

This new form of light pollution would occur the world over. It wont matter if youre in the suburbs, or in one of the 18 official dark sky preserves or at the North Pole. When you look up at the night sky, one of every 15 points of light you can see with your own eyes will be moving satellites. They will completely change the night sky as we know it.

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Astronomers rely on totally dark skies to detect distant stars and galaxies that are so faint and tiny that huge telescopes have to gather light for minutes or hours at a time using powerful, sensitive cameras to capture an image. Thousands of sunlit satellites in the sky above each dark-sky telescope location will soon get in the way.

For my astronomy research, Im searching at the edge of our solar system for new icy worlds that are millions of times fainter than a typical Starlink satellite. By my calculations, several Starlinks will fly through each of my telescope images in the very near future. Its like trying to stargaze while someone periodically shines a laser pointer in your eye.

Light pollution from satcons is worst close to twilight, when telescope observation is vitally important to the discovery and careful orbital measurement of potentially hazardous asteroids. Early discovery of an object that could crash into the Earth is crucial to preventing it from happening. Societys twisted, lackluster reaction to the discovery of a hazardous comet careening toward Earth is at the heart of the satirical movie Don't Look Up, but what happens when we cant look up?

We cant just send more telescopes into space. Building and launching them costs at least 10 times as much as a significantly larger telescope that will be used on Earth. Despite having a smaller mirror than many ground-based telescopes, the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope is the most expensive such device ever built. At a cost of nearly $10 billion, it will consume a significant portion of NASAs astrophysics budget over many years. Additionally, the Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 1990, and most other space telescopes are in low-Earth orbit  along with thousands of their new satcon neighbors  and are already hampered by light pollution from satellites.

These satcons wont end astronomy research, but they will make it much more difficult, potentially causing us to lose 30% of our images to streaks caused by Starlink satellites alone. Some useful data can be extracted from a satcon-photobombed image, but it takes great computational and logistical effort.

The advent of a sea of satcons in space means that fewer groundbreaking (and potentially Earth-saving) astronomy discoveries will be made, primarily because of the actions of one private American company: SpaceX.

The only way the night sky can be saved is for satcon operators to make their satellites fainter or launch fewer of them. The Starlink program voluntarily tried painting one satellite black, but it overheated and quickly failed. Sunshield visors were added to some of its newer satellites in an attempt to make them too faint to see with the naked eye, but they didnt work as well. SpaceX needs to put more engineers on this vexing problem.

Despite these permanent, sky-changing drawbacks (as well as other pollution issues), providing internet access through satcons will hugely benefit a relatively small number of people. One possible solution would be to make satellite-internet service unnecessary. Instead, states and municipalities could invest in internet infrastructure such as rural broadband via fiberoptics or cell networks. At great cost to the world, the Starlink program provides a way for governments to avoid the expense of creating an internet infrastructure. No wonder they arent complaining.

With better engineering, perhaps a compromise could be reached.

SpaceX regularly lands rockets on drone ships in the ocean; its talented engineers ought to be able to make satellites fainter. They should figure out how to use fewer satellites to provide coverage for customers or share satellite infrastructure, as cell companies do with cell towers. SpaceX could help save astronomy research by contributing funding to offset the extra costs researchers will face while avoiding light pollution from its satellites.

We astronomers have absolutely no legal power over these huge international corporations. They will likely only respond to international legislation that may be very slow in coming. Consumer pressure can be applied: If customers have an alternative, they can choose not to subscribe to satellite internet. They can talk to their representatives in all levels of government and ask them to support other types of rural internet infrastructure  and to properly regulate satellites in orbit. They can also join an organization thats actively fighting light pollution, such as the International Dark Sky Assn.

Sure, satellites are impressive feats of engineering, but beyond them lie comets, exoplanets, black holes, galaxies and more fantastical physics than we can currently imagine. To know them, we need to be able to see them.

Samantha Lawler is an astronomer and an assistant professor at Campion College and the department of physics at the University of Regina in Canada.





This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
DHAKA, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- With COVID-19 cases surging again, private and public testing facilities in Bangladesh's capital Dhaka are now witnessing an unprecedented rush of patients.

Long queues were seen Sunday at one of the largest testing centers in Dhaka, Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital, where tests are conducted at a nominal fee.

In the past week, queues are also getting longer outside many other private and public facilities, which share RTPCR (reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction) results within 12 hours.

A total of 29,305 samples were tested in the last 24 hours across Bangladesh at the private and government facilities, after 24,028 on Saturday, the official data showed.

Bangladesh reported 5,222 new COVID-19 cases and eight new deaths on Sunday, bringing the tally to 1,617,711 and death toll to 28,144, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said.

On Saturday, the country reported 3,447 new cases. The cases have been rising remarkably in Bangladesh since the beginning of this month with offices, businesses and transport services in the country staying open.

Bangladeshi authorities on Thursday started to impose stringent rules to combat a fresh spike in COVID-19 infections.

In parts of Dhaka and elsewhere in the country, mobile courts initiated drives and fined those violating the restrictions.

On Monday, Bangladesh's Cabinet Division issued a circular with 11-point directives to be effective from Thursday until further notice.

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday urged unvaccinated people to get jabbed to protect lives from the Omicron variant of COVID-19.

Speaking at an inauguration ceremony online, Hasina said the Omicron variant is spreading fast and families are getting infected, calling on all people in the country to follow the health protocols properly and abide by the latest directives issued by the authorities.

According to the official data, the COVID-19 fatality rate in Bangladesh is now 1.74 percent and the current recovery rate is 95.99 percent.

The total number of recovered patients in the country stood at 1,552,893 including 293 new recoveries, said the DGHS.

Bangladesh recorded the highest daily new cases of 16,230 on July 28 last year and the highest number of 264 deaths twice on Aug. 5 and Aug. 10, 2021. 
It may not have snowed in the capital city, but some parts of central and northern Mississippi were blanketed Sunday morning as rain turned to snow overnight.

Since there was no snowfall in Jackson where Ashley Morgan of Mobile, Alabama, was visiting family, she drove to Canton to play in the snow with her granddaughter, 3-year-old Margaret Richardson of Jackson.

Canton received between 7-9 inches of snow overnight.

Nearby, Whitney Lowe of New Orleans watched her children play in the snow at SAAB Kiddie Park in Canton.

We dont get this at home very often, either, Lowe said.

The shift to frozen precipitation began around midnight, said Joanne Culin, a senior meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Jackson.

About 9 inches of snow was reported in Leesburg, near the Rankin-Scott County line. Madison County, about 10 miles east of Canton, saw around 8 inches of snow, Culin said. Farmhaven reported around 7 inches.

"There is still some lighter snowfall that is pushing south and east across areas through the morning and into the afternoon," Culin said.

Snowfall drifted as far south as Jones County, which saw a dusting of snow, and Smith County reported about 2 inches of snow in the Raleigh area.

Power outages hit some parts of north Mississippi, including Quitman, Tallahatchie, Tunica and Panola counties in the northwest and Tippah, Benton and Alcorn counties in the northeast, according to poweroutage.us. About 3,500 customers were without power Sunday morning in Mississippi.

The system will continue to push east and southward Sunday, and the colder temperatures will remain, Culin said.

"We are looking at a rather chilly day across the area with highs in the 30s, especially across east Mississippi, maybe a little warmer in the west," she said.

Temperatures are expected to warm up on Monday with a high around 54 degrees in the Jackson area before dropping to the low 30s Monday night.

Tuesday will be much warmer, with a high of 61 degrees and a low of 47. The warming trend will continue through Wednesday, then is expected to be much colder the rest of the week with highs in the low- to mid-40s and lows in the 20s.

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This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Clarion Ledger photographer Barbara Gauntt contributed to this story.

Do you have a story to share? Contact Lici Beveridge at lbeveridge@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @licibev or Facebook at facebook.com/licibeveridge.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Central, northern Mississippi sees heavy snowfall early Sunday
Welcome to the debut edition of the Upstate Capitol Report!

This newsletter was supposed to come out yesterday on a day spent remembering Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but alas, technology continues to challenge some of my best laid plans. Moving forward, you can expect this newsletter in your inbox at 7 a.m. each Monday.

That being said, as we emerge out of a snowstorm, bundled up in at least three layers of clothing and a shovel to clear the yard, I hope you are all safe and well.

A lot happened the past week, so the newsletter is on the longer side... (don't blame me, I was excited). Lets just dive right into it.

Money, COVID-19 and schools

Last week started with Gov. Henry McMaster unveiling his budget recommendations for the upcoming fiscal year. This is important because a budget will tell you about the state's priorities and also foreshadows campaign promises during an election year.

Lucky for you all, I spent five days last week in New York to learn how to become the toughest, baddest fiscal reporter. (You're very welcome)

Here's a few things that caught my attention:

1) McMaster proposed increasing the state's rainy day fund by adding $500 million to it to ensure that the fund's balance is equivalent to no less than 10% of the state's budget.

That's a lot of money and was expected after being confronted with another financial downturn.

Rep. West Cox, R-Greenville, mentioned that he was advocating for a bill that intends to fatten up the rainy day fund, which is in line with what McMaster is proposing.

Considering the emergency payments doled out to fight COVID-19, a good rainy day fund economically makes sense. But with South Carolina's frugal, minimalistic lifestyle that would also mean cutting costs for other programs.

What's the Legislature going to do? We'll see.

2) Speaking of cutting costs, McMaster also suggested cutting the personal income tax by 1% over five years for all personal income tax brackets. Business groups in the state have been lobbying for this for years and national experts expected states to be involved in some version of tax cuts.

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However, it may just pass this year.

Generally, tax experts tend to be wary of messaging around tax cuts, especially now when states are experiencing an "artificial high." In South Carolina, which has the 39th most unequal tax policy in the country, lower-income families pay the biggest share of sales and property taxes. So even if they're paying lower income taxes, they are paying more dollars either way.

3) McMaster proposed $20 million for "educational savings accounts", depending on how and when lawmakers act on it.

Lawmakers want to give parents money for enrolling their children in a private school or paying for services like therapy and counseling. State lawmakers have proposed spending $3 billion over five years to achieve that. That's the size of South Carolina's entire annual education budget.

Teachers and public school advocates who attended a meeting in the Statehouse last week criticized this proposition as they fear it would take money out of public school schools, something that already happens because of South Carolina's education funding model. Did you know Greenville County school district lost revenue of nearly $44 million in 2020 because of all the tax agreements to spur the economy?

A Senate meeting is planned for Wednesday, January 19, at 10:30 a.m. in the Gressette Building room 207.

Nevertheless

It's a land of opportunity because South Carolina, like most states, is sitting on a trove of U.S. dollars. A trove!

There's over $2 billion of COVID-19 federal funding and an extra $3 billion in state coffers because of the General Assembly's decision in 2020 to use the 2019 budget and limit spending. But to everyone's surprise and contrary to what happened in the 2008 financial crisis, the market in the U.S. bounced back extremely fast  thanks to all the home decorations and furniture people bought to jazz up their homes and home offices.

(This is exactly the right moment to play this song.)

Anyway, apart from the funds the state received, school districts too received direct federal funding to survive the pandemic.

But some parents in the Upstate are pretty upset by Greenville County school district's COVID-19 response. One parent I spoke with asked an extremely important question, which really begs more focus considering the public health nightmare we're living in: have we been more reactive than proactive?

Read here: 'Reactive than proactive': Upstate SC families question state, local response to COVID-19

All of the extra money means that the state is essentially sitting on over $7 billion besides its annual state budget. And there's more of it expected after the $1.2 trillion infrastructure deal a couple of months ago, which seven of the South Carolina congressional delegation's nine members voted against (Only Sen. Lindsey Graham and Rep. James Clyburn voted for it).

Some budget highlights that my colleagues and I wrote about last week:

Spending $1.26 billion to speed up the start of road and bridge projects statewide, including the widening of Interstate 85 in Greenville and Spartanburg counties. Reworking an education funding model that was proposed in 1977 and has since then remained unchanged. A key part of that is increasing minimum teacher salaries across the state to $38,000 per year. What's the catch? School districts in Greenville, Anderson and Spartanburg counties that already pay over the proposed minimum wage don't have to necessarily increase teacher salaries.

It's really up to them how they intend to use the money.

Some teachers have said that they don't believe it's helping people who need at least $3,000 more to live comfortably in a housing market like Greenville.

More: McMaster proposes education funding overhaul, increased staff pay, improve transparency

More: McMaster proposes $1.26 billion to accelerate 'high priority' roads, including I-85 widening

A bill that would have let doctors deny care to the LGBTQ community

Sen. Josh Kimbrell from Spartanburg introduced a bill that would give medical practitioners the right to decide the kind of patients they wanted to serve. The operative word in the bill is "conscience" and when you say conscience, you're generally going down the "morality" road in policy-making. Obviously, LGBTQ advocates raised a red flag and said that this would allow medical discrimination.

The bill didn't go past the subcommittee because Upstate senators feared the language could be used by medical professionals to deny medical services to people who are refusing the vaccine.

Redistricting

It's still happening and is likely to affect the upcoming election filings in March. The House Congressional map has invited criticism for "packing" or concentrating the majority of Black voters in Clyburn's district. The new map carved out a big chunk of Charleston from Congressional District 1, which is set up to host an incredibly competitive race between incumbent Rep. Nancy Mace and contender, Dr. Annie Andrews.

On the other hand, the senate judiciary committee has the option to pick either the House's version or another map, which voting advocates much prefer.

The senate judiciary committee will meet on Tuesday to advance the bill.

Power changes in the Upstate

Speaking of voting and elections, two veteran Greenville lawmakers, Rep. Garry Smith and Rep. Tommy Stringer have said that they won't be running for re-election. That's two big ranking lawmakers in a General Assembly that really reminds you that seniority is key in lawmaking.

The new voting districts on the state level also mean that Rep. Neal Collins from the Pickens county delegation and Rep. Jay West from Anderson will join Greenville county delegation meetings after the recent shuffle. Rep. Rita Allison from Spartanburg is no longer part of the Greenville County delegation.

So here's what you need to know for the upcoming week:

Jan. 18, Tuesday: The senate was supposed to meet today to discuss the voting maps for the Congressional districts. That meeting was canceled because of the weather.

Jan. 19, Wednesday: At 10 a.m., a few lawmakers will be meeting with conservation advocates to discuss issues like water contamination in drinking water (presented by Megan Chase from the Upstate Forever), protected lands and funding for an environmental and natural resource agency. I'm particularly interested in this meeting because of how overworked DHEC is and whether these policy recommendations address South Carolina's absent climate policy.

At 10:30 a.m., Senators will be meeting again to discuss the controversial "Education Savings Account" bill (S.935). This meeting will not be streamed. But I'll be there so you'll know how it goes.

At 11 a.m., House lawmakers will be meeting to discuss a combination of bills that direct the state to pay the costs of a driver's education program approved by the department, the driver's license fee and motor vehicle insurance, up to a maximum limit of $2,000 per child, per 12-month period, for a child 15 to 18 years of age in the care of the SC Department of Social Services.

Jan. 19 is also the day of the State of the State where Gov. Henry McMaster will be giving a long review of a lot of what we've written about in the past few months and most importantly, what's to come.

Jan. 20, Thursday: At 9:30 a.m., Senators will be discussing a loan forgiveness program for healthcare professionals (S.0712). Geared towards retaining employees in short-staffed rural hospitals, this bill is passed could award up to $30,000 to an eligible healthcare professional in an underserved rural area or an urban area with underserved populations.

At 10 a.m., another bill (H.3590) addressing South Carolina's workforce issue will be discussed by the Senate education subcommittee on Jan. 20. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Allison from Spartanburg, can allow school districts to hire non-certified teachers, provided they have a bachelor's degree in the subject area they wish to teach.

Also at 10 a.m., the Senate medical affairs committee will discuss a bill that would not allow health professionals to administer the COVID-19 vaccine to minors without parental consent.

That's all from me today!

I'll be back next week with more updates on how everything goes. In the meantime, here's my sincere ask again:

If theres something Im missing, dont hesitate to reach out. I welcome any feedback, news tips and ideas you have.

My work isnt possible without Greenville News subscribers. If you subscribe, thank you. If you dont, I hope youll believe that we care, want to do good journalism every day and consider supporting our work.

Signing out,

This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Here's what's up in South Carolina
States move to stop insurance companies from discriminating against your dog

When it comes to dogs, insurance companies keep their customers on a short leash.

In most states, providers are allowed to consider your dogs breed when setting your monthly premium  or whether theyll insure you at all.

However, some states are throwing their dog-loving residents a bone.

New York banned the practice this month, ensuring owners can get the coverage they need even if their pet is considered high-risk. Michigan and Pennsylvania already have similar rules regarding denial of coverage, and Nevada recently joined, as well.

What if you dont live in a puppy-loving state? Heres more on which breeds are most likely to raise your premiums and what you can do about it.

Which breeds are typically discriminated against?

Insurance providers dont typically publish lists of which dogs they consider risky or dangerous, but numerous sources have reported that the following breeds could put you in a bind:

Pit bulls

German Shepherds

Akitas

Staffordshire Terriers

Chows

Alaskan Malamutes

Doberman Pinschers

Great Danes

Siberian Huskies

Rottweilers

Presa Canarios

Wolf hybrids

Of that list, youll likely have the most trouble with pitbulls, Rottweilers and wolf hybrids. Once they learn of your dogs descent, home insurance companies may require owners to exclude dog liability coverage from their policy, increase their rates or cancel their policies outright.

Why do insurers do this?

Most home insurance policies provide coverage for dog-based damage. That means if your pet ever bites a neighbor or rips up their prized petunias, youll be able to file a claim to cover the medical or repair bills.

While your dogs breed is by no means a perfect predictor of whether it will attack someone or cause property damage, many insurers feel confident that genetic differences will influence a pets temperament and statistical chance of causing trouble.

If a breed startles easily, tends to be aggressively protective or is simply big and strong, its considered much more likely to hurt someone or cause property damage, even unintentionally.

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Injuries and property damage from dogs are some of the most common liability claims made on a home insurance policy. And dog bite claims can get very expensive: The average cost in 2020 was $50,425, according to the Insurance Information Institute industry group.

Do dog owners have any recourse?

Beyond lobbying your state government, theres not much you can do about your insurance companys policy on dogs. However, that doesnt mean you have to settle for paying more.

Not every provider discriminates against dog breeds. Even if most of the carriers in your area do discriminate, they may not all share the same list.

That means if you shop around, you may be able to find a much cheaper rate on your homeowners insurance.

The Insurance Information Institute recommends you compare at least three quotes before settling on an offer to ensure you get the best possible rate. Annual savings can total $1,000 or more once you tally up all of the factors involved.

If that method doesnt work for you, you can always look into getting dog-specific insurance or umbrella coverage to supplement what your home insurer wont cover.

This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.
A particularly strong storm cell with a tornado rotation appeared to be bearing down on Everglades City at a time when many people were in church Sunday morning.

Bob Wallace, pastor of Everglades Community Church, moved members into the safest space in the church, an interior hallway, without windows, between the offices and the church. People set up chairs there and continued their service.

Everyones cellphones kept going off, so we were keeping up with what was going on, he said.

Live updates: Strong storms, confirmed tornado slam Southwest Florida with wind damage reported

More: Red Cross assisting Southwest Florida families in need after severe weather

At Holy Family Catholic Church in Everglades City, 10:30 a.m. Mass was celebrated as usual for a congregation of around 40, with a volunteer stationed at a west window to monitor the storm.

The church, like all in the Diocese of Venice, has an emergency plan, said the Rev. Timothy Navin, its priest in charge. Parishioners can take cover in its two inside restrooms.

The choir music was augmented with intermittent choruses of alarms, said member Elaine Middlestaedt: We just looked at our phones and kept singing.

Brandon Smallwood, who was at the Smallwood General Store, said he understood a tornado had bounced once on his property, at a high point in the Chokoloskee area. But there, as elsewhere, damage was largely fallen tree branches and overturned light objects such as lawn chairs and trash cans.

This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Severe storms in Southwest Florida hit as churches held Sunday services
Up and at 'em, Sunset Park! It's Monday! Diane Witek here to get you started with everything you need to know going on in Sunset Park today.

First, today's weather:

Morning rain, then flurries. High: 40, low: 26.

Here are the top stories in Sunset Park today:

There are volunteering opportunities available to in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Make Monday, a day off, a day to contribute. Family-friendly volunteering opportunities for all ages scatter the borough, in Sunset Park there is an opportunity to paint a community mural and much more opportunities throughout Brooklyn. (Brooklyn Reader) We all know that when the pandemic hit, unemployment hit an unprecedented level. Recently, the unemployment figures for November; saw the rate improve since October in the Sunset Park area and continues to be lower than it was after the pandemic first struck. Nationally, employment rose by 199,000 jobs in December, and the unemployment rate dropped by 0.3 percentage points to 3.9 percent. Some experts predict January and possibly February hiring will slow down due to the omicron coronavirus variant, according to The New York Times. (Sunset Park Patch)

Today's Sunset Park Daily is brought to you in part by Newrez, a leading nationwide mortgage lender. Make a smart move for your future and refinance with Newrez today. Call 844-979-1707 to connect with a Newrez loan officer. Newrez, LLC (NMLS #3013)

From my notebook:

Sunset Park 5th Avenue BID: "Extended time for Reduced fines, and waived interest & penalties for Small business operators: The City of New York is offering a temporary program allowing you to pay a reduced amount for eligible Environmental Control Board judgments." (Facebook)

Fifth Avenue Committee: "Let's fight this new variant by getting tested. Visit NYC.Gov/COVIDTest or text "COVID TEST" to 855-48 and find a test site near you." (Facebook)

More from our sponsors  thanks for supporting local news!

Story continues

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Add your announcement.

Loving the Sunset Park Daily? Here are all the ways you can get more involved:

Send a friend or neighbor this link so they can subscribe.

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Send me a news tip or suggestion at diane.witek@patch.com.

You're all caught up for today. I'll see you soon!

 Diane Witek

About me: Impassioned Writer, Website Designer, Social Media Marketer and newly proclaimed Baker. Lover of nature and animals of all kinds.

This article originally appeared on the Sunset Park Patch
FBI Dallas Special Agent in Charge Matthew DeSarno Brandon Bell/Getty Images

The United Kingdom's government has confirmed that the suspect killed during an FBI assault that freed three hostages from a Texas synagogue was a British citizen, The Times of Israel reported Sunday.

The attacker was seen in a Facebook livestream of the synagogue's service Saturday morning before the feed cut out at around 2:00 p.m. In the video, he could be heard shouting in what some sources described as a British accent but which appeared to contain Middle Eastern inflections as well. The man also reportedly made comments about Islam, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

BREAKING: "I'm going to die at the end of this" is what the Colleyville, Texas synagogue hostage taker said, shortly before the livestream ended. pic.twitter.com/lgJ6lvQRmP  The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) January 15, 2022

A hostage rescue team stormed the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, on Saturday night, ending an almost 11-hour standoff with a hostage-taker armed with a gun and claiming to have a bomb, CNN reported.

The suspect, who demanded the release of an al-Qaeda-linked Pakistani woman serving an 86-year sentence in Texas for attempting to kill U.S. service members in Afghanistan, was shot and killed.

Four people, including the congregation's rabbi, were initially taken hostage. The suspect released one hostage around 5:00 p.m. The other three were freed following the FBI raid, which started around 10:00 p.m.

FBI Dallas Special Agent in Charge Matthew DeSarno told reporters the suspect has been identified, but authorities are not yet ready to reveal his name. He added that the FBI's international offices in London and Tel Aviv are assisting with the investigation.

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New Jersey community leaders condemned the attack Saturday on a Jewish house of worship in Texas and said the act reflected growing antisemitism across the nation.

Malik Faisal Akram, 44, a British citizen, took hostages at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, on Saturday, according to the FBI and media reports. He appears to have acted alone, according to the bureau.

Akram was killed and none of the four hostages were seriously injured, according to USA TODAY.

Rabbi Moshe Zev Weisberg  a former Lakewood committeeman and spokesperson for the Lakewood Vaad, a group of Orthodox Jewish business and community leaders  said he was thankful the hostages were rescued by law enforcement. Weisberg said he was concerned the incident was another example of increasing deadly violence in community spaces that were once considered safe.

Law enforcement officials across the nation have increased security around Jewish neighborhoods, schools and houses of worship in response to the attack, he said.

Police respond to a hostage situation at the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue on Jan. 16 in Colleyville, Texas.

"It's so sad and tragic that our country, with its cherished principles of diversity and tolerance, should again be subjected to the murderous fanaticism of extremist haters," Weisberg said. "This disgrace is further aggravated by the location and activities of the attack  a house of worship during prayer services, and the well known reputation of this temple and its rabbi being role models of co-existence and mutual respect in their community. We can only pray that the survivors heal from this ordeal and trauma."

The synagogue's Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker was among the hostages, according to USA TODAY.

COVID update: Is this omicron's peak? NJ COVID hospitalizations decline for fourth day

WEATHER: Latest NJ Sunday weather forecast predicts snow in northwest, gusts and flooding at Shore

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R- N.J., co-chair of the House Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Anti-Semitism, said Saturday's hostage situation was a reminder of increasing acts of antisemitism and violence against the Jewish community.

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"We must condemn hatred of Jews wherever it occurs and from whatever quarter, and Congress must continue to provide robust funding for protecting synagogues and other houses of worship," he said in a statement on Sunday.

U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., said he was devastated by the attack on the Texas synagogue.

"My thoughts are with the Jewish community in Colleyville," he said in a Twitter post. "This tragic incident shows why we need to address rising antisemitism in the U.S. Thankfully, all the hostages are now safe and free."

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, on Twitter, said he prayed for the safety of the hostages.

"Members of the Jewish community must be able to practice their faith without fear," he said.

The FBI's investigation had expanded to Great Britain and Israel, according to USA TODAY.

Amanda Oglesby is an Ocean County native who covers Brick, Barnegat and Lacey townships as well as the environment. She has worked for the Press for more than a decade. Reach her at @OglesbyAPP, aoglesby@gannettnj.com or 732-557-5701.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Texas synagogue attack condemned by NJ leaders
Photograph: Elias Valverde/AP

A man who died after taking four people hostage at a Texas synagogue has been named by the FBI as 44-year-old British national Malik Faisal Akram.

Akram began a standoff with police after disrupting a religious service at the Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, and taking hostages including the rabbi. He released one hostage unharmed after six hours.

More than 10 hours after the siege began, members of the FBIs hostage rescue team stormed the synagogue to free the three remaining hostages. They were said to be alive and well after the siege had been brought to an end.

On Sunday, Joe Biden said the gunman had used weapons he got off the street to commit an act of terror.

The US president, who was visiting a food bank in Philadelphia, said: I dont have all the facts, nor does the attorney general  but allegedly the assertion was he got the weapons on the street.

He purchased them when he landed and it turns out there apparently were no bombs that we know of  Apparently he spent the first night in a homeless shelter. I dont have all the details yet so Im reluctant to go into much more detail.

Akrams family said they were devastated by his death, Sky News reported. His brother Gulbard said in a statement that family members had spent hours liaising with Faisal during the hostage-taking, and that although he was suffering from mental health issues we were confident that he would not harm the hostages,.



The family said they do not condone any of his actions and would like to sincerely apologise wholeheartedly to all the victims involved in the unfortunate incident, according to Sky.

Reports suggested that a live stream of the Shabbat service, available on Facebook during the standoff until it was cut off at 2pm local time, captured audio of a man talking in an English accent.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan police in London said counter terrorism policing officials were liaising with their US counterparts over the incident.

Story continues

The police department said it first sent in Swat teams at the synagogue in response to emergency calls beginning at about 10.40am. The FBI made contact with the man who said he wanted to speak to a woman held in a federal prison.

Video from Dallas TV station WFAA shows people running out a door of the synagogue, and then a man holding a gun opening the same door just seconds later, before he turns around and closes the door. Moments later, several rounds of gunfire can be heard, followed by the sound of an explosion.

FBI special agent in charge, Matt DeSarno, said the hostage taker was specifically focused on an issue not directly connected to the Jewish community, and there was no immediate indication that the man was part of any broader plan. But DeSarno said the agencys investigation will have global reach.

In the live stream, the hostage-taker was heard demanding the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist suspected of having ties to al-Qaida, who was convicted of trying to kill US military officers while in custody in Afghanistan, a law enforcement official said. Siddiqui is in federal prison in Texas serving an 86-year sentence.

Multiple people heard the hostage-taker refer to Siddiqui as his sister on the livestream, but John Floyd, board chair for the Houston chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations  the nations largest Muslim advocacy group  said Siddiquis brother, Mohammad Siddiqui, was not involved.

This assailant has nothing to do with Dr Aafia, her family, or the global campaign to get justice for Dr Aafia. We want the assailant to know that his actions are wicked and directly undermine those of us who are seeking justice for Dr Aafia, said Floyd, who is also legal counsel for Mohammad Siddiqui.

We have confirmed that the family member being wrongly accused of this heinous act is not near the DFW Metro area.

The man could be heard saying repeatedly he did not want to see anyone hurt and that he believed he was going to die, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

On Sunday the British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, condemned the incident in a statement posted on Twitter. My thoughts are with the Jewish community and all those affected by the appalling act in Texas. We condemn this act of terrorism and antisemitism, Truss said. She added: We stand with US in defending the rights and freedoms of our citizens against those who spread hate.

Colleyville, a community of about 26,000 people, is about 15 miles (23 km) north-east of Fort Worth. The synagogue is nestled among large houses in a leafy residential neighborhood. Congregation Beth Israel is led by Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, who has been there since 2006 as the synagogues first full-time rabbi.

Anna Salton Eisen, a founder and former president of the synagogue, said the congregation has about 140 members and Cytron-Walker has worked hard to build interfaith relationships in the community, including doing pulpit swaps and participating in a community peace walk.

This is unlike anything weve ever experienced. You know, its a small town and its a small congregation, Eisen said as the hostage situation was ongoing. No matter how it turns out its hard to fathom how we will all be changed by this, because surely we will be.
Xi stresses safeguarding national security, social stability, peaceful lives

Xinhua) 09:22, January 16, 2022

BEIJING, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, has called for efforts to safeguard national political security, social stability and the peaceful life of the people.

Xi, also Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the call in a recent instruction to the political and legal work.

Efforts should be made to ensure fair access to justice for every individual, Xi said in the instruction.

Calling on the political and legal work front to uphold the absolute leadership of the CPC and draw wisdom and strength from the Party's century-long struggle, Xi urged them to promote the ability to forestall and defuse major risks and improve law enforcement and judicial policies and measures.

Xi also stressed deepening the comprehensive reform of political and legal work and consolidating the achievement made in the education campaign of officers of the front.

Party committees at all levels should study and resolve the prominent issues that restrain political and legal work in a timely manner and support political and legal organs to perform their duties in accordance with laws, Xi noted in the instruction.

Efforts should be made to provide a strong guarantee for advancing the Peaceful China initiative and promoting the rule of law at a higher level, thus welcoming the 20th CPC National Congress with solid actions, Xi said.

Xi's instruction was conveyed by Guo Shengkun, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and head of the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the CPC Central Committee, at a central conference on the political and legal work on Saturday.

(Web editor: Peng Yukai, Liang Jun)
KABUL, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- One suspected kidnapper has been killed and four suspects arrested after intelligence personnel of Afghanistan's caretaker government busted an armed kidnapping group in western province of Herat, Afghan General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI) confirmed on Sunday.

The Special Forces of GDI launched an operation against a hideout of a kidnapping gang in Guzara, a district on outskirts of provincial capital Herat city on Saturday, the agency tweeted.

According to the source, a kidnapped teenager, son of a known local goldsmith, was freed from the gang's clutch. The group was involved in several armed kidnapping incidents in the province, 640 km in the west of Afghanistan's Kabul.

The Taliban-run administration has vowed to crack down on the outlaws to ensure law and order in war-torn Afghanistan.

On Friday, security personnel rescued a famous physician and arrested eight people charged with involvement in the abduction in Kabul. 
Travelers from around the world will soon be able to appreciate art from one of Texas Tech Universitys very own.

William Cannings is an associate professor of sculpture in Texas Techs School of Art, housed within the J.T. & Margaret Talkington College of Visual & Performing Arts.

The installation of 30 inflated steel clouds will be near gate 50 of the William P. Hobby Airport in Houston.

William Cannings, an associate professor of sculpture in Texas Techs School of Art, will have his art installation of 30 inflated steel clouds installed near gate 50 of the William P. Hobby Airport in Houston.

Im fortunate enough to have known Professor Cannings for many years and Im thrilled for this latest recognition of his stature as a contemporary art maker, said Genevieve Durham DeCesaro, interim dean of the J.T. & Margaret Talkington College of Visual & Performing Arts.

Professor Cannings demonstrates the rigor, courage and creative innovation demanded of professional artists. On behalf of our students, faculty and staff, I celebrate his selection by the city of Houstons Airports Public Art Program and very much look forward to seeing his work installed as a part of the Houston Civic Art Collection.

The art installation was spearheaded by the city of Houston to increase public art in specific sites throughout the city. Roughly 380 artists submitted proposals with Cannings selected as one of the finalists.

Im still a bit in shock, Cannings said. This accomplishment is a nice progression in my own trajectory as an artist and as a faculty member at Texas Tech. Its yet another example I can pull into the classroom to show students what we can accomplish as artists.

In addition to the installation at Hobby Airport, Cannings also has work displayed in other parts of Houston, Dallas and Miami.

The steel clouds are inflated by injecting compressed air heated to approximately 1,500 degrees. It is a process Cannings has been developing for more than 20 years.

The clouds themselves were inspired by the Llano Estacado and all the beautiful clouds we see in the sky here, Cannings said. It was a simple idea, but I thought it fit well in the airports atmosphere. Airports by nature can be stressful places, so I wanted to create something whimsical that could transport people as they move about the concourse.

The clouds will be installed in May of 2022 and will be a permanent fixture. The airport averages 14 million visitors per year, providing high visibility for the piece.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Texas Tech School of Art faculty member to have work installed in Houston airport
Retired Stockton community services director Suzy Daveluy checks out a display at the Fair Oaks Library in Stockton. Daveluy, who started out and worked most of her 32-year career in the Stockton-San Joaquin Public Library, retired in December.

Suzy Daveluy once made a deal with the young readers who frequented the library where she worked. If they could collectively read a certain number of pages, she'd let one of them squash a pie in her face.

The former librarian and director of Stockton's Community Services Department retold the story with relish.

"I had this sweet little boy, who I had seen grow up. And hes holding this pie...and hes like, 'Ms. Suzy, I dont want to throw it in your face.' And Im like, 'oh, its OK, honey, its OK! 

Luis Barrera, 9, takes video of Children's librarian Suzy Daveluy after she was hit with a banana cream pie on July 31, 2014. Barrera, who read 22 books, was one of about 400 kids that read more than 3,500 books. Children who visit the Chavez Library were challenged to read 2,500 books this summer. They celebrated the goal by throwing pies at Community Services' Interim Director Craig Bronzan and children's librarian Suzy Daveluy.

"They read like, three times as many books [as they had to]. I mean, it was crazy."

Daveluy retired in December after 32 years of marshaling her enthusiasm and sense of fun to serve visitors to Stockton-San Joaquin Public Libraries as well as local recreation centers and parks.

She found her passion as a children's librarian after starting out as a library assistant in 1989, and earning graduate degrees in law and library science along the way.

"Its really hard to beat having that moment with a young person  especially a beginning reader ... and helping them find that right book for their level," she said.

"And then seeing the joy and the pride on their face when they get it? Its just huge."

Librarian Suzy Daveluy talks to the kids with puppets Feb. 6, 2014, at Cesar Chavez Library in downtown Stockton.

Daveluy has worked at most of the library system's branches at some point in her career, and served as both deputy director and director of Community Services in recent years.

Cultivating individual relationships  whether with kids from a story time group or with Spanish-speaking moms visiting the library looking to improve their English  was at the heart of how Daveluy worked to make the libraries welcoming spaces.

The libraries [are] often referred to now as the community living room. Its a place where all are welcome. ... Its the most equitable institution in a community, in my opinion."

Individual connections with kids learning to read were especially important to Daveluy. Learning to read is an uphill climb for many local students: only about 30% of third graders in San Joaquin County read at their grade level, she said.

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Daveluy recalled one child whose frustration with reading was palpable. But after practicing regularly with a teen tutor through the Book Buddies program, which Daveluy and a colleague created, "he blossomed."

Around 70% of the kids who participated in Book Buddies went up at least one reading level, she said.

I just never let him lose his confidence. I did everything in my power to give him that confidence. And give him that assurance that he was going to get it," Daveluy said.

Retired Stockton community services director Suzy Daveluy checks out a display at the Fair Oaks Library in Stockton. Daveluy, who started out and worked most of her 32-year career in the Stockton-San Joaquin Public Library, retired in December.

"Gosh, is it as simple as that? I think it is.

Daveluy often squatted down to address the many kids she knew through the library as a peer, rather than as an authority figure.

"They're going to open up to an adult who gets on their level. Doesnt talk down to them, but gets on their level and listens to them."

Thats why I had to retire. My knees are bad! she joked.

Now, it's "time for a new chapter," Daveluy said. She plans to volunteer at two schools where she serves on the board, as well as with a local Alzheimer's association. Daveluy also plans to write her own children's book.

One of the things Im most proud of [at Community Services] is building a team of amazing people that care, and that want to serve the community. And my wish is that they just continue doing that."

Record reporter Aaron Leathley covers business, housing, and land use. She can be reached at aleathley@recordnet.com or on Twitter @LeathleyAaron. Support local news, subscribe to The Stockton Record at https://www.recordnet.com/subscribenow.

This article originally appeared on The Record: Stockton Community Services Director Suzy Daveluy retires
A strong cold front pushing through South Florida lashed the state Sunday with storms including at least one tornado that shredded mobile homes in Fort Myers.

The National Weather Service in Miami canceled a tornado watch for Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties shortly before 2 p.m. While tornado warnings were issued for areas of western Palm Beach County, including Belle Glade and Pahokee, no damage had been reported to the NWS as of early afternoon.

Reports to the National Weather Service office in Tampa say "extensive" damage was done in Fort Myers near the Gulf Harbor Marina from a waterspout that came onshore.

Meteorologists were already on their way to Fort Myers to investigate the damage starting at the Century 21 mobile community Sunday morning.

WATCH: Videos show storm damage across Fort Myers, Iona, Naples, Alligator Alley

Damage reports: Track damage from Sunday's severe weather here

Westbound I75 at mile marker 96 is an overturned semi in Collier County. Tornado was last seen moving toward Golden Gate Estates! Please seek shelter and be safe! pic.twitter.com/aRQ9Wl2Emg  FHP SWFL (@FHPSWFL) January 16, 2022

Intensity, track and all that is to be determined, and we have meteorologists headed down there now to assess the damage, said Stephen Shiveley, with NWS in Ruskin, which covers the Fort Myers-Cape Coral area. Weve done lots of studies over the years and to determine intensity we need to see the damage. Well be able to estimate the actual wind speed from that.

A confirmed tornado hit in the Iona section of Fort Myers on Sunday morning, according to the National Weather Service.

Edward Murray, 81, was in his mobile home at Windcrest and Point Breeze in Cottage Point Trailer Park in Fort Myers on Sunday morning when a tornado picked up the structure and tossed it on top of a neighbor's home.

"Thats my house thats turned upside down," he said. The tornado took me off my feet blew me toward the east wall and buried me under the sink, refrigerator, kitchen chairs and everything else.

Story continues

A former Chicago resident, Murray and his daughter, Cokie, escaped unharmed, crawling from the wreckage.

I was so happy when I saw the sky, Murray said. I said to the devil, 'Its not going to be today'.

LIVE UPDATES: Tornado, strong storms destroy dozens of homes in Southwest Florida

Storm Prediction Center has most of South Florida under a slight chance for severe weather.

NWS meteorologists in Miami called the winter storm slicing through the Southeast "formidable" and said severe weather could last through at least late this afternoon for Palm Beach, Broward and Miami Dade counties.

The Storm Prediction Center has much of South Florida under a slight risk of severe weather, which is the second level of concern on a 5-tier scale. That was upgraded from the lowest level that had been issued early Sunday.

In Palm Beach County, the 33rd annual Downtown Delray Beach Festive of the Arts was canceled Sunday because of the storm threat.

"Our first priority is the safety of our artists and patrons," said Howard Alan, founder of Howard Alan Events.

A wind gust of 55 mph was measured in Boca Raton at 1:10 p.m.

Skies are expected to clear tonight with low temperatures dipping to 54 degrees at the southeast coast. Monday will reach about 70 degrees, but then plummet overnight to a chilly 48 degrees.

Naples Daily News staff writer Chad Gillis contributed to this report.

The Fort Myers News-Press contributed to this report.

Kmiller@pbpost.com

@Kmillerweather

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Tornado watch canceled for Palm Beach County, Florida: Weather updates
Former President Donald Trump reacts to the crowd as he arrives to speak at a Save America Rally Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022, in Florence, Ariz. AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin

Trump held his first rally of 2022 in Arizona on Saturday.

The former president spewed falsehoods about the January 6 insurrection in his speech.

Trump called the officer who fatally shot Ashli Babbitt a "disgrace" and an "out-of-control dope."

Former President Donald Trump called the Capitol Police officer who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt during the January 6 riot at the US Capitol a "disgrace" and claimed the FBI was behind the insurrection.

In the first rally of the year in Florence, Arizona, Trump falsely claimed that Democrats wanted to "protect" the officer exonerated of wrongdoing in Babbitt's killing following an internal investigation.

"I watched this guy being interviewed, they wanted to protect him so they wanted to keep him. He couldn't get on television fast enough. The guy who shot Ashli Babbitt for no reason," Trump said.

Trump called the officer an"out-of-control dope" and a "disgrace."

"He's so proud of himself. Let's see how he could do without the protections that he got. And by the way, if that happened the other way around they'd be calling 'let's bring back the electric chair,'" Trump added, referencing Democrats.

Lt. Michael Byrd, a 28-year-veteran of the force, revealed his identity in an interview with NBC News in August, months after the insurrection.

Babbitt, who the night before the attack tweeted "Nothing will stop us. They can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours," was shot while trying to climb through a shattered window in front of the Speaker's Lobby.

Trump, however, went on to allege that the "real insurrection happened on Election Day" and alleged the FBI was behind the riot.

"They never talk about that crowd. They talk about the people that walked down to the Capitol. They don't talk about the size of that crowd. I believe it was the largest crowd I've ever spoken [to] before and they were there to protest the election," Trump said.

He added: "The fake news never talks about it. They never talk about it. Exactly how many of those present at the Capitol complex on January 6 were FBI confidential informants, agents, or otherwise directly or indirectly with an agency of the United States government. People want to hear this."

Read the original article on Business Insider
GREENVILLE, Ill.  Jani Jones of Lincoln and Emma Stoker of Mount Pulaski were placed on the Dean's List at Greenville University for the Fall 2021 semester.

To qualify for the GU Dean's List, a student must successfully complete a minimum of 12 hours for the semester. Freshmen (0-29.5 credits) must have a semester GPA of 3.5 or above. Sophomores, juniors, and seniors must have a semester GPA of 3.7 or above.

Greenville University was founded in 1892 by the Free Methodist Church with the intent to provide a distinctive, Christ-centered university education for men and women.

This article originally appeared on Lincoln Courier: Greenville University names Dean's List
Updated at 7:25 a.m. CST



COLLEYVILLE, TX  All hostages have been freed unharmed after a hostage rescue team intervened in the standoff at the Congregation Beth Israel Synagogue in Colleyville, and the suspect who held them for more than 12 hours is dead, authorities said at a news conference late Saturday night.

The hostage taker has now been identified, and the FBI and police declined to answer questions about who shot the man.

Video from Dallas TV station WFAA shows people running out a door of the synagogue, and then a man holding a gun opening the same door just seconds later, before he turns around and closes the door. Moments later, several rounds of gunfire can be heard, followed by the sound of an explosion, The Associated Press reported.



FBI and police spokeswomen declined to answer questions about who shot the man.

The first hostage was released around 5 p.m., hours after the suspect interrupted Sabbath morning services at the synagogue around 10:40 a.m. The suspected hostage-taker had been heard during a livestream worship service demanding the release of a Pakistani neuroscientist who was convicted of trying to kill U.S. Army officers in Afghanistan.



The first released hostage, a man, was unhurt and will not require medical attention, Colleyville police said. Investigators did not what information the man may have that may have helped the FBI hostage negotiation team determine the suspect's mental state or other information about the situation inside the synagogue, according to news reports.

There have been no injuries inside the synagogue, Colleyville police tweeted late Saturday afternoon. Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, who has led the synagogue since 2006, is believed to be among the three people still being held in the synagogue.

The Associated Press reported worshipers who heard the livestream said the hostage-taker demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist suspected of having ties to al-Qaida who was convicted of trying to kill U.S. military officers while in custody in Afghanistan, one of the law enforcement officials said.

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Siddiqui, known as "Lady al-Qaida," is serving an 86-year sentence at a federal prison in Fort Worth, which is about 15 miles from Colleyville. She is described as a cult figure among extremists, who have demanded her release from prison for years. Pakistan officials have publicly said they're interested in a deal or prisoner swap, the AP reported.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported her supporters demonstrated in front of the federal courthouse in Fort Worth in 2016, demanding proof that she was still alive and that she be returned to Pakistan. Federal prosecutors said that in 2018, an Ohio man planned to fly to Texas and attack the prison where Siddiqui is being held, and was sentenced to 22 years in prison.

In this July 17, 2008, file photo, Aafia Siddiqui, possible al-Qaida associate, is seen in the custody of Counter Terrorism Department of Ghazni province in Ghazni City, Afghanistan. The man who authorities say was holding hostages inside a Texas synagogue on Saturday demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman who is imprisoned on charges of trying to kill American service members in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/ File)

The synagogue, like many others across the country, moved its Sabbath morning services to Facebook Live because of the coronavirus pandemic. The video showing the man described as "ranting" and making anti-American and antisemitic statements was removed by Facebook.



He was just all over the map. He was pretty irritated and the more irritated he got, hed make more threats, like Im the guy with the bomb,' " Texas resident Victoria Francis, who watched about an hour of it before it cut out, told the AP. "If you make a mistake, this is all on you. And hed laugh at that. He was clearly in extreme distress.



The hostage-taker has not been positively identified, according to officials who spoke to the AP. They cautioned the information was based on a preliminary in the rapidly developing situation.

A rabbi in New York City received a call from Cytron-Walker and called 911 to relay the hostage-taker's demands that Siddiqui be freed, news station WNBC reported. Colleyville police confirmed late Saturday morning on Twitter that it was conducting SWAT operations near the synagogue at 6 100 Pleasant Road Run and asked people to stay away from the area. The FBI and Texas Department of Public Safety have joined the operation.

"The FBI negotiators are the ones who have contact with the person in the building," Colleyville Police Sgt. Dara Nelson told CNN, adding the situation posed "no threat to the general public" at the current time.

Police were called to the synagogue around 11 a.m., and people were evacuated from the surrounding neighborhood soon after that, FBI Dallas spokeswoman Katie Chaumont told The AP Police are continuing to ask people to stay away from the area.



Congregation Beth Israel, which is affiliated with the Union for Reform Judaism, serves about 157 families. It was the first Jewish congregation in northeast Tarrant County, where Colleyville is located.

Across the country, police increased patrols around Jewish houses of worship. In Dallas, about 30 miles from Colleyville, Mayor Eric Johnson tweeted police were working with the Jewish Federation to monitor any threats and concerns, WFAA reported.Authorities said there had been no direct threats to other synagogues. Dallas

In San Antonio, Texas, police said they will "monitor for any possible local threats." Beverly Hills, California, police said out of an abundance of caution, they "will be increasing patrols around our Jewish houses of worship."

New York City Mayor Eric Adams said extra police have been deployed to synagogues as a precaution. "The NYPD Intelligence Bureau and the Joint Terrorism Task Force are in close contact with local police and FBI officials in Texas," he said in a statement. "I have been fully briefed by Police Commissioner Sewell and Im confident we are taking the right steps."

Cytron-Walker, the synagogue's first full-time rabbi, is known for improving interfaith relations in Colleyville, which has a large Muslim population.

He has brought Christian groups, and various Muslims groups together, Texas Congressman Giovanni Capriglione, whose district includes Colleyville, told The New York Times. He is not someone who is railing against one faith or another. Hes the exact opposite.

CAIR, the nations largest Muslim advocacy group, condemned the attack.



This latest antisemitic attack at a house of worship is an unacceptable act of evil, CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said in a statement Saturday. We stand in solidarity with the Jewish community, and we pray that law enforcement authorities are able to swiftly and safely free the hostages. No cause can justify or excuse this crime.

Anna Salton Eisen, a founder and former president of the synagogue, described the situation as "surreal."



This is unlike anything weve ever experienced. You know, its a small town and its a small congregation, Eisen told the AP. "No matter how it turns out its hard to fathom how we will all be changed by this, because surely we will be.



Synagogues and Jewish institutions across the country have taken extra security precautions  including installing metal detectors and security cameras, or hiring armed guards  in response to a wave of antisemitic attacks and threats of violence. In 2018, 11 people died in a massacre at a synagogue near Pittsburgh. In 2019, a woman was killed in a shooting at a Poway, California, synagogue.



Eric Fingerhut, the CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, said members "are horrified that our community is once again under attack."



The Anti-Defamation League tweeted Saturday afternoon that it is aware of the ongoing situation in Colleyville, TX and is engaged with local and federal authorities and the communitys leaders.

In San Antonio, Texas, police said they will "monitor for any possible local threats." Beverly Hills, California, police said out of an abundance of caution, they "will be increasing patrols around our Jewish houses of worship."

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said he was monitoring the situation as well.

"We pray for the safety of the hostages and rescuers," Bennett tweeted on Saturday.

President Joe Biden was briefed on the ongoing situation, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki tweeted Saturday.

"He will continue to receive updates from his senior team as the situation develops," Psaki tweeted. "Senior members of the national security team are also in touch with federal law enforcement leadership."

Authorities said earlier Saturday that the livestream of the service containing audio but no video captured a man talking angrily, at times demanding to talk to his sister on the phone. At other times, he seemed apologetic, according to reports. The "sister" has since been identified as Siddiqui

Shortly before 2 p.m., the man said, You got to do something. I dont want to see this guy dead. Moments later, the feed cut out. The man repeatedly mentioned Islam and used profanities, and he repeatedly said he thought he was going to die, the Star-Telegram reported.

Chaumont, the Dallas FBI field office spokeswoman, told the AP she could not say whether the person was armed, and she declined to describe what the person had said to authorities, citing operational sensitivity.

Its an evolving situation, and we have a lot of law enforcement personnel on scene, Chaumont said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on the Dallas Patch
CRESTVIEW  Freedom Brass, the U.S. Air Force Band of the Wests brass ensemble, will make its regional debut at an upcoming live performance.

The concert is at 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 4, at Warriors Hall, Whitehurst Municipal Building, 201 Stillwell Blvd. in Crestview.

Freedom Brass is stationed at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas. The ensemble is generally comprised of two trumpets, French horn, trombone, tuba and percussion, but for its Crestview concert, two more musicians will be added.

A member of the Freedom Brass, the U.S. Air Force Band of the West is pictured during a performance.

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It will be eight of us now instead of six, as we are bringing two new members to work them in to the rotation, said Staff Sgt. Justin Weisenborn, who plays trumpet.

According to its website, Freedom Brass is dedicated to presenting to its audiences the total spectrum of today's musical literature, which means the Crestview audience can expect a diverse program of music, including pieces from a repertoire that stretches back hundreds of years.

Freedom Brass, the U.S. Air Force Band of the West, is pictured during a performance.

The group annually performs more than 100 concerts and clinics around the country, including performances at military ceremonies.

The members of Freedom Brass bring to the United States Air Force many years of professional experience with symphony orchestras, chamber ensembles, touring shows, and today's popular artists, the ensembles website states. Past performances include the New York Brass Conference and Boston University's Tanglewood Music Center.

WANT TO GO?

What: Freedom Brass concert

When: 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 4

Where: Warriors Hall, Whitehurst Municipal Building, 201 Stillwell Blvd.

Cost: Free

Notes: A reception at Warriors Hall follows the U.S. Air Force Band of the Wests brass ensembles Crestview performance.

This article originally appeared on Northwest Florida Daily News: US Air Force Freedom Brass band holding Crestview concert in February
Packaging debris and items stolen from rail cars litter train tracks Saturday in Lincoln Heights, drawing scavengers. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

The scene was a stretch of railroad tracks in Lincoln Heights on Saturday: a blizzard of torn plastic wrappers, cardboard boxes and paper packaging attesting to a wave of rail car thievery that officials say has been on the rise in recent months.

Several scavengers picked through the debris, hoping to find electronics, clothes or whatever valuables thieves left behind.

"Everything comes on the train  cellphones, Louis Vuitton purses, designer clothes, toys, lawnmowers, power equipment, power tools," said a 37-year-old man who declined to give his name. He said he comes to the tracks regularly and once found a Louis Vuitton purse and a robotic arm worth five figures: "We find things here and there, make some money off of it."

Thieves are pilfering railroad cars in a crime that harks back to the days of horseback-riding bandits, but is fueled by a host of modern realities, including the rise of e-commerce and Southern California's role as a hub for the movement of goods.

The images have generated national attention and revealed tension among rail operators, government officials and authorities over what can be done to reduce the thefts.

Later Saturday, approximately 17 cars on a Union Pacific train derailed in "the same area where the vandalism has been occurring," said Robynn Tysver, a Union Pacific spokesperson. The crew was not hurt and the cause is under investigation, Tysver added.

Union Pacific reported what it claimed was a 160% increase since December 2020 in thefts along the railroad tracks in L.A. County. The railroad didn't release specific data on what was stolen or the value of what was lost but it said the increase in crime cost the company at least $5 million last year.

A bottleneck in the supply chain and the presence of homeless encampments near rail lines have contributed to the thefts, officials said.

"Organized and opportunistic criminal rail theft ... impacts our employees, our customers in the overall supply chain industry," said Adrian Guerrero, a director of public affairs for Union Pacific.

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Guerrero estimates that about 90 cargo containers a day are compromised, sometimes by an organized group that has halted trains and recruited people living on the street to ransack the containers.

Union Pacific is deploying more drones, has brought in extra security and enlisted the Los Angeles Police Department, California Highway Patrol and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department to combat the thefts, Guerrero said.

But Union Pacific is partly to blame for not deploying more security, said Los Angeles Police Capt. German Hurtado, who works in the Hollenbeck Division.

"We have millions of dollars of items and equipment, but it is unpoliced," Hurtado said. "There are even sometimes weapons on these trains. Everything goes by train, you learn."

The problem gained attention last week when KCBS and KCAL photojournalist John Schreiber posted a series of videos and tweets, including one of himself picking through discarded packages strewn along a rail line in Lincoln Heights.

People rummage through items stolen from railroad cargo containers Saturday in Lincoln Heights. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

He plucked out a discarded coronavirus test and a box of REI merchandise along tracks plastered with the detritus of packages intercepted and torn into well before reaching their destinations.

"Missing a package? Shipment delayed? Maybe your package is among the thousands we found discarded along the tracks," Schreiber wrote on Twitter, alongside an aerial shot of the littered tracks. The posts went viral, as others posted their own photos.

Though Los Angeles has seen a significant increase in homicides over the last two years, property crimes like the rail thefts are a different story. According to LAPD data through Nov. 27, property crime was up 2.6% over the same period last year but is down 6.6% from 2019.

Along the tracks Saturday, a couple who said they showed up after seeing an Instagram post scanned the crush of abandoned cartons looking for something valuable. An Xbox package had caught their eye. Another man who had been waiting for a bus stopped to rummage through the debris. He found some car speakers he figured he could sell for $200 to make up for the hours he missed at work that day.

"It's ugly out there," the LAPD's Hurtado said.

In a letter to Dist. Atty. George Gascon, Union Pacific's Guerrero estimated that more than 100 people had been arrested but they "boast to our officers that charges will be pled down."

Alex Bastian, an advisor to Gascon, said the district attorney's office had filed charges in some burglary and grand theft cases, but other cases don't have enough evidence to prosecute.

Lena Kent, a spokesperson for BNSF Railway, a major operator in Southern California, said somebody was depending on those stolen items. "These are not victimless crimes, particularly when many of these packages include much-needed supplies," she said.

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach handle about 40% of the nation's maritime imports. The majority of the nearly $450 billion in goods moved at the ports eventually land on a train.

Dumping, trash and encampments around railroad tracks last year prompted Los Angeles Councilman Joe Buscaino to call for the city to declare them a public nuisance. But the effort was dropped after Union Pacific cleaned up a swath of tracks, said his spokesperson, Branimir Kvartuc.

Still, Buscaino said, Union Pacific needs to hire more agents to patrol the tracks. "It's no surprise we are seeing the additional crimes," he said in a text, adding that the problems had been "unabated for years."

The biggest problem is around two rail yards where cargo is transferred from trucks onto trains or vice versa. One of those yards is a sprawling rail facility that sits just east of downtown off the 5 Freeway in Lincoln Heights.

Keith Lewis, vice president of operations for CargoNet, a company that tracks cargo thefts, says figuring out just how much is stolen from trains is difficult because much of it is unreported.

Union Pacific operates about 3,200 miles of railway in California and BNSF has 2,100 miles. In Southern California, many of those tracks abut businesses and homes in low-income communities such as Wilmington and Lincoln Heights. In El Sereno, where crime has been increasing, barbed-wire fences line the street-level train tracks.

"It is not like we have given up on it. We do task forces with the sheriff, other agencies along the tracks and make arrests," Hurtado said.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
UK authorities are liaising with officials in the US after a British hostage-taker was shot dead following a stand-off at a synagogue in Texas (Brandon Wade/PA) (AP)

UK counter-terrorism officers are working with authorities in the US after a British hostage-taker was shot dead after an hours-long stand-off at a synagogue.

The man has been identified as 44-year-old Malik Faisal Akram, orginally from Blackburn in Lancashire.

He was killed in a shooting incident after the FBI entered the building at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas on Saturday.

All four hostages were unharmed in the incident which President Joe Biden described as an act of terror.

President Joe Biden speak to the press about the Texas synagogue hostage incident (Patrick Semansky/AP) (AP)

During the incident  which saw police first called at 11am and ended with the release of the final hostages at around 9pm  the man could be heard ranting on a livestream in what appeared to be a British accent.

On Sunday, the Foreign Office confirmed he was British and the Metropolitan Police said counter-terror officers were in contact with US authorities and colleagues from the FBI.

Mr Biden said, in an update to the press, that he did not have all the details but it was believed Akram had got the weapons on the street, adding: He purchased them when he landed.

He said there were no bombs that we know of, and that Akram is thought to have spent the first night in a homeless shelter.

Akrams family said they are absolutely devastated and do not condone any of his actions, according to a statement shared on the Blackburn Muslim Community Facebook page.

It is absolutely inexcusable for a Muslim to attack a Jew or for any Jew to attack a Muslim, Christian, Hindu vice versa

Malik Faisal Akram's family

It stated: We cant say much now as their is an ongoing FBI investigation. We would like to say that we as a family do not condone any of his actions and would like to sincerely apologize wholeheartedly to all the victims involved in the unfortunate incident.

The statement, attributed to Akrams brother Gulbar, said the hostage-taker was suffering from mental health issues.

It added: We would also like to add that any attack on any human being be it a Jew, Christian or Muslim etc is wrong and should always be condemned.

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It is absolutely inexcusable for a Muslim to attack a Jew or for any Jew to attack a Muslim, Christian, Hindu vice versa.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss condemned the act of terrorism and anti-semitism, while the British Ambassador to the United States Karen Pierce said British authorities are providing full support to Texas and US law enforcement agencies.

My thoughts are with the Jewish community and all those affected by the appalling act in Texas. We condemn this act of terrorism and anti-semitism.



We stand with US in defending the rights and freedoms of our citizens against those who spread hate.    https://t.co/36Eb8lRQTV  Liz Truss (@trussliz) January 16, 2022

Akram is said to have demanded the release of a Pakistani neuroscientist who was convicted of trying to kill US army officers in Afghanistan.

Speaking to reporters after the incident, FBI special agent in charge Matt DeSarno said they believed the man was singularly focused on one issue and it was not specifically related to the Jewish community, and added they will continue to work to find motive.

Confirming that the hostage-taker had died, he said there would be an independent investigation of the shooting incident.

He said the FBI had been in contact with their legal attache offices in London and Israel for an investigation with global reach.

A spokesman for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said: We are aware of the death of a British man in Texas and are in contact with the local authorities.

One hostage who had been held was released during the stand-off and the three others got out when an FBI Swat team entered the building, authorities in the US said.

The Metropolitan Police confirmed officers from counter-terrorism policing are liaising with US authorities and colleagues from the FBI regarding the incident.

In a statement issued by Greater Manchester Police, Assistant Chief Constable Dominic Scally for Counter Terror Policing North West confirmed the suspect in the incident was Akram, originally from Blackburn.

He said: Police forces in the region will continue to liaise with their local communities, including the Jewish community, and will put in place any necessary measures to provide reassurance to them.

Ms Truss tweeted: My thoughts are with the Jewish community and all those affected by the appalling act in Texas. We condemn this act of terrorism and anti-semitism.

We stand with US in defending the rights and freedoms of our citizens against those who spread hate.

Ms Pierce said: The UK & US stand shoulder to shoulder in defiance of terrorism and in defence of the fundamental rights and freedoms of our citizens.

The UK & US stand shoulder to shoulder in defiance of terrorism and in defence of the fundamental rights and freedoms of our citizens.



3/3  Karen Pierce (@KarenPierceUK) January 16, 2022

Earlier, US law enforcement officials said the man had demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist suspected of having ties to al Qaida, who is in prison in Texas.

The officials revealed that he said he wanted to be able to speak to her.

While a number of people were reported to have heard the hostage-taker refer to Siddiqui as his sister on the livestream, her brother is said not to have been involved.

John Floyd, board chairman for the Houston chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and long-time legal counsel for Siddiquis brother, said his client was not the person responsible for the heinous incident.

Mr Floyd condemned what had happened as wicked, and said the person involved has nothing to do with Dr Aafia, her family, or the global campaign to get justice for Dr Aafia.
NEW YORK, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) will maintain its openness to cooperation, dialogue and global professionals while sticking to international standards in its operations, according to the president of the multilateral financing institution.

"The door of this bank is open and it will stay open forever," said AIIB President Jin Liqun in a recent online dialogue organized by the New York-based non-profit institution China Institute.

Any country is welcome to join AIIB at any time they deem fit. If some countries choose not to join, it does not affect their relationship with AIIB, said Jin.

Starting operation in January 2016 with 57 founding members, AIIB now has 104 members.

"We have maintained very close cooperation with American financial institutions, in particular we also keep dialogues with the U.S. government-owned institutions," said Jin.

Jin stressed that AIIB never excludes professionals or any institution simply because their country is not a member of AIIB, which is a distinguished feature of this new institution.

"We want to work with everyone who is willing to support the global economy, who is willing to support the low-income countries, who is willing to support global integration," said Jin.

AIIB works closely with the World Bank Group, the Asian Development Bank and many other institutions, with the value of projects co-financed by it and other financial institutions over the past six years totaling 16.1 billion U.S. dollars, according to Jin.

"In many cases, it's simply not financially feasible for one institution to go it alone," Jin said.

As a banker promoting infrastructure development, Jin said he welcomes any other initiative from whichever government or country, but "what is important is that we need to work together for better cooperation."

AIIB has tried its very best to make sure that projects under the Belt and Road Initiative will be implemented with high standards, said Jin.

"Normally, people say no strings attached to refer to no political strings attached. But we have to make sure that the projects we finance meet the environmental and social standards. And if you call these strings, I say yes, there are strings attached."

AIIB has an independent department named as the Complaints-resolution, Evaluation and Integrity Unit, which is responsible for the implementation of projects, according to Jin.

"So far, we have not had any major problems in implementation of the projects, we have not had any complaints against corruption," said Jin.

Besides infrastructure projects, AIIB also gives loans to projects related to climate change and response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

AIIB allocated 13 billion dollars to COVID-19 Crisis Recovery Facility to help its members navigate crises arising from COVID-19, and most of the funds were invested together with other multilateral development banks, according to Jin.

AIIB is aligning its policies and strategies with the Paris Agreement and is expected to accumulate 50 billion dollars of climate finance approvals by 2030, according to Jin.

"Never ever has multilateralism been so critical for our common destiny. Never ever has the need for a multilateral approach to solve the humanity's formidable challenges been so acute. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank was created as a direct response to a genuine desire among countries for greater, not less international cooperation," said Jin. 




University of Michigan's Board of Regents will remove President Mark Schlissel from his position following allegations he had an inappropriate relationship with an employee at the school.

After Schlissel's removal, school officials will appoint a former University of Michigan president, Mary Sue Coleman, as Interim President, according to a Saturday announcement from the board. The board said it will affirm the decision at its Feb. 17 session, but that the removal is "effective immediately."

The board said it opened an investigation into Schlissel on Dec. 8 after it received an anonymous complaint that the president was involved in a relationship with a university employee.

The investigation found that over a period of years, Schlisslel used his school email account to communicate with the employee in a "manner inconsistent with the dignity and reputation of the University," according to the board.

"Each one of us, as members of the Board of Regents, aspire to create an environment where everyone in our community is able to thrive and achieve their best work, and where all feel safe and respected," the board said. "We understand the decisions announced today are unexpected and this kind of abrupt change can be especially difficult. We take our constitutional role as a governing board seriously and we all agree that this decision is in the best interest of the University we care about so deeply."

Citing "the interest of full public disclosure," the board released dozens of emails and messages allegedly exchanged by Schlissel and the employee, including one in which the president told the employee to "give me a private briefing."

The university had a policy in place that prohibited a supervisor from having an "intimate relationship" with someone they have authority over.

Schlissel was hired as president in 2014 and had his contract renewed in 2018 for five more years, according to the Detroit Free Press. He had announced in 2021 he would step down in 2023.

Coleman, who previously stepped down from the position in 2014, released a statement saying she was "honored" to be the interim president.

"While saddened by the circumstances, I am honored to be asked to again serve the University of Michigan," she said.
Peter Asch, president and CEO of Twincraft Skincare in Winooski, Vermont, says his contract soap manufacturing company has grown "quite substantially" in the two years since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020, hiring more than 160 new employees.

Twincraft has a total of about 320 employees, according to Asch, meaning it has doubled its workforce during the pandemic. Asch said 97% of his employees are vaccinated.

"It's a challenging time to find people because there's less people available looking for jobs than there used to be," Asch said. "So far we've been pretty successful hiring a bunch of people who have also stayed with us."

It certainly is a challenging time to hire people, especially in Vermont.

Fast to lose jobs, slow to recover them

Vermont lost 63,500 "nonfarm" jobs because of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a state financial report, and is slow to recover those jobs compared to other states.

The state has recovered 69.9% of those lost jobs, the report states, leaving approximately 19,100 jobs left to recover before the job count in Vermont returns to its pre-pandemic level.

More: Vermont struggles to recover jobs from 'brief but sharp' economic downturn

"The percentage of Vermont's nonfarm payroll jobs left to recover compares unfavorably to the U.S. average, which stood at 18.8% of the jobs left to recover relative to those lost during the pandemic-induced downturn," the report explains.

A Burlington Tenants Union flyer tacked on a recycling bin on College Street in Burlington seeks organize renters, seen on Friday, May 1, 2020.

By comparison, Vermont still has about 30% of its jobs lost to the pandemic left to recover. The financial report blames the sluggish jobs recovery in Vermont on the state's reliance on travel and tourism.

"This sector has been disproportionately and negatively impacted by the pandemic," the report says.

Vermont JobLink, an online hiring site, has about 13,500 open positions right now, Vermont Labor Commissioner Michael Harrington said.

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"The problem is we don't have 13,500 or more people looking for work in Vermont right now," he said. "We only have about 3,700 people collecting unemployment, and so we're going to have to look to other ways (to fill these jobs): people who have retired who want to come back to the workforce; expanding training opportunities; ensuring graduating students from high school or college stay in Vermont."

Flexible company culture makes the difference

How has Asch been able to hire the people he needs in a climate of low unemployment and high demand for workers? He said it's all about company culture.

"We've got a strong, positive, healthy culture and it's flexible," Asch said. "We've worked really hard to have an individualistic culture. We look at what people need as individuals and try to adjust to those needs instead of applying all of the rules uniformly."

A 60-year-old Twincraft employee might be interested in more time off to spend with grandchildren, Asch explained, while a 30-year-old employee might put a priority on higher pay to handle mortgage payments. Asch said it's a "cop-out" when management tells employees they have to be treated the same way as everyone else.

"We see that in businesses all the time," he said. "It causes stress and unhappiness in an organization. Why not address the issues on an individual basis? It doesn't mean you're not fair with salaries and 401(k)s, but you're individualistic with things that are heartfelt. That has made a big difference."

More: COVID-19 is creaming the beauty business. How are Vermont's companies holding up?

Asch admits it's more work to take an individualized approach to employees rather than applying rules equally to everybody, but believes it's worth the trouble. Twincraft is also open to hiring family members of current employees, unlike many businesses, as long as nepotism doesn't creep into the picture, giving unfair advantages to those family members.

"An employee who recommends a family member is going to make sure to the best degree possible they're successful in the company," Asch said. "That sounds good to me."

Waiting for the dust to settle

Labor Commissioner Harrington said the pandemic has been the impetus for many Vermonters to change jobs, leave the job market, or even to retire.

People with young children used the opportunity to stay home instead of working, he said, feeling it was a better use of their time and finances to take care of their children full-time. People who were at, or even past, retirement age felt the heath risks of needing to be at work were no longer worth it, and went ahead and retired.

"What we do have now is churn within the job sphere," Harrington said. "There's a lot of dust flying around and we need to see where the dust settles."

Contact Dan DAmbrosio at 660-1841 or ddambrosio@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @DanDambrosioVT. This coverage is only possible with support from our readers.

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Tight labor market: Vermont companies find ways to cope
Hundreds of bikers gathered Saturday morning at American Legion Post 61 in Avondale for a motorcycle ride around the Valley to raise money for the family of Phoenix Police Officer Tyler Moldovan, who was shot multiple times during an early morning police investigation in December.

The motorcycle ride began at the post near Dysart Road and Western Avenue around 10 a.m.

"We actually had a huge turnout. We had originally, just from this post, 251 riders but other riders joined from separate posts. So there was well over 300 riders that came out," said Jason Emm, president of American Legion Post 61.

Ride raised thousands for Moldovan and family

Motorcyclists had to pay a $20 participation fee to join the ride-along, which led bikers east on Interstate 10 to Phoenix Police Department Headquarters where they did a rally around the station to show support for Officer Moldovan. The route also took bikers to other American Legion Posts for rest stops along the way.

"They would give me $40 and say the other 20 is for donation," said Kara Granillo, an organizer at the event.

Granillo says the last she checked, around midday Saturday, there was over $1,000 raised for Officer Moldovan.

"We've gotten more since then. It's so high, it's something we didn't expect," she said.

Previously: Phoenix Law Enforcement Association hosts 12-hour fundraiser for Officer Tyler Moldovan

Besides the participation fee, money was also raised through a raffle and an auction of various items donated by individuals and local companies to support the cause.

"Everything that you see here that are on these tables right now is a collection of all the donations that we get from either individuals or big companies," said Emm, gesturing to tables covered with gift baskets, art pieces and more. "Some of the big companies that helped was the Arizona Diamondbacks. They supplied us with two gift baskets with some game tickets in it."

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Emm also said that all proceeds collected at the event will go straight to Moldovan's family.

Phoenix officer helped organize ride

"The turnout was amazing. It was a lot better than what we initially expected," said Phoenix Police Officer Aaron Souza. "I work for Phoenix Police and I actually brought it up to the American Legion riders... like, 'Hey, one of our officers was shot in the line of duty.' There are people out there that do care about him."

Souza said he also met Moldovan a few times at the police academy and wanted to organize the event to support law enforcement.

"Tyler's dad actually came out this morning. He was here with us and everything. We got to show him around. He got to see the support that he didn't think he had," Souza said.

Moldovan's wife issued a statement on Tuesday saying that her husband has made "marvelous" progress since he was shot on Dec. 14.

She said her husband has "extensive neurologic injuries" and he remains in stable condition.

The man suspected of shooting Moldovan is Essa Williams, 24, who was booked into jail on suspicion of attempted first-degree murder, resisting arrest and prohibited possession of a weapon, according to court documents. His bond was set at $3 million, although online Maricopa County Sheriff's Office records show he was still in the Fourth Avenue Jail as of Saturday night.

"I'm riding because I happen to be the daughter of a police officer," said Angelique Gabriel, a participant of the event.

"What happens is the motorcycle community says 'We have a rider down or we have an officer down or someone in the military has fallen.' What we do is turn around and say 'We have got someone down, we need to do a ride so we can raise money and donate it wherever we can.' Everything we can do is going to the family."

The Phoenix Police Foundation is currently accepting donations to support officer Moldovan and his family at phoenixpolicefoundation.org/moldovan.

Reach breaking news reporter Haleigh Kochanski at hkochanski@arizonarepublic.com or on Twitter @HaleighKochans.

Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Motorcycle ride fundraises for injured Phoenix Officer Tyler Moldovan
Lucas Air Conditioning, Eustis Roofing and Edas Crane came together to help the Mount Dora VFW with two new air units and roof repair. [submitted] cindy peterson

MOUNT DORA  Local veteran-owned and operated businesses came to the aid of the Mount Dora VFW Post 8087 after their roof began leaking in December.

Rich Smith, auxiliary president at the VFW, also happens to work for Eustis Roofing Company, owned by Jason Reisman, who donated the labor and material to repair the roof.

The VFW is a non-profit so its not a booming industry and costs like this are hard, Smith said. We discovered the leak was coming from under the air conditioner. Cameron Lucas from Lucas Air Conditioning and Heating is also a member here and he suggested since we had to take the old units out to repair the roof, we might as well see about replacing them too.

Lucas Air Conditioning, Eustis Roofing and Edas Crane install a new air conditioning unit at the Mount Dora VFW. [submitted] cindy peterson

Lucas contacted his supplier, Ferguson HVAC, and told them about the project and they too jumped on board, donating about $10,000 worth of equipment. Lucas and his crew installed the two new units and Eds Crane in Eustis donated the crane to get the job done. The project would have cost the VFW nearly $20,000 in total.

We brought them up to code, Lucas said. It was in terrible condition. The air conditioner units were sitting on rotted 4x4s so we put them on hurricane stands and strapped them down and placed smoke detectors in them.

More Salute: Marine Corps veteran finds peace in horticulture therapy

Happy New Year: Reflecting on our heroes of 2021

More: Local veterans participate in Wreaths Across America

Lucas served eight years in the Army and knew when he got into the HVAC businesses that he wanted to be sure to give back to veterans.

Cameron Lucas prepares the air conditioning unit for installation at the Mount Dora VFW. [submitted] cindy peterson

Ive seen first hand having served in Iraq, but a lot of these veterans served in Korea and Vietnam and I cant even imagine what they went through, Lucas said. It was a totally different war. When they got back, they went through some crazy stuff and werent appreciated. I think helping them is the least a young veteran can do.

Smith became an auxiliary member at the VFW since his father served in the military. As an Army brat, as he called it, he grew up with a respect for those who risked their lives for others.

Story continues

Lucas Air Conditioning, Eustis Roofing and Eds Crane came together to help the Mount Dora VFW with two new air units and roof repair. [submitted] cindy peterson

Sometimes I think we forget about our veterans, Smith said. My dad went away to war and I didnt get to see him for a year. Most young people today have no idea what thats like. These guys are just good old guys that enjoy a place to shoot the breeze and talk about their days in the trenches. We really appreciate everyone getting together and helping them out.

This article originally appeared on Daily Commercial: Local businesses answer the call to help Mount Dora VFW
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Edward Murray, 81, was in his mobile home at Windcrest and Point Breeze in Cottage Point Trailer Park on Sunday morning when a tornado picked up the structure and tossed it on top of a neighbor's home.

"Thats my house thats turned upside down," he said. The tornado took me off my feet blew me toward the east wall and buried me under the sink, refrigerator, kitchen chairs and everything else.

What we know: Powerful tornado destroys dozens of home in Southwest Florida. Here's what we know.

Damage reports: Track damage from Sunday's severe weather here

Scenes from the storm: Videos show storm damage across Fort Myers, Iona, Naples and on Alligator Alley

A former Chicago resident, Murray and his daughter, Koki, escaped unharmed, crawling from the wreckage.

I was so happy when I saw the sky, Murray said. I said to the devil, 'Its not going to be today'.

Murrays daughter was in her bedroom and her mattress flipped on her. She crawled out a back window.

The familys dog, a poodle, is missing.

By mid-morning, residents across Southwest Florida were taking shelter and heeding multiple tornado warnings stretching from north Collier County and across the gulf coast in Lee County and beyond.

Outage tracker: Power outages reported across Southwest Florida after tornado hits Fort Myers area

5:53 p.m. | Tornado classified as EF2

Today's tornado that ripped apart homes in the Fort Myers area of Lee County was an EF2 tornado with winds at 118 mph, according to the National Weather Service. The National Weather Service has also confirmed the last EF2 or stronger tornado to affect the Lee County area of Southwest Florida was on Jan. 9, 2016.

As far as injuries, at this time Lee County officials say four were injured but there are no details about serious or minor injuries.

Story continues

118 mph winds: NWS: EF2 tornado touched down in Southwest Florida. Here's what that means.

3:23 p.m. | Latest power outage numbers for SWFL

Information from Florida Power and Light indicated that by 3 p.m. there were 2,086 customers in Lee County and 241 in Collier County still without power. There were 141 customers in Charlotte County waiting to be reconnected.

LCEC, the Lee County Electric Cooperative, reported no customer without service in Lee County.

2:32 p.m. | Lee County addresses storm impact

One county assessment rated 27 homes destroyed, 24 with major damage, and 14 with minor damage. County Commission Chairman Cecil Pendergrass later told reporters that 62 of the homes in the tornados path were unlivable as a result of the tornado.

We have damage assessment teams in the area, first to compile information on the extent of the damaged structures, Pendergrass said during a mid-afternoon news conference.

Some of the people who cant return to their homes until repairs are made were being taken by LeeTran vehicles to a shelter at Wa-Ke Hatchee Park in Fort Myers.

We will coordinate resources to meet the immediate needs, we are working with the Red Cross, Pendergrass said.

After such sudden and complete destruction of their homes, some homeowners, assisted by neighbors, friends and the kind-hearted began clean-up work, but Pendergrass suggested they might want to wait until an insurance adjuster gets a look at the damage.

That is something that homeowners have to look at, should we leave this until the adjuster can get here to see it or should we put it in the street; thats up to the homeowner, (the county) cannot go on the property, Pendergrass said. Personally, I would wait until I get something from the insurance before I start a taking the roof off my house or removing the carport off my trainer and so forth.

County solid waste disposal service contractors will work its under the normal Monday-Friday schedule; the countys private waste contractors, Waste Pro and Waste Management, do not skip working on the Dr. Martin Luther King Junior holiday.

2:15 p.m. | Church services continue throughout possible tornado in Everglades City

A particularly strong storm cell with a tornado rotation appeared to be bearing down on Everglades City at a time when many people were in church Sunday morning.

Bob Wallace, pastor of Everglades Community Church, moved members into the safest space in the church, an interior hallway, without windows, between the offices and the church. People set up chairs there and continued their service.

Everyones cellphones kept going off, so we were keeping up with what was going on, he said.

More from Sunday services: 'We just looked at our phones and kept singing'

1:55 p.m. | Charlotte County sees some storm damage

The mornings storms caused damage at a marina and mobile home park in Charlotte County, and authorities there opened a shelter for those displaced because of damage to their homes. The Ann & Chuck Dever Regional Park Recreation Center in Englewood was made available to residents.

Charlotte County government tweeted that in the Village of Holiday Lakes, several homes sustained damage and some residents were displaced, but there were no injuries. Charlotte Fire & EMS also responded to damage off Gasparilla Road. The Gasparilla Marina sustained some damage  the county displayed a photo of a boat overturned on a dock  and the Gasparilla Mobile Estates neighborhood next door saw some structures with roof, carport, porch and other damage.

Sunday morning's storm caused damage at some mobile home parks in Charlotte County.

12:55 p.m. | NWS beginning damage assessment surveys, suspects wind speeds over 100 mph

NWS meteorologist Dan Noah, out of Ruskin, was leaving the Century 21 community early Sunday afternoon.

Were just beginning the damage survey so we cant determine a wind speed yet, but it looks like it was over 100 miles per hour, Noah said while traveling to other damaged communities.

Right now were hitting the big one, the obvious one right now, Noah said.

He said NWS was trying to determine if one tornado touched group several times, or if there were several different twisters.

There could be more but were still trying to determine that, Noah said.

Noah said NWS looks at 28 factors to determine the exact strength of a tornado.

We looked at damage to a manufactured home versus a stick-built home, and then there are different types of tree damage we look at, he said.

Winds between 73 miles per hour and 112 miles per hour are considered an F1 tornado, which produces moderate damage, according to NWS.

The tornado scale ranges from 40 miles per hour to 318 miles per hour.

12:45 p.m. | Lee County: 27 buildings destroyed

Lee County is reporting that 27 building were destroyed by this morning storms, including 24 with major damage and 14 with minor damage. We have a reporter at the Lee County Emergency Operations Center for a Lee County press conference.

12:21 p.m. | Red Cross assisting families in need

Volunteers from the American Red Cross Florida Gulf Coast to Heartland Chapter have been coordinating with emergency officials to respond to the severe weather and tornado damage in Fort Myers.

The Red Cross is working closely with emergency officials to support one shelter, providing the impacted families a safe place to stay and determine further assistance needed.

The Red Cross will continue to monitor the evolving situation and work closely with local officials to determine any further needs in the community.

Red Cross volunteers have been trained to follow proper safety procedures and protocols to continue serving communities impacted by local disasters during this global health crisis.

Families in our community, across the country and around the world turn to the Red Cross every day for help because #EmergenciesDontStop. Neighbors still need food, shelter and care after disasters; and military families still need support. Your help is needed to fulfill the urgent needs of our mission today, visit redcross.org/SouthFlorida.

HOW PEOPLE CAN TAKE ACTION:

Make a financial donation to their local Red Cross to help people affected by home fires and other disasters in the United States and around the world. Visit redcross.org/donate.

Visit redcross.org/tornadoes to find safety tips and how to yourself and loved ones from tornadoes.

Become a Red Cross volunteer by applying at redcross.org/sflvolunteer.

Download the Red Cross Emergency App by visiting redcross.org/apps or texting 'GETEMERGENCY' to 90999. This all-inclusive app combines more than 35 emergency alerts to help keep the user safe. And the Monster Guard mobile app is specially designed for kids, teaching them to prepare for emergencies at home by playing an engaging game.

12:15 p.m. | Collier County reports at least one tornado touching down

Rick Zyvoloski, emergency management coordinator on call from Collier County Emergency Service, said there was one report of a tornado in the Lely community in East Naples but no damage that he could find. That was around 9:30. There was no damage, just some debris.

He had not heard of any damage anywhere else in Collier.

A sheriffs deputy was sent to the Hitching Post mobile home community near Barefoot Williams Road and US 41 E. but did not get back of any damage there.

11:50 a.m. | Sheriff, fire official talk about response

Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno and Iona McGregor Fire Department Deputy Chief of operations/incident commander Khalid Aquil spoke to the media about the response to Sunday's tornado.

"We had a significant weather event this morning which allowed us to respond quickly and pool our rescours4e," Aqui said.

He said there were no fatalities reported among the homes that had been severely damaged or destroyed. A number of people had been taken to area hospitals, he confirmed, but the types and extent of injuries were not yet known."

He said the area mostly hit was the John Morris Road and McGregor Boulevard area and as of noon first responders were combing neighborhoods checking on residents.

"To be sure we're not missing anybody," Aquil said of the search and rescue efforts.

Marceno stressed that residents who were not hurt and had homes relatively intact should remain at their residences and not venture out.

"I want to tell the residents of this county ... understand, have a little bit of patience. IF you don't have to leave your house, don't leave your house just to look around," the sheriff said.

He stressed that debris, possible live power lines and other hazards were still prevalent in and around the damaged area.

"Although things may seem safe ... there are things beyond your control or what you can't see, that make things very unsafe," Marceno said.

11:16 a.m. | Power outages update

Florida Power and Light reports that 15,000 customers are without power. An FPL spokesman says crews are working to restore power, but the company does not have a current estimate of when electricity will be restored to all customers.

11:11 a.m. | What the National Weather Service is saying

Meteorologist form the National Weather Service in Ruskin are on their way to the Iona area to assess the damage so they can better understand the dynamics of the tornado.

Intensity, track and all that is to be determined, and we have meteorologists headed down there now to assess the damage, said Stephen Shiveley, with NWS in Ruskin, which covers the Fort Myers-Cape Coral area. Weve done lots of studies over the years and to determine intensity we need to see the damage. Well be able to estimate the actual wind speed from that.

The Century 21 Mobile Home Community in Iona was hit the hardest, Shiveley said.

But that wasnt the only tornado of the morning.

We had a couple of tornados in the Tampa area and we got severe winds up into the 50s with gusts, he said. Gaspiralla Mobile Estates (in Charlotte County) was hit hard and were pretty confident that was a tornado too.

The weather was still strong in Collier County at 10:30 Sunday morning.

George Rizzuto works at the Miami NWS station, which covers the Naples-Collier area, and he said meteorologists there would soon be in the Naples area.

A tornado was reported on various social media near Mile Marker 100 along Interstate 75.

We did have radar indicating a tornado, and weve seen some reports but we need to go out and do actual damage surveys to see if there are tornados on the ground, Rizzuto said. We did some see some.

Rizzuto said meteorologists from Miami will soon visit the Naples area to assess damages there.

Right now were working on finding the damaged areas and then well send someone out in the next couple of hours, he said.

Meteorologists last week said this front could turn into a strong one, but it doesnt seem they were expecting multiple tornadoes.

It is a relatively strong front, and along the western coast we did see some aligning of the ingredients, Rizzuto said. It was a perfect storm along the west coast for some tornadic activity.

10:50 a.m. | Tornado damage in Iona and Fort Myers is being investigated

The National Weather Service had issued the first tornado warning just before 8 a.m.

At the trailer park, workers were boarding up homes and putting plywood as sheriffs deputies roam through the area. A number of structures have visible damage.

The National Weather Service confirmed a tornado that touched down in Iona in Fort Myers.

By 9:15 a.m., several portions of north Collier County also had tornado warnings. A warning means that a tornado has been confirmed in that area.

A National Weather Service forecaster in Tampa, Stephen Shiveley, said Southwest Florida had an "active weather situation" with a tornado warning in Lee County about 9 a.m. and extending throughout the morning.

He said "something just came ashore."

8:00 a.m. | Tornado warnings followed soon by "significant" Fort Myers-area storm damage

Earlier, about 8 a.m. residents in Southwest Florida were greeted with a series of strong storms in advance of a strong cold front moving into the region.

There have been TV reports of "significant" damage in some areas with "rotation" on and off shore.

Near the Murrays' trailer, other residents sustained minor damage.

Jeff Funchion lives across from Murray, and the trailer sustained broken windows.

Ive never been through something like this, he said. The windows broke and that was it. The TV beeped and then it hit.

Another resident recounted pretty much the same story.

"I had a rough wake-up call and by the time the windows blew in it was over with, said Dan Langenfeld, who with his wife, Jan, are originally from Minnesota. "It didnt last long. The wife, the dogs and I are fine.

Unopened beer cans mixed in the debris field along a street.

I think Ill have a cold one later, Langenfeld said as he surveyed the damage.

A screen shot of our interactive weather radar on Saturday afternoon.

It is a fast-moving system and the damage appears to be taking place in small "pockets" as it moves through Southwest Florida.

Lee County emergency officials were evacuating Tropicana Park, built in 1970, with 470 homesites serving a 55+ community,

According to Florida Power and Light, Lee County had 15,374 people without power at 9:45 a.m. and Collier County had 1,364.

Florida Highway Patrol said a tornado upended and flipped a semi tractor-trailer truck on Interstate 75 at westbound 96 mile marker in Collier County on Sunday morning. The lanes soon reopened.

Florida Highway Patrol reported a tornado flipped a semi tractor-trailer truck on its side, blocking traffic in Collier County at westbound 96 mile marker on 1-75, temporarily closing the lanes.

Florida Highway Patrol troopers spotted the tornado at 9:34 a.m. traveling east toward Golden Gate

They reported minor injuries from the crash.

Troopers are on scene and one travel lane remains open.

This is a developing story. Stay with news-press.com and naplesnews.com for continuing coverage. We will have video and photos of the damage throughout the day.

Power outages

Storm related power outages have been reported in parts of Southwest Florida

FPL reports that 12,348 customers were without electric power in Lee County, 2,588 in Collier County and 659 Charlotte County

In other areas, portions of Lehigh Acres, Cape Coral and Pine Island, and served by the Lee County Electric Cooperative, there are also outages reported.

A total of 266 LCEC customers were reported to be without power, the most significant areas were reported in northeast Cape Coral and in Pine Island, with the most significant damage in Bokelia on the northern end of the island.

Please send tips or photos for print purposes to SWFLBreakingNews@gannett.com

This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Tornado hits Fort Myers, Naples, Cape Coral Bonita Springs
On Monday, Idaho Gov. Brad Little laid out an ambitious plan for investing state revenues in education, infrastructure and tax cuts. In total, the governor proposes increasing spending by 8.1% in the next budget cycle.

That boost is backed by a record budget surplus. The state is projected to go into the next fiscal year, which starts July 1, with a $1.9 billion surplus, the largest in state history.

How does the state have so much extra cash during a global pandemic? The short answer: a strong economy, despite the pandemic, and conservative spending.

Revenue forecasts continue to climb

At the end of the last fiscal year, which ended June 30, the states general fund had a balance of about $960 million. That includes about $70 million in unspent appropriations, and $890 million in revenue carryover.

That is the difference between what we thought wed bring in and what we actually collected, Keith Bybee, a budget and policy analyst for the Idaho Legislature, told a legislative budget panel on Tuesday.

The three largest revenue sources for the general fund are individual income taxes, sales taxes and corporate income taxes. Those, and other revenue sources, grew  thanks largely to increases in population and personal income  24% in the last fiscal year.

It was equivalent to four years of growth, and it was the largest revenue take in state history, said Alex Adams, head of Littles budget-writing Division of Financial Management.

The second piece of the surplus puzzle is revenue forecasts for the current fiscal year, which started July 1, 2021, and ends June 30. Revenue is expected to grow by another 3.6% this budget cycle, on top of the 24% growth in 2021. In November, revenue was expected to increase $721 million, but that number has since been upped to $936 million.

Net revenue and the beginning balance are expected to total $6.12 billion by June. Thats before any money is spent.

Idaho spending less than other states

During a Tuesday budget presentation, Adams told lawmakers that Idaho isnt alone in collecting higher-than-forecast revenues. In the last fiscal year, 47 states reported that general fund revenue collections came in above original budget projections, according to a survey by the National Association of Budget Officers.

Story continues

Spending in those 47 states is expected to grow 9.3% on average in the current fiscal year, the survey said. But Idaho kept spending at a relatively conservative 4% in 2022, Adams said.

So when people ask, Why do we have a surplus? the answer is pretty simple, Adams said. Idahos economy is red-hot, and revenue is growing faster than the size of government.

The governors proposed budget would allocate $1.7 billion of the $1.9 billion surplus. Some of that money will be used as one-time funding and go toward deferred maintenance, tax rebates and savings accounts. Meanwhile, ongoing expenditures will boost spending on education, transportation and tax relief, among other things, starting in the next fiscal year.

Despite the surplus, the budget is designed to hedge against uncertainty, Adams told lawmakers. In years past, the state would target about a $50 million remaining balance, or cushion, at the end of each fiscal year. But Little is proposing a $214 million carryover at the end of 2022 and 2023.

His budget also bolsters savings, or rainy-day funds, to 22% of next years projected revenues.

Not everyone is sold on the surplus. Democratic lawmakers say the excess money is the result of under-funding state-controlled agencies and programs.

We have cash on hand, you may say, by virtue of not funding our schools, not funding our universities, not funding our roads and bridges, not funding our emergency services, House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, recently told the Idaho Statesman.

Ultimately, the Idaho Legislatures Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee  which has 16 Republicans and four Democrats  will consider Littles proposals but craft its own budget bills.

How COVID-19 federal relief factors into surplus

While Idahos surplus likely benefited from the influx of federal COVID-19 funds spent by individuals and corporations during the pandemic, the states total surplus excludes about $1.2 billion from the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA.

Again, the state has been slow to spend the money. While other states, combined, have spent 53% of federal COVID-19 relief funds, as of November, Idaho spent just $50 million of that money last year, Adams said.

However, the governors budget makes a number of recommendations to spend the states ARPA funds, which must be dedicated by 2024, in the coming years. Those recommendations include projects to improve water infrastructure, water recharge and raising dams, among other things.

Adams described the proposals as long-term investments that will ripple for the state for decades to come.
Despite the surveys flaws, education experts say the research offers an opportunity to reflect on college access and the role of race in admissions. Moyo Studio/Getty Images

Buffalo Parents are outraged after students were given an assignment with "disgusting" language.

The assignment asked students to translate a series of 10 sentences from English to Spanish.

The assignment included sentences like "You (friendly) are Mexican and ugly" and "You (politely) are pretty and American."

School administrators apologized after parents criticized a disturbing homework assignment that went out to students.

The assignment, given to sixth-graders at Mill Middle School in Buffalo, New York, asked students to translate a series of 10 sentences from English to Spanish.

The second sentence on the list said: "You (friendly) are Mexican and ugly." And the final sentence said: "You (politely) are pretty and American," according to a image shared by a parent on Twitter.

"Shocked at this Spanish homework assignment in Williamsville Central School District loaded with such blatant racism," Allison Wainick wrote on Twitter. "Can we even begin to unpack all that is wrong here? Who is developing this curriculum & where is the oversight?"

The school district called the assignment "unacceptable" in a statement posted to its Facebook page.

"We are addressing the situation to ensure this does not happen again. The District does not condone any instructional material that denigrates our students, families, culture, or beliefs," the statement continues. "This assignment fails to meet our standard and will be dealt with appropriately."

Parents expressed outrage on the Facebook post as well. A woman who said she's Latina and a parent to biracial children who attend Mill Middle School said she's "completley [sic] in shock."

Another woman who said she's the mother of a Hispanic kid attending a school within the Williamsville Central Schools District, which oversees Mill Middle School, commented on the school's Facebook announcement, saying the assignment "upsets me so much."

Story continues

"We can't just be ok with an apology from the District, this is not something that can be undone or unseen by the kids," she said, adding that "we teach our kids not to bully, but what kind of message you think the teacher is sending with this assignment."

One parent, speaking with the Buffalo News, said he's "extremely disappointed" that the assignment with "disgusting and inexcusable language such as this" had been presented in the classroom.

The teacher who created the assignment has not yet been identified.

Williamsville Central Schools did not immediately respond to Insider's request for more information.

Read the original article on Insider
Glenn Youngkin Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R), who defeated former Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) last November in a race that attracted national attention, used his first days in office to take aggressive action on the culture war issue that propelled him into office.

Some Twitter users observed Saturday that Youngkin had almost immediately removed the "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" section from the Virginia governor's website. One user described the change, which indicates a larger shift in the structure of the commonwealth's executive branch, as "[s]ickening."

Glenn Youngkin just removed the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion section of the Virginia Governors website. Sickening.  Ethan Lynne (@ethanclynne) January 16, 2022

After photos surfaced that may have shown him wearing racist garb while in medical school, former Gov. Ralph Northam (D) created the cabinet-level position of chief diversity officer in 2019. It appears that Youngkin has eliminated that cabinet post entirely.

Archived versions of the Virginia governor's website from the Northam administration include a page for then-Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer Janice Underwood. The current version of the site lists no such position.

Youngkin also issued executive orders affecting education policy, which voters ranked as their top issue in the November election according to NPR. One of Youngkin's first orders banned "the use of divisive concepts, including Critical Race Theory, in public education," while another empowered parents to decide whether their kids would have to wear masks in school.

During the campaign, McAuliffe suffered greatly in the polls for saying during a debate with Youngkin that parents shouldn't "be telling schools what they should teach." That gaffe, along with a wave of contentious school board meetings in Virginia's Loudoun County, further inflamed a fierce national debate over the use of critical race theory and teaching around sex and gender in American schools.

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Youngkin was sworn in as Virginia's 74th governor around noon Saturday. "To parents, I say we respect you, and we will empower you in the education of your children," he said in his inaugural address.

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Iowa Western Community Colleges Aviation Maintenance Technology program has been awarded a $475,000 grant by the Federal Aviation Administration, the FAA announced Friday.

The grant is for only 18 months, but we are hoping to use that to update the curriculum, update equipment and increase student enrollment, said Matt Mancuso, executive director of economic and workforce development for the college.

The award was part of $5 million in grants designated by the agency to develop a diverse talent pool of aviation maintenance technicians, a press release from the FAA stated. The funding will go to organizations that will teach technical skills and prepare students for aviation maintenance careers.

A career as an aviation maintenance technician opens a wide world of opportunity, said A. Bradley Mims, FAA deputy administrator. These grants will allow us to reach and support individuals who may not (have) had the chance to pursue this exciting career before.

Recipients can use the funds to establish new educational programs; provide scholarships or apprenticeships for individuals pursuing employment in the aviation maintenance industry; conduct outreach about careers in the aviation maintenance industry to primary, secondary and postsecondary school students; and support educational opportunities related to aviation maintenance in economically disadvantaged areas, according to the press release.

Iowa Western plans to use the funding to step up recruitment efforts, expand student support services and expand and update the program, Mancuso said. For recruitment and outreach, the college will use the funding to produce brochures and videos and add a part-time recruiter for veterans.

The college will work with veterans organizations and Offutt Air Force Base to recruit veterans to the program, he said. In addition, officials will work more closely with Council Bluffs Community Schools and Burke High School in Omaha. Each high school will receive training equipment so students can experience aviation maintenance. College officials will also reach out to adult learners.

To improve student support services, Iowa Western will hire a part-time math tutor for aviation students to use, implement peer mentoring and provide tutoring for certification in aviation maintenance after students graduate, Mancuso said.

A full-time lab assistant will be hired to increase the capacity of the program by up to 25 students, he said. The FAA requires a student-teacher ratio of no more than 25 to 1, and first-year students are usually at 25.

With an additional staff member, we are able to increase the capacity of the first year, Mancuso said. It is a hard program with both academic and FAA requirements, so many students find it challenging  and many do not persist. That is why we are focusing on recruiting and support after they get into the program.

As of November, Iowa Westerns aviation technology program had 25 first-year students  the maximum admitted  and 20 second-year students.

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An online petition has been launched by an activist resident in France, Esther Dahan, against the granting of political asylum in France to the anti-Semitic couple Dounia and Adnane Filali.

This couple, active on social networks, creates false controversies with hateful, racist, anti-Semitic and malicious speeches.

This petition was posted online via the change.org platform under the title Against the request for asylum in France by the +reputedly anti-Semitic+ couple Dounia & Adnane Filali.

The petition can be accessed through the link below:

https://www.change.org/p/contre-la-demande-d-asile-en-france-du-couple-r%C3%A9put%C3%A9-antis%C3%A9mite-dounia-adnane- filali

The objective of the petition is to obtain the greatest number of signatures to demand the expulsion of the Filali couple from French territory.

This Judeophobic phenomenon on the Net, with obscurantist ideas, is thus embodied by Adnane and Dounia Filali, notorious anti-Semites and anti-Israelis, who seek asylum in France; they are currently pinned and prosecuted by The National Bureau of Vigilance Against Antisemitism (BNVCA).

Several photo-shots, posted on social networks, show the Filali duo making the gesture of the quenelle, popularized by the controversial humorist Dieudonne.

In addition, Adnane is known on Facebook for defending the terrorist organization Hezbollah: it is, with the Iranian army, one of the only free and just armies on this planet, he once posted shamelessly.

The president of the BNVCA, Sammy Ghozlan, deems unacceptable that France, which claims to fight against antisemitism, grants asylum to youtubers who advocate hatred.
The Foreign Ministers of Morocco and Burkina Faso, Nasser Bourita and Hadizatou Rosine Sori-Coulibaly, have renewed their two countries commitment to developing multi-dimensional cooperation at the bilateral, regional, and international levels.

The two ministers made the pledge in a phone conversation on Friday, January 14. During this meeting, the two ministers welcomed the excellent ties of brotherhood, solidarity, and cooperation between Morocco and Burkina Faso, which have been consolidated in accordance with the instructions of King Mohammed VI and his brother President Roch Marc Christian Kabore,  Moroccos Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a press release.

Morocco and Burkina Faso agreed to extend their cooperation to new areas of mutual interest, including the fight against terrorism and radicalism and the implementation of economic, technical-scientific, and cultural projects, the press release said.

The two countries have long-standing bilateral relations and exchanges in the sectors of agriculture, trade, mining, energy, science, and technology.

In 2021, the number of annual scholarships for Burkinabe students in Moroccan universities and higher education and vocational training institutions reached 180.

To facilitate trade and mobility, Morocco and Burkina Faso signed a visa exemption agreement for the benefit of Moroccan and Burkinabe nationals on October 23, 2020.

According to data reported by the news outlet moroccoworldnews, in 2019, the value of Moroccan exports to Burkina Faso reached $83.7 million. The exports included refined petroleum ($27.3 million), insulated wire ($7.81 million), and mineral or chemical fertilizers ($5.89 million).

In the same year, Morocco imported refined petroleum, ($622,000), tropical fruits ($396,000), and non-retailed pure cotton yarn ($129,000) from Burkina Faso. The value of imports reached $1.64 million in 2019, OEC reported.
The UN Secretary Generals personal envoy for the Sahara, Staffan de Mistura, was in Rabat on Thursday, where he started his first tour of the region since taking office in November 2021.

Reiterating its support for the UN envoy, the Biden administration, part of the continuity of the American recognition, in December 2020, of the Moroccanness of the Sahara, welcomed this tour, as well as the efforts of Staffan de Mistura to relaunch a credible political process leading to a lasting and mutually acceptable political solution to the Sahara conflict.

We welcome Staffan de Misturas first visit to the region as the Personal Envoy of the @UN SG for Western Sahara. We support his efforts in restarting a credible political process leading to an enduring and mutually acceptable political solution to the Western Sahara conflict, the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the State Department said in a tweet.

The Embassy of the United States in Rabat relayed the same tweet, and welcomed on its part De Misturas tour which, it hoped, would contribute to a relaunch of the process of settling this regional dispute.

The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, had endeavored to accelerate the appointment process of a successor to the German Horst Kohler, who had resigned for health reasons. The appointment process had been stalled for several months.

He had raised the issue on March 29, 2021, during his first meeting, by videoconference, with the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres. He had then reaffirmed the support of the United States for the political negotiations and urged the Secretary General (of the UN) to activate the appointment of a personal envoy for the Sahara.

Morocco has reaffirmed Thursday its willingness to negotiate a UN solution to the Sahara within the exclusive UN framework and on the basis of the autonomy plan while stressing the need for the participation of Algeria as a party to the round table process.

This came during the meeting held in Rabat by the UN envoy with Moroccan minister of Foreign Affairs, Nasser Bourita.

De Misturas tour in Morocco, Algeria, and Mauritania is part of the implementation of Security Council resolution 2602 which called on all parties to the conflict to pursue the round table process in a spirit of realism and compromise with a view to achieving a realistic, feasible and lasting political solution.
A collection of 270 medical professionals reportedly signed an open letter to Spotify asking the media platform to rein in Joe Rogan, its most listened to podcaster, whom they accuse of promoting junk science with regards to the COVID pandemic.

Their chief complaint is aimed at a Dec. 31 episode of "The Joe Rogan Experience" featuring right-wing media darling Dr. Robert Malone, who is a COVID-vaccine skeptic.

The group behind the letter  first published by Rolling Stone  describes itself as a "coalition of scientists, medical professionals, professors, and science communicators spanning a wide range of fields such as microbiology, immunology, epidemiology, and neuroscience."

Their concerns include that year-ending program with Malone, which has "been criticized for promoting baseless conspiracy theories" on a podcast those experts accuse of having a "concerning history of broadcasting misinformation."

Among the things Malone asserted during his visit with Rogan was that "mass formation psychosis" is leading people to get vaccinated against the deadly and highly contagious coronavirus, which has killed more than 800,000 Americans since early 2020. Malone, who did not have a hand in developing COVID vaccines, was involved in early research of mRNA technology more that 20 years ago. mRNA technology is at the core of Pfizer and Moderna's tested and effective vaccination shots.

"Though Spotify has a responsibility to mitigate the spread of misinformation on its platform, the company presently has no misinformation policy," the team of medical experts writes in its letter.

Malone was suspended from Twitter earlier this month for violating its rules regarding the dissemination of misinformation. YouTube removed a clip of his interview with Rogan for the same reason.

"The average age of (The Joe Rogan Experience) listeners is 24 years old and according to data from Washington State, unvaccinated 12-34 year olds are 12 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID than those who are fully vaccinated," Rogan's critics state in their missive.

The medical experts charge that the spreading of bad science is a "sociological issue of devastating proportions" and blames Spotify for giving bogus information a home. They call on the platform to "immediately establish a clear and public policy to moderate misinformation on its platform."

Spotify did not respond to a Daily News request for comment about the letter from the 270 medical professionals.

Speaking on his own behalf, Rogan told listeners last year that they should not come to him for medical advice.

"I'm not a doctor, I'm a f---ing moron," he said during in April podcast. "I'm not a respected source of information, even for me."

The 54-year-old podcaster admitted to his 11 million listeners that he doesn't usually think about what he's going to say before he speaks. Rogan is described on his website as a "stand up comic, mixed martial arts fanatic, psychedelic adventurer, host of the 'Joe Rogan Experience' podcast."

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2022 New York Daily News. Visit at nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
If you think these peacocks are albino, think again. Not all peacocks come in those stunning iridescent colors, but this guy proves their gene
Gabriella Santamaria, 9, holds up a picture of her uncle Stephen who died from a heroin overdose during a candlelight vigil on Staten Island. Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

For the past few years, figures illustrating the nations overdose death toll, driven largely by opioids like Oxycontin and fentanyl, have been appearing in headlines with jaw-dropping frequency. In 2019, drug overdoses eclipsed car crashes as the leading cause of accidental death in the United States. For much of 2020, the daily death toll surpassed that of car accidents and gun deaths combined. Then, at the end of 2021, the CDC released a study showing that the U.S. had officially surpassed 1 million overdose deaths since the agency began collecting such data in 1999. It was a grim milestone that passed unceremoniously, perhaps because it was overshadowed by the COVID-19 pandemic or because Americans are by now well-aware of the toll opioids have taken on the country.

That awareness is thanks, in part, to a string of best-selling books on the opioid epidemic, chief among them 2015s Dreamland, by Sam Quinones, a reporter who spent most of his career at the Los Angeles Times. In Dreamland, Quinones chronicled the history behind Americas addiction to heroin and Oxycontin by reporting on the corporate and criminal forces fueling their rise, and painting a compassionate portrait of the everyday victims addicted to the drugs. The book earned him a National Book Critics Circle award and was recently featured on GQs 50 best narrative nonfiction books of the century. Then came Beth Macys Dopesick, made into a popular series on Hulu, and Patrick Radden Keefes Empire of Pain. In November, Quinones published The Least of Us, a follow-up to Dreamland that dives into the ever-more addictive, dangerous, and widely available fentanyl and methamphetamine killing people across the country. With no farming costs, synthetic drugs are significantly cheaper to produce than heroin, and far more potent, which its often mixed in with other drugs, with deadly consequences.

Nine years ago, I got into this thinking it would be a very neat story about drug companies and doctors prescribing opioids on one hand and Mexican trafficking of black-tar heroin on the other, Quinones told Intelligencer. But along the way, I came to the conclusion that this was a much deeper, broader story about who we had become as Americans, what we had become as a country.

Intelligencer spoke with Quinones about how opioids and methamphetamine are both a symptom and result of Americas 21st-century culture.

What is the significance of 1 million overdose deaths over the past two decades?

When you look at that figure, it shows you what supply has done. When I lived in Mexico, the thought was that this was all the creation of American demand and I kind of went along with that because I hadnt really studied it too closely. I dont believe that anymore. If you look at what is behind all this, its the supply of drugs. The opioid epidemic started with the supply from a new source, which was doctors and pharmaceutical companies. Massive over-prescribing, endless refills, with no care about to whom doctors were prescribing these drugs. In the last several years, the supply has been taken over by the Mexican trafficking world. Modern consumer-product corporations understand the importance of supply. Thats why they put fast food at every offramp. Thats why they fight for space in grocery-store aisles. They know that ease of consumption will lead to more profit. Right now, theres a steady supply of the most deadly drugs weve ever known. There are a lot of different issues going on here  I write about the conditions in our culture that make us very vulnerable to this stuff  but the massive supply of very potent opioids, in one form or another, is how you get here. If the drugs were less powerful, potent, prevalent, its hard to imagine wed see 1 million dead Americans over 20 years.

Reading about synthetic drugs during COVID, I couldnt help but think about them as the ultimate variant that will overtake all other drugs, and whose spread feels all but unstoppable. You come down in favor of efforts to really reduce this supply, which is like stamping out COVID. Im wondering how policy makers can stem the supply without repeating the sins of the war on drugs.

I dont see how we can do much with treatment until theres some relenting on the part of the supply. Any addict who gets out of recovery today faces a scary array of very cheap, very potent, and easily available dope. I believe that one thing this is calling on us to do is to develop the kind of relationship with Mexico that would allow us to collaborate together on this issue. When you apply the power of well-organized, motivated law enforcement, you can do a lot of things to enforce the rule of law. We saw this in New York City with the five Mafia families. For something like 50 years, the FBI, led largely by J. Edgar Hoover, didnt really touch the Mafia. It allowed them to do what the trafficking world in Mexico is now doing, which is digging deep into the legitimate economy. The Mafia knew they could get away with not just prostitution and the numbers racket, but interfering with unions and waste management. Hoover died and the FBI went through a very necessary modernization. We enacted RICO statutes. All of a sudden, those Mafia families get taken down. Those families were believed to be more powerful than any police force and when you put an array of forces against them, they faded and spent the last years of their lives in prison.

The Mexican trafficking world is more advanced and scarier, but thats a direct result of the Mexican governments failure to stop this and our failure to stop the flow of guns that are purchased so easily here in the United States, which are smuggled south and provide traffickers the impunity that they enjoy.

In November, New York opened the countrys first safe-injection sites for drug users and other cities are following suit. Is that putting the cart before the horse?

Maybe. I dont know. Im interested to see what effect they have. I dont believe we should be saying no to anything right now. Every form of treatment needs to be tried. The problem that I think may happen with the safe-injection sites is that they will be evaluated with the statistics of how many people they revive, and Im sure they will revive many. But that shouldnt necessarily be the barometer of whether or not the sites are successful because eventually someone who is revived five, six, or eight times at a safe-injection site is going to keep on using and they may be using when theyre not near a safe-injection site and die. The key barometer for those safe-injection sites is going to be how many of those folks who come to them and are revived are then channeled effectively into treatment. Saving a person one time is wonderful and it is absolutely a good thing, but if all youre doing is postponing the inevitable, then Im not sure that actually works as a solution.

I say postponing the inevitable because theres really no such thing as a long-term fentanyl street user. They all die. I was speaking with a judge in West Virginia who runs a drug court, and I asked him, Hey, what are you seeing? Whats going on in your area? He goes, Well, really, all of our clients are meth addicts. I said, Really? You dont have any fentanyl users? Why is that? He goes, Um, they all die. They dont stay using fentanyl long enough to become a client. That reflects things Ive heard across the country. Theres an idea in drug-addiction recovery that you need to develop the gift of desperation to really fuel your own desire for recovery. Youve been through so much junk and crap and humiliation and grinding by these drugs that you develop a desperation. Its a gift for recovery, for sobriety. Fentanyl doesnt allow the time for you to develop the gift of desperation. It kills you too quickly.

Methamphetamine appears to very quickly create mental illness. And then with it, its becoming clear, brain damage. Many people who Ive talked to are telling me that just because someone stops using this methamphetamine does not mean they return to some kind of baseline at which they are coherent and in control of all their faculties. I spoke with a woman who is still in anguish because after two years of sobriety and her brain still hasnt returned to the same acuity it had before this methamphetamine. She can feel it.

You put forth a theory that draws a direct line between the sharp increase in homeless tent encampments and a 2008 decision by the Mexican government that forced traffickers to change their meth formula.

First of all, I kind of bridle against the idea of it being a theory. Im not upset about the word choice, but its based on street reporting. Sure, there is no neuroscience, rat or mice studies, that shows that the stuff seized on the streets of the United States today creates these problems. I understand that, and said that in the book. However, there is ample evidence that wherever this meth goes, it is accompanied by rapid onset, very severe, symptoms of schizophrenia, mental illness, and then quickly homelessness and tent encampments. This isnt just in cities like L.A. Ive talked with people all across the country, including areas where the cost of housing isnt high. Three chapters in the book talk about what happened when that meth came to a small Rust Belt town, Clarksburg, West Virginia. They didnt have homelessness in Clarksburg before this meth came. Ive spoken with people in Bernalillo, New Mexico, also a town where there is absolutely no problem finding cheap housing. They now have homelessness. They didnt have it in Salem, West Virginia, either. What Im saying is that this meth is not just in the big cities where theyve had this famous problem of homelessness, like San Francisco or Los Angeles. This meth is now reaching pretty much the entire country.

Photo: Bloomsbury

In terms of reaction and general interest, how does the experience of publishing a book about a deadly, addictive, and widely available drug in 2021 compare with publishing one in 2015?

I would say that theres far more awareness now of this whole issue than there was back then. When I was writing Dreamland my wife and I were convinced that it would fade immediately. And the reason for that was because, during the writing and reporting, I found very few families with addicted loved ones who wanted to talk about it. It was all very hidden. Everyone was mortified, ashamed, embarrassed. I found five families to quote, and that was trying pretty hard. There was this national silence around this issue. When the book came out, we watched as awareness grew. Then, I began to get more and more invitations to come speak about it. That was something I was positive would never happen. When the book came out, there were actually only three lawsuits against Purdue Pharma and other drug companies. Three. Within a couple of years, there were like 2,600 lawsuits.

What has it been like for you personally to watch the Sackler familys fortunes change so dramatically?

That was another thing I could not imagine. I remember walking in a neighborhood called the Bottoms in Lucasville, a small town in southern Ohio. The Bottoms is right next to the Scioto River. Its a neighborhood of trailers and folks that have been taking it rough. A lot of people were addicted to Oxycontin. I walked through that neighborhood and I remember thinking theres no way these people have the voice or the power to ever force an accounting of Purdue Pharma or the Sackler family. I just couldnt imagine it because the people who were so hammered by it, their lives were in complete turmoil. I have been amazed to watch how that has changed over the last six years. Nobody knew who the Sacklers were. Watching the change in fortunes has been remarkable. Nobody will take their money. Their last name is being removed from universities and museums. As I said, when I was out there writing Dreamland I felt very, very alone, like nobody else was telling the story.

You write and talk a lot about how the opioid epidemic is an outgrowth of the way we live in the 21st century  suburban isolation, silo-ization, even stuff like our addiction to sugar. Im wondering if there are key moments in history, or decisions, that got us here. This is a bit of a vague question, but can any of those 21st-century forces be undone to change the way we live, with an aim toward reducing peoples reliance on drugs?

Those are great, great, great questions. I dont think Im the sociologist who can answer all of that. I do believe that a lot goes into what has created what we have today. On the one hand its the whole Rust Belt phenomenon, and its not just that jobs went overseas. It was an attitude in our culture among Americans who said, Oh well, those communities are the losers. Let them fend for themselves. In one sense, you have a lot of communities that are just hemorrhaging people, and energy, and are very isolated. Walmarts run all of the mom-and-pop stores out of town. Sure, those stores were three times more expensive than Walmart, but that money was staying in the community, being donated to Little Leagues and junior-high theater projects. Now, that money is no longer there, nor are the people who owned those businesses.

At the same time, at the other end of the economic spectrum, we see a lot of very scary isolation. To me, its very unappealing stuff. We built this intense isolation into our suburbs, so its very difficult to actually go outside and meet neighbors. A loaf of bread requires a two-mile drive. A good amount of it has to do with our urban planning stripping away anything that brought us together. Of course we are connected more than any humans have ever been connected, and yet its the most superficial kind of connectivity. Were constantly connected on social media and were constantly misunderstanding each other. You dont have the nuances of tone on Twitter or Facebook that you have when youre speaking face-to-face with a person. Something that ought to bring us together actually has us tearing each other apart.

We have destroyed the very bulwark of defense that has allowed human beings to survive for eons now. What allowed us to survive was not that we viewed community as a nice thing to have around, but as something that was absolutely essential. Our brains evolved to require it. We die when were isolated far more quickly than when were with other people. Multiply that by an entire society and you get to a place where we are once again dying because we are isolated. In this case its drugs. As a society, we have stripped away all that stuff that brought us together. The common denominator isnt economics or race. Its isolation.

So, how do we deal with all that? My feeling is, in my own personal life, I cut down significantly on isolation. I have software that stops the internet. I try to walk a lot and be outside a lot. I try to not eat crappy food that I keep being pressured to eat by every soda, junk-food, and fast-food manufacturer. I dont gamble. I dont do pornography. All of that is opting to steer away from the forces using addiction, companies fine-tuning their products to more completely addict us. I stand up to them in my own personal way. Is it saving the world? Of course not. But I feel its an appropriate response from someone living in this culture. Another way of dealing with it is in the title of the book. Paying attention to the smallest solutions, to the daily work, to understanding that we are only as strong as the most vulnerable in our society. Were only as strong as the least of us.
Two Auburn University students were crowned Saturday evening during the Miss Alabama USA Pageant at Gogue Performing Arts Center at Auburn University.

Katelyn Vinson, a senior competing as Miss Dothan, was named Miss Alabama USA, and AnnaLee Story, a freshman competing as Miss Tiger Town Teen, was named Miss Teen Alabama USA.

I am actually in shock, Vinson said. I couldnt even cry. It took me a second to even start crying because I just could not believe it. I have worked so hard and so tirelessly for this.

Contestants from all over the state competed for scholarships, prizes and a chance to travel the state promoting the pageant. Vinson is headed to the Miss USA pageant, while Story will represent Alabama in the Miss Teen USA pageant.

On Saturday night, the Gogue Center was crowded with family members, friends and other audience members who showed their support for their competitor by cheering, whistling, holding up posters and waving glow sticks.

After two days of competing in interview, evening gown and swimsuit/active wear competitions, the 34 Miss Alabama contestants and the 47 Miss Teen Alabama contestants were each narrowed down to the top five.

Vinson said pursuing this goal has changed her life in many ways and has helped her grow spiritually, physically and mentally.

Ive worked for this for years, she said. I just think about eighth grade me and I never could see myself doing this, even three years ago. It just seemed like a far-fetched dream.

Vinson, who is from Dothan, will be graduating in July of this year with a degree in business administration and a minor in marketing.

Im not quite sure the route I want to take yet, but Ive just learned to be OK with the process, Vinson said. Ideally I would love to work in the music industry working with artists and making other peoples dreams a reality.

Story, who is from Lawrenceburg, Tenn., is a freshman nursing major at Auburn University and plans to be a nurse anesthetist, to continue to grow her online boutique and to make a difference in the world.

I was absolutely shocked and honored, Story said. I cant believe this is real, but its an honor of a lifetime. I cant wait to see whats going to happen next year.

The top four runners up for Miss Alabama, from first to fourth, were as follows: Noelia Voigt, Miss Camelia; Harleigh Lantrip, Miss Hoover; Natalie Lamm, Miss Auburn; and Samantha Huver, Miss Northport.

The top four runners up for Miss Teen Alabama, from first to fourth, were as follows: Jaycee Parker, Miss Gulf Coast Teen; Kensey Collins, Miss Spanish Fort Teen; Maddie Corbitt, Miss Trussville Teen; and Natalie Robertson, Miss Northwest Alabama Teen.

Votes were collected online for the Peoples Choice Award, and the winners were Shalee Winsett, Miss Baldwin County, and Madeline Talley, Miss Lake Martin Teen.

For Most Photogenic, the judges selected Jordan Golden, Miss Indian Springs Village, and Arica Haywood, Miss River Region Teen.

The contestants voted among themselves for the Miss Congeniality award, given to the friendliest and kindest, and the recipients were Lauren Gray, Miss Flint River, and Joi Williams, Miss Mobile County Teen.
Once a duckboy...

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Quack quack

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always a quacker!

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It's shit like this that makes life worth living lmaoooooo

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that head is photoshopped onto that body and i won't be convinced otherwise



shitty she was deceived into thinking she was boning a single man



Edited at 2022-01-16 09:31 pm (UTC)

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Like when you try to put your barbies head back on.

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sounds about right

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Don't know where to begin, so uh

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Total fuckboy lol

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His bedroom decor sounds tacky and cheap

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It sounds like mine and I can confirm I am extremely tacky and cheap.

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I mean is anyone surprised, like at all? I feel bad for Gigi but idk how you could be with someone who had a global cheating scandal and expect different

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Being stuck in Los Angeles, he moaned there were a lot of skinny girls.



And she isn't?

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Sadly, by LA (Hollywood) standards for a white woman, she is not what would fall into the thin category. People here are frail.

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She is toned and her muscles are defined and in shape....LA's version of skinny is usually stick stickly skinny.

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lol she called him Mr. Grey



bwahahahahahaha



and i know im nitpicking but I hate it when people wear heels like that and their toes go over the side.

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I hate that with the heels too lol

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Cliffhangers! Shrimp cocktails! lol

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"She revealed they romped in Zayns dungeon-like bedroom, which was straight out of sex flick Fifty Shades of Grey." this sounds made up lmfao, as for the other... well, if the river sounds it's because it's carrying water (si el rio suena es porque agua lleva)

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I wonder if she came up with the Mr. Grey stuff on her own or if he was doing the musical equivalent to method acting from that one single he did for those terrible movies

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It doesnt even sound like a dungeon lol just a bedroom with a black color scheme

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if his london house is the one he used to live in with perrie, then i remember when that one woman who took photos of him in bed leak her pics of the bedroom and it was definitely a black bedroom so i wouldn't be surprised lol

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He's definitely a fuckboy, but this whole story sounds made up, I mean SHE'S the one who broke it up? OK.

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Once a cheater

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He's an asshole and she's desperate af.

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Ummmher hair is pretty.



It does suck if she believed he was single. Hes trash.

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on the one hand this is zayn so i believe it but on the other hand this is the sun so i dont believe it

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The classic gossip paradox.

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Edited at 2022-01-16 10:01 pm (UTC)

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Pretty much, though I feel like the sun is a little more reliable on tacky kiss and tells them most of their entertainment stories. Its definitely the place to go with a tacky kiss and tell anyways lol

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In 2020, as the coronavirus locked down country after country, many energy industry observers and even participants floated the argument that this was the end of the oil era. Demand, these commentators said, had peaked. From now on, it will be a downward spiral for it, they said. These predictions did not age well.

Just a year into the pandemic, economies were reopening, growing, and unsurprisingly for many, consuming more crude oil. Last September, Bloomberg reported that some of the world's biggest economies had seen a rebound in oil demand to pre-pandemic levels and even further growth on top of these levels.

Now, two years into the pandemic and with hopes it could be the last one for infection waves, oil demand is still going strong despite the fresh scare of the Omicron variant. Analysts are predicting higher oil prices still, citing limited capacity, insufficient investment in new production, and the strength of demand.

The International Energy Agency this week expressed its surprise with this demand strength. The IEA, it seems, had assumed that for some reason or another, oil demand growth would slow down. Perhaps the assumption had something to do with the agency's own energy forecasts that see massive growth in wind and solar power generation capacity and a strong increase in EV adoption, with the latter directly affecting oil demand. Yet its assumption proved to be quite wrong.

"Demand dynamics are stronger than many of the market observers had thought, mainly due to the milder Omicron expectations," the IEA's chief, Fatih Birol, said this week. Translated, this statement means that the IEA expected more national lockdowns to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus variant. Yet more severe lockdowns were quite unlikely this time aroundeven the wealthiest economies would find it hard to cope with another shutdown of their economies, so they are approaching this Omicron wave more carefully than previous ones.

"We see some of the key producers including Nigeria, Libya and also Ecuador that have serious supply disruptions," Birol also said, echoing concern by analysts that the supply side of the global oil equation is as problematic as the demand side. Ecuador is already restoring production after it repaired two important pipelines. Libya continues to be a wild card, and Nigeria is struggling but determined to boost its oil production.

This is the present state of oil fundamentals. The future may look different. For one thing, the underinvestment problem is becoming increasingly grave. Both OPEC and the IEAthe latter which has rebranded itself as a champion of the energy transitionhave warned that the world needs more new oil discoveries.

The only reason for this could be that demand is not dying as fast as hoped by all the champions of the energy transition. Yet Big Oil is curbing its oil output because of transition pressure, and this would mean not just fewer new discoveries because of lower investment in exploration but also lower output from some of the biggest producers out there. This would swing the burden of supply more to OPEC+ whose spare capacity is shrinking, just like European Big Oil's output.

The oil demand outlook appears to be so bullish that even U.S. shale drillers have begun boosting their production despite a pandemic-induced rearrangement of priorities that saw them focus on returning cash to shareholders and forego production growth. With oil exports last year hitting record highs, failing to take advantage of the opportunity to supply a higher portion of the oil an energy-hungry world needs would have been a little odd.

"The consumption of oil and gas has to diminish, demand has to decline," the IEA's Birol said earlier this month in comments on a Canada-focused report. "There is no way out. But I wanted to make clear that a declining demand doesn't mean tomorrow they will be zero."

The statement echoes one made by President Biden when he was criticized for asking OPEC to pump more oil while at the same time pushing a green transition-heavy agenda at home. Biden argued the two were not mutually exclusive because the transition took time.

"On the surface, it seems like an irony," Biden said earlier this month, referring to his call on OPEC+ to add more oil production while heading for COP26 to discuss the reduction of global emissions. "But the truth of the matter is ... everyone knows that idea that we're going to be able to move to renewable energy overnight ... it's just not rational."

Indeed, despite calls from some more radical environmentalist groups to do exactly that, oil and gas production cannot be stopped overnight to ensure a clear path towards the 2050 net-zero goals. But even the decline that the IEA's Birol correctly sees as essential for the achievement of the Paris Agreement goals might prove a tough nut to crack. Unless, of course, governments resort to a series of bans and mandates to point their citizens in the right direction. Come to think of it, some are already doing just that.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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WoodMac: The geographic concentration of rare earth mining and refined production has long raised concerns over the potential for supply disruption

While the U.S. is working in working groups, China and Russia are moving in African countries rich in mineral resources to gain access to their reserves

The United States needs a more robust strategy in the race to procure critical minerals that will be crucial to meeting any of its clean energy goals.

The U.S. has acknowledged that it depends on China for imports of key metals and minerals necessary for the energy transition, supply chains, and national security.

Yet, while the Administration was reviewing supply chain issues and vulnerabilities to its demand for critical minerals, China is moving in on Africa and South America to strike alliances and lend money to mineral resource-rich African countries, while Russia is thought to be providing shadow security services in some African nations with a mercenary organization with links to the Kremlin.

In the global race to secure critical minerals, the United States is currently losing to China.

The U.S. imports more than half of its annual consumption of 31 of the 35 critical minerals, the Department of Energy said at the start of President Joe Bidens term in office. America does not have domestic production for 14 of those critical minerals and is completely dependent on imports to supply its demand.

As of early 2021, the U.S. imported 80 percent of its rare earth elements (REEs) directly from China, with remaining portions indirectly sourced from China through other countries, DOE said.

In 2020, China accounted for 85 percent of global production of refined rare earth products, with other Asian countries (Malaysia, India, and Vietnam) and comparatively minor European operations accounting for the remainder, Wood Mackenzie said in an analysis of REEs in October 2021.

China also consolidated its domestic rare earth industry into six state-owned enterprises, giving it greater control over the supply and pricing of rare earth exports globally, WoodMacs analyst Ross Embleton and David Merriman, Manager, Battery & Electric Vehicle Materials, said.

According to Roskill, a Wood Mackenzie commodity research business, China accounted for 54 percent of global rare earth elements mining in 2021 and for a massive 85 percent of refined REE supply in the world. To compare, North America accounted for 18 percent of mining of REEs last year, and for ZERO refined supply of those elements.

The geographic concentration of rare earth mining and refined production has long raised concerns over the potential for supply disruption and the wide-ranging end-use markets they serve, WoodMacs Embleton and Merriman said.

Some 90 percent of neodymium (NdFeB) magnet manufacturing currently takes place in China, despite efforts to diversify mined and refined supply.

This raises geopolitical concerns, they note.

At the end of a 100-day review of critical supply chains and critical minerals, the White House and the Administration decided to establish a working group comprised of federal agencies to identify potential sites where critical minerals could be sustainably and responsibly produced and processed in the United States while adhering to the highest environmental, labor, community engagement, and sustainability standards.

While the U.S. is working in working groups, China and Russia are moving in African countries rich in mineral resources to gain access to their reserves in legislations with low environmental standards, cheap labor, and few regulations, Ariel Cohen, Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council and founding principal of risk advisory International Market Analysis, notes in Forbes.

China is lending money and working with African nations as part of its Belt and Road initiative, while Russia is reportedly moving in with the Wagner group, a private military group thought to have ties to the Kremlin. Russia denies any state involvement with the group or its activities in Africa, most recently in the Central African Republic and Mali.

Apart from looking to extract mineral resources at home, the U.S. and the West should develop strategic critical mineral reserves, similar to the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), to use in times of supply disruptions, Cohen says.

Shortfalls of rare earths and key minerals for the energy transition could be just around the corner, considering how mineral-intensive clean energy and net-zero emission pledges are. The United States needs to move faster in securing key minerals domestically and from allies such as Australia; otherwise, Americas clean energy goals and hi-tech and automotive supply chains could depend on China.



By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Courts ruling Thursday blocking the Biden administrations requirements that employees at large companies either get vaccinated against COVID-19 or be tested regularly, some Omaha companies said they will no longer require employees to receive the vaccine.

Spokespeople for First National Bank of Omaha and Conagra said they are no longer proceeding with the steps specified in the now-blocked emergency temporary standard (ETS) issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in November.

A Mutual of Omaha spokesperson said Monday that the company was collecting the vaccination status of its employees and requiring unvaccinated employees to wear a face covering in the workplace, but was not requiring its employees to either be vaccinated or tested. The spokesperson said Mutual has not changed any of its protocols in the wake of the 6-3 Supreme Court decision.

Several other large employers contacted by The World-Herald did not specify whether they would require their employees to receive a vaccine or be tested for COVID-19.

Nationally, some large employers, including Target and Ford Motor Co., said they were reviewing the courts decision.

The companies that would have been affected by the federal mandate, which would have also required unvaccinated people to wear a mask while at work, employ at least 100 people.

With the courts conservative majority striking down the mandate, Baird Holm attorney R.J. Stevenson and Creighton University law professor Kelly Dineen said its up to companies whether they want to require their employees to be vaccinated or tested.

They said companies can implement those requirements as long as they dont violate collective bargaining agreements or approved religious and medical exemptions.

This (ruling) is simply the court saying that the government cannot mandate employees be vaccinated or tested weekly, Stevenson said. There may be some employers who like certain aspects of the ETS and decide to keep it in place.  Employers can still implement those things if they want to. Theyre just not mandated by OSHA to do so.

Stevenson said employers may be hesitant to implement such requirements and risk losing employees in a tight labor market.

Right now, employers are trying to do everything they can to get and keep employees, he said. Theyre not really motivated to separate (with) those employees over such things as employees not being willing to provide proof of vaccination or not willing to be tested.

In contrast, Dineen believes that it may be advantageous for employers to implement some of the requirements.

I think we overestimate the number of people who object and underestimate the number of people who might want to go work at some place with a vaccine mandate, she said.

Although President Joe Biden announced the mandate in September, OSHA didnt formalize the mandate until it issued the ETS. At the time of Bidens announcement, Stevenson and Dineen said the administration appeared to be within its rights.

But after oral arguments before the court, neither of them were surprised by the ruling.

The majority wrote that the mandate was unprecedented in its scope.

While saying the decision shows that the court recognizes OSHAs general authority to implement safety and health standards even in an emergency basis, Stevenson said the court determined that this ETS was too broad.

Paraphrasing the courts thoughts, Stevenson said Here, the court said (they) believe that the agency exceeded its authority because this ETS really goes beyond just the workplace. This is dealing with the matter thats of concern to the general public.

The courts liberal justices wrote a dissenting opinion that, among other things, said the decision seriously misapplies the applicable legal standards and thus the court acted outside of its competence and without legal basis.

Dineen said that she found the dissenting opinion fairly persuasive and that arguments presented by the majority are inconsistent with what OSHA said in the ETS, which was targeted toward workplace exposure. She said some of the hazards that OSHA regulates inside the workplace are also hazards outside of the workplace.

That has not mattered before, Dineen said.

In a separate 5-4 ruling, the court upheld a vaccine mandate for health care workers.

A vaccine mandate for federal contractors has not been considered by the Supreme Court. That mandate is on hold after a lower court blocked it.

Many of Nebraskas top elected officials, all Republicans, publicly praised the Supreme Courts ruling blocking the OSHA mandate.

The Supreme Court has rightly struck down this stunning overreach of federal power. Letting the mandate stand would have created a dangerous precedent. Any future administration could then declare an emergency, publish OSHA rules, and force private businesses to enact federal policies, Gov. Pete Ricketts said in a statement.

On Twitter, Sen. Deb Fischer, Rep. Don Bacon and Rep. Adrian Smith also praised the decision.

This report includes material from the Associated Press.

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Over the holidays, I finished reading The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles.

The book is set in 1954 and Emmett Watson has just finished a stint on a juvenile work farm in Salina, Kansas. Hes returning home to a fictitious Nebraska town not far from the Lincoln Highway.

His mother left the family years before and his father recently passed away.

Emmetts plan was to pick up his 8-year-old brother, Billy, and drive the Lincoln Highway to San Francisco to start a new life. Little did he know, two friends from the work farm  Duchess and Woolly  stowed away in the trunk of the wardens car.

Duchess and Woolly have a plan of their own that takes them all to New York. On their last night together, Duchess made his friends Fettucine Mio Amore.

As a lover of most any Italian dish, I immediately sought out a recipe which I found on Towles website. He says the dish is an homage to an old friend and that its a family favorite.

After making the dish for my family, we can definitely see why.

Fettucine Mio Amore





Serves 4

 cup olive oil

1 large or two small onions, halved and thinly sliced

1 pound of smoked American bacon, cut crosswise into -inch strips

1 bay leaf

 cup dry white wine

1 teaspoon oregano

1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

 cup crushed tomatoes or tomato sauce (and not an ounce more!)

 cup chicken broth

 cup fresh grated Parmesan cheese

12 ounces fettuccine, preferably fresh

1. In a 12-inch pan, over medium-high heat cook the onions in the olive oil until soft and translucent, then set the onions aside.

2. In the same pan, fry the bacon with the bay leaf until the bacon is brown but not crisp.

3. Pour off most, but not all of the bacon fat. Add back the onions along with the white wine, and let simmer for a few minutes.

4. Add the tomato sauce, chicken broth, oregano and pepper flakes. Stir and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer another 10 minutes. (Add a little more chicken broth as necessary, if the sauce is drying out.)

5. While the sauce is simmering, cook the fettuccine. Drain fettuccine and return to cooking pot.

6. Toss about a quarter of the sauce with the drained fettuccine and grated Parmesan. Divide the pasta among four plates, then spoon the rest of the sauce over the top of the pasta.

Adapted from www.amortowles.com

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A 68-year-old Douglas County Jail inmate died Friday in an Omaha hospital, just days after pleading guilty to starting a fire that led to his wifes death.

Carl Bohm of Omaha, who was found guilty of first-degree arson and first-degree assault, had been hospitalized since Jan. 6 due to an ongoing medical condition, according to a spokeswoman for the Douglas County Jail. Bohm faced up to 70 years in prison.

On Feb. 25, 2019, Bohm started a fire at the family home near 39th Street and Himebaugh Avenue.

I will hurt you more than you ever will know, Amanda Bohm has recounted her father saying before he flicked a lighter onto a puddle of gasoline on the garage floor.

Amanda, then an Omaha North High senior, suffered second-degree burns. Her mother, Janet Franks-Bohm, was required to have at least 30 surgeries to repair third-degree burns that covered more than 60% of her body.

Franks-Bohm died in October, and a coroner in Colorado concluded that her death was directly related to the injuries she suffered in the fire. Because of that, she is recorded in police records as one of the 32 homicides in 2021. She was 59 years old.

Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine said his office met with Franks-Bohms family, and they wanted to reach a plea deal so that no one would have to testify at trial and without restarting the process to add a murder charge.

Under state law, a grand jury investigation is required when someone dies while in custody.

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Kirk Penner said last week that he represents Nebraska values and will advocate for them as the newest member of the Nebraska State Board of Education.

In an interview with The World-Herald, Penner explained why he wanted to serve on the board, why he feels he brings a different perspective and his thinking behind the Twitter posts that drew criticism.

Penner, who served for 16 years on the Aurora school board, described himself as a conservative first, Republican second who wants to restore local control to public school districts.

He said critical race theory and the 1619 Project dont belong in public schools.

Critical race theory is a way of viewing history that sees racism as endemic to the institutions of government and society and serves to sustain advantages for White people.

The 1619 Project is a New York Times Magazine publication that tried to reframe Americas birth as when the first ship carrying enslaved Africans arrived.

Penners appointment last month drew criticism for his posts on Twitter.

Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party, described Penner as an extremist and conspiracy theorist.

Penner compared COVID mask mandates to the Holocaust and repeatedly pushed conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election results, she said. Penner is not the kind of person we want helping set state education policy.

The comments he posted and retweeted reflect skepticism about the governments response to the pandemic, the effectiveness of masks and the safety of vaccines, as well as concern over the lawfulness of mandating masking and vaccines.

For instance, Penner retweeted a post critical of police in Europe checking whether people had the necessary health papers to be on the street during the pandemic. The post compared those checks to police in Nazi Germany checking papers.

Asked about the posts, and whether he regretted retweeting the post referencing Nazi Germany, Penner said: I love my country. And I love the Constitution. And I love our freedom. And I love our liberty. And when I see things that challenge that, it doesnt sit well.

He said hes not against vaccines or masks but opposes government mandating them or requiring vaccine passports.

Its just not right whats happening, whether its in the United States or anywhere, he said.

Penner said he favors local control and parental involvement. Government mandates cost local districts time and money, he said.

When you spend 16 years on the school board, then you learn that youve basically lost local control of your school district, he said.

Much of what districts do is mandated by the state, he said.

When the State Board of Education or the Legislature is telling us as a local school district what to do, we either have to cut something we like to do, that we think is good locally, to absorb the mandate, or we have to raise taxes on the local constituents, Penner said.

Sometimes mandates just lead to more paperwork, but other times, whats mandated is not needed or wanted in a district, he said.

He said his first priority will be pushing to permanently end the boards development of health education standards for public schools  hes only one of eight board members, so it wont happen without the support of others.

The board voted to indefinitely postpone the standards development in September after a groundswell of public opposition, but members could revive the process.

Penner wanted to make a motion to end the standards at his first meeting Jan. 7, but board bylaws prohibited it. He said he will try again Feb. 4.

Why make a motion at the first board meeting? Penner said. Well, why would I wait to the second? Or a third? Sometimes you just have to rip the Band-Aid off and say, Lets go. This has been festering. Its hurt the board that its been festering so long.

Penner said he will run for election to the seat this year. The Protect Nebraska Children political action committee, which fought against the health standards, has endorsed him.

Penner alone will not be able to turn the ship around, but he will provide much-needed balance and oversight to the board, said Sue Greenwald, one of the leaders of Protect Nebraska Children.

His strong stance on parental involvement and local control resonates with parents, Greenwald said.

The hysterical attacks upon Mr. Penner by the left are a clear indication that the board and the Nebraska Department of Education have become committed to a radical political ideology, she said.

Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts announced Penners appointment Dec. 23, initiating an odd couple of days in which Penners Twitter account was suspended over a goose hunting photo and then restored by the social media company, which said the suspension was a mistake.

Penner said Twitter suspended his account one day after his appointment.

The official reason Twitter gave was a picture he posted two years earlier of him and some buddies from high school with the geese they killed on a hunt near Ogallala, he said.

He said Twitter notified him that the photo violated company policy.

They red-outlined the picture of the goose, he said.

He said he objected to the suspension but removed the photo and replaced it with one of him with some friends at the Ryder Cup. Twitter then restored his account, he said.

He said he did not learn that Twitter had mistakenly suspended the account until he was contacted later by a World-Herald reporter.

Twitter never contacted him to say they made a mistake, he said.

He suspects that politics played a role in the suspension but admits that he has no evidence to prove that.

Im a 52-year-old guy from Aurora, Nebraska. And theyre going to take a hunting picture down after a Republican governor appoints me, he said. But we have to go with the official explanation.

He said he doesnt know whether his motion to permanently shelve the health standards will be seconded.

It may die, he said.

Proponents of the standards argued that Nebraska needs inclusive standards that recognize and respect people who are gay, lesbian and transgender because otherwise, the state is marginalizing them. They said the standards would save lives by preventing suicides.

Asked to respond to that argument, Penner said those decisions should rest with local boards.

We dont need a government agency getting out of their lane ... and trying to dictate what local school districts want to teach their kids, he said.

State officials said the standards would only be recommended for local adoption. But Penner suggested at his first board meeting that optional government policy always becomes mandatory.

Once the governments in the door, theyre in, he said.

Board member Deb Neary, who advocated for the standards, said that the board did not intend to mandate the standards and that local districts could have adopted just the parts they liked.

Weve always been advocates for local control and parent control when it came to the health standards, she said.

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Omahas early hospitals occupied mansions, hotels and part of the county poor farm.

The citys most famous madam donated her place of business. A scientist who discovered antiseptics, a Chicago medical college instructor and Omaha civic leaders were among the namesakes.

Hospitals came and went, reused buildings and followed the citys growth. A lottery funded one. Childrens Hospital and Medical Center was not the first that accepted only young patients.

And Omaha had its own General Hospital long before the television soap opera.

The city went without a hospital for its first 16 years. Three then opened in 1870, two of which are still on Omahas family tree of health care.

But the citys first was by Drs. Samuel D. Mercer and J.K. Rainey at what is now 26th and Cass Streets, and apparently was short-lived. What appeared in the Jan. 28, 1870, Omaha Daily Herald corrects all other published reports about the timeline of Mercers involvement:

The building is a large one, containing 14 wards, nearly furnished and well-ventilated. It is intended to serve a want long felt in this city and will secure to the sick and afflicted much better attention than they can possibly receive at either hotels or boarding houses.

A month later, Good Samaritan opened at 23rd and Webster Streets on Feb. 18. Among the early donors was Bishop Robert Clarkson (1826-1884), a key detail. For a year later, the ladies of the Hospital Association sold it to the Episcopal leader for it to be run as a church hospital. Good Samaritan was destroyed by fire in 1877. Not until 1881 did Bishop Clarkson try again, this time with a specific medical mission.

Childs Hospital and Home at 1716 Dodge St. started with six beds in a cottage. A brick building followed in 1883, about the time admissions were opened to adults. After Clarksons death, his hospital was named in his memory in 1892. Clarkson Memorial moved to 21st and Howard in 1909, to 26th and Dewey in 1936 and to 44th and Dewey in 1955. Its beds were merged with University Hospital in 1997 to form Nebraska Medical Center.

The largest of the three was the hospital of the Sisters of Mercy, which opened Sept. 24, 1870. The only drawback to the hilltop lot at 12th and Mason was the frequent whistles from the trains on the Union Pacific mainline two blocks away. It could accommodate 50 patients, men on the first floor and women on the second. To fund its operations, a $150,000 gift concert, or lottery, was staged in 1872 with a $50,000 grand prize.

Mercy Hospital was renamed St. Josephs when its operation was transferred to the Franciscan Sisters in 1880. In 1892, it moved to 10th and Castellar in a four-story brownstone building with 300 beds. It was named Creighton Memorial St. Joseph Hospital. John A. Creighton heeded the wishes of his late wife, Sarah, who bequeathed $50,000 to the project.

St. Joseph stayed on 10th Street for 86 years until moving to 30th and Webster in 1978. It became Creighton University Medical Center. In June 2017, it closed and services transferred to the newly named CU Medical Center-Bergan Mercy.

Douglas County Hospital (now Douglas County Health Center) has been at 42nd and Woolworth since 1890. It only took four years after its approval for the building to open at the county poor farm. A medical staff was added in 1892, the building shored up in the following two years and a tuberculosis wing opened in 1913. Again, taking almost four years from the time of approval, the present building opened in 1932.

The first wing of Immanuel Hospital at 34th and Meredith Avenues, then on the outskirts of town, opened in 1890. It fulfilled the vision of Swedish Lutheran pastor Rev. E.A. Fogelstrom. Immanuel moved to its 72nd Street and Redick Avenue campus in 1974.

In 1891, the Methodist Episcopal and Deaconess Home started in a frame dwelling at 419 S. 20th St. with 30 beds, including two for children. Methodist moved to 36th and Cuming Streets in 1908, and in 1968, relocated to its present building at 84th and Dodge Streets.

Omahas Jewish community, including Mrs. J.L. Brandeis, started Wise Memorial (1901-1931), named after Rabbi Joseph Wise, in a mansion at 16th and Grant in 1901. In 1910, it built at 24th Avenue and Harney Street.

The repurposing of mansions for hospitals included Presbyterian at 1240 S. 10th. The former home of Episcopal Bishop George Worthington still stands. The hospital (1890-1924) began in a house at 19th and Spencer, moved to new buildings at 113 N. 13th (later the Capitol Hotel) and 2564 Marcy St. before using the mansion from 1909 to 1924.

Robert McClelland operated Presbyterian and acquired the mansion of Charles Turner (donor of Turner Park) at 34th and Farnam for Birchmont (1915-20). After housing Dr. D.T. Quigleys national pioneering Radium Hospital (1920-31), the building was used as the Rayhorn Hotel (1936-39) until razed for the Mutual of Omaha headquarters.

St. Catherines (1910-1964) at Ninth Street and Forest Avenue was the old Kountze mansion. The W.D. McHugh 15-room house at 120 N. 39th St. was the Dr. Anton Kani osteopathic hospital from 1926-32. Bethany (1906-1927) occupied a 17-room mansion at 21st and Wirt Streets.

Dr. Louis Hanisch established Lutheran Hospital in 1928 in the former Presbyterian location on 10th Street. Three years later it moved to the Wise Memorial location at 24th Avenue and Harney where it stayed for 40 years. At this location, it absorbed the second Omaha Maternity Hospital (originally Stewart Maternity at 2204 St. Marys Avenue in another mansion), and then in 1971 a new building was opened at 515 S. 26th St.

Lord Lister began as the Omaha Maternity and General Hospital in 1906 at 14th and Capitol in what had been the Dellone Hotel. Dr. E.C. Henry and his wife, Margaret, bought it in 1915 and renamed it for Lord Lister, the scientist who discovered antiseptics. The hospital moved to 26th and Dewey in 1921, but the first name on the new building was Fenger Hospital (named for a Danish war hero). Reverting back the next year were the Lord Lister name  and the hospital to the Henrys. Clarkson moved there in 1936.

Nicholas Senn (1912-1942) at Park and Dewey Avenues was established by Dr. A.P. Condon and named for his renowned surgical instructor in Chicago. Condon died in 1939 and a group of physicians bought the facility in 1942 and renamed it Doctors (1942-1976). In 1976, the hospital relocated to Papillion and became Midlands Community Hospital.

Nebraska Medical Center on the UNMC campus at 42nd and Harney opened as University Hospital in 1916. University and Clarkson merged in 1997.

Close to 50 hospitals came and (mostly) went in Omaha before the westward movement began with Bergan Mercys opening at 75th and Mercy Road in 1964. But we close with the Peoples Hospital and the City Emergency Hospital.

Peoples (1948-mid 1950s), at 1844 N. 20th St., was a new venture in Negro hospital management, the Omaha Guide reported. Former state legislator Dr. Aaron McMillan, who was elected to 1928 but resigned the next year to become the first Black medical missionary from the U.S. to Africa (at an new hospital in Angola), returned to Omaha in the mid-1940s. Peoples was a 25-bed facility in a renovated two-story apartment building.

City Emergency was given to the city by Anna Wilson, the widely-known madam, days before her death in 1911. At 912 Douglas St., it had been one of the fanciest houses in the old red-light district. Her last act was writing a check for $500 toward remodeling it for hospital use. Interstate Machinery and Supply bought City Emergency in 1945 and tore it down.

Said The World-Herald in 1968: No one mourned its passing.

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LINCOLN  State Sen. Mike Flood declared his candidacy for Nebraskas 1st Congressional District seat on Sunday, marking the entrance of a serious Republican challenger to embattled Rep. Jeff Fortenberry.

Speaking in the rotunda of the Nebraska Capitol, the senator from Norfolk framed his campaign in a national context, saying Republicans needed to retake the House to provide a check on President Joe Biden. He said he was running to fire Nancy Pelosi.

Republicans have to retake the House of Representatives and restore a check on Joe Bidens power if we want to take our country back, Flood said. If we want to take our country back from the far left, failure is not an option and there is no margin for error.

A fixture in state politics for the better part of two decades, Flood was elected to the Nebraska Legislature in 2004 and reelected in 2008. He served as speaker of the Legislature from 2007 to 2013.

After being barred by term limits from seeking a third consecutive term, Flood won an uncontested race to return to the Legislature in 2020. He is an attorney and owns and operates an expansive media chain called News Channel Nebraska.

He stressed his Nebraska roots, service in elected office and commitment to family.

Flanked by his wife, Mandi, and their two sons, Brenden and Blake, Flood recalled how he shelved his 2012 campaign for Nebraska governor when Mandi was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly after he had declared his candidacy. Mandi has since recovered, Flood said.

Floods candidacy is far from the only hurdle facing Fortenberry, who has represented the 1st District since 2005 and officially announced his reelection bid this past week. The congressman was charged in October with three felonies stemming from statements he made to federal investigators probing illegal campaign contributions. He pleaded not guilty to the charges, which his defenders have argued are politically motivated.

Flood said Fortenberrys legal challenges weighed heavily in his decision to run. He said he did not think Republicans had a path to victory in the 1st District if the partys nominee is in court fighting federal charges.

I would tell you that were here today because of the situation that Congressman Fortenberry is in as it relates to the indictment, Flood said. I respect his service, and I look forward to being a challenger that can not only win the primary but win the general.

Chad Kolton, Fortenberry campaign spokesperson, said the congressman continues to receive broad support from Nebraskans. In an email Saturday, his campaign listed a number of officials expressing support for Fortenberry. Those included Lt. Gov. Mike Foley, Sen. Rita Sanders of Bellevue, Norfolk Mayor Josh Moenning, multiple business leaders from across the district and others.

Congressman Fortenberry continues to receive tremendous support from leaders across the First District because people know his leadership, work ethic and accomplishments for Nebraska and America, Kolton said in a statement.

Flood said he looked forward to highlighting his policy differences with Fortenberry during the campaign.

Flood said he would not have voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill signed into law last year. Rep. Don Bacon, who represents the Omaha area in the House, voted in favor of the bill, as did U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer.

Flood cited persistent inflation, which jumped at its fastest pace in nearly 40 years in December, as his reason for not supporting the infrastructure bill.

Its affecting men and women and families at the grocery store, its affecting them at the gas pump, and Im concerned about the ongoing growth of government spending, he said.

Nebraskas 1st Congressional District covers part or all of 12 eastern Nebraska counties. It includes Bellevue, La Vista, most of Papillion, Lincoln, Columbus, Fremont and Norfolk, among other communities.

A former member of Lincolns City Council, Fortenberry was first elected to Congress in 2004 after emerging from a crowd of seven Republican candidates in the primary race to replace then-Rep. Doug Bereuter.

Since then, Fortenberry has largely sailed to reelection over poorly funded Democratic opponents. Even in 2020 when Fortenberry faced former Lincoln Sen. Kate Bolz, a candidate some political observers viewed as a serious contender for the seat, Fortenberry won with nearly 60% of the vote. (Republicans have held the 1st District seat since 1967.)

However, he has had to weather fewer challenges from members of his own party. Only a handful of Republican candidates have challenged Fortenberry, and they all lost by tens of thousands of votes.

Asked whether he had any reluctance about running for Congress given the divisiveness in national politics, including in the Republican Party where former President Donald Trump has called for GOP candidates to challenge incumbents who have at times bucked his views on certain issues, Flood said Republicans in Nebraska have historically welcomed contested primaries.

There is an exchange of ideas that happens in a primary  I think theres value in a contested primary, Flood said.

Whoever emerges from the Republican primary in May will face a Democratic challenger. Thus far, Lincoln Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks is the most high-profile Democrat to declare their candidacy. Lincoln activist Jazari Kual also has declared his candidacy.

In a statement provided by her campaign Sunday, Pansing Brooks said the fact that a fellow Republican is challenging Fortenberry proves that voters want to see a change.

At the end of the day, this race is about more than just his indictment. Its about a culture that must change in Washington, Pansing Brooks said. Its about who will represent all the people  rural and urban, Democrat and Republican and everyone in between. Together, we can be that change.

Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party, said the contested 1st District primary signaled a crack in the GOP firewall.

The Republicans like to pretend that Jeff Fortenberry is not in trouble  which is a fantasy, she said in a statement. This is a generational opportunity for Democrats to win the CD1 seat by sending State Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks or Jazari Kual to Washington D.C. with new ideas and hope. We certainly dont need a flood of more bad ideas from the GOP.

Fortenberry will have an incumbents advantage when it comes to fundraising. Campaign finance records through September show Fortenberrys reelection committee had a cash balance of $897,136.

Correction: Rep. Jeff Fortenberry voted against the bipartisan infrastructure bill signed into law last year. An earlier version of the story incorrectly said he voted for the bill.

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The United States military has executed a messy pullout from the 20-year war in Afghanistan, and its once-overpowering presence in Iraq has shriveled to a rump force of 2,500 non-combat troops.

It would seem the global war on terror, launched by President George W. Bush soon after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and fought in various ways under various names by three subsequent commanders in chief, has finally been swept into historys dustbin.

Not quite.

For the past six months, about 200 members of the Nebraska National Guard have been playing a pivotal role in what may be the largest remaining U.S. counterterrorism operation in the world.

Last summer the Lincoln-based 67th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade  a unit with a history traceable back to the Civil War  deployed to Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, in East Africa.

The Nebraska Guard troops make up the headquarters staff of the militarys Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, a multinational operation that dates to 2002. The 67th Brigades commander, Col. Brian Medcalf, serves as chief of staff to Maj. Gen. William Zana, who leads the task force.

Djibouti is a small former French colony, in one of the worlds most strategic and troubled locations: on the Red Sea, the gateway to the Suez Canal  a critical chokepoint for trade between Europe and Asia.

Its kind of a crossroads between three continents, said Medcalf, who grew up near Elgin, Nebraska. This area is strategically located. Its important to America because of all the shipping channels to the Red Sea.

Camp Lemonnier is on the coast within 10 miles of Somalia, a failed state from which the al-Qaida-affiliated terror group al-Shabab has carried out attacks since the mid-2000s. U.S. Special Operations Forces have long fought al-Shabab in Somalia alongside indigenous forces, but President Donald Trump withdrew them a year ago during the final weeks of his administration.

Less than 100 miles away is Yemen, the site of a fierce and long-running proxy war between factions backed by Saudi Arabia and Iran. So are Ethiopia and Eritrea, where forces have battled over Eritrean sovereignty since long before its 1993 independence.

The Horn of Africa  thats a rough neighborhood, said Tyler White, director of the National Security Program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Djibouti is one of those areas where we think we can make a difference.

It appears the U.S. is planning to stay awhile. It has expanded Camp Lemonnier, a former French Foreign Legion camp, from 88 to 500 acres, and spent more than $1 billion in improvements. In 2014, it signed a 10-year lease extension on Camp Lemonnier for $63 million a year, with an option for 10 additional years.

France, Italy, Japan and China all have established their own bases in Djibouti. Saudi Arabia is reportedly planning to build one, too.

Djibouti makes a lot of sense, strategically, White said.

Though the task force has been fighting terrorism for nearly two decades, even some of the Nebraska soldiers now leading it knew little about the place until they received deployment orders early last year. They are scheduled to return home in the spring.

I was completely oblivious to what goes on here, said Maj. Luke Holland, 38, of Elkhorn, deputy director of the task forces Crisis Branch. When you get into the theater, you realize theres a lot more happening than people understand.

The task force was led by Marines in its earliest years, then by the Navy, and evolved into a mission staffed mostly by Army National Guard and Reserve units. The U.S. contingent includes about 2,000 troops as well as about 2,500 civilians at Camp Lemonnier.

The task forces emphasis has been on training and boosting partnerships with militaries in the region while building up infrastructure. At the same time, it has supported drone operations targeting al-Shabab leaders in Somalia and Navy efforts to quell an explosion of Somali piracy in the region a decade ago.

The threats in this area are numerous, said Austin Doctor, a researcher with the University of Nebraska at Omahas National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology and Education Center (NCITE) who studies sub-Saharan Africa. Theyve evolved from these various obvious threats to just general instability.

Though the Horn of Africa mission has endured through four presidential administrations, its been called a symbol of the Biden approach to counterterrorism: a small number of troops operating over the horizon rather than the large occupying forces employed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Its not going to be a big, heavy presence, White said. In the Middle East, it was essentially an invasion. The nature of the engagement is different. Were not trying to support a government that we created.

Medcalf said his soldiers most critical work involves crisis planning with the embassies of the United States and close allies in East Africa. Who would respond, and how, in case of a coup attempt, riots or civil war?

These arent unfathomable scenarios  theyre troubles that have afflicted nearly every country in the region in recent years.

We are always prepared to respond, if asked, to any ambassador, Medcalf said. Thats our no-fail mission.

How does he know the task forces mission is succeeding? Because theyre not in the headlines.

The best part is that you havent heard of any issues. There havent been any major crises, he said.

Hollands job as deputy director of the Crisis Branch is to work with U.S. embassy personnel and draw up response plans. They game out crisis scenarios ahead of time and create plans for boosted security during difficult times.

In the event of crisis, we are the people who are on the ground, Holland said. We work long hours. At a moments notice, were prepared to respond.

He believes the many Guard members who come from smaller cities and towns are especially well-suited to the mission.

The work ethic and the camaraderie, the looking out for one another that you see in Nebraska, are really useful on this deployment, said Holland, who grew up in Axtell, population 732. Small-town Nebraskans are making an international impact here on the (African) continent.

Sgt. 1st Class David Wooten works with the militaries of other nations as the task forces foreign liaison officers coordinator. Every day, he talks with counterparts from other nations represented in Djibouti.

Wooten, 46, of Lincoln, joined the Marines in 1997 and later switched to the Nebraska Army National Guard. He and his wife, Misty, have 10 children. One of his sons, Spc. Micaiah Wooten, 21, is also deployed to Djibouti.

Thats earned them a bit of attention among U.S. allies in East Africa. The Italian commander invited them to join him for lunch. And the Spanish commander presented them with pool passes to the hotel where the Spanish soldiers are billeted.

A French officer taught David Wooten to play the ukulele.

Even though we all have cultural differences, he said, kindness is universal.

First Lt. Travis Prather is also a military liaison  in his case, with the Djiboutian armed forces.

The job has put him in a position to experience some things unfamiliar to a 25-year-old agriculture graduate from McKenzie, Tennessee, who now works at a feedlot in rural Stapleton, Nebraska.

Like eating camel meat at a restaurant in Djibouti. He said it was cut into strips and served grilled, like fajitas.

I was actually pleasantly surprised, Prather said.

He said he has been impressed with Djiboutians respect for elders in the community, and their resourcefulness in raising herds of camels and goats to support their families, even with few resources.

And he has learned to speak a little French  a language he skipped taking in school because he thought he would never use it.

Were guests, Prather said, and my job is to make sure we continue to be good guests.

The Djibouti soldiers he has worked with are mostly Muslim. Prayer, five times a day, is mandatory.

(Islam) is intrinsically tied in with everything they do, Prather said. They have to stop to pray, or we schedule meetings around prayer.

Staff Sgt. Ryan Rodehorsts job as a religious affairs non-commissioned officer has also required him to learn something about Islam, though his own background is Christian.

Were here to support anything, regardless of faith, said Rodehorst, whose civilian job is in information technology at the University of Nebraska at Kearney.

He discovered that Islam, which is practiced by 1.9 billion people worldwide, is as diverse as Christianity, which has 2.3 billion followers. He was surprised to meet and work with a French Muslim chaplain who is a woman.

Its a tapestry of countries, traditions, faiths, he said.

Maj. Mat Field is in charge of keeping the task forces communications running. He must maintain video, voice, data and email networks across an eight-country region as large as the Eastern Seaboard. Sometimes it means wiring up small camps in remote places.

This day and age, commanders have a need for data, Field said. We have to have lots of communication types.

In Djibouti, the climate is fierce and the geography forbidding  from desert to mountains, in a country the size of New Jersey.

Rainfall averages less than 5 inches per year. Summer daytime temperatures are well over 100 degrees from June into September. Oh, and its muggy, too.

Africa throws the whole gamut of natural and meteorological challenges at us on a daily basis, Field said.

The limited infrastructure in Djibouti poses a problem for Master Sgt. Lillie Chambers, who is the senior enlisted logistician for the task force. She is in charge of about 100 soldiers who must keep camps across the region supplied, by land and by air. The road network is poor.

The potholes, they could swallow you whole, she said.

Before Christmas, Chambers needed to ship a firetruck to a nearby country. It had to go by air, but the airfield was 30 minutes away.

Its just not as easy as loading it onto a flatbed and hauling it to its location, she said. You have to go through a landfill where you drive between piles of garbage. Some of them are burning. People are running through the piles, salvaging what they can.

Besides her logistics work, Chambers took part in a Defense Department initiative called Women, Peace and Security that brought together 45 female soldiers and police officers from seven countries at a symposium in September in Djibouti.

As women, (we) listen to one another and lean on one another, said Chambers, 37, who lives in Bennet, Nebraska. At the end of the day, were all humans. Were all fighting for the same reasons. We all love our countries.

The Nebraska Guard soldiers in Djibouti who previously deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan say this work is nothing like the active combat role they played back then.

This is completely different, said Rodehorst, the religious affairs sergeant, who deployed to Iraq 10 years ago. Thats what I like about the military. I would never in a million years have thought I would be doing this.

They like meeting people and helping people, in a place many of them knew almost nothing about before their boots hit the dusty ground.

This is the most meaningful job Ive ever had, the most impactful, Wooten said. This is a global impact. Its very cool to be part of.

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Colorado Gov. Jared Polis released this statement about Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts plan:

We will continue to protect and aggressively asset Colorados rights under all existing water compacts. Colorado has been in full compliance with the sought Platte Compact for the 99 years the agreement has been in place, and water has not and is not being withheld from Nebraska.

Recent comments from Gov. Ricketts seem to reflect a misunderstanding of Colorados locally driven water planning process. Our collaborative basin roundtables are a way that grassroots ideas and recommendations for solutions to Colorados future water needs are brainstormed. These ideas should not be taken as formally approved projects that will be implemented, and all are subject to major conversations, including with Nebraska.

We hope to more fully understand Nebraskas concerns and goals, as so far those concerns and goals are quite simply hard to make sense of. Our longstanding compliance of and respect for the water agreement between our states on the South Platte River remains intact, and we hope that our partners in Nebraska will show that they share that respect.

Colorado and Nebraska have long worked together on our interstate water issues because of Colorados privileged status as a headwaters state. However, any actual proposed project by Nebraska in Colorado would receive rigorous review to ensure it is in compliance with the Compact, private property rights, Colorado water law, and state and federal environmental obligations, as endangered species issues, among others, are of critical concern on the South Platte River.

I look forward to productive dialogue with Gov. Ricketts on the important issues of water development and protection of our natural resources in both Colorado and Nebraska.
Major Stephen Long described the Plains as the Great American Desert when his expedition studied our region in 1820. It is almost wholly unfit for cultivation, and of course, uninhabitable by a people depending upon agriculture for their subsistence, wrote his groups geographer. Fast forward 200 years, and Nebraska has developed into a global powerhouse of agricultural production. We rank No. 1 in the nation in agricultural cash receipts per capita.

How have Nebraskans transformed the Great American Desert into some of the most productive ag land in the world? Through our inventive and responsible use of water resources. While weve used these resources wisely, the actions of our neighbors in Colorado threaten to deplete them.

The water we depend on for agriculture, drinking water and other uses isnt confined within our states borders. The Ogallala Aquifer underlies eight states, and rivers including the Republican and Platte flow across state lines in and out of Nebraska. Over the years, weve negotiated agreements with surrounding states regarding our shared water resources.

One such agreement is the South Platte River Compact that Nebraska signed with Colorado in 1923. It regulates the use of the waters of the South Platte River, which originates in the Rockies and flows through Colorado into Nebraska.

Colorado is currently planning nearly 300 projects and more than $10 billion of expenditures to ensure no excess water leaves its state. This threatens to choke off the flow of water into Nebraska.

The Nebraska Department of Natural Resources  working with the Attorney Generals Office, natural resources districts and public power districts in our state  has been vigilantly watching developments in Colorado. NeDNR estimates that Colorados plans, when fully implemented, will cause a nearly 90% reduction in flows coming into Nebraska from Colorado.

This would dramatically impact Nebraskans. Colorados plans to siphon off water from the South Platte River would decrease agricultural water supplies and raise pumping costs for our residents. It would jeopardize municipal water supplies for Lincoln, Omaha and other Platte River communities. The loss of water would threaten the cooling water supplies for Gerald Gentlemen Station, Nebraskas largest electric generation facility. The decreased flow would also undercut our capacity to generate hydroelectric power in Nebraska. The reduction in water would almost surely increase costs and regulatory burdens for the state, our natural resources districts and water users.

The good news is that the South Platte River Compact entitles Nebraska to construct a canal to ensure access to our fair share of the South Platte Rivers water. The agreement specifically provides Nebraska authority over water and land in Colorado for the project.

On Jan. 10, I announced Nebraskas intention to construct this canal  pending the Legislatures approval  to protect our water users from reduced South Platte River flows. My mid-biennium budget recommendation for the Legislature includes $500 million for the canal project. Upon approval, well engage stakeholders on project location and design.

Constructing the canal is the primary means for Nebraska to exercise our legal rights to water flows from the South Platte River. If we fail to act now, Nebraska could see sharply reduced inflows from the South Platte River. By taking initiative to build the canal, were protecting Nebraskas water rights for our kids, grandkids and generations beyond. Given the states strong financial position, budget resources are available to undertake this historic project without incurring a penny of debt.

Nebraskas way of life depends on access to our states abundant water resources. Weve been great stewards of our water through the years. For example, weve maintained the Ogallala Aquifer, on average, within 1 foot of where it was in the 1950s. Weve done all of this while developing into a global leader in agricultural irrigation.

Inventions such as the center pivot, the development of drought-resistant hybrid crops, and the use of precision irrigation techniques have optimized our use of water resources. The Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute estimates that crop water productivity for corn and soybeans in Nebraska increased 75% from 1990-2014. In other words, our farmers are continuously growing more crops with less water.

All of Nebraska stands to gain when we preserve, protect, manage and engage in good stewardship of our water supply  and all stand to lose if we fail to do so. Our ag producers are reliant on water supplies as they work to feed the world. Communities from Ogallala to Omaha depend on the Platte River for drinking water. We use water from the Platte to generate power, and the river is crucial to the quality of our natural environment as well.

I urge the Legislature to act now and protect our water supplies from being irreversibly diminished. Lets seize the moment to make sure future generations of Nebraskans can enjoy the water resources theyre entitled to.
Political power is hardly ever given up. It usually has to be taken. But no one in the Republican Party is even trying to take that power from defeated presidential candidate Donald Trump.

After Trumps defeat, ostensible leadership of the Republican Party should rest with the partys leaders in the Congress and the Republican National Committee. We know the congressional leadership has pledged unfettered fealty to Trump, but what about the RNC?

Just what is the RNC? It consists of each U.S. state and territorys elected party chair, and a national committeeman and committeewoman. Ronna Romney McDaniel of Michigan, Sen. Mitt Romneys niece, is the Republican national chair, but she was put there by Trump and has shown no indication of straying. The RNC could act as a barrier to the Cult of Trump and set the party on a sane and responsible course. But it hasnt, and probably wont.

But it has happened before. When Arizonas Barry Goldwater was soundly trounced by Lyndon Johnson in the 1964 presidential election, Goldwater, like Trump, was reluctant to give up power over the Republican Party. But it was taken from him by the RNC.

Political pundits speculated it might be years or even decades before the Republican Party would recover from the election debacle. Some thought the party might perish as the old Whig Party did in the mid-1800s.

Of course, Goldwater was no Trump, but Goldwater wanted to keep his hand-picked RNC chair  Tucson lawyer Dean Burch  in charge of the party. But there were those in the RNC who had different ideas about the direction of the party. One of those was my father-in-law, Donald R. Ross, an Omaha lawyer, and national committeeman from Nebraska.

He had supported Goldwaters presidential run but feared the party had veered too far to the right to be a viable player in future elections. So he set about trying to correct its course. He conferred with other party leaders and found a willing successor to Burch in Ohio national committeeman Ray Bliss  a conservative and a nuts and bolts party guy  to run as RNC chair. Bliss wouldnt take the lead in such an effort, but would take the chairmanship if all worked out.

Using phone calls, cross-country plane trips for clandestine meetings and support from moderate Republican governors like Mitts father, George Romney of Michigan, Nelson Rockefeller of New York and Mark Hatfield of Oregon, Ross garnered enough RNC member votes to unseat Burch at the partys next meeting in January. A majority of RNC members were convinced that continuing Goldwater control of the party chairmanship and agenda would be politically harmful.

News of this was leaked to Burch in hopes he would withdraw without a fight. But Burch was not in the mood to go quietly, saying his ouster would be an affront to all of those Republicans who had supported Goldwater.

Then, Ross confronted Goldwater and Burch with the vote tally he had secretly compiled. Goldwater responded by saying that the ouster of Burch would be a capitulation on the part of those Republicans who have supported me and the principles for which I stood.

Goldwater also worried it would damage his political future. According a Newsweek story, Goldwater, using his typical salty language, exploded: Goddamn it  if Dean Burch is kicked out, Im the one who gets hurt. Im the one whos repudiated. It will destroy me. How the hell can I ever run for Senate again?

Then the national press caught wind of Rosss maneuvering. Newsweek magazine called it a stunning, intricately tooled coup. The New York Times headline read, Nebraskan Backs Anti-Burch Drive, But His Campaign Is Quiet at Least on the Surface. From the Chicago Tribune: Issue Forced by Ross, Nebraska Leader.

Goldwater and Burch then felt they had little choice. They reluctantly agreed that a public fight over the chairmanship, pitting hardcore Goldwater supporters against the rest of the party, would be, as The Omaha World-Herald put it, a mammoth bloodletting ruckus, at the upcoming January RNC meeting.

At a news conference at Goldwaters home in Phoenix on Jan. 12, 1965, Goldwater, Burch and Ray Bliss announced that Bliss would fill the void after Burch resigned the RNC chairmanship at an April party meeting. No bloodletting. An honorable withdrawal.

Under Blisss leadership, Ross became vice chair of the RNC. In 1966, Republicans gained three seats in the U.S. Senate, 47 seats in the House and 749 Democratic-held seats in state legislatures. Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968 and Goldwater was elected to a fourth Senate term. In 1971, Nixon appointed Ross to a judgeship on the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. Ross died Omaha in 2013.

Is there a way to remove the Trump stain from the Republican Party without total warfare? Highly unlikely. But someone with Rosss hutzpah might just step up.

Randy Moody is a retired lawyer and lobbyist living in Lincoln and Oro Valley, Arizona. He was a lifelong Republican, attending seven Republican National Conventions, one as a voting delegate, and three managing the Media Operations Center. His first vote was for Barry Goldwater for president, but he became a Democrat in 2018.
Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts tells us that a mask mandate is some radical new overreach of governmental power.

But its not.

Our government  both federal and state  mandates all sorts of things (with little fuss from all of us). Were required to abstain from smoking in public areas. We cant drive 60 mph through a residential neighborhood. In our automobiles, we wear a government-ordered seat belt. And were legally required to wear a helmet if we ride a motorcycle.

All of these are mandates. Yes, your government is forcing you to do these things (though mysteriously, people dont complain about these orders the way they do masks).

So what is going on? Why is something so common sense and lifesaving as a mask mandate so controversial?

Because Republican voters have been so pumped full of lies from conservative talk radio, Fox News and conspiracy outlets like OANN, that any law is then seen as some draconian overreach of government power. These channels tell voters that a mask mandate is like a North Korean labor camp (hint: its not).

Generations before us in America made sacrifices for the good of their countrymen. Our parents and great-grandparents were forced to ration food during wartime. Many reading this were even drafted to go to war!

With COVID-19 surging in our state, a mask mandate is a common-sense measure, advocated by our world-renowned medical professionals that we shouldve implemented yesterday. The Republican Party of the past wouldnt have called this communism. Their leaders wouldve been first in line to recognize the lives that would be saved by its implementation.

If Gov. Pete Ricketts actually takes our Nebraska Nice moniker seriously, he should embrace recommended measures that medical professionals tell us will protect public health and save lives.

John McCollister of Omaha represents District 20 in the Nebraska Legislature.
Name: The Rev. Dr. Brigitte Black

Position: Pastor of Wayman African Methodist Episcopal Church in Bloomington

1. How does it feel to be one of the five winners of the 2022 Bloomington and Normal Human Relations Commissions' "I Have a Dream" Award?

I am honored to have been nominated and received this award. I feel my labors have not been in vain, and there is so much more work to do.

2. What experiences set you up to be qualified for this award?

I came to the community in 2016. I have been trained in restorative justice practices and have put that training to use where it has been necessary. I work with Not In Our Town. We organized community listening circles after the George Floyd incident and the elections. The community listening circles provided a safe environment to dialogue about racism. I am on the Public Safety and Community Relations Board. I helped organize getting vaccinations in the arms of African American seniors and frontline workers. We brought the vaccines to an African American church in the community. I work with the Creation Care Team. We are working on ways the church/religious community can better care for God's creation. I volunteer my time and energy with the NAACP. These are some of the areas I have volunteered.

3. Which church are you a pastor at and what is its mission?

Wayman African Methodist Episcopal Church, 803 W. Olive St., Bloomington. It is the oldest African American church in McLean County. This church has a history of fighting for justice and equality in this county and so we just walk in that same legacy. It is the first home of the NAACP. For years, the NAACP met at this church. Our mission involves justice, equality and saving souls, and so thats what we do.

4. In what ways can the Bloomington-Normal community improve its efforts in dismantling racism?

We can keep the lines of communication open between the community and government. We can continue to have community listening circles where we listen to the stories of others. When COVID-19 has passed, we can break bread together. We can provide opportunities for growth, technical development and job skills for the underserved in our community.

5. Which types of values or ideologies that Dr. King instilled during his lifetime have stuck the most with you?

As a very young child, 5 years of age, I attended Operation Breadbasket, led by founder and CEO the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a protege of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. So I learned from a young age that "I am somebody, I must be respected, and I must be protected." My life matters, so I marched and picketed injustice. "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." This quote has motivated me to work for change and justice.

We can make this a more loving, kind and safe world with the help of God. I am working towards a society where we love our neighbors and treat our neighbors the way we want to be treated.

Contact Kade Heather at 309-820-3256. Follow him on Twitter: @kadeheather

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BLOOMINGTON  Several students and community members were honored Saturday at the 46th annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Awards Luncheon.

Organized by the Bloomington and Normal Human Relations Commissions, the virtual event recognized five people who reflect the ideology of the civil right leader.

The luncheon was scheduled on what would have been MLKs 93rd birthday.

Presented with honors were the Rev. Dr. Brigitte Black of Bloomington, Michelle Cook of Normal, and youth award winners Raji More of Bloomington, Erica Rosenberger of Normal, and Cana Brooks, also of Normal.

Bloomington Mayor Mboka Mwilambwe and Normal Mayor Chris Koos provided opening remarks to attendees in a video message, congratulating the honorees.

Mwilambwe said its an honor to continue the tradition of celebrating MLKs legacy.

So much is possible when we unite, dream and build together, he said. The works of this year's award winners are the perfect example of that.

Bloomingtons mayor said theres still work to do, but we will get there.

"Let us carry Dr. King's legacy into the future as we pursue equity access and justice.

Koos said Kings work centered on courage, understanding, justice, education, inclusiveness and service. He said those values are shared by the Twin Cities. And in over two decades as mayor, he said hes seen the communities change to embrace diversity.

Speaking for just over 30 minutes in his keynote address, Tony Waller, vice president of constituent relations and racial equity for Walmart, recounted stories of MLKs work in social justice and activism.

He said MLKs birthday is a time to look back. Specifically, he pointed to a date in 1944 that Waller said was lost to history, but forever changed the course of events.

Waller said a bus traveling through Georgia was nearly empty, except for its driver and two Black high school boys accompanied by a teacher, who was also Black. They were headed back to Atlanta from an oratory contest in Dublin. The boys were seated at the front of the bus  Waller said the driver didnt bother to enforce segregated seating rules at first.

But when they pulled into Macon, Waller said the racial dynamics changed. Many white passengers boarded, and the driver demanded the boys give up their seats. They refused.

Waller said one of the boys had just given a speech on equal rights. Although he didnt win the contest, Waller said the teen was determined to conquer this test of wills.

Fearing for their safety, the teacher pleaded for the boys to move. Waller said they reluctantly got up and were forced to stand in the bus aisle for the 90-mile trip to Atlanta, feeling helpless and humiliated.

He said one of the students was a 15-year-old ministers son, who would later be known as Dr. King.

Waller said: It was a 15-year-old boys first head-on collision with institutionalized racism, and it was the beginning of his resolve to spend his life working for social justice.

Contact Brendan Denison at (309) 820-3238. Follow Brendan Denison on Twitter: @BrendanDenison

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The Member of Parliament (MP) for Sege, Mr. Christian Corletey Otuteye, has condemned an attack on Radio Ada, a community radio station in the Ada East District of the Greater Accra Region.



In a press statement from the office of the MP, he bemoaned the rate at which media houses were being attacked and called on the Inspector General of Police to launch an immediate investigation into the case and prosecute all persons involved.



"I strongly condemn this barbaric, primitive and lawless act, and call on the Inspector General of Police and the Police Services in the Ada enclave for an immediate investigation and prosecution of all persons involved, " he said.



On Thursday 13th January 2022, around 11:30 am, the community radio station which has been in operation for almost 24 years, was attacked by 10 unknown masked and well-built men.



These men according to a statement issued by the management of the radio station, brutalized a presenter on duty, Korle Ajaotor Songortse and vandalized the station's console, microphones and other equipment.



The presenter and the receptionist were hospitalized and discharged.



Mr. Otuteye who termed the attack as "barbaric" urged the people of Ada and Sege constituencies to stand firm in unity and resist any act of intimidation and lawlessness.





Source: GNA









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The meteorite labeled ALH84001 is held in the hand of a scientist at a Johnson Space Center lab in Houston, Aug. 7, 1996. Scientists say they've confirmed the meteorite from Mars contains no evidence of ancient Martian life. The rock caused a splash 25 years ago when a NASA-led team announced that its organic compounds may have been left by living creatures, however primitive. Researchers chipped away at that theory over the decades. A team of scientists led by Andrew Steele of the Carnegie Institution published their findings Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022. Credit: AP Photo/David J. Phillip

A 4 billion-year-old meteorite from Mars that caused a splash here on Earth decades ago contains no evidence of ancient, primitive Martian life after all, scientists reported Thursday.

In 1996, a NASA-led team announced that organic compounds in the rock appeared to have been left by living creatures. Other scientists were skeptical and researchers chipped away at that premise over the decades, most recently by a team led by the Carnegie Institution for Science's Andrew Steele.

Tiny samples from the meteorite show the carbon-rich compounds are actually the result of watermost likely salty, or briny, waterflowing over the rock for a prolonged period, Steele said. The findings appear in the journal Science.

During Mars' wet and early past, at least two impacts occurred near the rock, heating the planet's surrounding surface, before a third impact bounced it off the red planet and into space millions of years ago. The 4-pound (2-kilogram) rock was found in Antarctica in 1984.

Groundwater moving through the cracks in the rock, while it was still on Mars, formed the tiny globs of carbon that are present, according to the researchers. The same thing can happen on Earth and could help explain the presence of methane in Mars' atmosphere, they said.

The meteorite labeled ALH84001 sits in a chamber at a Johnson Space Center lab in Houston, Aug. 7, 1996. Scientists say they've confirmed the meteorite from Mars contains no evidence of ancient Martian life. The rock caused a splash 25 years ago when a NASA-led team announced that its organic compounds may have been left by living creatures, however primitive. Researchers chipped away at that theory over the decades. A team of scientists led by Andrew Steele of the Carnegie Institution published their findings Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022. Credit: AP Photo/David J. Phillip

But two scientists who took part in the original study took issue with these latest findings, calling them "disappointing." In a shared email, they said they stand by their 1996 observations.

"While the data presented incrementally adds to our knowledge of (the meteorite), the interpretation is hardly novel, nor is it supported by the research," wrote Kathie Thomas-Keprta and Simon Clemett, astromaterial researchers at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

"Unsupported speculation does nothing to resolve the conundrum surrounding the origin of organic matter" in the meteorite, they added.

According to Steele, advances in technology made his team's new findings possible.

He commended the measurements by the original researchers and noted that their life-claiming hypothesis "was a reasonable interpretation" at the time. He said he and his teamwhich includes NASA, German and British scientiststook care to present their results "for what they are, which is a very exciting discovery about Mars and not a study to disprove" the original premise.

This Feb. 10, 2021 image taken by the United Arab Emirates' "Amal," or "Hope," probe released Sunday, Feb. 14, 2021, shows Mars. Scientists say they've confirmed the meteorite from Mars contains no evidence of ancient Martian life. The rock caused a splash 25 years ago when a NASA-led team announced that its organic compounds may have been left by living creatures, however primitive. Researchers chipped away at that theory over the decades. A team of scientists led by Andrew Steele of the Carnegie Institution published their findings Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022. Credit: Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center/UAE Space Agency, via AP

Mars rock Allan Hills 84001, discovered in 1984, is shown at a NASA news conference, Aug. 7, 1996, in Washington. Scientists say they've confirmed the meteorite from Mars contains no evidence of ancient Martian life. The rock caused a splash 25 years ago when a NASA-led team announced that its organic compounds may have been left by living creatures, however primitive. Researchers chipped away at that theory over the decades. A team of scientists led by Andrew Steele of the Carnegie Institution published their findings Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022. Credit: AP Photo/Doug Mills, file

This finding "is huge for our understanding of how life started on this planet and helps refine the techniques we need to find life elsewhere on Mars, or Enceladus and Europa," Steele said in an email, referring to Saturn and Jupiter's moons with subsurface oceans.

The only way to prove whether Mars ever had or still has microbial life, according to Steele, is to bring samples to Earth for analysis. NASA's Perseverance Mars rover already has collected six samples for return to Earth in a decade or so; three dozen samples are desired.

Millions of years after drifting through space, the meteorite landed on an icefield in Antarctica thousands of years ago. The small gray-green fragment got its nameAllan Hills 84001from the hills where it was found.

More information: A. Steele, Organic synthesis associated with serpentinization and mineral carbonation on early Mars, Science (2022). www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abg7905 Journal information: Science A. Steele, Organic synthesis associated with serpentinization and mineral carbonation on early Mars,(2022). DOI: 10.1126/science.abg7905

 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
In this satellite image taken by Himawari-8, a Japanese weather satellite, and released by the agency, shows an undersea volcano eruption at the Pacific nation of Tonga Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022. An undersea volcano erupted in spectacular fashion near the Pacific nation of Tonga on Saturday, sending large waves crashing across the shore and people rushing to higher ground. Credit: Japan Meteorology Agency via AP

An undersea volcano erupted in spectacular fashion Saturday near the Pacific nation of Tonga, sending tsunami waves crashing across the shore and people rushing to higher ground. Tsunami advisories were issued for Hawaii, Alaska and the U.S. Pacific coast.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or on the extent of the damage because all internet connectivity with Tonga was lost at about 6:40 p.m. local time, said Doug Madory, director of internet analysis for the network intelligence firm Kentik.

Tonga gets its internet via an undersea cable from Suva, Fiji, which presumably was damaged. Southern Cross Cable Network, the company that manages the connection, does not know yet "if the cable is cut or just suffering power loss," chief technical officer Dean Veverka said. He said he assumed the eruption was responsible.

Tonga gets its internet via an undersea cable from Suva, Fiji, which presumably was damaged. The company that manages that connection, Southern Cross Cable Network, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Tonga's Islands Business news site reported that a convoy of police and military troops evacuated King Tupou VI from his palace near the shore. He was among the many residents who headed for higher ground.

In Hawaii, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center reported waves that measured half a meter (1.6 feet) in Nawiliwili, Kauai and 80 centimeters (2.7 feet) in Hanalei. The National Weather Service said there were reports of boats getting pushed up in docks, but the hazard diminished as the morning went on.

This satellite image taken by Himawari-8, a Japanese weather satellite, and released by the agency, shows an undersea volcano eruption at the Pacific nation of Tonga Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022. An undersea volcano erupted in spectacular fashion near the Pacific nation of Tonga on Saturday, sending large waves crashing across the shore and people rushing to higher ground. Credit: Japan Meteorology Agency via AP

"We are relieved that there is no reported damage and only minor flooding throughout the islands," the tsunami center said, describing the situation in Hawaii. The tsunami advisory for the islands was lifted about 11 hours after the eruption more than 4,828 kilometers (3,000 miles) away.

On Tonga, home to about 105,000 people, video posted to social media showed large waves washing ashore in coastal areas, swirling around homes, a church and other buildings. Satellite images showed a huge eruption, with a plume of ash, steam and gas rising like a mushroom above the blue Pacific waters.

New Zealand's military said it was monitoring the situation and remained on standby, ready to assist if asked.

The Tonga Meteorological Services said a tsunami warning was declared for all of the archipelago, and data from the Pacific tsunami center said waves of 80 centimeters (2.7 feet) were detected.

A Twitter user identified as Dr. Faka'iloatonga Taumoefolau posted video showing waves crashing ashore.

"Can literally hear the volcano eruption, sounds pretty violent," he wrote, adding in a later post: "Raining ash and tiny pebbles, darkness blanketing the sky."

People watch waters rise in Santa Cruz harbor in Santa Cruz, Calif., Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022. An undersea volcano has erupted in spectacular fashion near the Pacific nation of Tonga on Saturday. Following the eruption, a tsunami advisory was issued for Hawaii, Alaska and the U.S. Pacific coast.Credit: AP Photo/Nic Coury

The explosion of the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai volcano was the latest in a series of dramatic eruptions.

Earth imaging company Planet Labs PBC had watched the island in recent days after a new volcanic vent there began erupting in late December.

Satellite images captured by the company show how drastically the volcano had shaped the area, creating a growing island off Tonga.

"The surface area of the island appears to have expanded by nearly 45% due to ashfall," Planet Labs said days before the latest activity.

Following Saturday's eruption, residents in Hawaii, Alaska and along the U.S. Pacific coast were advised to move away from the coastline to higher ground and to pay attention to specific instructions from their local emergency management officials, said Dave Snider, tsunami warning coordinator for the National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska.

"We don't issue an advisory for this length of coastline as we've doneI'm not sure when the last time wasbut it really isn't an everyday experience," Snider said.

People watch waters rise from Twin Lakes State Beach in Santa Cruz, Calif., Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022. An undersea volcano has erupted in spectacular fashion near the Pacific nation of Tonga on Saturday. Following the eruption, a tsunami advisory was issued for Hawaii, Alaska and the U.S. Pacific coast. Credit: AP Photo/Nic Coury

He said the waves slamming ashore in Hawaii were just under the criteria for a more serious tsunami warning.

"It looks like everything will stay below the warning level, but it's difficult to predict because this is a volcanic eruption, and we're set up to measure earthquake or seismic-driven sea waves," Snider said.

The first waves to hit the continental United States measured about 30 centimeters (1 foot) in Nikolski and Adak, Alaska. A wave of about 20 centimeters (.7 feet) was observed in Monterey, California, the U.S. National Tsunami Warning Center said in a tweet.

Beaches and piers were closed across Southern California as a precaution. The National Weather Service tweeted there were "no significant concerns about inundation." Strong rip currents were possible, however, and officials warned people to stay out of the water.

On California's central coast, the National Weather Service reported tsunami waves up to 2.5 feet (.76 meters) and flooding in beach parking lots at Port San Luis. About 200 miles (320 km) down the coast, the waves were much smaller at Southern California's Seal Beach, according to Michael Pless, the owner of M&M Surf School.

"The waves are looking pretty flat," Pless said. "We're hoping they reopen the beach in a couple hours."

A harbor official pulls debris from rising waters out of Santa Cruz harbor in Santa Cruz, Calif., Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022. An undersea volcano has erupted in spectacular fashion near the Pacific nation of Tonga on Saturday. Following the eruption, a tsunami advisory was issued for Hawaii, Alaska and the U.S. Pacific coast. Credit: AP Photo/Nic Coury

Crowds gathered at the Santa Cruz Harbor in California to watch the rising and falling water strain boat ties on docks. Law enforcement tried to clear people away when big surges started at around 7:30 a.m.

About an hour later, a surge went over the back lip of the harbor, filling a parking lot and low-lying streets and setting some cars afloat. In 2011 after the Japanese earthquake a series of surges cost $20 million of damage in the harbor.

Residents of American Samoa were alerted of a tsunami warning by local broadcasters as well as church bells that rang territory-wide Saturday. An outdoor siren warning system was out of service. Those living along the shoreline quickly moved to higher ground.

As night fell, there were no reports of any damage and the Hawaii-based tsunami center canceled the alert.

Authorities in the nearby island nations of Fiji and Samoa also issued warnings, telling people to avoid the shoreline due to strong currents and dangerous waves. In New Zealand, officials warned of possible storm surges from the eruption.

New Zealand's private forecaster, Weather Watch, tweeted that people as far away as Southland, the country's southernmost region, reported hearing sonic booms from the eruption. Others reported that many boats were damaged by a tsunami that hit a marina in Whangarei, in the Northland region.

In this satellite photo taken by Planet Labs PBC, an island created by the underwater Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai volcano is seen smoking Jan. 7, 2022. An undersea volcano erupted in spectacular fashion near the Pacific nation of Tonga on Saturday, Jan. 15, sending large tsunami waves crashing across the shore and people rushing to higher ground. A tsunami advisory was in effect for Hawaii, Alaska and the U.S. Pacific coast, with reports of waves pushing boats up in the docks in Hawaii. Credit: Planet Labs PBC via AP

In this satellite photo taken by Planet Labs PBC, an island created by the underwater Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai volcano is just before a massive eruption Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022. An undersea volcano erupted in spectacular fashion near the Pacific nation of Tonga on Saturday, sending large tsunami waves crashing across the shore and people rushing to higher ground. A tsunami advisory was in effect for Hawaii, Alaska and the U.S. Pacific coast, with reports of waves pushing boats up in the docks in Hawaii. Credit: Planet Labs PBC via AP

Earlier, the Matangi Tonga news site reported that scientists observed massive explosions, thunder and lightning near the volcano after it started erupting early Friday. Satellite images showed a 5-kilometer (3- mile) -wide plume rising into the air to about 20 kilometers (12 miles).

The Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai volcano is located about 64 kilometers (40 miles) north of the capital, Nuku'alofa. In late 2014 and early 2015, a series of eruptions in the area created a small new island and disrupted international air travel to the Pacific archipelago for several days.

There is not a significant difference between volcanoes underwater and on land, and underwater volcanoes become bigger as they erupt, at some point usually breaching the surface, said Hans Schwaiger, a research geophysicist with the Alaska Volcano Observatory.

With underwater volcanoes, however, the water can add to the explosivity of the eruption as it hits the lava, Schwaiger added.

Before an explosion, there is generally an increase in small local earthquakes at the volcano, but depending on how far it is from land, that may not be felt by residents along the shoreline, Schwaiger said.

In 2019, Tonga lost internet access for nearly two weeks when a fiber-optic cable was severed. The director of the local cable company said at the time that a large ship may have cut the cable by dragging an anchor. Until limited satellite access was restored people couldn't even make international calls.

Southern Cross Cable Network's Veverka said limited satellite connections exist between Tonga and other parts of the world but he did not know if they might be affected by power outages.

Explore further Tongans warned of acid rain after volcanic eruption

 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
LAKE GEORGE  This has never been work for me. Ive always felt I come to the Village Hall to do what I enjoy. I think thats important, Mayor Robert Blais said in an interview last week.

As he sat behind his desk, surrounded by framed family photos of children and grandchildren with awards neatly hung to cover an entire wall of his office, he reflected on his 51 years as the mayor of Lake George Village.

Despite claiming he would retire twice before and not going through with it, Blais says its time.

Im 85 and I want to spend more time with my family. My children are getting older and they live in different places. Its just time, he said.

Mayor Blais recently returned from a 2,200-mile drive to Georgia to see his son for Christmas and also has a daughter living in Myrtle Beach and another daughter in Clifton Park.

The other thing is you want to go out a winner; you want to go out at the top of your game, he said.

Blais said he thinks he is there.

While the mayor is planning his retirement, he still has plans for 2022.

He cited the dissolution study as the biggest item on the table for the village this year, but he couldnt help but talk about the newest edition to the events he has brought to the village  Ice Castles.

I think one of the biggest jobs weve ever had here is to promote Lake George as a year-round destination, and with the coming of the Ice Castles, we can do that, Blais said.

The mayor has taken on many duties during his time in office, some of which do not traditionally fall onto a mayors desk. Blais handles all of the events that come to the village throughout the year.

He was a part of the planning for the Charles R. Wood Festival Commons. Blais said Ice Castles would not have chosen Lake George if not for that space.

I just met with the guy who is on site there for about an hour and he praised the festival space. He said as soon as they saw it when they first came to scope out the village as a possible location, they knew it was perfect, he said.

Blais also started Elvis Week, welcomed the annual car show, and met with the coordinator of Americade to bring the motorcycle rally to the village.

I remember when the guy came in, he said: Mayor, I run a big motorcycle rally in Aspen, Colorado and I want to bring it here, and I said oh boy, wait until the people hear this, he chuckled.

He remembered the pushback he received for some of his projects and special events in the village, but Blais said they have become some of the greatest features of Lake George.

I remember families that came to that board meeting about Americade and said no way, we dont want that here, but its now one of the most-attended events we have, Blais said. We had to create a balance between making the village an enjoyable place for the residents as well as an exciting destination for tourists.

The mayor believes he has created a strong foundation for his successor, possibly interested board member Raymond Perry.

The mayor said he has not only boosted the tourism and available attractions, but also strengthened the chamber of commerce and started the Lake George Arts project.

When I took over in the 70s, the village was known as glitzy and similar to Coney Island, which I see nothing wrong with. I think we are still considered a middle-class family resort that is always changing. Im just happy we are still exciting, he said.

His goal in office was to make the village a place where families wanted to go.

I think we have done that. We have become one of the top family destinations across the nation over the last few years. After visitors see the attractions and experience the activities, they want to walk the main strip of the village because its interesting and exciting, Blais said.

He will miss coming to the Village Hall everyday the most after he retires.

Im just going to miss having a place to go and knowing when I get there it will be interesting and challenging, he reflected.

Blais hopes to remain a part of the village events planning and promotion in the Charles R. Wood Park, when a new mayor is elected next March. Blais said he finds the promotion of new events and planning of returning events extremely interesting work.

The mayor said the only factor that would stop him from retirement would be a vote to pass the dissolution of the village, in which case he said he would stay on as mayor to help make the plans and handle the transition.

Im not gonna sit home or sell my house and move to Florida, he laughed. I will never leave Lake George, Ill always be here.

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Some of the most alarming government actions since the COVID-19 pandemic began have weakened state authority to safeguard public health. At least 26 states have removed traditional powers from local health departments, the institutions tasked with protecting us.

New state laws, for example, take away or limit health officials abilities to require masks, promote vaccinations, close restaurants and schools or even impose quarantines.

These limitations on local authority might seem inevitable in a country where voters often fear government overreach. But in fact these changes run counter to the historical trend in the U.S., which has overwhelmingly been to increase public health powers during epidemics.

At the beginning of European settlement in America, there were no government health departments. But, faced with devastating, terrifying and frequent outbreaks of deadly diseases, colonists established temporary boards of health to set public policy intended to save lives.

These temporary boards quarantined ships in the harbor, required sick residents to isolate at home and disbanded when the epidemics passed. But, over time, these boards became permanent. They increasingly expanded local and state authority to regulate community behavior in the name of public health. The public cooperated throughout the 19th and 20th centuries as Americans developed a sense of civic obligation and responsibility.

Because of this growing public commitment, the powers of cities and states to control disease increased with new epidemics. Repeated occurrences of yellow fever, cholera, smallpox and scarlet fever led to the establishment of public health departments that we recognize today.

Paid commissioners and health boards, and their staffs of inspectors and regulators, isolated the sick in contagious disease hospitals, vaccinated residents and created a sanitary environment. Health departments, often in conjunction with other city and state agencies, built clean water and sewer systems, regulated garbage collection and disposal, inspected restaurants, monitored school environments and set safety standards to ensure safe milk and food supplies. During epidemics, officials often forbade public gatherings, closed schools and bars and insisted on social distancing in churches.

Throughout our history, Americans learned that their individual liberty to oppose a health order during a time of community danger must be subsumed to the public good. The right of health officials to try to control infectious diseases was confirmed with the 1905 U.S. Supreme Court decision Jacobson vs. Massachusetts, which empowered local and state health authorities to order vaccinations during epidemic outbreaks when public health was threatened. If some individuals did not comply, they could be fined or jailed.

Although COVID-19 has ignited controversy over local and state health agencies, public acceptance of their power and authority was widespread throughout the 20th century. In 1947, when smallpox threatened New York City, 6 million New Yorkers voluntarily lined up in the streets awaiting their inoculations to comply with the health departments vaccination ruling. This public cooperation took less than a month and resulted in a very low number of infected people.

In addition, since the 1950s, the federal government has played an increasingly prominent role in public health. State governments sought federal help when disease crises crossed state lines and when implementation of effective action required interstate cooperation. During the 1947 smallpox outbreak, the U.S. Public Health Service traced the contacts of the individual who brought smallpox to New York, following his steps across the country  a task outside the purview of city health officials.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, as in earlier health crises, state health departments have had to depend on federal support and national coordination to contain the disease. They have not had the capacity themselves to produce an effective vaccine, and since vaccines were developed, states have needed help with procurement and distribution. They still need help with maintaining equipment and personnel in hospitals to care for rapid increases in the number of sick people. And they need national leaders to promote the importance of vaccination and continued mask use.

Yet such coordination in local, state and federal efforts is weakened by the new state laws that limit health officials powers, which will leave us unable to deal with future pandemics effectively.

In earlier periods of American history, increased authority and funding for disease control would have been routine. Now the politicization of masking, testing and vaccination has made efforts to curb COVID-19 even more difficult.

Historically the public response to community health danger was ruled by the need to care about others. This tradition has served the country well over the last 300 years. But it is no longer standard in America. The freedom to not wear a face mask has become more important to many people than any obligation to others. Choosing narrow personal liberties over community cooperation and protection does not bode well for our ability to withstand future crises.

Judith Walzer Leavitt is professor emerita in the history of medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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The discovery of African swine fever in northern Italy has Italian pork producers fearing significant damages to a major agricultural export.

Earlier this month, a case of the virus, which can be deadly to pigs but doesnt harm humans, was detected in a wild boar in the Piedmont region in northwest Italy.

Wild boars, whose meat is used in pasta sauces, are a popular prey for hunters in Italy. The nations health and agricultural ministers have banned hunting in parts of Liguria and Piedmont temporarily to try to prevent the spread of the virus in more animals.

The Italian farm lobby Confagricoltura says that China, Japan, Taiwan and Kuwait already have suspended imports of Italian pork and that neighboring Switzerland has also imposed some restrictions.

Italys exports of pork and pork products amount to 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion) annually, with about one-third of that coming from sales outside the European Union.

Other regions in Italys north are pressing for a crackdown on wild boars outside the stricken area in a bid to save their own pork production.

The African swine fever can hit pigs and boars, its highly contagious, often lethal, Gianluca Barbacovi, the head of farm lobby Coldiretti in Italys Trentino Alto Adige region, said Saturday.

The European Food Safety authority says that healthy pigs and boar usually become infected by, among other means, contact with infected animals, including free-ranging pigs and wild boar.

 Associated Press

A proliferation of wild boars has also plagued urban areas, including some neighborhoods in the capital of Rome in recent years. The boars break through fences ringing parks on the outskirts of the city and invade streets to root through uncollected garbage for food.

Lobbyists for Italys prestigious Prosciutto di Parma (Parma Ham) production have hastened to calm any fears by consumers, saying that the aging process its meat undergoes renders the African swine fever virus harmless.

 Associated Press
Anyone with even an inkling of knowledge about architecture would likely recognize the name Frank Lloyd Wright as being among the most revered architects in American history, and one of the most influential designers in world history.

An appreciation for Wrights work  one that emphasizes nature, craftsmanship and simplicity of design  was a major factor in Carrie and Peter Wiesels decision to purchase the spectacular, Wright-inspired home at 6 Pond Lane in Linwoods Fischer Woods community.

There are many beautiful homes in Linwood, but nothing spoke to us like this house, says Carrie Wiesel. We looked to relocate in Linwood on and off for approximately 10 years. We found the unique style of this home, and how the rooms flow from one another, set it apart from any of the other homes weve seen. We absolutely love it for many reasons.

The Wiesels had lived in another section of Linwood since 1990, upgrading to Fischer Woods in 2003 as their family grew.

Our previous home was on a cul-de-sac (as is Pond Lane), and we love the reduced traffic and safety of living on such a street, says Carrie.

Frank Lloyd Wright was one of the best-known pioneers of the Prairie-modern style home, using oak planks, bricks, slate and other natural materials, says Peter. Theres an abundance of these materials in this home, as well as 28 custom stained-glass windows that are laminated and placed over top of Andersen, double-paned windows. The stained glass is in the Tree of Life motif, which is an elaborate, geometrical art-glass design that is one of the most recognized features Wright was known for.

This custom-built home, in todays building climate, could not closely be reconstructed at the offered price. The Pond Lane home is teeming with Wright-inspired furniture and enhancements.

We did our research, adds Peter. We went to Oak Park, Illinois (site of the worlds largest collection of Frank Lloyd Wright-designed buildings, and his studio)  and bear in mind, this was back in 2003 when the internet was not the tool it is today. I dont even think Google was used by the public. We visited with many craftsmen who did custom Prairie-modern furniture designs, artwork and home accoutrements.

Some of the furnishings will be offered for sale by the seller, should the buyer have an interest.

The 26-by-16-foot living room looks like a formal ski lodge, with an antler chandelier hanging from a cedar-wood vaulted ceiling. The chandelier was crafted by an artisan in British Columbia. The brick fireplace is outfitted with a woodburning stove with a heat blower, which can warm most of the homes first floor. A wet bar with an icemaker and locking cabinetry adjoins the living room.

Each of the four bedrooms has an attached, spacious bathroom. There is a roomy loft that is currently being used as a home office. All of the rooms in the house overlook a travertine stone-paver patio, courtyard and pool.

The pool, built four summers ago, is a competitive-length, heated, saltwater lap pool with a 6-foot-deep water aerobics section.

I dont think there are many private residences in Atlantic County, if any, with a pool this size, says Peter. Its the 75-foot length that is unique.

Built into the pool is a solar ledge. The water is only a few inches deep, with a removable umbrella holder in the center.

Its a great way to stay shaded and cool in the pool on a warm summer day, says Carrie. There is also an enclosed hot and cold outdoor shower stall in the pool area.

Our backyard is quite private, she adds. We have 50-plus evergreens lining the periphery of the backyard.

Among the homes other unique features is a temperature-regulated wine cellar that can store up to 1,000 bottles. The wine cellar is part of a massive, 34-by-23-foot great room equipped with a gas fireplace that can be ignited by remote control. A large, walk-in closet off the homes main entrance also features a cigar humidor.

The nearly 6,000-square-foot home is climate controlled with four zones of air conditioning and six zones of heat. The homes kitchen is equipped with a Sub-Zero freezer/refrigerator, Heritage cabinetry, Jenn-Air wall ovens, a six-burner stovetop, a walk-in pantry, and a 10-by-4-foot center island with sink and seating. The home has an attached two-car garage and four walk-in attics.

The common grounds in Fischer Woods are beautified by flowers and professional landscaping each spring and fall, and maintained throughout the year, says Carrie. There is a gazebo in one of the community areas on the 48-acre Bargaintown Lake, and Fischer Woods has plenty of open space for the kids in the neighborhood to play.

Fischer Woods is situated between two major north-south highways  the Garden State Parkway and Route 9  and within a five-mile radius are some of the best golf courses in the state, among them Linwood Country Club, Atlantic City Country Club and Harbor Pines Country Club. A plethora of dining and shopping are all within a short drive.

Qualified buyers who would like a tour of this spectacular home can contact Realtor Lisa Alper-Russo of Platinum Real Estate at 609-289-2384 (direct line), 609-641-3400 (office) or lisaalper@comcast.net.
Events

Monday, Jan. 17

GALLERY OF YOU  ARTISTIC JOURNALING: 11 a.m. first and third Mondays; group meets online to explore the rewards of artistic journaling, share insights and express creativity; each participant can receive a journal and art supplies through the mail at no cost; program is offered by The Mental Health Association in Atlantic County; registration required. 609-652-3800, ext. 318 or MHAAC.info.

Wednesday, Jan. 19 BINGO: 1 to 2 p.m.; virtual event presented by The Lynn Kramer Village by the Shore at Jewish Family Service. 609-287-8872 or JFSVillageByTheShore.org.

WEEKLY WEDNESDAY OPEN GAMING: 10 a.m. to noon Wednesdays; open gaming; masks required; Public Library, 2305 Atlantic Ave., Longport. 609-487-7403 or LongportPublicLibrary.org.

Monday, Jan. 24

BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF ATLANTIC CITY SPEAKER SERIES KICKOFF: 5 to 7 p.m., featuring Chris Singleton, former professional baseball outfielder, a sportscaster and inspirational speaker; free livestream; for all ages; details visit acbgc.org or the organizations Eventbrite and Facebook pages.

Wednesday, Jan. 26

CUMBERLAND COUNTY LIBRARY ONLINE MOVIE CLUB: 6:30 to 8 p.m. fourth Wednesdays; hosted by Cumberland County Library; for ages 18 and older; watch movies for free with Hoopla, then meet up on Zoom for discussion; registration required. 856-453-2210, ext. 26103 or CCLNJ.org.

ONLINE MOVIE CLUB: 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. fourth Wednesdays; hosted by Cumberland County Library; for ages 18 and older; meeting on Zoom. 856-453-2210, ext. 26103 or CCLNJ.org.

Groups

Sunday, Jan. 16

MEDITATION  ONLINE GROUP: 7:15 to 8 p.m. Sundays; offered by The Mental Health Association in Atlantic County; staff offer a guided calming meditation or breathing exercise; to receive a link by email and join the group online, email btrendler@mhanj.org. 609-652-3800 or MHAAC.info.

Monday, Jan. 17

GOT STRESS? ONLINE GROUP: 4 to 5:30 p.m. Mondays; online group meets to discuss daily wellness, coping strategies and tools to relieve stress and reduce anxiety; offered by The Mental Health Association in Atlantic County; free. 609-652-3800 or MHAAC.info.

LONGPORT NEEDLERS: 10 a.m. to noon Mondays; bring your needle/crochet craft project and join us for a time of crafting and socializing; Longport Public Library, 2305 Atlantic Ave., Longport. 609-487-7403 or LongportPublicLibrary.org.

SURVIVORS OF SUICIDE ONLINE GROUP : 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. third Mondays; offered by The Mental Health Association in Atlantic County; for those who lost someone to suicide; via Zoom or by dial-in teleconference; both a therapist and a peer co-facilitate this meeting. 609-652-3800 or MHAAC.info.

Wednesday, Jan. 19

MONTHLY VIRTUAL ALZHEIMERS ASSOCIATION CAREGIVER SUPPORT GROUP: 2 to 3 p.m. third Wednesdays; hosted by Alzheimers Association; for caregivers of individuals living with Alzheimers and others dealing with the disease; facilitated by trained individuals. 800-272-3900.

NATIONAL ACTIVE AND RETIRED FEDERAL EMPLOYEES: 1 to 3 p.m. third Thursdays; lunch meeting of South Jersey Shore Chapter 1664 of NARFE; current, retired and spouses of Federal Employees are welcome; Shore Diner, 6710 Tilton Road, Egg Harbor Township. 609-822-2018 or NARFE.net.

TOO MUCH STUFF? GROUP: 1 to 2 p.m. first and third Wednesdays; the Mental Health Association in Atlantic County offers an online support group for individuals with clutter challenges and collecting behaviors that impede their day-to-day living; group meets virtually via Zoom. 609-652-3800, ext. 303 or MHAAC.info.

TOO MUCH STUFF? MEETINGS: 1 to 2 p.m. first and third Wednesdays; hosted by the Mental Health Association in Atlantic County; online or call-in support for those with clutter challenges, collecting behaviors, or hoarding tendency. 609-652-3800 or MHAAC.info.

Thursday, Jan. 20

ONLINE MENS WELLNESS GROUP: 6 to 7 p.m. first and third Thursdays; offered by The Mental Health Association in Atlantic County; via Zoom or by call-in; topics vary, but may include family/relationships, substance use and coping strategies during COVID; to receive a link, email jangelini@mhanj.org. 609-652-3800 or MHAAC.info.

Friday, Jan. 21

NICOTINE ANONYMOUS: 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Fridays; fellowship of men and women helping each other to live free of nicotine; 351 Cincinnati Ave., Egg Harbor City; free. 609-602-5701, 609-965-4847 or 609-226-4193.

Thursday, Jan. 27

ICI OF SOUTH JERSEY RESUMES MEETINGS: 6 to 8:30 p.m. fourth Thursdays through June 2022; creates an awareness and appreciation of Italian culture; St. Frances Cabrini Church, Room C, 114 Atlantic Ave., Ocean City; $4 donation non-members. 609-602-9017.

Health, fitness

Tuesday, Jan. 18

BODY IMAGE & BALANCE MEETINGS: 7 to 8 p.m. first and third Tuesdays; hosted by the Mental Health Association in Atlantic County; call-in and online group for those living with or recovering from disordered eating. 609-652-3800 or MHAAC.info.

COMFORT CUISINE: HEALTHY & DELICIOUS: 10:30 to 11:30 a.m.; Comfort Cuisine: Healthy & Delicious; presented by The Lynn Kramer Village by the Shore at Jewish Family Service. 609-287-8872 or JFSVillageByTheShore.org.

Wednesday, Jan. 19

BOOMERS CONNECTION & WELLNESS HOUR: 7 to 8 p.m. first and third Wednesdays; boomers meet virtually or by call-in for a social connection and wellness group; hosted by the Mental Health Association in Atlantic County. 609-652-3800 or MHAAC.info.

MIND AND BODY VIRTUAL WORKSHOP: 11 a.m. to noon Wednesdays; workshop is provided to individuals who live with a disability; participants discuss topics such as adapting, goal setting, refocusing and more; offered by the Mental Health Association in Atlantic County. 609-652-3800, ext. 308 or MHAAC.info.

Thursday, Jan. 20

RISING MINDS ONLINE MEETING: 6 to 7:30 p.m. Thursdays; offered by the Mental Health Association in Atlantic County; peer-led meeting for individuals age 18 to 30; participants discuss mental health, share experiences, develop tools for self-care and connect to others. 609-652-3800 or MHAAC.info.

Music

Thursday, Jan. 20

VIRTUAL JAM SERIES: 7 p.m. Thursdays; hosted by Absecon Cultural Arts Alliance streaming live via Facebook; features local musicians. AbseconArts.com.
Thats what Gina Cavallo, the survivor consultant for the New Jersey Coalition Against Human Trafficking, believed until she realized her familys love wasnt actually love at all.

My life was filled with brokenness. I ended up where I was meeting the wrong people who pretended to be my friends until one day I met the wrong person. Where I was drugged, I was raped and followed by beatings and threats. I ended up getting addicted to drugs. So I was given a new identity, told what to wear, what I could do, there were so many layers that happened. For me, I had many traffickers, I had four traffickers in the span of two years. And you just live with a lot of fear and shame, said Cavallo.

Growing up, Cavallo was taught that children are better seen, not heard. Expressing her feelings was disrespectful. And though she says her family was well regarded in the community, she claims she witnessed and endured abuse as a child.

Her identity became what others would think of her.

Now a leader in the anti-human trafficking movement, and founder and executive director of the nonprofit We RISE, Cavallo has taken her identity back. As a survivor of human trafficking, shes spread awareness in preventing sex trafficking and exploitation in New Jersey and across the United States.

January is National Human Trafficking Prevention Month, an effort to raise awareness about human trafficking, including how the public can identify and prevent it.

While its difficult to quantify human trafficking due to very low levels of self-reporting, Camden County Prosecutor Grace MacAulay said trafficking generally takes one of two forms.

The first is commercial sex trafficking, and the second is labor trafficking. The main difference is that commercial sex trafficking requires that a sexual act be performed, whereas labor trafficking does not require such an act. Labor trafficking requires that an individual be forced to work, either manual or otherwise, said MacAulay.

MacAulays office has found sex traffickers most frequently prey on victims of sexual abuse, the homeless and people with substance use issues.

We have found that minor females and young adults who are addicted to illegal narcotics often find themselves homeless and looking for means to support their drug habit. Traffickers prey on that need and lure these individuals into the sex trade with promises of stable housing and an income stream that can fund their addictions, said MacAulay.

Burlington County Prosecutor Scott Coffina adds that substance use disorder  a clinically recognized medical disorder that lends to use and abuse of drugs  also contributes to human trafficking.

The problem has become more insidious as the ongoing substance use disorder epidemic presents a vulnerability in many victims for human traffickers to exploit, said Coffina.

But anyone can be a target for traffickers, warns Kate Lee, executive director of the New Jersey Coalition Against Human Trafficking.

There are certainly vulnerabilities, but as a message, the coalition tries to make it clear that this can happen to anyone. It can happen anywhere. When I say anyone were also talking it could be labor and sex trafficking. It can be a male, female, it can be any race, anybody. There is no group that we are targeting with our message particularly, we target everybody, said Lee. Oftentimes, you find that if people understand about human trafficking, they have sometimes even increased understanding about the other types of exploitation or abuse that can happen to people.

Lee said labor trafficking is just as problematic as sex trafficking. Victims are coerced into work or service through debt bondage or the promise of coming to this country to make a better life for themselves.

Traffickers exploit vulnerabilities of people who dont have the documentation to be in this country; theres this huge extra fear and oftentimes, theyre coming from places where they have no trust in law enforcement, they do believe all the things that we will call the police and they will deport you not realizing, now law enforcement is getting better and better trained, said Lee.

But human trafficking has become more widespread with the help of the internet as a way for traffickers to lure new victims.

Human trafficking has become more prevalent with the increase in the use of social media and the internet to surreptitiously advertise commercial sex. This has made it much easier for the traffickers to operate anonymously and without fear of detection because they can orchestrate the pattern, plan or scheme of trafficking multiple victims, without ever being identified. The use of the internet has made it possible for traffickers to operate without having to stand on local street corners, said MacAulay.

South Jerseys proximity to Philadelphia and Atlantic City and access to several major highways makes it a target for traffickers, explained MacAulay.

CRDA rooming house purchases criticized ATLANTIC CITY  A Casino Reinvestment Development Authority effort to buy problem rooming ho

The Camden County Prosecutors Office has prosecuted a trafficker who lured an 18-year-old female from her home in Massachusetts to engage in commercial sex in Atlantic City. The I-95 corridor was used by the male trafficker to transport the female to Atlantic City, where he planned to have her engage in sex in exchange for money. During the ride on I-95, the trafficker assaulted the victim and destroyed her cellphone, thereby cutting off her access to seek help out of the trafficking situation, said MacAulay.

Motels and hotels are also useful to traffickers criminal activity as oftentimes management fails to report suspicions of illegal activity, she said.

It is often not to the best interest of the motel operator to report such incidents as it draws law enforcement to their establishment, thereby disrupting many forms of illegal activity being conducted there by paying customers.

The Burlington County Prosecutors Office added that in areas with a high concentration of motels, police departments keep a close eye out for potential human trafficking crimes.

We take this crime very seriously, and recently secured a 10-year guilty plea by a human trafficker in Westampton, who will be sentenced later this month. Police departments in our towns with a high concentration of motels, such as Mount Laurel, Westampton and Bordentown, work hard to develop information about potential human trafficking activity during the course of investigations focused on criminal activity at those properties, said Coffina.

The attraction to human trafficking is that the crime itself isnt as obvious as other crimes.

Its a very lucrative crime for a criminal because what theyre looking for with this crime is something you dont get with drug crimes. With drug crimes, youre doing something that immediately if youre caught with drugs, its done. Its an obvious crime. So you kind of got high risk and reward. But with trafficking, youve got low risk, and very high rewards, because unlike drugs, you can sell a person over and over and over again, said Lee.

The harder it has become to get caught, the more money traffickers have made.

Nationwide, sex and labor trafficking is a multibillion-dollar industry. While the financial benefit of trafficking is difficult to quantify locally, we have interdicted cases in which individual traffickers have accumulated tens of thousands of dollars, purchased homes and vehicles, all from the work of their trafficking victims, said MacAulay.

So who are the criminals behind the multibillion-dollar industry? The first thing to know is the difference between traffickers and customers.

State Police seek help identifying man found dead off Sea Bright New Jersey State Police seek the publics assistance to identify a dead man with a unique ta

The trafficker is usually the individual who lures the victims into the trafficking operation, provide them transportation to the dates and profits financially from the trafficking activity. In the area of sex trafficking, the trafficker often is the individual who forces or coerces the victim into engaging in multiple sex acts on any given day, sometimes using physical abuse to control his victims, said MacAulay. The Johns are the individuals who pay for the sex act and they do not profit financially from the trafficking scheme. They are the purchasers in commercial sex trafficking.

There is no stereotypical trafficker.

Its very difficult to ask, what does a trafficker look like? They look like you or me. They look like your next door neighbor. I had four traffickers, and one was a woman and three were men and you would never even know it, said Cavallo.

While some victims of trafficking can meet their trafficker online, traffickers arent always internet strangers. In some cases the trafficker is related to the victim.

Weve got folks who are survivors of familial trafficking from South Jersey, who speak with us and we talk so familial trafficking is a huge issue throughout New Jersey and also South Jersey, said Lee. On the face of it, they have a disorder, and to fund their drug addiction, their substance use disorder, they are trafficking their children. The only thing left to sell is their children, so its just a tragic thing. But thats not the only reason.

The Camden County Prosecutors Office has led proactive investigations to detect and prevent human trafficking.

These investigations include the use of undercover operations to make contact with potential victims of human trafficking in hopes that they will identify their traffickers and help prosecute them. This office also participates in community-based activities which show the public ways in which they can identify and report human trafficking which they may encounter, said MacAulay, the prosecutor.

MacAulay said people can help the cause by being aware online.

One very useful way that we can assess our community for signs of human trafficking is to scour internet media platforms which advertise females who are willing to engage in commercial sex. That is often disguised as appointments for massages or other personal care services, said MacAulay.

The New Jersey Coalition Against Human Trafficking also has tips for parents and children on the red flags to know with internet use.

Mays Landing woman launches nonprofit for victims of sexual assault Like too many women across the United States, Tishera Jones early life was marked by the tr

The idea is just to give them that kind of like that bell going off in their mind. This doesnt feel quite right, so that they know how to ask for help. So its kind of as simple as that without being sort of scary, said Lee.

However, MacAulay says the best way is to cut off the demand for victims, both in the sex and labor trafficking scenarios. But she admits this would require changes in our laws.

In the sex trafficking world, this would mean making it much riskier for the Johns to seek out and pay for commercial sex with potential trafficking victims. This would require that our laws be changed to make soliciting prostitution by a patron a much more serious offense with higher penalties, said MacAulay.

The Burlington County Prosecutors office also supports the idea of new legislation.

Recognizing the helpless situation that human trafficking victims often find themselves in, the County Prosecutors Association of New Jersey has expressed its support for legislation that would provide a process to vacate and expunge certain arrests and convictions arising because of a persons status as a victim of human trafficking, said Coffina.

On Jan. 10, the state Senate passed bill A5322 sponsored by Sen. Nilsa Cruz-Perez, D-Camden, and Assemblywoman Gabriela M. Mosquera, D-Camden, Gloucester, which would allow victims to clear their names in trafficking-related crimes.

The legislation, now awaiting Gov. Phil Murphys signature, would allow victims to have arrests, charges, convictions, complaints and even DNA records related to crimes committed as a result of trafficking expunged.

Currently, survivors of human trafficking can apply to expunge convictions for prostitution and related charges, since they were forced against their will to break these laws, said state Sen. Troy Singleton, who co-sponsored the bill. However, through this legislation, we seek to expand expungement protections to all convictions that were committed under victimized circumstances. The survivors of human trafficking need to know that there are policies and laws in place that will support them and help them move their lives forward.

On Monday, Assemblywoman Carol Murphy will host an event to raise awareness and educate communities. The Red Sands Project, from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Laurel Acres Park in Mount Laurel, will encourage participants to pour provided packets of red sand into sidewalk cracks to symbolize not letting victims fall through the cracks.
CAPE MAY  An incredible family story continues in this Victorian seaside city, but for the first time in 55 years, that story will not include The Montreal at 1025 Beach Ave.

The property has been sold to Madison Resorts, which plans to continue to operate it as a beach resort. The deal closed at the end of 2021.

The sale price has not been disclosed. The assessed value of the property is just over $10 million, according to city records.

The Hirsch family has owned the property for 55 years, since Harry and Sophie Hirsch went from chicken farmers in Vineland and Corbin City to the hospitality industry in Cape May.

They both survived the Holocaust, said Jonathan Hirsch, their grandson. His grandfather survived the concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the notorious Nazi death camp in occupied Poland that was a major center of the genocide of Jews and others during World War II.

His grandmother survived the war with a resistance group, Hirsch said. They came to America after the war.

They really had a hell of an upbringing, he said this week. They used all that sadness and difficulty to work hard and to build a life for their family.

He described their family stories as both unbelievable and awe-inspiring.

Its a pretty amazing story. Having one grandparent as a survivor and another with the resistance, it really makes me proud of what they did, Hirsch said.

According to Hirsch, Harry and Sophie saw an opportunity in hospitality. At the time, there was an economic boom in The Wildwoods, he said.

They saw the potential in Cape May, which in 1966 was a quiet beach town while Wildwood drew the big summer crowds.

They purchased a vacant property at Madison and Beach avenues.

Will Canadians return to the beach this year? That depends on whether the border reopens. For decades, at least for a couple of weeks a year, Cape May County has had a bit of a Frenc

Their Montreal Motel  three stories, 27 rooms, pull-in parking and a pool across from the ocean  was similar to the design of the Wildwood motels, later to be described as doo-wop. Today, there are 69 rooms at the Montreal Beach Resort, a restaurant, a pool and the citys only beachfront liquor store, The Wine Cellar.

Because of the large numbers of French-speaking Canadians who came to Cape May County each summer, they named the motel after the largest city in the province of Quebec. Hirsch described it as his grandfathers marketing idea.

It worked, Hirsch said. Canadian vacationers were a considerable percentage of the summer visitors for years. Some still come, although it is not as significant a portion as it once was. Now 37, Hirsch said the Canadian visitors were a big part of his familys history.

He still feels a deep connection to the place.

The hotels been a part of my life since I was a little kid. I had birthday parties there, worked jobs at the pool, he said.

His father, Larry Hirsch, served as general manager for years, operating the resort with his brother, Joe. In a notice to visitors and Cape May residents, Larry, Joe and Jonathan said they felt fortunate to have operated for more than five decades.

We are grateful to the generations of guests who called the Montreal their summer home. We watched your families grow, as you watched ours. We are humbled that you kept joining us year after year, generation after generation, the statement reads.

The Hirsch family continues to operate its other businesses in town, including The Boarding House, a pet-friendly, surf-themed hotel on Lafayette Street. The 11-room hotel opened in 2019.

Its been a really fun project, Hirsch said of the Boarding House.

The family business also has commercial real estate investments on the Washington Street Mall, the beachfront of Cape May and the Ocean City Boardwalk, he said.

And to be sure, our Cape May story doesnt end here. This city is part of us, and we are part of this city, the statement reads.

The property sold to Madison Resorts LLC, a new company apparently named for the cross street of the Montreal.

The sale includes Harrys, a bar and grille with rooftop dining and ocean views, and The Wine Cellar.

The familys statement wished Madison Resorts great success.

Dan Alicea, the primary owner of Madison Resorts, said Friday that plans are to keep the name and the existing staff. Work is underway on upgrades to the rooms and the lobby, and he also plans upgrades to Harrys, including new menu items and more live music.

The place will retain its identity, he said.

Madison Resorts is also a family company, Alicea said, adding that when they were in negotiations with the Hirsch family, they seemed to be as much interviewing him on his intentions as he was looking at the property.

The legacy of the Hirsch family was always and continues to be at the top of our minds, he said.

Alicea is the former vice president of Vivamee, the parent company of Renault Winery in Egg Harbor City. He lives in Egg Harbor Township. He described operating a piece of Cape May history as a dream come true for himself and his family.

We are humbled and honored to the Hirsch family for putting their trust in Madison Resorts, he said. We are committed to delivering exceptional service and holding the community to our hearts.

The Hirsch family thanked the teams at the property.

From guest services to housekeeping, to maintenance and administration, to everyone at Harrys, The Wine Cellar and the Beach Club, all became members of our extended family, the statement reads. We take with us all the memories weve made, the lessons we learned working together, and all the friendship we have grown.

Contact Bill Barlow: 609-272-7290 bbarlow@pressofac.com Twitter @jerseynews_bill

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The pounding rain and the worst of the rain is over. However, this storm is still very much with us. Coastal flooding will occur Monday morning as winds continue to whip throughout the day. Rain or snow showers will fall at times, too.
The day before the Christmas holiday, when the administration of Gov. Phil Murphy could count on it receiving the least attention, New Jersey revealed it will settle claims over its role in the deaths of more than 100 veterans in state-run homes.

The families of 119 residents of veterans homes in Paramus and Menlo Park had filed notices they intended to sue the state, alleging its negligence led to their COVID-19 deaths.

The Murphy administration agreed to pay $53 million to settle the claims.

More than 200 residents of state veterans homes died during the pandemic. Murphy came under criticism in April 2020 when he ordered that veterans homes must accept and admit patients who had tested positive for COVID-19. Both Murphy, and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo who had issued a similar emergency order, were forced to rescind them when it quickly became clear that the highly contagious coronavirus was spreading in the homes.

For more than two years Murphy has claimed broad emergency powers to address the pandemic in the state. An obvious benefit of this is the ability to respond quickly to emerging and changing situations.

There is also a great disadvantage, though, as seen in the tragedy of the veterans homes and other care facilities Murphy forced to take in those infected with COVID-19.

One person with autocratic power exercised out of the view of the public is too susceptible to the influences of their branch of government, of the people who support them and those they trust, and of their beliefs and biases. As good as all these might be, theyll inevitably fall short of decisions made with the input of multiple qualified groups and individuals that arent hidden from the public.

Murphy apparently like Cuomo was advised to make care facilities accept COVID patients from hospitals to help keep beds open there. But had he consulted a wider range of medical scientists and the public, he would have heard strong opposition to introducing the virus into institutions filled with those most at risk of serious illness and death from it.

Not until June 2021 did the state Legislature insist on having some input on the emergency powers Murphy began using in March 2020. Even then his fellow Democrats in the Legislature allowed many of his emergency powers to continue until this week.

Murphy recently asked the Legislature for a 90-day extension of some of his emergency powers, but on Monday the state Senate and Assembly refused the request.

Then on Tuesday when his remaining emergency powers were to expire, Murphy declared a new public health emergency and reinstituted his powers under it.

The Legislature has allowed itself to become irrelevant exactly when its participation, transparency regarding COVID policies and a diversity of perspectives are crucial to the health of everyone in New Jersey.

The Murphy administration has kept secret its pandemic decision-making processes and many of those participating in them. If even the legislators in Murphys own political party cant see whats behind the curtain, the public can have no confidence in the basis for his actions.
A week ago, the federal government published final rules for how Covid relief money could be spent by local and state governments, and the news wasnt good for Scott County.

Supervisors have been planning to tap $7.25 million of their share of the federal funds to help pay for expansion of the Juvenile Detention Center. After closely examining the rules, though, it seems to us they wont be able to do that.

As we read these rules, there are all sorts of warning signs that spending Covid funds to build bigger correctional facilities, even ones with improved ventilation systems, wont be allowed.

The preliminary set of rules, while vague, did seem more permissive. But these new rules are stricter. And that seems like a good idea. After all, lets remember why Congress approved this money in the first place. It was to fight the effects of the pandemic. Which is why these new rules say money spent "to respond to public health and negative economic impacts of the pandemic must be related and reasonably proportional to a harm caused or exacerbated by the pandemic " And when it comes to spending Covid money on capital expenditures, the rules say, "construction of new congregate facilities  would generally not be a proportional response to mitigate or prevent COVID-19, because such construction is generally expected to be more costly than alternative approaches or capital expenditures that may be equally or more effective in decreasing spread of the disease."

Wordy, but to put it bluntly: If the idea is to limit the spread of Covid, it doesnt make sense to build a larger congregate facility.

Last we checked, county officials said they were still studying the finalized rules. But wed be surprised if they came to the conclusion they could still use the money.

We dont think they should try. Instead, supervisors should take a step back and reassess this process.

As weve seen, there is a large part of the public against the plans to expand the current 18-bed facility to 40 beds.

The critics argue the money is better spent on prevention programs; that the projected juvenile population doesnt warrant a larger facility and that, because of inequities in Iowas juvenile justice system, Black and brown people stand to be hurt the most. On the latter point, Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Susan Christensen last month ordered a review of the states juvenile justice system, including examining the systems racial and gender disparities. (There is good reason. A report last year by the Washington,-D.C.-based Sentencing Project said that Black youth in Iowa are nearly nine times as likely as their white peers to be committed to detention centers, residential treatment centers, group homes and youth prisons. Thats one of the worst records in the country, according to the Sentencing Project, and Scott County appears to be driving much of the statewide disparity, according to local, state and national civil rights and juvenile justice leaders.)

We believe there need to be changes at the Juvenile Detention Center, which is clearly outdated. But we also believe there are better ways to go about this; that some of the critics concerns should be meaningfully addressed. We also are not convinced the size of the facility is warranted. Our preference would be for a more modest detention center than the one envisioned.

Most of all, we believe the public needs a greater say in this decision. In the past, Scott County would go to the public for permission to sell bonds to build expanded correctional facilities. And only a year ago, Scott County seemed to be on that track. Then came the federal Covid funding and talk of a referendum disappeared.

Its possible the county could still finance this expanded facility without the Covid funds or a bond referendum. But even if it could be done, we dont think it would be wise.

We think its time to ask the public what it wants.

We dont come to this conclusion easily. For the most part, we elect supervisors to make day-to-day decisions, and we understand there is a federal requirement that juveniles be moved out of adult jails. Even though a referendum may necessitate greater short-term costs, the amount of controversy this has generated and, more importantly, the potential long term impact of an enlarged Juvenile Detention Center demand greater accountability.

We hope supervisors will see this as an opportunity; that they will take a step back and ask for the publics input.

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The timing for a surge in video-gaming revenue is a mercy for many taverns and restaurants in the Illinois Quad-Cities.

In most cases, the amount wagered locally on slot machines doubled from 2020 to 2021, and the establishments' share of the money doubled with it.

"We were closed so much in 2020, and that's the main reason it doubled in '21," said Joe Evans, owner of Hafner's Wagon Wheel in Moline. "It's been very helpful for me, though gaming isn't a huge portion of revenue for me."

The amount wagered at Hafner's in 2020 was about $254,000, which jumped to about $606,000 last year. The owners of establishments with gaming licenses get about 32% of the profits.

While the extra money is a big help at a time when many still are reluctant to go to restaurants and bars, it's not enough to make up for pandemic-related losses, such as ongoing worker shortages.

"I'd rather have two cooks than the money from gaming," Evans said. "I'm closing several nights a week, and I'm doing most of the cooking. That said, it is nice to see that gaming revenue coming in right now.

"It really came at a good time."

Local government budgets also are enjoying a boost from the increase in gaming revenue. Taxes from legalized marijuana, meanwhile, are at an all-time high, and the related taxes are bolstering public funds, too.

In East Moline, Moline and Rock Island, 83 establishments hold gaming licenses. Some are gaming parlors that were built specifically for video gaming, but most of the terminals are located in taverns and restaurants.

In East Moline, gaming revenue from 2021 is about $338,000, compared to $170,486 in 2020. The state will collect nearly $2 million in gaming revenue from East Moline's 27 licensed establishments, according to the Illinois Gaming Board.

Moline is looking to collect just shy of $400,000 in gaming revenue from its 35 licensed establishments, which is up from about $225,000 in 2020. The state's share from last year is about $2.3 million from Moline.

And, in Rock Island, which has 21 licensed locations for gaming, the latest revenue is about $229,000. In 2020, gaming gave the city about $116,000. The state's share for gaming in Rock Island last year is about $1.3 million, state records show.

Also doubling in revenue, marijuana sales in Illinois hit nearly $1.4 billion in 2021. The state legalized recreational marijuana in 2020, and the related taxes have climbed with sales.

While pandemic-related closures contributed some to lower sales in 2020, a shortage of Illinois-grown cannabis also abbreviated the revenues.

Rock Island County expects to get about $1 million for its share of the pot tax for 2021, which is coming from the county's only dispensary, Nature's Treatment of Illinois in Milan.

"(The) county received $834,930.30 to-date for the months in 2021 through September. We expect about $170,000 total more for October and November combined (and) about $80,000 for December," said April Palmer, the county auditor. "One million in additional revenue to the General Fund continuously each year is extremely helpful."

The biggest boon is going to the Village of Milan, which was able to levy a 3% tax on Nature's Treatment in addition to the 2% it already was collecting for recreational marijuana and 1% for medical pot.

In the first seven months of Milan's fiscal year, which began May 1, the village collected about $561,000. Payments from the state lag by two or three months, Village Administrator Steve Seiver said.

By the time payment is made on the entire 5% of recreational cannabis, Milan should take in $1.3 million to $1.4 million for 2021. Another 1% of medical marijuana sales will go to Milan.

The money is especially helpful at a time when other sales taxes have decreased, Seiver said, but he is cautious about future marijuana-related boosts.

"We think we're on borrowed time on receiving the amounts we're seeing now," he said. "We think it will be diluted by more dispensaries in Illinois.

"From what we're hearing, there will be at least one more dispensary in the Quad-Cities in the next three or four years. We'll see what Iowa does with marijuana, too, because that would take away half the market.

"I caution everybody that we're riding a wave right now, but it's likely to go away."

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A Davenport man wanted in connection with a drug and gun investigation was taken into custody Friday.

James Henry Thomas Jr., 32, of Davenport, was wanted for selling ecstasy, marijuana and cocaine and being a felon in possession of a firearm in a case investigated by the Davenport Police Departments Narcotics Unit and Gun Investigations Unit.

Thomas is charged in Scott County District Court with one count of possession with the intent to deliver more than 5 grams of a substance containing methylenedioxymethamphetamine, MDMA, known on the street as ecstasy. The charge is a Class B felony under Iowa law that carries a prison sentence of 25 years.

Thomas also is charged with one count each of possession with the intent to deliver marijuana and possession of a firearm by a felon, and two counts of violating Iowas drug tax stamp law. Each of the four charges is a Class D felony that carries a prison sentence of five years.

According to the affidavits filed by Davenport Police Cpl. Seth Farley, at 10:17 a.m. on July 26, officers searched Thomass residence in the 2800 block of West 13th Street.

Officers seized 2,411 grams, or 5.31 pounds, of marijuana; 771 grams, or 1.7 pounds of marijuana wax; 6.6 grams of cocaine; 74 ecstasy pills; about 5 pounds of marijuana edible products; working digital scales containing marijuana residue and packaging materials.

Officers also seized .22-caliber ammunition, .223-caliber ammunition, a pistol magazine containing 9mm ammunition and a .22-caliber Marlin rifle. Also seized was $1,176 in cash.

A search of Thomass phone indicated numerous messages related to drug sales.

During a post-Miranda interview with police, Thomas told officers he traded a quarter of marijuana and some marijuana wax to another person for the .22-caliber rifle.

An arrest warrant was issued for Thomas on Oct. 18 after lab results and other aspects of the investigation were completed. He was taken into custody by Scott County Sheriffs deputies.

Thomas also is being held for a domestic abuse charge, a serious misdemeanor; contempt of court for failing to pay child support; and two counts of possession of a controlled substance-third offense, each of which is a Class D felony.

During a first appearance Saturday in Scott County District Court, Thomass bond was set at $31,750, cash only, for the drugs, weapons, contempt and domestic abuse charges, and $5,000, cash or surety, for the possession-third offense charges.

A preliminary hearing on the charges is scheduled for Jan. 25 in Scott County District Court.

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Doctors, nurses and hospital staff from Genesis Health System and UnityPoint Health-Trinity are called heroes. Their images, accompanied by words of praise, have been featured in advertisements and on billboards from Bettendorf to Rock Island.

Those are well-meaning gestures during a pandemic that often appears to have no end. But perhaps the words and images too easily obscure the physical and emotional toll COVID-19 is taking on hospital workers.

Stacy Wille, a registered nurse and an intensive care unit supervisor at Genesis, offered a glimpse of the reality faced by health care workers across the Quad-Cities as hospitals strain under the collective weight of community-wide illness.

"I'm looking at normal people, people who go to work everyday. They don't have cancer; they don't have lung disease," said Wille, who is 34 and has been an RN for 11 years. "I see young people, people with teenagers or small children, dying of COVID-19. It's heart-wrenching.

"I recently helped an 8-year-old girl say what ended up being goodbye to her mother. And as we're walking, I'm wondering what all of this is going to do to this girl. Should I do this? What does the rest of her life look like? How do you ever get past this?"

Wille might have been asking the same questions for all nurses, doctors and hospital staffs in the Quad-Cities.

According to the latest numbers, Genesis Health System and UnityPoint Health-Trinity reported a combined 180 COVID-19 patients Monday  marking the third consecutive week of drastic increases in the number of patients battling the virus in local hospitals.

A total of 152 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized across the Quad-Cities. On Dec. 27, Genesis Health System and UnityPoint Health-Trinity reported a combined 132 hospitalizations.

The Rock Island County Health Department put sharp focus on the situation faced on the Illinois side of the Q-C. According to Monday's update, the county had a record 102 people hospitalized with COVID-19. The previous high was 92, set Nov. 23, 2020.

Against the backdrop of the rapidly increasing number of COVID-19 patients, Trinity Chief Medical Officer Dr. Toyosi Olutade described the effort to care for patients as being "... tough. Very, very tough."

"The recent surge is making people sick, and we are seeing COVID patients in ICUs, on ventilators, for sometimes 30 days or more," Olutade said. "And then, we have just had a lot of sickness.

"We lack resources. So many people are sick in the community. It has forced us to make decisions about care. We meet every Monday to see if we can postpone an open-heart surgery, or elective surgeries. We moved things around and opened 10 to 12 more ICU beds in Rock Island. We are trying to deliver the best care under conditions no one could have ever imagined."

Olutade said the pandemic had forced many health care workers to leave their jobs. He estimated Trinity has 300 open positions. Another 200 employees are home with COVID-like symptoms.

Genesis Chief Nursing Officer Joel Moore echoed Olutade. He said over 100 Genesis employees were out sick.

"This pandemic is reinventing what it means to be a bedside nurse," said Moore, 49, an RN for 22 years. "The nursing staff is really stretched thin, and still they show up every day.

"Burnout is real. We are losing nurses because they cannot emotionally handle this anymore. There is just not enough in the tank. Most full-time nurses are working way more than 40 hours a week. There is just no break - and it has been this way for a very long time."

Moore said most ICUs "... haven't stopped for two years now."

"Before the pandemic, you're looking at ICU stays of, maybe, five days," Moore said. "Now we have patients in ICU for 20 days or more. Because of COVID, there is no movement of patients.

"Our workforce was already fragile. You take the need for care, then add to it nurses getting sick because the world is going on like there's nothing wrong. It's really frustrating because 80% of the patients didn't need to be here. People need to step over the political lines they've drawn and do what's right for themselves and the community."

According to Olutade and Moore, maintaining morale presents grave challenges. Both men spoke about the trauma COVID-19 has left in its wake.

"In the past, whenever we would see someone on a machine for 30 days and we got them breathing on their own again, that was a time to celebrate," Olutade said. "Now there is no time.

"We just see more cases, more death. We are seeing a lot of death. And there is hardly time to grieve. There is no time, really. And I think that can traumatize health care workers."

Both health care systems offer counseling for all employees. Wille said she really didn't think about help for herself.

"Honestly, it feels like it all just piles on," she said. "You feel like you want to wait until its all over, but I wouldn't even know where to begin if I tried to work this out."

Moore said nurses, doctors and other health care workers didn't see themselves as "heroes." Olutade asked for people to "... just be kind to health care workers. Kindness would go a long way."

Wille talked about the tragedy she had witnessed.

"Here's what it looks like. When you take family members to see someone to say goodbye, it's before they are intubated  before we insert the breathing tube," Wille said. "From there, the patient is in this lonely isolation. For those who die, you try to comfort them. You try to hold their hand. Maybe you can get their loved ones on the phone. But those patients who die, they die alone."

Wille's voice cracked as she finished describing the reality of being a hero.

"You think of children losing a parent. You're seeing people die for what could be a preventable disease. And you want to be there, really be there for that person. Truthfully, there's already another patient coming and you have to move on to that. And I hope people can understand why the hero thing  it's really nice for people to say  but that's not what it feels like."

Wille offered a message reiterated by Moore and Olutade.

"I hope and I pray people can hear or see this message: We are tired and at the same time we want to take care of people," she said. "We really, truly need people to do their part. People can help us.

"Get vaccinated. Wear a mask. Get boosted."

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SPRINGFIELD  A continuing sharp spike in COVID-19 cases being driven by the omicron variant has pushed the states hospital capacity to its limits and is prompting the state to bring in additional health care workers from other states and countries.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Wednesday that more than 2,000 additional health care workers have been deployed throughout the state, including 919 in hospitals hit hard by the surge, with another 552 scheduled to arrive within the next several days.

This current wave of COVID is causing more people to get sick than ever before in the pandemic, Pritzker said. And the vast majority of the serious illnesses and deaths are among the unvaccinated.

As of Wednesday, the Illinois Department of Public Health was reporting 7,219 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in the state, down slightly from the record 7,353 who were hospitalized on Tuesday. Another 271 people in the state had died of the disease just since Monday.

We have never had this many COVID patients in the hospital at any point in the pandemic. Not in spring of 2020; not in the winter of 2020, IDPH Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said, noting that the previous pandemic record was 6,175, set in November 2020.

Over the past seven days, more than 227,000 new cases have been confirmed in Illinois out of 1.9 million tests performed, for a seven-day case positivity rate of 12%.

But as difficult as this moment is, there will be an end to it, Pritzker said. We have all the necessary tools for prevention, and we are nearer than ever to having everything we need to detect and treat the disease to keep even the most vulnerable people alive. I can't say enough about how extraordinary our hospitals and our health care heroes have been throughout this pandemic.

Pritzker said the state was taking several actions to bolster its health care workforce, such as allowing out-of-state health care providers to continue practicing in Illinois with expanded permissions to care for all patients, not just COVID-19 patients.

In addition, doctors trained in other countries have been given permission to provide assistance to licensed physicians in Illinois. And out-of-state providers, including physicians, nurses and mental health providers, are being allowed to provide telehealth services to patients in Illinois if they have a pre-existing provider-patient relationship.

* * *

COVID PROTOCOLS IN SCHOOLS: Gov. Pritzker issued an executive order late Tuesday spelling out protocols that schools now need to follow whenever a student or school employee tests positive for COVID-19.

Consistent with the latest guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the order requires infected individuals, regardless of their vaccination status, to be excluded from school premises for a minimum of five days and a maximum of 10 days following the onset of symptoms or the date of their test.

Schools also must exclude students or employees who come in close contact with an infected person for a minimum of five days after their exposure, and those individuals must continue to wear a mask at all times around others, including when outdoors, for an additional five days after they return to school.

* * *

MORE SESSION DAYS CANCELED: Illinois House and Senate leaders in the General Assembly announced Wednesday that they were canceling in-person session days next week, although committees will continue to meet remotely.

Given the recent COVID-19 numbers, this is not the time to bring hundreds of people together inside the Capitol, Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, said in a statement. Through our remote committee process we have proven that we can get work done, protect peoples health and at the same time expand the legislative process to people who might want to testify but wouldnt have the time or resources to come to Springfield.

* * *

REPUBLICANS CALL FOR DCFS HEARINGS: Three Republican state House members called for hearings into the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services on Thursday out of concerns for workers safety, improper placements of state wards and the recent death of North Chicago boy.

Reps. Steven Reick, R-Woodstock, Tony McCombie, R-Savanna, and Tom Weber, R-Lake Villa, held a news conference Thursday to demand that DCFS Director Marc D. Smith appear and answer questions. They called on their Democratic colleagues and Gov. Pritzker to join their calls for hearings.

For the past three years, members of the House and Senate of both parties have tried to peel the onion that is DCFS to find the root causes of their failures, Reick said. And the only conclusion that we could draw is that the agency is irretrievably broken and that no amount of money will solve its systematic failures.

DCFS has come under fire in recent weeks for three incidents: the death of a caseworker, the death of a child in a family where abuse allegations were reported, and a contempt citation issued against Director Smith for failing to move children to appropriate placements.

Child protection investigator Deidre Silas worked for the department for six months when she was sent alone to a house in Thayer on Jan. 4 to check on the welfare of six children. Silas was found dead by Sangamon County Sheriffs deputies. She had been bludgeoned and stabbed. Benjamin Reed, 32, who lived at the home, was later charged with Silas murder. She was the mother of two children.

In a separate incident, 6-year-old Damari Perry was found dead in an abandoned building in Gary, Indiana. Damari was taken into the states care in 2015, but was returned to his mothers care, along with his siblings, two years later. Two subsequent abuse allegations were received by DCFS, including an allegation that the mother wrote a note threatening harm to Damari.

On Dec. 29, prosecutors said Damari was punished with a shower in cold water. He vomited, went unresponsive and later died. Jannie Perry, the boys mother, and two siblings face charges in connection with his death.

It should come as no surprise that members of the GOP are once again using our states most vulnerable as pawns in their political games, Pritzker spokesperson Jordan Abudayyeh said. This is the same party that stood behind (former Gov.) Bruce Rauner as he decimated social services and recklessly cut 500 beds for youth in care without creating alternative placements. They repeatedly voted against increased funding for DCFS, resulting in dangerously low staffing levels. As the administration has repeatedly made clear, these reckless decisions destroyed lives quickly, but it will take years to undo that damage.

DCFS has a $1 billion budget, but money to hire more caseworkers isnt the solution, Weber said.

Failed leadership cannot be fixed by more money or more employees. When you see a pattern of children being taken away from then returned to their mother and years later that child is murdered, these are patterns that arent going to be fixed by more money. This is something that can only be address by an investigation of the failed policies of DCFS and its leadership, the state representative said.

* * *

CONTEMPT CHARGES AGAINST DCFS DIRECTOR: Illinois Department of Children and Family Services Director Marc D. Smith faced a contempt citation in two Cook County juvenile cases with a $1,000-a-day fine for as long as he leaves the children in their current placements. Those cases were dismissed Thursday.

A 9-year-old girl, known as A.M. in court records, was placed in a locked psychiatric facility. The girl suffered horrific sexual and physical abuse at the hands of a parent, including being forced to have sex with adults. Despite court orders to place the girl in a therapeutic foster care setting, the 9-year-old currently was held in a locked psychiatric unit for more than 223 days.

The other case involved a child known as C.R.M. who was also ordered on Nov. 14 to be taken out of temporary shelter where he was confined since Aug. 14 when he was placed in a temporary shelter in Mount Vernon  279 miles from Chicago where his mother lives. Before that, C.R.M., who has severe mental health issues, was at another temporary shelter in Chicago where he slept in a utility room. At that time, DCFS told the court that the child needed a therapeutic foster home placement. The Mount Vernon shelter is a temporary placement for children for less than 30 days. C.R.M. had been at the shelter more than 150 days.

The contempt citation was issued after numerous violations of court orders to remove the children and put them in appropriate placements.

The Department of Children and Family Services is dedicated to keeping children safe and strengthening families. We are working aggressively addressing the decades-long challenge of a lack of community resources and facilities for children with complex behavioral health needs, which has been exacerbated by an increased demand in social services in recent years, DCFS spokesman Bill McCaffery said. Every single day, DCFS works with its network of providers and foster parents in an ongoing effort to place these children in settings that can provide the appropriate level of care and in which the children can grow and flourish.

Both of the contempt citations were purged and the fines vacated at a Cook County hearing on Thursday. Smith was found in contempt in the case of a 17-year-old boy who has been in a locked psychiatric hospital since September. The court ordered sanctions of $1,000 per day until DCFS appropriately places the child, to start Jan. 18. At the DCFS directors request, the court stayed the order until Jan. 20 for DCFS to seek appellate review.

* * *

PRISON INTAKES: The Illinois Department of Corrections announced Tuesday that it would pause intake of inmates from county jails amid the COVID-19 surge.

As of Friday, IDOC reported 1,042 staff members and 1,684 inmates were positive for COVID-19.

Sheriffs who are charged with operating county jails around the state say IDOCs decision puts more stain on county resources and personnel.

Unfortunately, IDOC did not provide any communication or collaboration with the Illinois Sheriffs Association or any Sheriff regarding this suspension of intake although we have repeatedly offered a willingness to discuss issues with the Department, Jim Kaitschuk, executive director of the Illinois Sheriffs Association, said in a written statement. As people are aware, crime is continuing to occur and arrests continue to be made by law enforcement as we work to combat crime in our communities.

Madison County Chief Deputy Jeff Connor said he met with all the police chiefs in the county and apprised them of the situation. The Madison County Jail currently houses 290 inmates. The jails capacity is 306. The jail is currently holding 28 people who were scheduled to be transferred to DOC.

This really puts us behind the eight ball. It puts a strain on our staff and local police departments, Connor said.

Until they are transferred to DOC, counties will have to pick up the tab for food, utilities and medical costs.

* * *

ELECTRIC VEHICLES CHARGING ACT: A measure before the General Assembly would require new and renovated residential or commercial buildings to set aside parking spaces that could easily be converted into electric vehicle charging stations.

Rep. Robyn Gabel, D-Evanston, advanced House Bill 3125 through the House Energy and Environment Committee on Tuesday, noting she would work on an amendment to remove extra language that does not pertain to the parking provision.

Under the bill, newly built or extensively renovated residential buildings would have to make all spaces electric vehicle capable, meaning they meet certain wiring requirements. Depending on the size of the parking lot, a certain number of spaces would have to be electric vehicle ready, meaning they contain receptacles with the necessary voltage to install an EV charging station.

Residential buildings would be required to have at least six parking spaces ready for installation of charging stations. If there are one to six parking spaces, all spaces would be required to be EV ready.

Buildings with 24 parking spaces or more would have to have at least one fully equipped charging station.

Commercial buildings would need to set aside 20 percent of parking for EV ready spaces.

Neda Deylami, an EV advocate for the Sierra Club, said the passage of the bill is more urgent than ever to fight climate change and make personal transportation more affordable and convenient.

* * *

DEMMER MAKING RUN FOR TREASURER: State Rep. Tom Demmer, R-Dixon, announced Tuesday he will run for state treasurer. If he wins the Republican Party nomination, he likely would face two-term incumbent Mike Frerichs, who is seeking reelection.

In Tuesdays announcement, Demmer pledged to oppose tax increases and bring greater transparency to state spending.

Unfortunately, in Springfield right now, the politicians answer to every problem is higher taxes and more spending, Demmer said in a statement. We know Springfield politicians wont change overnight, but we can take an important first step by electing a proven fiscal watchdog as state treasurer. As treasurer, Ill be on the side of Illinois families working to protect their hard-earned dollars and shining a light on how our tax dollars are spent.

Demmer, 35, has served as state representative since 2013, serving a district comprised of portions of DeKalb, LaSalle, Lee and Ogle counties in northern Illinois. Demmer serves as deputy minority leader and has been the Republicans point person on state fiscal issues.

Frerichs countered with a statement welcoming Demmer to the race and warning voters that Demmer would undo years of progress and represent big-business interests.

Demmer attacked Frerichs for supporting income tax hikes, including a proposed tax on retirement income. Frerichs pointed to success in creating college saving plans, a retirement plan that travels with workers, and returning more than $1 billion in unclaimed property.

Tom Demmer opposed every reform I have championed as treasurer, even when other Republicans were on our side, said Frerichs, who has held the office since 2015. He does not have the conviction to fight for Illinois families, and he does not have the backbone to stand up to special interests.

Demmer will be on the Republican Party ballot in the June 28 primary election. Thursday is the first day to circulate petitions for the primary, and candidates must file between March 7 and March 14.

* * *

COVID-19 UPDATE: The Illinois Department of Public Health said Friday, Jan. 7, that the state had recorded 201,428 new cases of COVID-19 over the previous week, a 57% increase over the previous week, while the weekly number of deaths rose 15%, to 444 as the omicron variant of the virus continues to spread.

Those cases were confirmed out of more than 1.3 million laboratory tests performed over the previous week, which brought the preliminary statewide case positivity rate to 15.2%.

Those case counts are the highest of any since the pandemic began, according to IDPH data, although the death rate is well below the pandemic peak of a year ago. On Thursday, Jan. 6, alone, the state recorded more than 44,000 new cases, the highest single-day case count since the pandemic began.

That brings the total number of cases since the pandemic began to just under 2.4 million, including 28,361 deaths.

As of Thursday night, IDPH reported 7,096 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized, including 1,123 patients in intensive care units and 639 on ventilators. Those cases account for 38 percent of all staffed ICU beds available and 11.5% of all staffed ventilators.

IDPH continues to advise people that vaccines are the strongest defense against the virus. As of Thursday night, more than 19.5 million vaccinations had been administered. Over the past week, 294,687 doses were administered, for an average of 42,098 per day.

Currently, 73% of the states total population has received at least one dose of vaccine, while 64% are fully vaccinated and 40% have received a booster shot.
DES MOINES  In four years, every Iowans income would be taxed at 4% by the state under a new proposal from Gov. Kim Reynolds.

Reynolds introduced her flat income tax proposal during last weeks annual Condition of the State address to the Iowa Legislature, encouraging the lawmakers to pass her idea.

Flat and fair, Reynolds proclaimed during the speech.

Flat taxes have been an idea for years, and have their fair share of both supporters and critics.

Steve Forbes ran on a national flat tax platform as part of his 2000 presidential campaign. Supporters say a flat tax is fair and simple. A common pitch has been that a flat tax would make filing taxes simple enough to fit on a postcard.

Critics say a flat tax is unfair because it asks the lowest wage-earners to pay the same rate on their taxes as high wage-earners. They prefer a more progressive tax structure that taxes higher wager-earners at higher rates than low-income workers.

Ten states currently have a flat state income tax, including Iowas eastern neighbor, Illinois. The list includes more blue states like Michigan and Massachusetts, but also red states like Kentucky and Utah.

Eight states have no state income tax. The remaining states, including Iowa, have varying forms of progressive, or graduated, income tax structure.

In 2021, Iowa had nine state income tax rates, tied for the second-most in the country. Most Iowa workers income was taxed at between 4.14%, with rates increasing as income increased, up to a top rate of 8.53% for those earning over $78,435 of taxable income.

As a result of tax reform passed by the Iowa Legislature and signed into law by Reynolds in 2018, the number of tax brackets will be reduced to four, ranging between 4.4 and 6.5%.

Under Reynolds new plan, top state income tax rate would be eliminated each year over the next four years, until in 2026 every Iowa worker, regardless of income level, pays 4 percent.

Theres never been a better time in Iowa for bold, yet practical tax reform that meets the priorities of the state, allows Iowans to keep more of what they earn, and creates a highly competitive tax system, the governors state budget book reads.

The plan would reduce state revenue by $226 million in the first year, and by $1.6 billion at full implementation, according to the states nonpartisan fiscal and legal analysis division. The current state budget  which funds things ranging from education to the justice system to state-run mental health institutions  is just more than $8 billion.

The governors staff insists that if state revenues and spending continue to grow at their recent average rates, the flat tax plan can be implemented without forcing reductions in state spending.

Thats money that can be reinvested into our economy and used to promote the prosperity of every Iowan, Reynolds said during her speech. Yes, well have less to spend once a year at the Capitol, but well see it spent every single day on Main Streets, in grocery stores, and at restaurants across Iowa. Well see it spent in businesses instead of on bureaucracies.

Tom Sands, a former Republican lawmaker who chaired the Iowa Houses committee that dealt with tax policy and is now president and chief executive officer of the Iowa Taxpayers Association, called Reynolds flat tax proposal bold and a good one.

Moving to a flat tax is something that a lot of us have talked about over the years, but its been hard to get there, said Sands, who was a state lawmaker from 2003 to 2016. (A 4 percent flat income tax) makes us a lot more competitive as a state.

Peter Fisher, research director for the liberal-leaning policy advocacy group Common Good Iowa, said of Iowas three tax systems  income tax, property tax and sales tax  only the current income tax system is somewhat progressive, in that it asks high-income workers to pay a greater share of their income than low-income workers. The flat tax would change that.

So if you lower that at the top, youre just skewing the system even more in favor of higher incomes, Fisher said.

Fisher noted a transition to a flat tax would be a significant reduction for high-income workers  the top rate would drop from 6.5 to 4%  and only a modest reduction at best for lower-income workers, whose rate would drop from 4.4 to 4%.

In other words, the highest-paid workers would see a 38.5% income tax reduction, while some lower-income workers would get just a 9% reduction.

Its highly skewed in favor of top incomes, Fisher said.

The governors office has said that all Iowans would see a reduction in state income taxes, and the average Iowa wage earners tax burden would be lowered $1,300.

Fisher, however, said that average number is skewed by the large reductions that high wage earners will receive. Fisher said the median Iowa taxpayer will see a reduction of just $600.

Half of the taxpayers are going to get $600 or less, Fisher said.

The governors office said that, according to its calculations, the median  or middle  tax reduction will be $900.

Many Republicans have argued that lowering the states income tax  or eventually eliminating it altogether, as some Senate Republicans have established as their goal  will make Iowa more attractive to people to work and live here.

They point to data that shows New York and California were among the states with the highest percentage of lost population in 2021, while Texas  which has no income tax  was among the states with the largest percentage of growth.

It is a particular point of emphasis for state policymakers, given Iowas sluggish population growth.

Iowa grew by 4.7% from 2010 to 2020, which was well below the national average of 7.1% although better than the Midwest region as a whole, which grew just 3.1% in that time, according to U.S. census data.

One thing we do know is states with either no income tax or low income tax are a destination place for other people to move, Sands said.

Data does not fully support that opinion, which many supporters of tax cuts often espouse. For example, in 2021 Illinois  which has a flat income tax  was among the states with the highest share of residents who moved out of the state, according to an annual study by the moving company United Van Lines.

Meantime, Vermont  which has the fourth-worst total state tax burden, according to the Tax Foundation  had the highest share of people moving there, according to the United Van Lines study.

There have been a lot of studies, and what you find is overwhelmingly people move because of climate, because of a job, because if theyre retirees they want to be near their kids, Fisher said. For some people (taxes) matter, but overall this is not going to suddenly get people to come to Iowa because the top income tax rate is lower.

Republican legislative leaders praised Reynolds proposal and said they are eager to begin working on legislation. Reynolds proposal has not yet been produced in bill form, but should be soon after it goes through the legislation-making channels at the Statehouse.

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CHICAGO - When Chuck Ingwersen took Pfizers newly authorized COVID-19 medication after he contracted the virus, he steadily improved each day.

It was like a straight line of feeling better every day, he said.

For Ingwersen, though, actually finding the medication was more difficult than his relatively painless recovery.

Pfizers drug, called Paxlovid, received emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration in December. The FDA has also authorized a second medication, Mercks molnupiravir, though trials found it to be less effective.

The medication is a godsend for immunocompromised people like Ingwersen for whom the COVID-19 vaccine does not work well.

But the new pills remain scarce while Pfizer works to ramp up production. Federal health officials have mandated use for those who are most likely to become seriously ill from COVID-19. Everyone else should rely on the widely available vaccines, health experts say.

For those who need it, though, Illinois is beginning to get regular shipments to local pharmacies and some designated health centers. Doctors can then prescribe the pill for certain patients who test positive for the virus.

We are hopeful the supply will increase, but these drugs are available, and seem to be effective in keeping people out of the hospital, said Dr. Robert Citronberg, executive medical director of infectious disease and prevention at Advocate Aurora Health during a press briefing.

What to know

In clinical trials, Paxlovid reduced hospitalization and death by about 88% compared with a placebo, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Mercks drug molnupiravir reduced it by about 30%.

Pfizers drug regimen involves taking the medication orally twice a day for five days and is preferred because of its greater success rate, but Mercks pill is useful if Paxlovid is not available, doctors said. The medication is free for patients.

These are actually really exciting times in therapeutics, Citronberg said.

Doctors have mostly been treating high-risk cases of COVID-19 with monoclonal antibody treatments, but two out of the three treatments may not work as well against the omicron variant, medical experts said.

The Pfizer pill, though, is shown to work against the newest variant.

It is an exciting development, said Dr. Amish Desai, senior medical director at Oak Street Health in its South Side clinics.

The pill, authorized for patients 12 years and older who weigh at least 88 pounds, must be taken within the first five days of feeling symptoms to be effective, according to the CDC. The treatment is not meant for people already hospitalized with severe symptoms.

The agency also notes that it can have some severe interactions with other drugs.

Medical experts are quick to caution that the vaccine is still the best way for most people to protect themselves.

We dont want there to be this idea that people are covered, Desai said. Even with this medicine being a game changer, its important to still be vaccinated.

Where to find the pills?

In Illinois, there are 88 health centers and pharmacies that carry Paxlovid, 29 of which are in Chicago, according to a federal government database. Mercks drug can be found at 100 sites in Illinois, with 31 in Chicago. Most sites show having about 20 to 60 courses on hand, though some report up to 100.

Members of the public can find out which providers carry it by viewing the Public therapeutic locator at HealthData.gov.

Thats how Ingwersen found a supply of Paxlovid.

After years of frequently becoming sick, Ingwersen, 64, of Oak Forest, got blood work and learned he did not have a functioning immune system. When the pandemic hit two years ago, his doctors told him he was at high risk of serious illness. He got the vaccine and booster, but does not develop many antibodies.

So when he came down with COVID-19 in early January, he was worried. His immunologist recommended a monoclonal antibody treatment, which requires an infusion at a hospital. But Ingwersen asked for the Pfizer pills.

As the pills had only been authorized a couple of weeks before, his immunologist told him they didnt show up in her computer system. So he researched it and found the HealthData.gov site.

Ingwersen began calling pharmacies listed in the database, and found the drug at a suburban Walgreens on his second call. His doctor then wrote a prescription.

She made the call right away and within hours of testing positive, I had Pfizer antiviral pills, he said. We were all very surprised.

A tool we have in our limited toolbox

Doctors are using the HealthData.gov site as well.

In recent days, Desai said his clinic found the Pfizer medication for two high-risk patients.

We saw these pharmacies showing a supply, gave them a ring right away and wrote a prescription, Desai said.

Its still in low supply, though, and doctors must make decisions on whom to prescribe it for, even within the federal guidelines.

So many people have all of these underlying health factors, said Linda Simon-Price, interim chief medical officer at Esperanza Health Centers. Its a difficult process to decide who can get the medication.

Esperanza was chosen to receive shipments of Paxlovid and molnupiravir and got its first batches earlier this week, with 40 patient courses of the Pfizer medication and 20 of the Merck. The health center has developed a tiered system to determine who will get the medication.

Melaney Arnold, spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Public Health, said the states supply of Paxlovid is very, very limited. The state also has its own online locator tool to find the medications.

In a news release earlier this month, state officials said Illinois would receive new allocations of the treatments every two weeks. Officials have designated Walgreens and Walmart to receive shipments, among other pharmacies. In a statement, a CVS spokesperson said the pharmacy chain dispenses the drugs in 11 states but not in Illinois.

At Walgreens, supply is limited and allocation will continue to increase over time as inventory builds.

This is a tool we have in our limited toolbox, Simon-Price said. This is one tool we have.

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Years ago while on one of WVIKs London tours, Bernadette and I were standing in a tube station checking a map. A man approached us, saying that he was a bit confused about connections and asked if he could see the map as well. As I offered it to him, another man came up and asked if the three of us needed help.

It was the classic pickpocket routine: Two distractions make it easier to lift a wallet, credit card, or,  better yet  a passport, while the marks attention is divided.

Earlier, one of our tourist group was boarding a bus, when a person immediately ahead of him stepped backward, causing him to lose his balance. As he started to fall, a man behind him grabbed and steadied him. The person who caused the accident apologized profusely, but our tourist said no harm was done, thanked the man who helped him, and realized only later that the incident had cost him his passport and credit card.

Those memories came to mind as I was thinking about last weeks column on climate change and the pandemic. Stretching an analogy to its outer limits, it occurred to me that, as a country, we are in a similar state of peril. As we are pulled this way and that over those two overwhelming problems, some devious folk are working to steal our democracy while we are thus distracted.

Its not as if they are operating in secret. You can read about the many moves being made by states to limit voting, take charge of counting and certifying votes, gerrymander districts to maintain minority control; all done with the assurance that the perpetrators are fighting (non-existent) voter fraud.

A qualification: You can read about it, but only if you are among the nations rapidly-declining number of newspaper subscribers.

If, like a growing number of citizens who rely on the internet, right-wing radio, and/or the toxic Fox cable network, you are too fixated on immigrants, taxes, and the alleged evils of government to take notice; you are set up to be taken, to lose your democracy and, with it, the means to solve problems to the benefit of all citizens, not just the wealthy few.

Distraction alone isnt a sufficient means of winning  and holding onto  national office. It may work once, but its hard to repeat. Donald Trump proved that by winning in 2016, then losing in 2020.

The 2016 campaign was a master class in distraction. Trump succeeded in moving public attention from matters of substance to illusions. He aroused latent nativist instincts by focusing on immigrants, characterizing them as threats to the economy and public safety. He played to fundamentalist desires to replace secular government with a theocracy, using the hot button issue of abortion as a lure. Racist rage aroused by the presence of a Black family in the White House was subtly stoked by harping on law and order. All this done with the entertaining enthusiasm of a carnival barker.

It worked.

However, its hard to repeat the same act, when the performance didn't live up to its billing. Trumps major accomplishment was a tax giveaway for the wealthy, with no infrastructure program at all or the promised increase of jobs for the average worker. People who paid attention saw how his ineptitude and denial enabled the pandemic to take hold and ravage the population. Reelection was not in the cards.

What we are facing in the 2020 and 2024 elections is a confluence of methods. The Republican establishments careful takeover and consequent control of state governments and the continuing passion of the Trump base of racists, fundamentalists and armed nationalists. The arrest of 738 charged for involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection and attempted coup may have dampened the ardor of some, but the fire is not out.

Consider the whirlwind of concerns and threats which beset us. The rapid and continuing evolution of Covid has crippled the worldwide supply chain and, as is the nature of capitalism, suppliers are charging all the market will bear. Financial inequality continues, with the ultra wealthy gaining trillions while those at the other end of the economic scale are losing affordable housing. Workers dont want to risk their lives at low-paying jobs. No one knows how to keep schools open safely. The Covid-induced problems multiply.

All this against the background of climate change that is putting basic human survival at risk.

Given all this, what is the likelihood that the average voter will rank the risk to our admittedly messy form of government above  or even on a par with  the pressing personal, human challenges we face each day?

Its in such a situation that the pickpocket has his best chance. He sharpens his focus on getting the goods while everyone is not only looking the other way, but also engaging in a chaotic game of blaming and attacking each other.

When the second man approached us in London, I said, "Sorry, gentlemen, not today," took Bernadettes arm, and quickly walked away, valuables intact. I had been forewarned.

Have you?

Don Wooten is a former Illinois state senator and a regular columnist. Email him at: donwooten4115@gmail.com.

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Former Secretary of State George Shultz once said, Americans, being a moral people, want their foreign policy to reflect the values we espouse as a nation. But, being a practical people, we also want our foreign policy to be effective.

Americans certainly support improved political and economic rights for the Cuban people. But we cannot overlook the hard fact that six decades of our ever-tightening sanctions have contributed to the hardships of the Cuban people and done nothing to alter Cubas internal politics.

There is no other communist country in the world where we prohibit U.S. citizens from traveling, trading or investing. Shaping our Cuban policy to please one part of the Cuban American community does not serve our broad national interest, and it limits our presence and influence, and strengthens the leverage of countries whose ideals run contrary to our own.

One attainable goal of President Joe Bidens policy should be to focus on solving the food crisis in Cuba. This can help not only the nearly 20% of Cubas workforce employed in agriculture, but each of the more than 11 million Cubans who depend on a healthy and sufficient food supply.

Biden should empower the Department of Agriculture to work with U.S. farmers, private organizations, nongovernmental organizations and universities to engage with Cuban counterparts to increase local production and reduce post-harvest loss. This collaboration could also address shared concerns of climate change, plant and animal health, and natural disaster preparedness. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack should meet his Cuban counterparts, as he did during the Obama administration, to encourage the Cuban reforms that are essential to any improvement in production.

And with Cuba now allowing its private sector to import and export and also inviting foreign investment in private farm cooperatives, Washington should ensure that our policies facilitate American engagement to help this private sector grow.

Even during the Trump administration, the U.S. potato industry led the way in creating a program to promote U.S. exports and to improve Cubas potato production. Once health and safety standards for seed potato exports were agreed, U.S. seed was shipped to Cuba. A second year of trials was about to begin. The process encouraged dialogue and built confidence that can serve to advance other agricultural projects.

Throughout history, agricultural trade has been a bridge to foster cooperation, and to improve the lives of people. It is no different today where improving U.S. agricultural relations with Cuba is supported across the country from Republicans and Democrats, in rural and urban America.

As difficult as the political landscape is between the U.S. and Cuba, it is easy to find broad support for a new policy that focuses on helping reduce the pain of average Cubans and resolving their present food crisis. Its a policy that Americans can support not only because it is morally right but will prove to be effective as well.

Paul Johnson is chair of the United States Agriculture Coalition for Cuba and partner at FocusCuba Consulting. 2022 Chicago Tribune. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Gov. Glenn Youngkin says he will consider all options to preserve an opt-out for parents from local school mask mandates amid pushback from some school districts and some Democrats who say state law requires Virginia to follow federal guidance that recommends masks in schools.

Carl Tobias, a law professor of the University of Richmond, says that whoever brings a challenge to the governors order, the dispute has a likely destination: to the courts.

On Saturday, shortly after he took office as Virginias 74th governor, Youngkin issued nine executive orders, one of which ends the statewide COVID-19 mask mandate in K-12 schools beginning Jan. 24. The order specified that parents have the right to exempt their children from such mandates of local school systems.

We said all along that we were going to stand up for parents, Youngkin said in an interview with Fox News Sunday.

In Virginia, it is clear under law that parents have a fundamental right to make decisions for their childrens upbringing, their education and their care, Youngkin said. And so we are providing parents an opt-out. Were providing them the ability to make the right decision for their child with regard to their childs well-being.

We are going to use all the authority that I have to consider all options to protect that right, he said.

Richmond Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras had tweeted Saturday afternoon: @RPS_Schools will maintain its 100% mask mandate for students, staff, and visitors.

Henrico County Public Schools issued a statement Sunday saying masks are still required, while Chesterfield County Public Schools said an update regarding masks will be sent out on Jan. 23, the day before Youngkins executive order takes effect.

The Henrico district said in its statement: The HCPS school board and administration respect that parents make decisions for their families; however, division leaders must make decisions for the collective safety of nearly 49,000 students and 10,000 employees and fulfill our responsibility to provide in-person instruction.

The city of Alexandrias school system said in a statement Sunday that it will continue to abide by the health and safety guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Alexandria Health Department and continue to require all individuals to wear masks that cover the nose and mouth in ACPS schools, facilities and buses.

Fairfax Countys school system said it is reviewing the operational implications of Youngkins order but that it also plans to continue to require students and staff to wear masks. Arlington Countys public schools said in a statement Saturday evening that its mask requirement is unchanged.

Like those Northern Virginia school systems, Del. Sally Hudson, D-Charlottesville, asserted in a tweet Sunday that state law requires the state to follow CDC guidance, which recommends universal indoor masking by all students ages 2 years and older, staff, teachers and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status.

Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, went to Twitter to push back. Cry harder @GovernorVA! Your executive orders do not change LAWS we passed, she wrote. Better learn how government works, we elect Governors not dictators.

Youngkin has said he is vaccinated and got a booster shot, but that he opposes mandates. Another of his executive orders rescinds the COVID vaccination requirement for state workers.

On Aug. 10, the Chesterfield School Board approved a mask mandate, and the Hanover County School Board voted against requiring students or staff to wear masks. Henrico requires students and staff to wear masks while indoors.

Two days later, Gov. Ralph Northam mandated that all K-12 schools in the state require masks for students and teachers, less than a week after saying that a state law already rendered them compulsory. The order from state Health Commissioner Dr. Norman Oliver overruled decisions from several school boards  including in Hanover  rendering masks optional.

Youngkin says in his executive order that Olivers August order is out of date, partly because it explicitly relates to the delta variant and not the omicron variant, which results in less severe illness. Youngkins order also notes that children ages 5 and older are now eligible to get vaccinated.

Youngkins order also cites a section of state law under parents rights that says: A parent has a fundamental right to make decisions concerning the upbringing, education, and care of the parents child.

The governors order says no parent who opts their child out of a local school mask mandate shall be required to provide a reason or make any certification concerning their childs health or education.

The order also claims the CDC has found no statistically significant link between mandatory masking for students and reduced transmission of COVID-19. But the administration seems to be missing the larger point  according to CDC data, mask mandates do have a noticeable effect.

To make its claim, the administration cited an analysis of state-level community mask mandates from March to December 2020. (The report addressed mandates for communities, not schools, which were largely virtual at the time.)

In 2020, 73.6% of U.S. counties had a mask mandate. In the counties that had mandates, the growth of case and death rates slowed between 0.5% and 2% compared to counties that did not have mandates.

But what mandates didnt do is decrease the rate of cases or deaths in counties that had them. Daily case and death growth rates before implementation of mask mandates were not statistically different from the reference period. This is the line the administration used to defend its executive order.

In other words, the case rate and death rate didnt get better in counties with mask mandates. But in counties without mandates, they got worse.

So what does this mean for the effect mask mandates had in 2020? Mandates had a small effect, and a statistically noticeable one, but not a dramatic effect.

Its also worth pointing out that this study was conducted during the original strain of the virus, which is less contagious than omicron, and largely doesnt focus on schools.

The CDC says a layered approach of multiple prevention strategies decreases the risk of transmission. These strategies include vaccination, consistent and correct use of masking for people not fully vaccinated, distancing, screening tests to identify cases, improved ventilation, handwashing, staying home when sick, contact tracing and routine cleaning.

Before Oliver issued the Aug. 12 order instituting the statewide mandate, the Northam administration had insisted there was no need for executive action since a state law Northam signed last spring requiring schools to offer in-person instruction directs school districts to follow CDC guidelines to the maximum extent practicable.

But state Sens. Siobhan Dunnavant, R-Henrico, and Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax City, who sponsored the bill, took issue in August with Northams characterization of their Senate Bill 1303, saying they did not mean it to be a mask mandate.

The bill advises that in order for schools to be open this year they follow CDC guidelines to the maximum extent practicable, Dunnavant said in an August statement. Translated  open schools and be adaptable to our children because in-person education is the most important thing. Mandates arent adaptable.

Petersen said at the time: The entire purpose of the bill was to give local school boards flexibility in adopting mitigation strategies.

Tobias, the UR professor, said Sunday that he respects the bills co-sponsors, but their intent doesnt carry the day, though they could file a brief to make their assertions part of a court record.

Tobias said that somewhere in the state, a local school system or a parent is likely to go to court and argue that the state law that says Virginia must follow CDC guidelines to the maximum extent practicable supersedes the new governors executive order.

Tobias said that whichever way a circuit court rules, it would likely be appealed to the Court of Appeals, which could lead to a resolution in the Supreme Court of Virginia.

acain@timesdispatch.com (804) 649-6645 Twitter: @AndrewCainRTD ekolenich@timesdispatch.com (804) 649-6109 Twitter: @EricKolenich Staff writer Jess Nocera contributed to this report.

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Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued nine executive orders and two executive directives on Saturday. Among other things, the actions end statewide mask mandates in public schools, rescind the statewide COVID vaccine mandate for state workers and curtail how schools can teach students about racism.

Executive Order 1: Directs state education officials to end use of inherently divisive concepts, including Critical Race Theory, a term some Republicans use broadly to refer to lessons on systemic racism and its role in U.S. history. The order says political indoctrination has no place in our classrooms. It directs Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow to review and end or remove state education policies, practices or materials that promote or endorse divisive or inherently racist concepts.

Executive Order 2: Rescinds the statewide mask mandate for public school students and says parents may exempt their children from local school systems mask mandates.

Executive Order 3: Fires members of the Virginia Parole Board and names five new members: Circuit Court Judge Chadwick Dotson of Wise County as chair; Tracy Banks of Charlottesville; Cheryl Nici-OConnell of Chesterfield County; Montgomery County Sheriff Hank Partin; and Carmen Williams of Chesterfield. In 1984, Nici-OConnell was a 24-year-old Richmond police officer, working off duty outside the Richmond Marriott, when Kenneth Wayne Woodfin shot her in the head in a crime rampage. Nici-OConnell recently led an effort to block Woodfin from being released on parole. Executive Order 3 also directs the secretary of public safety to review the parole boards duties, procedures and administration.

Executive Order 4: Authorizes Attorney General Jason Miyares to investigate Loudoun Countys public schools, where a teenage student committed sexual assaults at two schools. Youngkins directive asserts that Loudouns School Board and school administrators withheld key details and knowingly lied to parents.

Executive Order 5: Directs Chief Transformation Officer Eric Moeller to initiate reviews of the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Virginia Employment Commission.

Executive Order 6: Directs the Safety and Health Codes Board to convene an emergency meeting to discuss whether there is a continued need for employer COVID-19 standards. Former Gov. Ralph Northams administration issued the workplace standards that set down rules for how business should prevent the spread of COVID.

Executive Order 7: Sets up a commission to prevent human trafficking and provide support to victims.

Executive Order 8: Establishes a commission to combat antisemitism, noting that Virginia is the home of Thomas Jeffersons Statute for Religious Freedom and that our nation and our commonwealth have seen an intolerable rise in antisemitism in recent years.

Executive Order 9: Takes steps to withdraw Virginia from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which is designed to reduce emissions from power plants. Youngkin has called it a tax on electricity ratepayers.

Executive Directive 1: Directs Executive Branch entities under Youngkins authority to cut by 25% regulations not mandated by federal or state law.

Executive Directive 2: Rescinds the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all state employees.

acain@timesdispatch.com (804) 649-6645 Twitter: @AndrewCainRTD Staff writer Mel Leonor contributed to this report.
The 1980s: it was the first decade of around-the-clock weather on television, and the last time the heart of Richmond wasn't protected by a fl
CHRISTIANSBURG  Montgomery Countys School Board and Board of Supervisors elected their leaders this past week.

The supervisors, on two separate 7-0 votes, elected Supervisor Sherri Blevins as chairwoman and Supervisor Mary Biggs as vice chairwoman. The decision marks the first time the board elected two women to the leadership roles.

Blevins, whos starting her third year in office, forms part of the boards 4-3 GOP majority. Biggs is the longest-serving supervisor, having been in the seat since 1996.

While the annual routine allowed supervisors to make some history, the usually conflict-free process provided another peek at some of the heightened tension that has existed on the school board since the start of the pandemic.

The school board elected Sue Kass as chairwoman. Kass, a former teacher whos beginning her third year in elected office, takes over from fellow school board member Marti Graham, who served in the leadership role last year.

However, Kass  along with the election of long-serving school board member Penny Franklin as vice chairwoman  wasnt a unanimous choice. Graham and school board member Dana Partin each voted against Kass nomination.

Graham and Partin didnt speak at length about their votes, but the two elected officials form part of a side that has often found itself at odds with Kass and a few other school board members since the pandemic reached the region nearly two years ago.

When Montgomery County Public Schools prepared to start the 2020-21 school year, Kass was among the school board members who favored a more conservative approach on the return of in-person teaching due to fears over safety and continuing uncertainty over the trajectory of COVID-19.

Partin and Graham, however, were among the board members who were more lenient on returns to the classroom due, in part, to concerns over the challenges created by remote learning.

That division was apparent again just before the start of the current school year when the school board mulled the topic of wearing masks inside school buildings. The elected body ended up narrowly approving an indoor masking policy, but the local measure became moot shortly after when former Gov. Ralph Northam ordered universal indoor masking in Virginia K-12 schools.

The start of the 2021-22 school year paralleled the rise of the previous delta variant, which had prompted the state and federal health authorities to recommend masking measures inside school buildings.

While school board member Jamie Bond voted in favor of Kass chairwoman nomination, Bond did voice some concerns about the recent process.

When someones interested in running for the chair, [they] contact their fellow board members in regards to what their hopes, what their guidelines, what their goals of why they want to be chair, Bond said. Just as a board member of 16 years, I have to say Ive heard nothing, and so Im a little disappointed that I wasnt contacted as a board member.

Bond said her concern didnt necessarily mean that she would vote against Kass nomination, but that she was disappointed considering the tough past two years. Bond said she didnt view the recent development as a step in the right direction in terms of improving the boards efforts to work collectively moving forward.

Franklin, who nominated Kass, said she hasnt always been contacted when its come to the election of leadership roles. She has served on the board for just over two decades.

Kass responded to Bonds comments, which the former said she also doesnt view as a step in the right direction in terms of the board working together as a group. Kass said she apologizes if Bond feels slighted, but urged that the board move forward.

Yes, its been a real divisive couple of years, but the only way we can get past this is if we just stop trying to make another person feel bad about something, Kass said. I dont think we all really knew exactly what was the right thing to do and [we] talked about it a lot over the last few weeks. And it was never really a firm decision because its a really big, important responsibility.

School board member Linwood Hudson, who just started his first year on the elected body, said he believes it reflects well on the district to have a former teacher serve as chairwoman.

I think thats pretty cool, he said.

Franklins election to vice chairwoman, which passed on a similar 5-2 vote, was also met with some tension. As with Kass, both Graham and Partin voted against Franklins nomination, which was made by school board member Mark Cherbaka.

I would like to say after this last year that I cant support someone in leadership who bullies our staff and our board members, so my vote will be no, said Graham, who didnt further elaborate on her comment.

Kass responded, saying that she doesnt think Franklin has bullied anyone.

I would agree with you if I thought that was accurate, said Kass, who praised her colleagues experience and added that she looks forward to working with her.

Cherbaka echoed some of Kass comments on Franklin.

Penny brings so much experience and wisdom to our board, and Im just happy to have her in leadership, Cherbaka said.

For the board of supervisors, each member is paid $14,000 annually. The chair and vice chair are paid an additional $2,000 and $1,400, respectively.

For the school board, members are paid $7,200 annually. The chair receives an additional $2,000 a year.

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The Roanoke regions heftiest snowfall in years was cause for celebration among families, winter sport fans and others who capitalized on the chance to revel in a rare downpour of powder.

Weve been waiting for it, said Shantavia Patterson, whose kids were bursting into giggles as they crafted snow angels in their front yard near Washington Park in Roanoke. Theyve been asking all morning: When can we go outside? When can we go outside?

The winter storm rolled in around 8 a.m. Sunday morning with steady flurries that had coated Roanoke in 4 to 7 inches by late afternoon.

From there, the precipitation took an anticipated turn, with snowflakes giving way to sleet that was expected to continue into the evening.

Temperatures fell into the upper teens and lower 20s with the snow, so everything that fell accumulated, and roads almost immediately became treacherous.

But, before the winter wonderland iced over, people came out with sleds, skis and snowboards to make the most of the afternoon.

Its definitely a great day to be doing it, said Stephanie Lareau, who was part of a crew of cross-country skiers at Vic Thomas Park near Black Dog Salvage.

The trio of friends, who count themselves lucky to get one or two chances a year to strap on their skis, were excited when they saw the forecast. They had already covered more than 2 miles, and werent tired yet.

Neither was Lareaus pup, Copper, a hound-mix rescue, who was eagerly looking ahead, decked out in her own snow vest to keep her cozy. She loves bounding through the snow, Lareau said.

The wintry mix falling over the city was forecast to stop overnight. But authorities urged people to keep off the roads Monday if possible.

Freezing temperatures will extend icy, hazardous road conditions. Interstate 81 already grappled with multiple tractor-trailer wrecks Sunday as the day progressed and conditions deteriorated.

The Virginia State Polices Salem Division had been dispatched to 53 crashes and 60 disabled vehicles by 5 p.m.

That included a collision of four tractor-trailers in Montgomery County, near mile marker 127, and a wreck in Roanoke County that forced traffic to detour off the Dixie Caverns exit, where county police said multiple tractor-trailers were getting stuck around 2:30 p.m. Only minor injuries were reported in the Montgomery County crash.

In advisory after advisory, officials pressed the same message: If you can, stay home.

I really wanted to personally say thank you to everyone whos stayed off the roadways, Botetourt Sheriff Matthew Ward said in a social media video. Visibility is bad. The roads are horrible. Theyre slick and, even at 25-to-30 miles an hour, trying to come to a stop, youre going to be sliding.

Sundays temperatures had plunged so low, Ward added, that deputies were fighting frozen windshield wipers as they tried to patrol in the snow.

Road crews were out in force working to clear major arteries but the constant precipitation made for a battle. VDOT was running plows in 12-hour shifts, as was Roanoke, which said it had 45 to 49 plows working at any one time.

We will do that for as long as possible until the streets are back to where theyre down to blacktop and completely passable, said Dwayne DArdenne, transportation division manager for the city.

Major work on neighborhood side streets wasnt expected to start until after the snowfall stopped. Crews had been pre-treating streets with an anti-icing salt brine since Friday, and started spreading rock salt in neighborhoods with known trouble spots Saturday night. Nearly 11,000 gallons of brine and 300 tons of salt had been used by Sunday afternoon, DArdenne said.

Emergency crews cautioned that treacherous road conditions were also extending their response times. Roanoke Fire-EMS said calls that might normally be cleared in an hour were running closer to two hours Sunday.

That reflects both the road conditions themselves, and the installation of snow chains on the tires of their vehicles. Snow chains require slower driving speeds.

That is another argument in favor of drivers staying home as much as possible and avoiding the risk of a crash or breakdown, officials said.

Power outages were mercifully minimal heading into Sunday night with no part of the Roanoke or New River valleys reporting more than a handful of disruptions. Appalachian Power said it had nearly 250 field workers on standby across its service territory to deploy as needed.

In Roanoke, at the Food Way Market on Liberty Road Northwest, a steady trickle of customers ventured in on foot to pick up a few forgotten groceries or snacks for the NFL playoff games that were going to be must-see snow day viewing.

Shaun Patel, whose family has owned the neighborhood store for about 25 years, said it was important to them to stay open to serve the people who rely on them.

When the weather turns bad, its more important than ever for them to be available, so Patel said he made sure to open the doors at their usual 6 a.m. time.

Were going to keep it open, he said. We hardly close the store any day. Thats kind of our legacy.

Weather Journal columnist Kevin Myatt contributed to this report.

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Gov. Glenn Youngkin says he will consider all options to preserve an opt-out for parents from local school mask mandates amid pushback from some school districts and some Democrats who say state law requires Virginia to follow federal guidance that recommends masks in schools.

Carl Tobias, a law professor of the University of Richmond, says that whoever brings a challenge to the governors order, the dispute has a likely destination: to the courts.

On Saturday, shortly after he took office as Virginias 74th governor, Youngkin issued nine executive orders, one of which ends the statewide COVID-19 mask mandate in K-12 schools beginning Jan. 24. The order specified that parents have the right to exempt their children from such local school systems mandates.

We said all along that we were going to stand up for parents, Youngkin said in an interview with Fox News Sunday.

In Virginia it is clear under law that parents have a fundamental right to make decisions for their childrens upbringing, their education and their care, Youngkin said. And so we are providing parents an opt-out. Were providing them the ability to make the right decision for their child with regard to their childs well-being.

We are going to use all the authority that I have to consider all options to protect that right, he said.

Richmond Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras had tweeted Saturday afternoon: @RPS_Schools will maintain its 100% mask mandate for students, staff, and visitors.

The city of Alexandrias school system said in a statement Sunday that it will continue to abide by the health and safety guidelines of the CDC and the Alexandria Health Department and continue to require all individuals to wear masks that cover the nose and mouth in ACPS schools, facilities and buses.

Fairfax Countys school system said it is reviewing the operational implications of Youngkins order but that it also plans to continue to require students and staff to wear masks. Arlington Countys public schools said in a statement Saturday evening that its mask requirement is unchanged.

Like those Northern Virginia school systems, Del. Sally Hudson, D-Charlottesville, asserted in a tweet Sunday that state law requires the state to follow CDC guidance, which recommends universal indoor masking by all students ages 2 years and older, staff, teachers, and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status.

Youngkin has said he is vaccinated and got a booster shot, but that he opposes mandates. Another of his executive orders rescinds the COVID vaccination requirement for state workers.

On Aug. 10, the Chesterfield School Board approved a mask mandate, and the Hanover County School Board voted against requiring students or staff to wear masks. Henrico requires students and staff wear masks while indoors.

Two days later, Gov. Ralph Northam mandated that all K-12 schools in the state require masks for students and teachers, less than a week after saying a state law already rendered them compulsory. The order from state Health Commissioner Norman Oliver overruled decisions from several school boards  including in Hanover County  rendering masks optional.

Youngkin says in his executive order that Olivers August order is out of date, partly because it explicitly relates to the delta variant and not the omicron variant, which results in less severe illness. Youngkins order also notes that children ages 5 and older are now eligible to get vaccinated.

Youngkins order also cites a section of state law under parents rights that says: A parent has a fundamental right to make decisions concerning the upbringing, education, and care of the parents child.

The governors order says no parent who opts their child out of a local school mask mandate shall be required to provide a reason or make any certification concerning their childs health or education.

Youngkins order claims that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found no statistically significant link between mandatory masking for students and reduced transmission of the virus.

While the science behind universal masking in schools has been debated, the CDC has defended it, saying in a statement updated Dec. 17 that K-12 schools should employ universal indoor masking regardless of vaccination status. Experts generally believe wearing masks prevents transmission of the virus to some degree.

CDC director Rochelle Walensky has touted a controversial Arizona study that found schools in two of the states most populous counties were 3.5 times more likely to have COVID-19 outbreaks if the school did not have a mask requirement at the start of school compared to schools that required masking on Day 1.

But that study has been called unreliable by other health experts who claimed the schools in the study that saw higher infection rates had been open longer than schools that saw less. The study also was criticized for not tracking the vaccination status of the students and staff in the study.

The CDC says that a layered approach of multiple prevention strategies decreases the risk of transmission. These strategies include vaccination, consistent and correct use of masking for people not fully vaccinated, distancing, screening tests to identify cases, improved ventilation, handwashing, staying home when sick, contact tracing and routine cleaning.

A spokesperson for Youngkin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Before Oliver issued the Aug. 12 order instituting the statewide mandate, the Northam administration had insisted there was no need for executive action since a state law Northam signed last spring requiring schools to offer in-person instruction directs school districts to follow CDC guidelines to the maximum extent practicable.

But state Sens. Siobhan Dunnavant, R-Henrico, and Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax City, who sponsored the bill, took issue in August with Northams characterization of their Senate Bill 1303, saying they did not mean it to be a mask mandate.

The bill advises that in order for schools to be open this year they follow CDC guidelines to the maximum extent practicable, Dunnavant said in an August statement. Translatedopen schools and be adaptable to our children because in-person education is the most important thing. Mandates arent adaptable.

We are both doctors and lawmakers, Dunnavant said at the time. Governor Northam knows the language in the bill is not a mask mandate. He should take leadership and own his decisions, not make excuses for policies he wants to implement.

Petersen said at the time: The entire purpose of the bill was to give local School Boards flexibility in adopting mitigation strategies.

Tobias, the University of Richmond professor, said Sunday that he respects the bills co-sponsors, but their intent doesnt carry the day, though they could file a brief to make their assertions part of a court record.

Tobias said that somewhere in the state a local school system or a parent is likely to go to court and argue that the state law that says Virginia must follow CDC guidelines to the maximum extent practicable supersedes the new governors executive order.

Tobias said that whichever way a circuit court rules, it likely would be appealed to the Court of Appeals, which could lead to a resolution in the Supreme Court of Virginia.
As the chairman of the Constitution Party of Virginia, I feel it is my duty to speak out against both Democrats and Republicans who continue to proclaim that America is a democracy, which it is not. America was established as a constitutional republic. America is a republic as Americans vote for representatives in government. The key word in this is, of course, "constitutional."

The Constitution of the United States was written first of all to protect the smallest of minorities  the individual.

The Constitution of the United States would never have been ratified had not Virginians, like Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, convinced fellow Virginian James Madison to include the Bill of Rights into the Constitution.

These rights are not to be interpreted by judges. Contrary to Republicans, there are 10 amendments to the Bill of Rights, not two (the Second Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms; and the Fifth Amendment, the right to life), whereas the Democrat Party believes those two amendments do not even exist.

Alexis de Tocqueville in his classic work (though misnamed), "Democracy in America," warned America of the "tyranny of the majority." That is the real danger of "Democracy," and that is the unconstitutional government the Democrats and Republicans created. Yes America, "Democracy is unconstitutional."

Americans can restore our constitutional republic by abandoning the two political parties that created this assault on the Bill of Rights and individual rights for marjority "rights" and join the Constitution Party of Virginia.

John Bloom, Newport News
Grace covers Californias economy for CalMatters. Previously, she was an editor at the Washington Monthly. She is a graduate of Pomona College. This article was originally published on CalMatters.org.
" " The amount of water emitted by Old Faithful ranges from 3,700 gallons (14,006 liters) for a short blow of 1.5 minutes to 8,400 gallons (31,797 liters) for a longer eruption of 4 to 4.5 minutes. yenwen/Getty Images

Old Faithful used to have a less-than-modest nickname: "Eternity's Timepiece." Since at least the American Gilded Age (1860s-1900), this Wyoming cone geyser has wowed spectators with its predictable eruptions. You can see the landmark for yourself in Yellowstone National Park, home to around 4,500 bison, 714 bears and over 500 geysers. More than 150 of these water-spurting marvels  including Old Faithful  occupy the park's Upper Geyser Basin.

Named in 1870 by the Washburn Langford-Doane Expedition because it "spouted at regular intervals," Old Faithful gets more fanfare than any other geothermal attraction in the world. Visited by presidents and immortalized by artists, the geyser spouts about 17 times a day. Countdown clocks tell gathering tourists when to ready their cameras for the next waterworks show. You see there's a simple formula rangers use to estimate how much time will likely elapse between any two eruptions of Old Faithful.

"About 90 percent of [these] eruption predictions are accurate within a window of plus or minus 10 minutes," according to the National Park Service website.

That's a solid track record, but Old Faithful still isn't something you'd want to set your watch by. Five decades of observation have revealed that the geyser is changing.

Since 1959, the average interval between Old Faithfuls eruptions has gotten longer. And yet most of the actual eruptions which occurred back then were rather brief. This is no longer the case.

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Geysers 101

Sin-Mei Wu is a geologist at the University of Utah who's studied the physics of geysers and related structures.

"Geysers are rare because they require very unique geologic conditions: a persistent heat source ... abundant water supply from groundwater systems and a porous/fractured medium that allows fluid migration and heat transfer within," he tells us via email.

Usually the heat comes from magma, liquid or semi-liquid rock found below the Earth's crust which is called "lava" when it bursts onto the surface.

Yellowstone is positioned over two magma chambers  including a nice long one that's just 3 to 10 miles (5 to 17 kilometers) underground. Their maker was a localized swell of abnormally hot material beneath the crust. Classified as a "mantle plume," it's the reason why Yellowstone has the world's largest geyser collection.

The chambers warm up subterranean reservoirs of liquid groundwater. Although the physics here aren't entirely settled, we do know that some of this water gets superheated. That means its temperature climbs above and beyond H2O's normal boiling point.

Since this water is held in tight corridors, it's got nowhere else to go  at first. Bearing down on the superheated liquid is a combination of overhanging rock and colder water. Add cramped quarters to the mix and you've got a recipe for high pressure.

But the pressure doesn't last forever. In a geyser like Old Faithful, hyperactive steam bubbles eventually push a small percentage of the groundwater through a narrow opening at the surface. Just like that, the pressure decreases and sets off an explosion of hot water and steam.

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The Changing Schedule

If you're wise, you'll give Old Faithful a wide berth. Visitors can safely watch the geyser erupt from a boardwalk maintained by Yellowstone. Venture off that path and you might be on the hook for six months in prison and a $5,000 fine. Besides, getting too close to hydrothermal features like geysers or hot springs might have fatal consequences.

When Old Faithful goes off, the water temperature around its vent can hit 204 degrees F (95.6 degrees C). Meanwhile the steam gets even hotter, sometimes exceeding 350 degrees F (176.6 degrees C).

Viewed from an appropriate distance, Old Faithful's eruptions are thrilling spectacles. Even if you've seen one before, you might want to revisit the geyser someday. Because certain eruptions last longer than others do.

"We think of Old Faithful [as] a predictable geyser, but it is not as regular as it seemed," says Wu. He tells us it has a "bimodal eruption interval." The gaps between its spouting sessions fall into two distinctive categories. So do the eruptions themselves.

An eruption that begins and ends in under 2.5 minutes is considered "short." By the same token, "long" eruptions eat up more time.

Wu explains it like this: After a short eruption, there'll be an intermission of 60 to 65 minutes before the geyser spouts again. Yet Old Faithful will reliably take a break of "around 92 minutes" once a long eruption subsides.

Over the past 50 years, long eruptions at Old Faithful have become the norm. Short ones still occur  but they're rarer than they used to be. "We don't know exactly what's the cause," Wu notes. While the mystery is unresolved, some geologists blame recent earthquakes for this changing schedule.

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Steamboats and Reservoirs

The geyser's source is another riddle. Scientists haven't determined where Old Faithful gets its water supply  but in a 2017 study, Wu and five colleagues revealed an important clue. Using seismic wave sensors, they found a natural reservoir below the historic Old Faithful Inn which stands southwest of the geyser.

"That body is interpreted to be a highly fractured and saturated area that we think provides fluids as a source to Old Faithful," he says.

Plumbing questions and bimodal eruptions aside, Old Faithful is indeed more "faithful" than some of its counterparts. It's high time we introduced the Steamboat Geyser, another Yellowstone resident that happens to be the world's tallest active geyser, emitting 300 to 400-foot (91 to 122-meter) H2O jets into the sky above.

But there's a catch. "It is very unpredictable and has gone decades between eruptions," says Wu. "The last eruption before March 2018 was in September 2014." However, the 2018 blow-up "began an unprecedented active phase ... [The Steamboat geyser] has erupted a total of 85 times since then with the last eruption occurring February 21 of this year [2020]."

"We still don't know what initiates this active phase, what controls its eruptive behavior, and what [the geometry looks like]," Wu adds.

So, keep an eye on the headlines. Perhaps we'll see some (ahem) heated arguments about these topics in the near future.

Now That's Interesting Ear Spring  another Yellowstone geyser  launched nearly 100 coins into the air when it erupted in 2018. Aluminum cans, pieces of plastic and a hunk of concrete also came out of the vent area. Moral of the story: Don't litter in national parks. Or in geysers for sure.
HAMDEN  A 22-year-old Hamden man who was shot late Saturday night has died, police said.

The man, who has not been identified pending notification of his family, was found inside a car on Fairview Avenue at about 10:45 p.m. when officers responded to a report of shots fired, police said in a release.

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The victim was pronounced dead at the scene, police said in the release.

Police said ballistic evidence and multiple handguns were recovered at the crime scene.

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The Medical Examiners office and Connecticut State Police are assisting with the homicide investigation, Hamden police said in the release.

Anyone with information or surveillance video related to this shooting is asked to contact Detective Jomo Crawford of the Hamden Police Department Major Crimes Unit at 203- 230-4048. Any information provided can remain confidential, police said.
" " Shoppers stock up on bread before Hurrican Katrina. What is it about human nature that makes us reach for bread and milk before storms hit? Barry Williams/Getty Images

During World War II, when food rationing became commonplace for U.S. civilians, there was always a 10-pound sack of sugar hidden at the back of my grandmother's clothes closet. She never divulged her reason for keeping it there, but her children always suspected she was afraid her stockpile would be discovered, which was a very real (although not entirely rational) fear.

The relationship between humans and food is seldom uncomplicated, and it doesn't always follow common sense -- especially when there's a storm on the horizon. Stopping by the grocery store to stock up on food is Storm Survival 101 for many people, and most of us have seen evidence of it: Shelves bare of staples like bread and milk. Although a shortage of these items, in general, is a rare occurrence in the U.S., it can happen when a superstorm is in the forecast and local authorities advise constituents to buy extra supplies before the storm hits. Of course, on many levels this makes sense. If you're homebound because of the weather, you'll need something to eat when you don't have access to restaurant meals or local markets.

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At issue, however, is a seemingly unavoidable urge to stock up on perishable items before a storm hits. If you're buying multiples of milk, yet fully expect your electricity to go out, there's probably an emotional rather than practical motivation at work.

And that's not the only conundrum people encounter when stocking up on milk, bread and other perishable items before a storm hits: They simply buy too much of a good thing. The universal truth about perishable items is that they have an expiration date. And if you buy them in abundance, you may not be able to consume them all before they expire. Most perishables, like milk and bread, will only last about a week. The same is true for some fresh fruits and vegetables. So if you're expecting to be homebound because of a storm for only a few days, why buy so much food that's sure to go bad?
FLORENCE, S.C.  A winter storm that moved through the Carolinas Sunday cut power to 67,000 Duke Energy customers and a release from the utility indicates that number is likely to go up before it goes down.

The bulk of the Pee Dee seemed to escape the worst of the storm as temperatures topped freezing by mid-morning and the rain ended by mid-afternoon.

Days of 50-degree high temperatures ahead of the storm were enough to ensure the roads remained nothing but wet as the storm passed.

SCDOTs Facebook page showed plow crews working at several upstate locations that received snow.

In the Pee Dee, though, the story was power outages.

Sunday afternoon at least 4,000 customers in and around Hartsville still lacked electricity, according to Duke Energys online outage map.

Power outages in some areas might last several days, depending on conditions, according to a Duke Energy release.

South Carolinas hardest hit counties for power outages so far include Anderson, Darlington, Florence, Greenville, Greenwood, Kershaw, Oconee, Pickens, Spartanburg and Sumter.

Florence County showed outages Sunday morning but by mid afternoon power appeared to have been restored to Florence Countys Duke Energy customers. The same could be said for customers in and around Darlington.

I thank our customers, in advance, for their patience and understanding during what could be a multi-day power-restoration process, given the expected widespread damage to our electric distribution system across both states, said Jason Hollifield, Duke Energy Carolinas storm director.

Our crews are ready to begin power restoration as soon as weather conditions safely allow, but ongoing hazardous weather and dangerous road conditions initially will slow our ability to assess damage, make repairs and estimate power restoration times, Hollifield said.

In advance of the storm, Duke Energy staged more than 11,000 workers  power line technicians, damage assessors and vegetation workers  across the Carolinas.

Those workers include Duke Energy crews normally based in Florida, Indiana and Ohio  and mutual assistance crews from other companies in Canada, Texas, Arizona, Wisconsin, Louisiana, Oklahoma and other states  who traveled to the Carolinas to assist North Carolina- and South Carolina-based Duke Energy workers.

The Florence Center and its surrounding hotels Saturday night were one of the staging areas as crews, mostly from Florida, poured into the parking lot.

Shuttle buses ran from the lot to area hotels where the crews were housed overnight.

The lot, by the time the setup was complete, featured fuel trucks that would make the rounds overnight to make sure all the trucks parked on pavement had full tanks and a fuel rack where trucks that parked on the grass would be able to top off Sunday before heading out.

Until then, he said, the greatest challenge was making sure the crews had the correct hotel room keys.

Power restoration crews will begin work immediately after the storm, as soon as its safe to do so, according to the utilitys release. Restoration efficiency improves as damage assessment information is available to ensure the right workers and materials are dispatched to each power outage location.

Heavy ice on trees, branches and power lines was responsible for the majority of the outages.

Specifically, ice buildup of a quarter-inch or more is often the threshold amount that causes trees and branches to topple.

The heavy weight of significant ice buildup directly on power lines themselves can sometimes cause the lines to fall or sag, as well. Heavy, wet snow of six inches or more also can cause trees and branches to fall on power lines.

Customers can report power outages by texting OUT to 57801, and find the most up to date information on the companys outage map.

Duke Energy will provide estimated power restoration times to impacted customers as soon as the company can accurately determine those estimated times, which likely will be Monday.

Some of the Hartsville outages had restoration times of Sunday evening posted. Many, though, had no restoration time posted.

The company also will provide regular updates to customers and communities through emails, text messages, outbound phone calls, social media and its website, which includes power outage maps.
CLEVELAND (AP)  Ohio investigators have found the cremated remains of 89 people stored in boxes and bags at an abandoned church in Akron, authorities said.

The remains were seized at Greater Faith Missionary Baptist Church on Tuesday by investigators from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, attorney general spokesperson Steve Irwin said Thursday.

The church is owned by Shawnte Hardin, 41, who faces 44 counts including racketeering, tampering with records, identity fraud and abuse of a corpse in Lucas County, over 100 miles from Akron.

Some of the charges are for alleged criminal violations in Franklin, Summit and Cuyahoga counties, where authorities say Hardin acted as an unlicensed funeral director. The cases were consolidated in Toledo. Hardin has pleaded not guilty.

Hardin's attorney, Richard Kerger, said Thursday that a former funeral director named Robert Tate Jr. asked Hardin in 2017 to store the ashes of people whose families had not claimed them.

"There was no compensation for him," Kerger said of Hardin. "He was just doing a service for someone who needed it."

Tate pleaded no contest to one felony and three misdemeanor charges in November 2015 after authorities board found 11 bodies in various states of decay at his Toledo funeral home. He was sentenced to a week in jail and probation. He died in December at age 65.

The remains in Akron were initially discovered Sunday by a woman who told a state investigator she was an "urban explorer" and had entered an open door of an abandoned church. She contacted the Ohio State Bureau of Embalmers and Funeral Directors, triggering the state investigation.

The woman said some of the ashes dated to 2010, according to a search warrant affidavit written by state investigative agent Arvin Clar.

Kerger disputed that the church was abandoned. He said Hardin has not been able to check on the building since being placed on home detention at his mother's home in Columbus while awaiting trial.

Hardin was initially indicted on 37 counts in September after being accused of running an unlicensed funeral operation. The investigation began that same month after someone called 911 and reported seeing a corpse being moved from a van into a building.

State agents subsequently removed two bodies from the building.

Hardin told a Columbus television station at the time he was not acting as a funeral director but instead offered low cost services for transporting and washing dead bodies.

He was charged with seven additional counts, including abuse of a corpse in December.

According to his attorney, state law does not require a funeral director's license to bury people.

"There's nothing wrong with helping people dispose the remains of their loved ones," Kerger said.
Commentary: Another Washington-starred Covid folly on show

09:31, January 16, 2022 By Guo Yage ( Xinhua

People line up for COVID-19 testing in Washington, D.C., the United States, Jan. 5, 2022. The United States shattered a single-day record with over 1 million COVID-19 cases on Monday amid the rapid spread of Omicron variant and government decisions to ease prevention and control measures in the country. (Photo by Ting Shen/Xinhua)

The "anything but China" mindset was in fact born out of America's deep-rooted political plague, as Democrats and Republicans pull whatever strings they have to win the partisan wrangle -- to both sides, badmouthing Beijing seems to be a perfect tactic for political gains.

BEIJING, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Another COVID-19 folly has been put on show in Washington lately: Almost all members of the U.S. House of Representatives were spotted entering the chamber floor wearing Chinese KN95 masks given to them that offers increased protection, the same group of people who have long been scaling up an anti-China campaign.

The sight was beheld after a tougher mask mandate issued recently requires House members to wear N95 or KN95 masks on the chamber floor amid a severer pandemic situation in the country.

But those politicians were not happy with this. While some jumped to the old "Wuhan lab leak" conspiracy theory for comfort, others leaned on the so-called "China threat" theory in protest against the mandate. For most of them, securing "anything but China" remains the top priority.

This "ABC" mindset was in fact born out of America's deep-rooted political plague, as Democrats and Republicans pull whatever strings they have to win the partisan wrangle -- to both sides, badmouthing Beijing seems to be a perfect tactic for political gains.

The 57-page "Corona Big Book" disclosed in 2020 advises Republican candidates to address the pandemic by aggressively attacking China, and provides with detailed guidelines on how to tie Democratic candidates to Beijing.

This strategic playbook has been given so much attention to by the former U.S. administration that turned a blind eye to an urgent need for timely and effective anti-pandemic measures. Racking its brain for new ways to spread rumors and scapegoat China, the country was left with the most COVID-19 infections and related deaths in the world despite first-class medical technology and facilities as well as top-tier health experts.

While those self-dealing Washington politicians were busy taking care of their own political interests, they seemed to feel just fine sacrificing the common interests of those struggling to survive inside the United States and beyond.

A man waits for COVID-19 testing in Washington, D.C., the United States, Jan. 5, 2022. The United States shattered a single-day record with over 1 million COVID-19 cases on Monday amid the rapid spread of Omicron variant and government decisions to ease prevention and control measures in the country. (Photo by Ting Shen/Xinhua)

During its hard time in the pandemic, the United States had received from China more than 40 billion masks, around 1.2 billion surgical gloves and nearly 1 billion protective gowns, amid other medical supplies, between March 1, 2020 and Feb. 28, 2021.

Nevertheless, some U.S. politicians have bitten the hands that were helping them, deliberately distorting China's kindly offers into a political witching.

And now the latest scientific advise by House physicians on wearing masks on the chamber floor, with an aim at protecting House members from the highly contagious Omicron variant, was responded with more racist anti-China attacks and triggered a new round of taunts between the two major U.S. political parties. With this absurd logic, it will be no surprise that one day students and consumers in the United States wearing Chinese-made masks will be forbidden to enter schools and grocery stores.

"For every single death certificate that has COVID-19 as a primary cause of death, partisanship should be listed as a contributing cause. This pandemic was politicized from day one," said an article by Business Insider in late 2021.

Indeed, more and more people around the world have sobered up and realized that for those U.S. decision-makers, lives of the ordinary, national health and science are the last things on their agenda. The nearly 850,000 lives claimed by the virus in the country are a living proof that when leaders fail and political system is in deadlock, people suffer.

Playing politics by pointing an accusing finger at China will not save America from the pandemic, but will only turn those U.S. politicians themselves into buffoons on the global stage. This is what the politicians need to wake up to before the pandemic claims even more souls in their homeland.

(Web editor: Peng yukai, Bianji)
A new Hartford Healthcare building under construction on South Main Street in West Hartford. (Mark Mirko/The Hartford Courant)

Over the last decade, Hartford Healthcare has transformed itself, growing into a massive statewide health system employing 33,000 people as it acquired medical practices and hospitals across Connecticut.

It acquired the Hospital of Central Connecticut in New Britain in 2011, Backus Hospital in Norwich in 2013 and Charlotte Hungerford Hospital in Torrington in 2018. In 2019, it acquired St. Vincents Medical Center in Bridgeport, challenging Yale New Haven Health System in southwest Connecticut. In recent years Hartford HealthCare also added the Southington Surgery Center, other Hartford and Waterford surgery centers, as well as Middlesex Cardiology and Soundview Medical Associates.

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This impressive growth has made Hartford Healthcare a leading health care system in the state. But to St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center  the other major hospital in Hartford  this is monopolistic expansion that could limit consumer choice and drive up prices.

Last week, St. Francis sued Hartford Healthcare in U.S. District Court in New Haven, accusing its larger rival of jeopardizing competition and limiting consumer choice. Its seeking unspecified damages and an order prohibiting Hartford HealthCare from continuing its acquisitions.

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[ Hartford HealthCare Acquiring St. Vincent's In Bridgeport ]

Hartford HealthCares anti-competitive actions were taken not to compete, but specifically to increase its market dominance and ability to charge higher than market rates, St. Francis claims in its lawsuit. It seeks to do so, in significant part, by seeking to foreclose the opportunities to compete for patients by other hospitals in Hartford County, including its most significant competitor, St. Francis.

Dr. John Rodis and other hospital employees from St. Francis Hospital wave red hearts as a parade of first responders passes the hospital to pay tribute to the health care providers in 2020. (Cloe Poisson CT Mirror/Cloe Poisson CT Mirror)

Consumers could face higher costs. One study cited by Kaiser Family Foundation that analyzed highly concentrated hospital markets in California found that an increase in the share of physicians in practices owned by a hospital was associated with a 12% increase in premiums for private plans.

Another study that used private insurer data found an increase in physician-hospital integration was associated with an average price increase of 14% for the same service.

Frances Padilla, president of the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, an advocacy group, said Hartford HealthCare is particularly aggressive in broadening market share through acquisitions and can raise prices as it reduces competition. Cardiac and orthopedic surgeries  knee and hip replacements, for example -- are particularly high-margin practices, she said.

Access, too, is affected as Hartford HealthCare frequently requires patients in eastern Connecticut to seek service in Hartford, Padilla said.

Recruiting the greatest experts

Jeffrey Flaks, chief executive officer of Hartford HealthCare, said the lawsuit is without merit, and we will defend against this legal action in the courts. That will be the proper place to respond.

Hartford HealthCare is improving access and affordability and recruits the greatest experts to be our colleagues, he said in a message to Hartford HealthCare employees.

Jeffrey Flaks, chief executive officer of Hartford HealthCare, at the health system's access center in Hartford. (Mark Mirko/Hartford Courant)

Market share

Spencer Perlman, managing partner and director of health care research at Veda Partners in Washington, D.C., said a health care anti-competitive lawsuit seems pretty novel even as hospitals snap up physician practices in what he said is a common practice to drive up revenue with patient referrals.

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Hospitals battle for market share all the time, and it can definitely get ugly, he said.

He cited a recently settled eight-year battle between the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Highmark, a health care company, over accusations Highmark steered thousands of patients to its network.

Another lucrative reason to acquire physician practices is to take advantage of higher Medicare reimbursements available to satellite outpatient departments, he said. Previously physician practices, they are now rebranded to capture more government money, Perlman said.

However, administrative and legislative changes are bringing Medicare reimbursement at hospital outpatient departments in line with whats paid at physicians offices, Perlman said.

Siphoning off physicians to a dominant health care network that often has brand recognition also is successful as it attracts more patients, he said.

Ted Doolittle, Connecticuts health care advocate, said hospitals infrequently sue each other, making the St. Francis lawsuit surprising. But the issue of industry acquisitions is not new.

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Charles Muro celebrates being inoculated by Nurse Karen Pagliaro at Hartford Healthcare's mass vaccination center at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford on May 13, 2021. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP/AFP/TNS)

Both competitors and people are getting gobbled up, he said.

In its lawsuit, St. Francis Hospital says Hartford HealthCare brought in two dozen surgeons and specialists in hematology, oncology, cardiology and neurology over the last four years. Another nine specialists and primary care physicians have been recruited to work exclusively in a Hartford HealthCare physician hospital network, it says.

St. Francis says Hartford HealthCare has acquired the practices of more than 50 physicians, established control over doctor referrals and insists on exclusive access to medical equipment.

These actions do not involve competition to attract patients based on price and quality, St. Francis said in the suit. Instead, they prevent such competition, by controlling large numbers of physicians and effectively locking up referrals of their patients.

Monopoly claim

In its lawsuit, St. Francis accuses Hartford HealthCare of bullying physician practices to establish a monopoly. In one case, it told physicians that if they balked at joining its health care system it would crush them, St. Francis claims. And it accused Hartford HealthCare of increasing its market share as it reduced volume at Bristol Hospital.

A spokesman said Bristol Hospital is not a party to the lawsuit and will not comment.

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Lisa Freeman, executive director of the Connecticut Center for Patient Safety, a nonprofit group that speaks for patients, said the merits of the lawsuit have yet to be decided and no one knows whose truth bears out.

Still, a concern is that health care is turning into business decisions, she said. Surveys show that trust is a key consideration among patients, and her advice is to check physician referrals.

The Lighthouse Surgery Center at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center focuses on outpatient orthopedic surgery. (Courtesy of St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center)

With 33,000 employees and operating revenue of $4.9 billion, Hartford HealthCare dwarfs Trinity Health of New England, the parent company of St. Francis and four other hospitals in Connecticut and Massachusetts. Trinity posted revenue of about $2 billion and employs about 11,000 workers.

Hartford HealthCare also outstrips Yale New Haven Health, another dominant hospital system in the state. It includes Bridgeport Hospital, Greenwich Hospital, Lawrence + Memorial Hospital in New London, Yale New Haven Hospital, Westerly Hospital in Rhode Island and a physician foundation.

Yale New Haven Health posted revenue of $4.6 billion and employs more than 26,000 workers and 6,685 medical staff.

State steps in with a study

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Legislation enacted last year by the General Assembly and Gov. Ned Lamont directs the Office of Health Strategy to study ways to improve oversight and regulation of physician practice mergers and acquisitions.

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The study, included in broader legislation related to hospital billing and collections, will review laws, regulations and transactions of physician practices. The study, which must be completed by Feb. 1, 2023, will look at ways to ensure the viability of physician practices and develop legislative recommendations to improve reporting and oversight of physician practice mergers and acquisitions.

A new Hartford Healthcare medical office complex under construction in West Hartford. (Mark Mirko/The Hartford Courant)

State Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, House chairman of the public health committee, said lawmakers responded to a trend that private equity firms are acquiring physician practices. As with other industries, its often about cost-cutting and not about delivering quality service, he said.

Steinberg, a Westport Democrat, said the acquisitions of physician groups is hardly a new phenomenon. Research published in February 2020 by the Journal of the American Medical Association said physician practice acquisitions by private equity firms increased to 136 in 2016, up from 59 in 2013.

Questions now focus on whether the change in ownership of physician practices has reached a tipping point, is anti-competitive and where government fits in when interfering in market forces, Steinberg said.

The trend, he said is in some ways a natural outgrowth of what were doing in managed care.

Stephen Singer can be reached at ssinger@courant.com.
Last Sunday, the Journal published on its Opinion page a column by the Washington Post's George Will on the Federal Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978. Mr. Will is one of my favorite national columnists. He is intelligent, fair minded and a classic American conservative in the mold of one of his mentors, the late William F. Buckley. However, his knowledge associated with the Indian Child Welfare Act is woefully inadequate at best and reeks of negative stereotypes. And its title Brutal Race Politics is not even remotely accurate.

His column is based upon a current challenge to that Act now before the U.S, Supreme Court, contesting that Native children be placed with Native families whenever and wherever possible. He presents a few horrific examples of Native children being ordered by tribal courts to return to their families with extremely tragic results. What about the thousands of Native children successfully reunited with their families in the last 44 years?

Furthermore, he confuses the government to government relationship of Native American tribes to our federal government, with the racial controversy rife in America today. That relationship between tribes and the federal government is enshrined in our Constitution and guided by treaties. Even though hundreds of those treaties have been violated, they still stand as the law of the land. Mr. Will has unfortunately allowed his own agenda on race to interfere with that reality.

Then there is the entire issue of family restoration and Mr. Wills misunderstanding of Child and Family public policy in America. For decades, family restoration has been the hallmark of social service agencies in our country. What is so terribly wrong that Native Americans should emulate that policy? Some of those efforts on a national level have also resulted in situations that have ended tragically. But on the whole, the policy has been successful. Why single out Native American efforts to follow that policy as racial politics? Is it not good policy to strive to keep families together and seek placement within extended families before resorting to foster care or group homes?

In essence, Mr. Will contributes to the ongoing historical trauma inflicted upon Native people in this country. Although he gives lip service to this history of near genocide, he apparently does not realize that his commentary contributes directly to those wrongs. Family is of the essence to the culture and traditions of Native people in this land. His failure to understand that basic reality leads him to dismiss the significance of family in Tribal communities.

I can remember once being taken to task by Norma Stealer, a Winnebago tribal leader and elder, when I once mistakenly said that an individual I was providing services to had no family in Winnebago. She said that is not true and that I should never say that. I was wrong and I learned a valuable lesson from her comment. In fact, family is everything in Winnebago and other Native culture. That is why the Indian Child Welfare act exists!

During the time I worked as a medical social worker for the Indian Health Service in the early 1970s, I observed doctors and nurses endeavor to have some newborn babies born on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation placed with non-native families. And prior to the creation of The Indian Child Welfare Act, child custody issues were decided in county courts, not tribal courts.

Over the decades that I have been involved with the Winnebago and Omaha tribes, I was aware of a number of individuals who were raised by non-native families who then returned to the reservation desperately seeking to regain their family history and tribal culture and traditions. One situation etched in my mind was a young native adolescent dropped off at the Bureau of Indian Affairs by her non-native family saying they couldnt cope with her behavior. Many of these adopted native children grew up as troubled adolescents in urban centers such as Minneapolis and Chicago.

The Indian Child Welfare Act came into existence to address these issues. Tribal Courts and Tribal Human Services programs have become skilled at helping families sustain themselves and build support networks within extended families and clans. I am optimistic that the Supreme Court will acknowledge that reality, respect tribal sovereignty, and uphold the Act.

In closing, I will use a quote from George Santayana that Mr. Will has used in his columns: Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it Lets not return Native families to past tragedies.

Next week: Steve Warnstadt

A Sioux City resident, Jim Rixner is the retired executive director of the Siouxland Mental Health Center, is the current board chairman of the Winnebago Comprehensive Healthcare System and is a former member of the Sioux City Council. He and his wife, Bernadette, are the parents of three adult sons and the grandparents of nine.

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JEFFERSON, S.D. -- After hosting a Fourth of July party at his home in Jefferson, Jeffrey Demers grew frustrated with the horrible order emitting from his garbage cans. He tried everything to clean them, even bleach, but nothing seemed to get rid of the smell.

"I was not that satisfied, and I was a little upset that I killed my grass," Demers recalled of using the bleach mixture.

Pressed by his wife to get the bins, Demers enlisted the help of his neighbor, Dirk Richou.

"I said I would help, got out the power washer, and it literally took us three hours to scrub and get them clean and get all the crap out of them," Richou recalled.

From that labor-intensive, smelly ordeal, the two friend and military veterans envisioned a new business venture.

Last September, Demers, 34, and Richou, 50, launched Filthy Bin, a growing trash-can cleaning services with customers around the tri-state area.

After a little research, Demers and Richou discovered that professional trash-can cleaning services are a profitable business in some regions of the country, especially in the hot, humid South. They reached out to a Lincoln, Nebraska operator of a trash-can cleaning services and learned the trade from him.

Filthy Bin operates from a customized cargo truck that functions somewhat like a giant, mobile washing machine, or a dishwasher. Richou and Demers went all the way to Salt Lake City to purchase the truck during Labor Day weekend.

"Spent 23 hours driving that thing back, between Jeffrey and I," Richou recalled.

'Took off like wildfire'

The environmentally-friendly service rapidly grew in popularity. In their initial social media post, Demers and Richou said they would sign up on no more than 10 clients as they worked on the startup.

Thirty-six people showed interest, and they took them all on as customers, spending the next several days familiarizing themselves with the equipment and cleaning bins during their off-work hours. Richou works for Gelita in Sergeant Bluff and Demers works for MidAmerican Energy.

"It just kind of took off like wildfire, with minimal effort," said Richou, who described Filthy Bin as "a second full-time job."

"We had some goals we set, and we pretty much quadrupled our goals," Demers said.

The business offers to clean bins on a monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, one-time or seasonal basis. Prices start at $15.95 per month for the first bin and $8 for each additional bin.

Today, they have customers as far away as Le Mars, Iowa, and have received inquiries from potential customers in Vermillion, S.D., though at present that is not within their service area.

On collection days, the Filthy Bin truck follows the garbage haulers' routes, stopping at their clients' homes to power wash the outside and inside of the cans, using a high-pressure washer that blasts the cans with 200-degree water. The process purportedly kills 99.9 percent of all bacteria and odor. And it's all done right at the curb.

"It sanitizes, deodorizes and disinfects, at 200 degrees," Demers said.

Veteran owned and operated

Richou and Demers pride themselves on being a veteran-owned firm. Demers served in the Air Force between 2006 and 2018. Richou served in the Army between 1989 and 1994. Both were deployed overseas. Richou was stationed in Italy for a few years and served in Desert Storm during the Gulf War, while Demers was sent to the United Arab Emirates.

Serving in the armed forces, Demers said, was good preparation for their new venture, giving them a background in being neat and tidy, and organized.

"Military people are generally cleaner people, we're always disciplined. Things have to be kept clean in the military," Demers said.

The two are devoting a portion of their profits to veterans' organizations in the region, including Midwest Honor Flight (which flies veterans to Washington, D.C. to see veterans' memorials and monuments) and Contact Front (a nonprofit that helps veterans with PTSD). They've also volunteered their services at Siouxland Freedom Park in South Sioux City.

"We both wanted to own and operate a veteran-owned-and-operated company," Demers said. "We have a mission -- as a company, our goal is obviously to make money -- but we have a mission, being military that we both are, veterans, we have a goal to give back to our veterans' organizations throughout Siouxland."

"It's kind of our personal mission in our personal lives as well," Richou said.

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In the final weeks of my pregnancy, I found myself reading and listening to birth stories at a feverish pace. Id taken a birth education class and felt informed about the mechanics of labor and delivery. But in the heady anticipation of those days, I was desperate to grasp what it would actually feel like to give birth. Birth stories were easy to find. They filled the pages of my pregnancy books, and I could play them from my phone as podcasts. In Milli Hills The Positive Birth Book, I read women describe the thrill and agitation of labor beginning (exciting! its happening!), navigating contractions (a combination of pure panic, being in a different world, and being high as a kite), the challenges of transition (I lost my mind for a moment), pushing (the hardest work Ive ever done), the sensation of the baby emerging (thank God), and the feeling of your baby finally in your arms (bliss and love, but then shock). Reading these stunningly intimate accounts written and told by strangers, I reassured myself that I could imagine something of the new experiences to come.

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For as long as people have given birth, they have told stories about it. But the birth story as we now know it is a product of recent history. In the 1960s and 70s, a new wave of feminist activism demanded that women be regarded as active participants in childbirth. Activists systematically gathered and documented birth stories as a plea for change in the way childbirth typically unfolded in the United States. These birth stories were often harrowing tales, recording experiences with a medical system that removed women from the decision-making process, often through the use of heavy anesthetizing medication.

In the mid-1970s, the British feminist Ann Oakley began her pioneering sociological research on womens experiences of childbirth. By interviewing and recording womens stories en masse for the first time, she documented the psychological trauma of labors in which women felt they had little control. In this first wave of intentionally recorded and shared birth stories, many womens experiences were marked by a sense of things being done to them. As one woman Oakley interviewed remembered: The doctor kept coming round  he said try for an hour to push the babys head out, he said, there isnt much room.  Otherwise, he said, well have to make a decision as to what to do  so at twelve oclock he said, well take you upstairs, he said, and Ill try with forceps, he said, or else youll have to have a cesarean, you know. They delivered him with forceps. And I was right out. These stories were a call for change.

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Feminists who drew attention to the problems with childbirth in the 1970s argued that the stories we tell about birth before, during, and after the experienceboth to ourselves and collectivelystructure how births actually happen in practice. The first commercial edition of the Boston Womens Health Collectives Our Bodies, Ourselves, published in 1973, included detailed descriptions of every phase of pregnancy, labor, birth, and the postpartum period. It was also peppered with womens unique and varied accounts in their own voices. These included home births and cesarean deliveries alike. The collective recognized both the thrill that can accompany delivery and the sense of disappointment many women experience when things dont go to plan.

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The Our Bodies birth stories werent always natural, in the now-popularized Ina May Gaskin sense, but the women who told them werent always unhappy about that fact. Some women spoke highly of their experiences of pain relief: As soon as the going got a little rough, I asked the nurse for something. She brought me Nisentil, a narcotic. It began to take effect very soon after she administered the shot, and it helped me to relax between contractions so well that I often found myself on the verge of sleep. Others emphasized their satisfaction at the experience of birth without medication: I had a short, hard labor and it was clear to me that the incredible euphoria that I experienced afterwards was in part a function of the fact that it was very painful. It really was almost positive pain, really worth it in retrospect. Far from an expression of the superiority of natural birth or a criticism of the use of medicine in labor and delivery, the stories collected in feminist texts like Our Bodies, Ourselves were a plea to normalize womens diverse experiences and insist on a woman-centered model where, regardless of the details, women felt respected.

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At best, the legacy of feminist birth activism has been that birthing people are encouraged to see themselves as agents in their own experience, and feel empowered to process it on their own terms. In recent years, podcasts like The Birth Hour, which feature parents narrating their birth stories, have joined pregnancy books in giving voice to birthing peoples experiences on a new scale. Without normalizing one or another kind of birth, the podcast helps expectant parents learn about birth from those whove been through it, and allows birthing people to speak in their own words about their desires and choices in the process. In a system that is inarguably more patient-centric than it was in the middle of the last century, birthing parents continue to confront all manner of disrespect and poor care. For women of color, this often includes life-threatening neglect and outright abuse. In a quiet way, The Birth Hour and other similar resources continue to make a case for better births.

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But if The Birth Hour is in many ways a legacy of feminist activism like Oakleys and the Boston Womens Health Collectives, it also comes to us through a new 21st century media culture. Episodes are labeled for easy sorting: preemie, hypnobirthing, BIPOC stories, breech, homebirth, etc. This allows people to listen to birth stories selectivelyperhaps less to learn about the range of all possible experiences, and more to hear what it is that we want to hear, in anticipation of what we hope for ourselves. Despite my desire, in the abstract, to prepare for any birth experience I might have, I found myself pretty much exclusively listening to birth stories that described the unmedicated, low-intervention birth I hoped for.

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The feminists who popularized birth stories in the 70s meant them to educate broadly and honor different experiences. But in practice, the birth stories we read or hear in the media tend to feature women narrating their stories with confidencebirthing parents, in other words, who are in control, if only of their narratives. Refracted through 21st century culture, the feminist call for a more active, central role for birthing people in childbirth can counterintuitively make us feel like we are failing if our births do not feel wholly in our control or do not go to plan. So often the birth stories that go viral online represent extremes that polarize viewers and breed a sense of inadequacy. A 2013 video of a woman who chose to give birth in a stream in Australia, without medical support of any kind, has received 90 million views on YouTube. Parents magazine described this as birth in a truly organic fashionno pain relief, no doctors, no hospital  just a woman, a stream, and the miracle of life. A far cry from feminisms past, this treatment glamorized one womans clearly exceptional story, setting it up as a sort of Whole Foods ideal for all.

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Since the 1990s, the rise of confessional storytelling done by women, first in print and then online, has complicated the place of birth stories in our culture. Recording your experience of birth is at once a feminist act and now potentially one intended for mass consumption via a Reddit forum or blog. Writing, and even sharing, your birth story is also now commodified as one of a number of things you should do as a successful new parent, like having a baby shower or assembling a baby book. If you Google birth story, you will find everything from fill-in-the-blank birth story templates to birth journals marketed as perfect, handwritten heirlooms in the making. You will also come across guides to documenting your experience that suggest ways to make it powerful as well as compelling and lightin any case, digestible and palatable to others, not least your child, who may (some of these guides remind you) end up reading your story someday. This commodification and sentimentalization of birth stories is not quite, I imagine, what Oakley or the Boston Womens Health Collective had in mind.

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Last year, once everyone in my birth class had delivered their babies, we met for a final time. We were invited, as promised, to share our birth stories. The usually chatty Zoom room fell silent. I wonder if it was because, in the weeks and months after childbirth, the notion of neatly packaging these experiences for others came to feel reductivein many ways a false promise held out as the endpoint of a birthing parents story of bringing a child into the world. Or maybe it just felt too loaded, impossible to tell any story without being somehow misperceived.

I was fortunate to have a straightforward experience of birth, and one that left me feeling respected. Although no birth story I read or heard during my pregnancy could really have prepared me for that experience, the stories I sought out did fill me with confidence and, most of all, a sense of solidarity with all birthing people. My birth story is one that I like to share, but I tended, and still tend, not to do so, for fear of sounding like I think my experience was an act of will or personality, rather than a product of good luck and of all the factorsmy gender, race, socioeconomic status, and geographic locationthat made it likely I would receive good care. When it comes to sharing birth stories, many of my friends who had difficult experiences of birth feel similarlylike things will be read into their stories that arent there, whether thats a critique of the medical establishment or judgment about the sort of person they are. Its hard to feel like a valid storyteller in a culture of extremes and commodified successes.

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Diverse, honest accounts of birth on the one hand and the imperative to tell your story the right wayperhaps even to birth the right wayon the other make for awkward companions. Together they are products of an era in which feminist progress sits alongside new modes of packaging and commodifying our intimate lives for public consumption. The birth story, like feminism, has reached an uncomfortable phase in its history. Now, as feminists, our task is to free the birth story from the demands of crafting a successful personal brand, and find a way to return it to its highest purpose: integrating an intense and singular experience into the story you tell yourself about your life, and connecting all of that with the experiences of others.
UPDATE: The FBI identified the hostage taker who was killed at a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas as Malik Faisal Akram, a 44-year-old British citizen. His brother, Gulbar, wrote on Facebook that the suspect suffered from mental illness. We would like to say that we as a family do not condone any of his actions and would like to sincerely apologize wholeheartedly to all the victims involved in the unfortunate incident, the brother wrote.

Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, one of four people taken hostage, credited security training that the congregation had received for helping the hostages get through the ordeal. In the last hour of our hostage crisis, the gunman became increasingly belligerent and threatening, Cytron-Walker said in a statement. Without the instruction we received, we would not have been prepared to act and flee when the situation presented itself. Michael Finfer, president of the Congregation Beth Israel, also issued a statement characterizing the hostage-taking as a random act of violence.

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On Sunday, President Joe Biden called the hostage-taking an act of terror, and said Akram appears to have purchased weapons on the streets and may not have been in the United States for long. He purchased them when he landed and it turns out there apparently were no bombs that we know of, Biden said. Apparently he spent the first night in a homeless shelter. I dont have all the details yet so Im reluctant to go into much more detail.

Original post on Jan. 16 at 9:21 a.m.: An FBI Hostage Rescue Team stormed a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas on Saturday night, ending a nearly 11-hour standoff. All three remaining hostages (one hostage had been released earlier in the day) were unharmed and the hostage-taker was dead. Officials have not made clear whether the hostage-taker was shot by law enforcement officers or whether the gunshot was self-inflicted. The hostage-taker claimed he had explosives, but officials havent said whether they found any weapons. Prayers answered. All hostages are out alive and safe, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said on Twitter.

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Police had initially responded to the Congregation Beth Israel after reports that someone had interrupted morning service, which was being livestreamed, and taken hostages. It seems the motive behind taking hostages was to demand the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist who was convicted of trying to kill U.S. officers in Afghanistan. The hostage-taker also said he wanted to speak to Siddiqui, who is in federal prison in Texas.

Before the livestream was cutoff, the hostage-taker could be heard referring to Siddiqui as his sister but the two were not related. This assailant has nothing to do with Dr. Aafia, her family, or the global campaign to get justice for Dr. Aafia. We want the assailant to know that his actions are wicked and directly undermine those of us who are seeking justice for Dr. Aafia, said John Floyd, board chair for the Houston chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Although law enforcement has refused to give out the hostage-takers identity, there are hints he may have been British. Britains foreign office said it was aware of the death of a British man in Texas when asked about a report that the hostage-taker was British.

President Biden issued a statement late Saturday, praising the courageous work of everyone involved in the rescue operation. There is more we will learn in the days ahead about the motivations of the hostage taker. But let me be clear to anyone who intends to spread hate  we will stand against anti-Semitism and against the rise of extremism in this country, Biden said.
Justice Ministry drafts the change in an amendment, joining other countries addressing the question of consent concerning sexual intercourse.

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An attack is only considered to be rape under Slovak law if the victim actively resisted intercourse. Yet in the latest draft amendment to the Penal Code, the Justice Ministry proposes broadening the definition of sexual violence.

The amendment, also aimed at other sensitive issues like the disseminating of false information, milder punishment for marijuana possession and election corruption, is yet to be proposed to the cabinet. Among the changes that Justice Minister Maria Kolikova (SaS) proposes is that intercourse without consent should also be considered to be rape, punishable with three to eight years in prison. Currently, the victim needs to prove that they actively resisted or that they were subjected to or threatened with violence.

Sexual intercourse should be consensual under all circumstances, Justice Ministry argues.

Public agrees consent is a must

The vast majority of people in Slovakia agrees with the aforementioned, as last year's poll of the Focus polling agency for Amnesty International demonstrated.
https://sputniknews.com/20220115/jamaican-police-detain-another-moise-murder-suspect---reports-1092286963.html

Jamaican Police Detain Another Moise Murder Suspect - Reports

Jamaican Police Detain Another Moise Murder Suspect - Reports

Jamaican police have arrested yet another suspect in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise, Jamaican media report.

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The suspect, John Joel Joseph, is a former Haitian opposition senator who had been hiding in a rural Jamaican community with three other Haitian nationals possibly since December of last year, the Jamaica Observer said on Saturday.According to the newspaper, John Joel Joseph arrived on the island by boat and had been living incognito.At the start of January, Colombian media reported that Jamaica was going to deport former Colombian Army officer Mario Antonio Palacios, another suspect in the assassination of Haitian President Moise, to Colombia.Last week, media platforms reported that Rodolphe Jaar, a Haitian businessman and convicted drug trafficker, was arrested in the Dominican Republic on suspicion that he played a key role in the Haitian president's assassination.Moise was shot dead at his residence on 7 July, while his wife sustained injuries and subsequently received medical treatment in the United States. Haitian authorities have detained over 40 suspects in Moise's assassination, including 18 Colombian citizens and five US nationals.

https://sputniknews.com/20220102/prime-minister-of-haiti-survives-assassination-attempt-near-gonaives-church-1091985571.html

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Facing the first intra-party challenge in memory, longtime U.S. Rep. John Larson focused on the high-stakes challenge of the pandemic when he formally announced Friday that hes running for a new term.

I cant think of a more consequential time in our history to be running for public office, Larson said during a press conference at Goodwin College in East Hartford. This is the time to roll up our sleeves and deliver.

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Larson, 73, is seeking a 13th term in Congress representing the 1st District, which is widely considered a Democratic bedrock. Since his first victory in 1998, voters have steadily returned Larson to office every two years  with roughly 2-to-1 ratios in the past several races.

This time, though, Larson wont just be up against little-known Republican challengers or even more anonymous third-party candidates. Instead, liberal Democrat Muad Hrezi hopes to beat him in a primary this summer.

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When asked about the prospect of a Democratic primary in the usually drama-free 1st District, Larson replied On one hand thats a distraction of holding onto the House and keeping the majority  but anybody has the right to run for public office.

U.S. Rep. John Larson of Connecticut's First District tells reporters Friday that he's running for a 13th term. (Don Stacom)

Larson told reporters hes driven to run again because of the difficulties Connecticut people are facing in this era.

There isnt anyone in the state of Connecticut or the 1st District around this nation who hasnt felt the effects of this pandemic. They continue to be concerned ... and I understand the burdens they face, Larson said.

Im proud of what weve been able to do just in this year whether its putting vaccinations in peoples arms, putting money back in their wallets, putting kids back in their school seats or putting people back to work, thats what will continue to be our focus, Larson said.

Republicans will choose a challenger later this year; Democrats will nominate a candidate, but the partys final choice is likely to come at a primary.

Election results for the past 22 years suggest that whoever goes against him will be fighting uphill.

Against relatively unknown and weakly funded Republican challengers in the 2020, 2018 and 2016 campaigns, Larson polled almost precisely the same each time: 64 percent.

Larson also has the states Democratic political heavyweights behind him: Gov. Ned Lamont along with Congressional representatives Jim Himes, Jahana Hayes, Rosa DeLauro and Joe Courtney gave their endorsements Friday, joining Sen. Chris Murphy and Sen. Richard Blumenthal.

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And as usual, Larsons campaign will have plenty of money. At the start of October, Larson for Congress reported it already had $783,000  more than a full year before Election Day.

For his 2020 race, Larson raised just under $1.4 million  and that was less than usual. His re-election bids for the past two decades have each pulled in well more than $1 million  with 2010 setting a record at $2.4 million.

Five Things You Need To Know Daily We're providing the latest coronavirus coverage in Connecticut each weekday morning. >

Hrezis campaign indicated Friday that its ready. Hrezi, the son of Libyan asylum seekers and a former staffer for U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, raised more than $175,000 in the last quarter of 2021, and now has more than $300,000 available, his campaign staff announced.

That is the most raised by any Larson challenger, they said.

People are ready for a change and to have a representative supported by regular people, not corporate PACs and lobbyists, and to put the peoples agenda first, Hrezi said in a statement. People want someone in Washington who is going to put their needs first and not focus only on a corporate agenda.

Larson said a key issue facing the country is strengthening the financially imperiled Social Security system, which he warned will be forced to reduce benefits by 2034 without help.

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U.S. Rep. John Larson announces his reelection campaign Friday in East Hartford. (Don Stacom)

Within the 1st District, Larson continues to press for replacing the maze of I-84 and I-91 overpasses and ramps in downtown Hartford, calling it the number one chokehold in Connecticut and New England. Putting that infrastructure in underground tunnels would restore Hartford neighborhoods that were divided when I-84 was built, and would reconnect East Hartford and Hartford with their riverfronts, he said.

Larson also pledged to protect democracy in the face of what he called continuing lies about the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021 riot by Donald Trump supporters at the Capitol.

In the days following it, the United States Capitol  the peoples house  was lined with fences and barbed wire and had more than 20,000 troops guarding it, Larson said. I can remember no time in our history  maybe with the exception of the Civil War  when that has happened.
https://sputniknews.com/20220116/amateur-astronomer-discovers-jupiter-like-planet-with-same-mass-as-the-sun-nasa-says--1092290859.html

Amateur Astronomer Discovers Jupiter-Like Planet With Same Mass as the Sun, NASA Says

Amateur Astronomer Discovers Jupiter-Like Planet With Same Mass as the Sun, NASA Says

According to the space agency, the exoplanet called TOI-2180 b is about 379 light-years away from Earth and has an average temperature of about 170 degrees... 16.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-16T06:32+0000

2022-01-16T06:32+0000

2022-01-16T09:49+0000

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james webb space telescope

exoplanet

science

astronomer

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An amateur astronomer has discovered a Jupiter-like exoplanet with the same mass as the Sun, NASA has announced in a press release. Former naval officer Tom Jacobs is part of NASA's citizen science projects, which sees researchers from the space agency collaborating with members of the public interested in astronomy and physics.Professional astronomers use computer algorithms to scan data collected by various telescopes to make new discoveries. To find an exoplanet researchers look for changes in brightness of stars, which could indicate that a certain star is being orbited by a planet. However, computer algorithms are designed to search for planets by identifying multiple transit events from a single star. That is where amateur astronomers come in.Tom Jacobs is part of a team called the Visual Survey Group, which inspects telescope data by eye. On 1 February 2020, while inspecting data collected by the TESS telescope, Mr Jacobs noticed that light from the star called TOI-2180 b dimmed by less than half a percent and then returned to its previous brightness level over a 24-hour period.He then informed NASA researchers about his finding. They, in turn, used the Automated Planet Finder Telescope at the Lick Observatory in California to test Jacobs' assumption. Scientists observed the planet's gravitational tug on the star, which allowed them to calculate the its mass and estimate a range of possibilities for its orbit.According to NASA, the planet may have as much as "105 Earth masses worth of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium". It takes TOI-2180 b about 261 days to make a complete orbit, which NASA says is long compared to other known gas giants outside the solar system.Scientists say they expect to get more information about the new exoplanet with the help of the James Webb Space Telescope that was launched last December. It will examine the planet's atmosphere. Right now, researchers plan to find whether the gaseous giant has rings and moons like our Jupiter.NASA says amateur astronomers co-authored "68 peer-reviewed science papers, including the discovery of transiting 'exocomets' or comets outside the solar system crossing the face of a star".

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https://sputniknews.com/20220116/bbc-faces-2bn-in-cuts-as-culture-minister-freezes-license-fee-for-two-years-1092299209.html

BBC Faces 2Bn in Cuts as Culture Minister Freezes License Fee for Two Years

BBC Faces 2Bn in Cuts as Culture Minister Freezes License Fee for Two Years

The cost of the obligatory UK television license has grown over the years  along with the size of national broadcasting entity the BBC, which now has an... 16.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-16T15:50+0000

2022-01-16T15:50+0000

2022-01-16T16:18+0000

bbc

public tv

britain

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state media

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Britain's culture secretary has warned the days of funding state-owned media through the compulsory licence fee are numbered.Nadine Dorries tweeted on Sunday morning that the latest annual rise in the fee  currently 159 for the year  would be the last, and that the British Broadcasting Corporation would have to find a new voluntary model."The days of the elderly being threatened with prison sentences and bailiffs knocking on doors, are over," Dorries wrote.She included a link to a Mail on Sunday report predicting that the BBC would have to make 2 billion in cuts over the next six years as a result of the freeze. The corporation's annual expenditure is around 4 billion, of which 3.2 billion comes directly from the license fee.While Downing Street did not confirm the plan, a government source said the license was an "important bill" for pensioners and low-income households which the government had the opportunity to cut, and that negotiations were ongoing. Nut an ally of Ms Dorries told the Mail that the entire TV license model of funding was on its way out."Nadine wants to continue to produce high quality British television  she doesnt want it all to come from America  but the days of state-run TV are over," they added. "It is not yet clear whether the future will be share ownership or subscription, but there will be no more licence fee renewals as long as Boris is PM."The insider said the corporation would from now on have to make the same tough decisions as private broadcasters "There will be a lot of anguished noises about how it will hit popular programmes, but they can learn to cut waste like any other business," they said. "The new generation of 19- to 34-year-olds are watching YouTube, Netflix and videos on demand  they dont watch the BBC, and shouldnt be forced to pay for it. Nor should hard-working households or pensioners."The state broadcaster has increasingly drawn fire from the ruling Conservative Party in recent years over alleged liberal and left-wing bias  and prominent journalists broadcasting their personal opinions online and even on-air.A BBC source dismissed the reports of a license fee freeze as "speculation."Voluntary Subscription or Tax on TV Sets?The license, introduced in 1946, has risen steadily over the decades as the BBC expanded from one channel in 1936 to two in 1964 to nine  including two exclusively for children  since the early 2010s. The corporation's stable also now includes 56 national, regional and local radio stations.Payment is compulsory for anyone in the UK, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man owning television set capable of picking up free-to-air broadcasts  or even if they watch content online on the BBC iPlayer site.Failure to pay is a crime, backing the argument that the fee is a tax, not a license. Hundreds of thousands of people are prosecuted every year for non-payment, around seven in ten of them women. Those found guilty face fines of up to 1,000  and can in principal be jailed if they fail to pay.Tory backbench MP Peter Bone has already introduced a private member's bill in the House of Commons to abolish the fee, prompting Prime Minister Boris Johnson to declare the BBC was a "great national institution".But Journalist Jay Beecher highlighted that the TV Licensing authority was toothless in its threats to prosecute those refusing to pay, tweeting this week that he had received his 12th "final demand".The floated freeze in the license drew criticism from long-time BBC employees but approval from conservative journalists.

https://sputniknews.com/20220113/man-with-hammer-attacks-shakespearean-statue-at-bbc-hq-in-london-1092226383.html

britain

great britain

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bbc, public tv, britain, great britain, state media, nadine dorries, state-funded media, bbc bias, uk
https://sputniknews.com/20220116/florida-governors-race-candidate-compares-desantis-to-hitler-for-abuse-of-power-1092286550.html

Florida Governor's Race Candidate Compares DeSantis to Hitler for 'Abuse of Power'

Florida Governor's Race Candidate Compares DeSantis to Hitler for 'Abuse of Power'

The Florida gubernatorial primary is expected to be held in August of this year. Fried will campaign against former Florida Governor Charlie Crist and others... 16.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-16T00:20+0000

2022-01-16T00:20+0000

2022-01-16T08:21+0000

adolf hitler

us

florida

republicans

democrats

governor

ron desantis

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Nikki Fried, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Florida and currently an agriculture commissioner, has compared Republican Governor Ron DeSantis to Nazi Germany leader Adolf Hitler.In an interview with Florida public radio that aired on Friday, Fried was discussing the governor and his domestic policies in the state. According to the commissioner, "instead of listening and trying to govern with the people, he is trying to govern over the people".Fried claimed that she had "studied" Hitler and the ways he came to power, "you know, wanting his own militia", referring to DeSantis' decision to re-establish a state guard, which is used by other states in the event of an emergency.Fried was then asked about individuals who think that making Hitler parallels is inappropriate, and she indicated that politicians who do so have "lost the plot"."Not at all, I mean look, do I think that we are going to get to the extent of Hitler's power?", Fried responded. "Of course not, but the rise of his power and what he did to scapegoat certain parts and certainly the Jewish community in Germany and how he utilised going after the media, going after and scapegoating people and blaming people and putting fear and taking over the military. That's what this governor is doing".Fox News reported upon the statements, with DeSantis' press secretary Christina Pushaw telling the outlet that Fried's words belittle Hitler's atrocities.In the comments section, however, many users recalled one of the internet's oldest memes, "Godwin's Law", which states that the longer the debate goes on, the more likely it is that a participant in the discussion will compare an opponent to Hitler, with Pushaw calling Fried's comparisons a "sign of desperation or intellectual laziness".And more to the controversy from the same interview, when discussing the high level of Republican support among the state's Hispanic communities, the politician said that the members of such communities "had the wool pulled over their eyes", by a "radical right party".Fried also criticised the governor's stance on not allowing private businesses in the state to impose vaccine mandates. The gubernatorial candidate noted that DeSantis "went even further" when he allegedly said that he "was going to try to eliminate diversity and inclusion training", while it was, in fact, corporations and businesses who were promoting the idea of equality and inclusiveness in the workforce.

https://sputniknews.com/20220109/floridas-desantis-says-wh-mainstream-media-hostile-to-him-over-therapies-to-treat-covid-19-1092139592.html

florida

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2022

Kirill Kurevlev

Kirill Kurevlev

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Kirill Kurevlev

adolf hitler, us, florida, republicans, democrats, governor, ron desantis
https://sputniknews.com/20220116/israel-reportedly-made-wish-list-of-weapons-for-us-to-engage-iran-hezbollah-1092294970.html

Israel Reportedly Made 'Wish List' of Weapons for US to Engage Iran, Hezbollah

Israel Reportedly Made 'Wish List' of Weapons for US to Engage Iran, Hezbollah

The new Israeli government of Naftali Bennet, which came to power last year, has repeatedly warned that it might act preemptively to prevent Iran from... 16.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-16T11:19+0000

2022-01-16T11:19+0000

2022-01-16T11:19+0000

hezbollah

us

middle east

iran

israel

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Tel Aviv compiled a secret "wish list" of weapons it wants the US to store in its Israeli-based War Reserves Stock Allies (WRSA-I)  stockpiles of American weapons stored for the country's use in case of war, the military news outlet Breaking Defense has reported, citing anonymous military sources in Tel Aviv.The "wish list" reportedly contained various "aerial munitions" that Tel Aviv believes might be needed in the event of a conflict between Israel and either Iran or Lebanon-based Hezbollah.While WRSA-I is essentially a stockpile of weapons for the use by the American military, it can be tapped by the IDF as well in case of an "emergency", a report by the US Congressional Research Service (CRS) in 2020 showed. So if a conflict erupts between Israel and Iran, the IDF might be able to use the weapons from the reported "wish list".The US has already allowed Israel to tap into the reserves at least once. It occurred during the 2014 Gaza War between the IDF and Hamas. The Israeli military used 120mm mortar shells and 40mm grenade launcher rounds, which were about to be decommissioned due to their age.WRSA-I received a significant boost to the stored armaments in 2014, with their overall value exceeding $1.8 billion. The stock contains not only ammunition, but also smart bombs and missiles, as well as armoured military vehicles.Israel has repeatedly warned that it won't allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons and that it will take action against the latter's nuclear sites if necessary. Media reports from October 2021 suggested that Tel Aviv had requested the purchase of 2.3-tonne GBU-72 bunker buster bombs from the US allegedly to be able to hit Iranian nuclear sites that are hidden deep underground.Iran insists that its nuclear programme is peaceful and that nuclear weapons contradict the state religion  Islam. Tehran has lambasted what it calls the international community's double standards, citing its rigid focus on Iran's nuclear programme and lack of similar scrutiny about the numerous allegations that Tel Aviv built nuclear devices decades ago. Israel neither denies nor confirms its nuclear status and does not comment on the reports of possessing stocks of nukes.

https://sputniknews.com/20211222/white-house-us-israel-agree-irans-rapidly-advancing-nuke-programme-is-grave-threat-to-peace-1091728133.html

iran

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hezbollah, us, middle east, iran, israel
https://sputniknews.com/20220116/israeli-pm-pledges-netanyahus-possible-plea-deal-will-not-bring-down-coalition-government-1092300755.html

Israeli PM Pledges Netanyahu's Possible Plea Deal Will Not Bring Down Coalition Government

Israeli PM Pledges Netanyahu's Possible Plea Deal Will Not Bring Down Coalition Government

According to media reports, the plea deal might see Netanyahu removed from political life for years. The present broad ruling coalition, in turn, assembled on... 16.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-16T17:50+0000

2022-01-16T17:50+0000

2022-01-16T17:50+0000

naftali bennett

middle east

israel

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Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has given his assurance that predictions made by "various political commentators" - that the governing coalition will fall if Benjamin Netanyahu signs a plea deal - are unsubstantiated and will not come to fruition.Grim scenarios from political analysts for the coalition are based on the uncertainty about the loyalty of its members. The coalition led by Bennett encompasses parties from both ends of the political spectrum, who united in 2021 with the goal of ousting political veteran Netanyahu from power.The coalition, however, was also cemented by a pledge made by right-wing parties not to team up with their natural ally, Likud, for as long as it was led by Netanyahu. The latter, however, might soon lose his post  several media reports suggested lately that the former prime minister is mulling signing a plea deal with Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit that would end his prosecution on several criminal charges and will see him banned from political life for seven years.According to a report by Channel 12, the deal has been on the table for nearly two years, but previously Netanyahu rejected it because it includes a conviction of "moral turpitude", which would lead to the ban from politics. With reports about his possible departure from politics, some of the allies in Bennett's coalition have already started to speculate on their future political plans that might include Likud  the party that won most seats in the last general election.The lawmaker from the New Hope party, Sharren Haskel, noted that "if Netanyahu goes, everything is possible". Likud could secure dominance in the Knesset (parliament) with the help of traditional allies from ultra-conservative parties, should any right-wing force from the ruling coalition join it. Such a move would also undermine the present government and prompt the formation of a new government.Netanyahu has not commented on reports that he is considering signing a plea deal, which will also require the approval of an Israeli court. Anonymous sources close to the former prime minister claimed in an interview with Channel 12 that Netanyahu and his attorneys are indicating that they back the plea deal.

https://sputniknews.com/20220114/netanyahu-expected-to-make-plea-deal-banning-him-from-politics-for-seven-years-israeli-media-says-1092269212.html

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Tim Korso https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/03/0d/1093831826_0:0:216:216_100x100_80_0_0_e3f43a960af0c6c99f7eb8ccbf5f812c.jpg

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naftali bennett, middle east, israel
https://sputniknews.com/20220116/january-unrest-in-kazakhstans-almaty-left-149-civilians-dead-1092301214.html

January Unrest in Kazakhstan's Almaty Left 149 Civilians Dead

January Unrest in Kazakhstan's Almaty Left 149 Civilians Dead

ALMATY (Sputnik) - The unrest that swept over Kazakhstan in early January left 149 civilians and 11 law enforcers dead in the city of Almaty, the head of the... 16.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-16T15:43+0000

2022-01-16T15:43+0000

2022-01-16T15:43+0000

protests in kazakhstan

kazakhstan

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During the several days that Almaty was shaken up by riots, there were seven attacks on the city's morgues, and rioters stole 41 bodies of their accomplices, Taimerdenov said.Mass protests began with people in the west of the country rallying against a steep hike in fuel price. The unrest then spread to other areas, including the country's former capital of Almaty in the south of Kazakhstan. Protests turned violent in Almaty there was looting and attacks on government offices.The government declared a state of emergency until January 19. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev requested help from the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which sent peacekeepers into Kazakhstan. The CSTO mission wrapped up earlier this week and peacekeepers began to withdraw on Thursday.

kazakhstan

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kazakhstan
https://sputniknews.com/20220116/mass-demonstrations-in-support-of-russia-held-across-mali---youth-organization-leader-1092288754.html

Mass Demonstrations in Support of Russia Held Across Mali, Youth Organisation Leader Says

Mass Demonstrations in Support of Russia Held Across Mali, Youth Organisation Leader Says

Thousands of people have participated in a demonstration in support of Russia in Malis capital, Bamako, a youth organization leader told Sputnik.

2022-01-16T02:59+0000

2022-01-16T02:59+0000

2022-01-16T04:09+0000

mali

economic community of west african states (ecowas)

africa

russia

military

demonstration

transition

france

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"...first they demanded the lifting of ECOWAS [Economic Community of West African States] sanctions, in addition, people are calling for cooperation between Mali and Russia", the head of the Young Leaders' Organisation, Sheikh Umar Sumano, said.Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop announced in November 2021 that presidential and parliamentary elections initially scheduled for early 2022 in Mali would be postponed until 2025 due to the volatile security situation across the country. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) reacted by threatening the Malian military authorities with sanctions, imposing them on 9 January.The Malian authorities called the sanctions illegal and illegitimate. The country's leadership also stressed that they were not based on any guidelines of the community. Mali decided to recall its ambassadors to the ECOWAS member states and to close land and air borders with the member countries of the organisation.Mali has experienced two military coups in the past two years.In August 2020, a group of Malian soldiers started a mutiny at the Kati military base near Bamako. Insurgents kidnapped several ministers and high-ranking military officials, including then-President Ibrahim Boubakar Keita, who later dissolved the government and parliament.In September 2020, the parties agreed on a transition period that would last for 18 months, leading to parliamentary elections. Bah N'Daw, a former defence minister, was appointed as interim president. However, in late May 2021, Mali saw its second coup, as then-Vice President Assimi Goita ousted the new president and prime minister for allegedly violating the transitional charter. He was then appointed as interim president by the constitutional court.

https://sputniknews.com/20211227/france-pisses-us-off-malians-hail-russian-advisers-arrival-as-paris-quits-anti-terror-war-1091846701.html

mali

russia

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mali, economic community of west african states (ecowas), africa, russia, military, demonstration, transition, france
https://sputniknews.com/20220116/nato-russia-relations-near-red-line-due-to-alliances-military-support-of-ukraine-peskov-tells-cnn-1092300360.html

NATO-Russia Relations Near Red Line Due to Alliance's Military Support of Ukraine, Peskov Tells CNN

NATO-Russia Relations Near Red Line Due to Alliance's Military Support of Ukraine, Peskov Tells CNN

The Kremlin spokesman's interview with CNN comes several days after talks in Geneva between Russia and the US - along with Russia-NATO talks - over tensions in... 16.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-16T15:21+0000

2022-01-16T15:21+0000

2022-01-16T16:15+0000

world

russia

dmitry peskov

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Relations between Russia and NATO are nearing the red line because of the military support the alliance is giving to Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN on Sunday.Peskov also told CNN's Fareed Zakaria that Moscow considers it necessary to keep troops near the border with Ukraine because of "a very tense situation and very unfriendly environment."According to the Kremlin spokesman, Russia "cannot put up" with NATO "gradually making its way" into Ukraine.Peskov again stressed the need for putting security guarantees on paper because spoken promises did not stop NATO from moving into post-Soviet space. The Kremlin's spokesman stressed that although Russia is not threatening military reprisals, it will have to take countermeasures if NATO persists in its expansion. Regarding the threat of western sanctions, Peskov said Russia is big and self-sufficient enough not to be worried about them.At the same time, the Kremlin spokesman said that the restrictions proposed by the US, which include personal sanctions against the leadership of Russia among other things, could "lead to the discontinuation of any relationship by our two countries."He also noted he believes that the "political wisdom" of both Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Joe Biden is a good place to carry on the search for common ground.When pressed by Zakaria on whether there are any Russian troops on the Ukrainian territory, Peskov underlined that there are no Russian forces either in Donbas or in other parts of Ukraine, with them being located exclusively on Russian territory.Security TalksOn 10 January, the Russian delegation held a round of security talks with US counterparts, to discuss the tensions in Ukraine. The negotiations were followed by a meeting on the same subject between Russia and representatives from NATO.Despite the failure to reach an immediate consensus, all parties voiced readiness for further talks.Moscow said it awaits a response from Washington in regard to the security proposals rolled out earlier in December, which include a demand for NATO not to expand eastwards and not to deploy offensive weapons in the countries neighbouring Russia.The US State Department said it is ready to continue diplomatic efforts, asserting that the US and NATO "are united on the diplomatic path forward and urge Russia to take immediate action to de-escalate its ongoing aggression against Ukraine."

https://sputniknews.com/20220115/blinken-borrell-vow-to-present-united-transatlantic-front-after-russia-talks-1092285178.html

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Daria Bedenko

Daria Bedenko

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Daria Bedenko

world, russia, dmitry peskov
https://sputniknews.com/20220116/new-virginia-gov-signs-11-eos-including-on-mask-mandates-crt-ban--loudon-county-rape-incident-1092289138.html

New Virginia Gov. Signs 11 EOs Including on Mask Mandates, CRT Ban, & Loudon County Rape Incident

New Virginia Gov. Signs 11 EOs Including on Mask Mandates, CRT Ban, & Loudon County Rape Incident

New Virginia Gov. Signs 11 Decrees That Include Mask Mandate, CRT Ban & Loudon County Rape Incident

2022-01-16T04:31+0000

2022-01-16T04:31+0000

2022-01-16T04:31+0000

us

virginia

executive order

governor

critical race theory

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New Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, inaugurated on Saturday, has signed 11 decrees on his first day in office, halting the implementation of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in schools and allowing parents to decide on whether their children wear masks.According to a statement by the governor, the 11 executive actions are meant to:1. Restore excellence in education by ending the use of divisive concepts, including Critical Race Theory, in public education.CRT became one of Youngkin's key campaign issues as many parents complained about schools where CRT was supposedly included in the curriculum. The new governor had earlier promised to give parents broader rights to decide what is taught to their children."In the immortal words of Dr Martin Luther King Jr., we're called to judge one another based on the content of our character and not the colour of our skin", Youngkin said in October. "And that's why there's no place for Critical Race Theory in our school system, and why, on day one, I'm going to ban it".2. Empower Virginia parents in their children's education and upbringing by allowing parents to make decisions on whether their child wears a mask in school.The office of Youngkin's predecessor Ralph Northamn had earlier stated that lifting the mandate would be in violation of a state law passed last year by the General Assembly, leaving the new decree vulnerable to lawsuits.3. Restore integrity and confidence in the Parole Board of the Commonwealth of Virginia.4. Investigate wrongdoing in Loudoun County.An incident involving a nonbinary teenager who was convicted of raping two girls in different schools has shocked the state after investigators revealed the district reportedly covered up the crime which resulted in one of the alleged victim's parents being arrested at a school board meeting.5. Make government work for Virginians by creating the Commonwealth Chief Transformation Officer.6. Declare Virginia open for business.7. Combat and prevent human trafficking and provide support to survivors.8. Establish a commission to combat anti-Semitism.9. Withdraw from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).The governor also signed two executive directives meant to:10. Jumpstart the state's economy by cutting "job-killing" regulations by 25 percent.11. Restore individual freedoms and personal privacy by rescinding the vaccine mandate for all state employees.Aside from that, during his inaugural speech, the governor demonstrated a non-partisan approach in dealing with problems and called for restoring trust in government and returning power to the people. The governor also said in his address that he won't allow schools to close due to the coronavirus pandemic.Youngkin, a 54-year-old investment banker with no political experience, beat Democrat Terry McAuliffe by a 2.5 percent margin during the November elections in Virginia, a state that has had Democratic governors since 2009. According to pre-election polls, Youngkin managed to garner support from independent voters who were alienated by Donald Trump's 2020 presidential campaign style. At the same time, the outcome of these elections has been seen as a referendum on President Joe Biden's performance and a possible precursor for the upcoming midterm elections.

https://sputniknews.com/20211110/through-racial-lens-nearly-half-of-elite-private-schools-in-us-adopted-crt-study-shows-1090637990.html

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https://sputniknews.com/20220116/peskov-says-theres-too-much-tension-on-russias-border-with-ukraine-1092291747.html

Peskov Says 'There's Too Much Tension' on Russia's Border With Ukraine

Peskov Says 'There's Too Much Tension' on Russia's Border With Ukraine

Moscow has repeatedly rejected media reports in the West alleging that Russia was planning to "invade" Ukraine. The Kremlin underscores that it can relocate... 16.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-16T08:02+0000

2022-01-16T08:02+0000

2022-01-16T08:02+0000

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dmitry peskov

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There's too much tension on Russia's border with Ukraine, which is why Moscow insists on a direct response to its proposals on security guarantees, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has told CNN.He said that Moscow wants "a very concrete answer [from Washington] to its [Russia's] very concrete proposals".The Kremlin spokesman stressed that the US had failed to give any proof to substantiate Washington's claims that Russia is allegedly planning an escalation around Ukraine. "We are still waiting for evidence", Peskov said.Peskov spoke after White House press secretary Jen Psaki alleged that Washington had obtained information that Russia is purportedly planning to fabricate a pretext for an invasion of Ukraine by using operatives to carry out a false flag event.The Russian Embassy in the US responded by describing Psaki's remarks as something that confirms "the incessant information pressure" on Russia.Russia's Security Guarantee Proposals Russia put forward draft agreements on security guarantees to NATO and the US last month. The documents include a number of binding commitments aimed at considerably easing tensions between Moscow and the West. They include calls on the parties not to deploy troops, missile systems, aircraft, and warships in areas where they may be considered a threat to the other side.The US and NATO are also asked to halt the alliance's eastward expansion, and scrap plans to incorporate Ukraine or any other country of the former USSR into the bloc. Additionally, NATO is urged to limit the deployment of arms and troops along its eastern flank  specifically in those countries that joined the alliance after the end of the Cold War.The topic was on the table of Russian-US ministerial talks in Geneva on 10 January, which was followed by a Russia-NATO Council meeting and the summit of Russia and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).Tensions over Ukraine persist amid media reports in the West claiming that Moscow is planning to "invade" the country, which the Kremlin denounced as "alarmism". The Kremlin underlined that it has the right to deploy forces within its own territory at its own discretion, also pointing to NATO's growing military activity near Russia's borders.

https://sputniknews.com/20220115/us-nato-ready-to-continue-dialogue-with-russia-after-nato-russia-council-dept-of-state-1092274462.html

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The vision for 2 Holcomb St. includes veterans housing and a museum spotlighting the 29th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry Regiment. (Courtesy of Bridgitte Prince)

A veterans advocate is leading an ambitious proposal to convert a building in Hartfords North End into veterans housing and a museum spotlighting Connecticuts African American Civil War regiment.

U.S. Army veteran Bridgitte Prince and her partners in the multifaceted project have spoken to U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal and local officials, but the citys development director said the property must be cleared of toxins first and any proposed project is premature.

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At this point, Prince said, the team is readying grant applications to fund the $35 million proposal. The idea is to convert the vacant city-owned building at 2 Holcomb St. into subsidized housing and onsite services for homeless and low-income veterans, Prince said. The Holcomb Street building is known as the McCook Hospital building and has housed city offices, but has been vacant for over a decade.

The proposed facility in Hartford would include a museum to tell the story of the 29th Regiment Connecticut Infantry (Colored), the first Union soldiers to enter the defeated Confederate capital of Richmond. (COURTESY OF THE DESCENDANTS OF THE CONNECTICUT 29TH COLORED REGIMENT C.V. INFANTRY)

The facility also would include a museum to tell the story of the 29th Regiment Connecticut Infantry (Colored), the first Union soldiers to enter the defeated Confederate capital of Richmond. The development team seeks a national historic district designation for the building site and surrounding area. Prince noted that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had a long association with Hartford and several landmarks in the North End should be considered historical sites.

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Hartford development services Director I. Charles Matthews said the city is commissioning a thorough environmental assessment of the entire campus at 80 Coventry St., which includes the building at 2 Holcomb St. and the North End Senior Center.

We have very serious concerns about seeking a historic designation of the property until that environmental assessment is complete, Matthews said, because while a historic designation can be helpful for redevelopment, it can also limit the options for redevelopment and increase costs dramatically.

City leaders share the communitys desire to see the building and the broader campus redeveloped, Matthews said. The area is one of Hartfords ten potentially transformative projects in the city plan. A map included in the plan labels the area the North End Wellness District, with the caption, Lets develop a cohesive identity and a new facility encompassing agriculture, naturopathy and ecology to build upon existing assets, including a senior center, health care facilities, and Keney Park.

Its premature, Matthews said, to endorse any specific proposal at this point, but we look forward to working with community partners and potential developers to identify a plan thats right for the property, right for the community and can get the financing required to get it done.

Connecticut Department of Veterans Affairs spokeswoman Tammy Marzik said she reached out to project organizers to get more details on the proposal.

While our agency and our community partners continue to provide temporary and permanent housing and services for veterans, Marzik said, there is always a need for additional options for those in need and/or homeless, especially with the various geographic locations of our veterans.

Rich Kehoe, state director for Blumenthal, said the senator has offered to help the planners navigate potential federal funding.

An outline of planned grant applications that Prince said Blumenthal requested included a $10 million federal grant that would be used for a museum and gift shop on the first floor of the Holcomb Street building, which had housed city offices. The museum would pay tribute not only to Connecticuts Black soldiers in the Civil War, but also to the wider contributions African Americans have made to the U.S. military.

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Project leaders, who Prince said also include former city council member Cynthia Jennings and developer Krishna Naraine, also seek to work with city officials to redesign the section of Keney Park across the street to include a monument honoring the 29th.

One of the few known photos of the 29th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry Regiment. The photo was taken in Beaufort, South Carolina. (Dennis Hohenberger/Special to Courant)

The 29th and 30th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry regiments were authorized by Gov. William A. Buckingham after the General Assembly in November 1863 allowed the state to recruit Black men to fight.

The 30th regiment was merged in June 1864 with units from other states to form the 31st Regiment of U.S. Colored Infantry, while the 29th fought through the end of the war under Connecticuts banner. Totaling about 1,700 men, the Black soldiers served heroically, sustaining more than 600 casualties.

The Holcomb Street property is appraised at about $1.77 million. The six-story building was constructed in 1920, according to the city assessor.

In urging the buildings conversion and associated projects highlighting Hartfords African American history, project planners also note the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.s long association with Hartford.

Our goal is to work with EVERYONE to accomplish these very special and meaningful goals, Prince wrote in a recent message to the team. The Connecticut 29th Colored Volunteer Infantry Regiment Veterans Health & Human Services Complex, and Museum supplies a need. Its a need that will positively transform the landscape, and the spirit, in Hartfords Promise Zone.

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Jesse Leavenworth can be reached at jleavenworth@courant.com.
https://sputniknews.com/20220116/prince-andrews-accuser-vows-to-destroy-him-and-leave-him-broke-because-of-his-arrogance-media-says-1092292157.html

Virginia Giuffre Vows to Destroy Prince Andrew After Royal Used 'Victim-Blaming' Tactic, Media Says

Virginia Giuffre Vows to Destroy Prince Andrew After Royal Used 'Victim-Blaming' Tactic, Media Says

Prince Andrew is being sued by an American woman, who claims the royal sexually assaulted her when she was a minor. Prince Andrew has consistently denied the accusations.

2022-01-16T09:10+0000

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2022-01-16T09:21+0000

ghislaine maxwell

prince andrew

jeffrey epstein

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Prince Andrew's accuser Virginia Giuffre has vowed to destroy the the royal and leave him penniless, the Daily Mail has reported, citing a source close to her legal team. According to the insider, the mother of three was livid at the tactics employed by the royal's legal team, which was described as "victim-blaming". The statement comes as the Duke of York's legal team has asked permission to interview under oath Mrs Giuffre's psychologist Dr Judith Lightfoot as well as her husband Robert about the woman's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, and the alleged abuse she suffered at the hands of the two.Prince Andrews lawyers believe the mother of three "may suffer from false memories" because her allegations about the purported sexual assault involving the royal "have repeatedly changed over the years".Connection to Jeffrey EpsteinThe second son of Queen Elizabeth II maintained a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, a US financier who was charged with running a sex trafficking network of minors in 2019. Virginia Giuffre (nee Roberts) is one of the alleged victims of Epstein.She claims that in 2001 when she was 17 (considered a minor in most US states) Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell trafficked her to London, whe she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew, who purportedly slept with her on two other separate occasions. Giuffre came forward with the accusations in the 2010s, but the case only received attention in 2019 after Epstein's arrest.Prince Andrew has consistently denied the accusations against him. In the latest letter to the judge, his lawyers said the royal believes that her accusations against him are allegedly an attempt "to deflect" attention from her involvement in Epstein's crime network. Giuffre is said to have recruited girls and women for Epstein. One of the financier's victims has recently broken her silence about the issue, saying she has no sympathy for Giuffre.Reports say that when Epstein sent Giuffre to Thailand, where she met her future husband, he tasked her with bringing young women and girls to the United States for the sex trafficking scheme. It is for this reason that the Duke of York's lawyers seek to interview Giuffre's husband and psychologist.Mrs Giuffre's lawyers, in turn, want to interview Prince Andrew's former assistant Robert Olney. Court documents seen by Sky News, show that his name appears in Jeffrey Epstein's phone book as "Duke of York". The legal team plans to quiz him about the royal's trips to and from Epstein's homes.Another witness that will likely testify in the case is Shukri Walker, a Somali-born woman, who lives in London.Virginia Giuffre previously claimed that she became acquainted with Prince Andrew at the Tramp nightclub in the British capital, where she was allegedly taken by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. The mother of three said the royal was "profusely sweating" while dancing with her. Prince Andrew has dismissed the allegation, saying he's never met the women and that a war-time incident left him incapable of sweating. However, Shukri Walker claims to have seen Andrew with the young Giuffre. A former Epstein employee also reportedly saw the Duke of York with Giuffre on the financier's private island.The trial is scheduled for late 2022. Reports say Prince Andrew may strike an out-of-court settlement with Giuffre that will see him pay up to $13 million. Other reports suggest that Giuffre is not interested in the settlement and wants the case go to trial for the sake of justice.

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https://sputniknews.com/20220116/protests-against-covid-measures-hit-amsterdam-1092296672.html

Protests Against COVID Measures Hit Amsterdam

Protests Against COVID Measures Hit Amsterdam

Almost a year ago, a demonstration against anti-pandemic rules in the city resulted in the so-called "coffee battle", when at least 140 people were arrested by... 16.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-16T13:31+0000

2022-01-16T13:31+0000

2022-01-16T13:31+0000

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protest

coronavirus

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Sputnik comes live from Amsterdam, where people are staging a mass demonstration against what they consider to be draconian COVID restrictions imposed by the Dutch government. The country declared a national lockdown on 19 December. The rules were relaxed on 14 January, as non-essential shops and certain businesses were allowed to reopen for a limited time, but bars and restaurants in the country are still closed.Follow Sputnik's Live Feed to Find Out More!

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https://sputniknews.com/20220116/retired-officer-opens-up-on-heinous-decapitation-case-which-inspired-scream-horror-saga-1092299559.html

Retired Officer Opens Up On Heinous Decapitation Case Which Inspired Scream Horror Saga

Retired Officer Opens Up On Heinous Decapitation Case Which Inspired Scream Horror Saga

The perpetrator Danny Rolling said his motive for the slayings was to become a "superstar" similar to Ted Bundy, an American serial killer, who kidnapped, raped and killed numerous women.

2022-01-16T16:54+0000

2022-01-16T16:54+0000

2022-01-16T16:54+0000

society

florida

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serial killer

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A retired US police officer, who played a crucial role in the investigation into the gruesome Gainesville murders in Florida, has opened up about the case. Speaking to the Sun, Don Maines, 70, confessed that the scenes he witnessed still haunt him. The killings began on 24 August 1990.The perpetrator broke into the home of 17-year-old Christina Powell and 18-year-old Sonja Larson, who were preparing for their first year at the University of Florida. The killer first climbed upstairs where he attacked Larson. He taped her mouth to prevent her from shouting and then raped the girl before stabbing her fatally. Sonja Larson met the same fate. The murders went unreported for two days until Powells parents arrived at the campus after becoming concerned that their daughter had not answered any calls. Don Maines said the victims bodies were wiped with a cleaning agent to hide evidence. The murderer also posed the bodies in a sexually suggestive manner. As if this were not enough to shock police and forensic experts, the murderer cut off Christina Powells nipples.Police officers discovered semen on a paper towel and faeces outside the home. The samples showed that the murderer had type-B blood.Within eight hours of the first murder, police discovered a third victim - 18-year-old Christa Leigh Hoyt was raped and murdered in her apartment. As in the pervious murders, the assailant forced her faced down and stabbed her in the back. He then disemboweled and decapitated his victim and placed the young womans head on a shelf so that it faced the body, which the killer again propped up in a sexual pose.However, law enforcement failed to catch the perpetrator, who struck for a third and final time.Two students at the University of Florida  Manuel Taboada and Tracy Paules, both 23, were killed in their apartment. Wounds on hands showed that Taboada tried to defend himself against the murderer - who came to be known as the Gainesville Ripper - but was overpowered.According to Maines, the attack left local residents shocked and prompted classes to be cancelled. In the ensuing weeks, police investigated thousands of leads, sifted through 18, 000 items of evidence and identified almost 700 individuals, who were deemed persons of interest.First ClueA break in the case occurred a month later after police were informed about an unsolved murder in Louisiana, which occurred in 1989 and bore striking similarities to the Florida killings: 24-year-old Julie Grissom, her eight-year-old nephew Sean and her father Tom, 55, were slaughtered inside their home.The bodies of victims were wiped with red wine vinegar, and Julies body was put in a sexually suggestive pose. A sample of saliva discovered on her breast showed that the perpetrator had type-B blood.Shortly after, a woman by the name of Cindy Juracich told police officers to investigate her acquaintance Danny Rolling. A subsequent examination found that the man, who was 47 back then, got into an argument with his father and shot him before fleeing. This was three months before the killings started in Florida. Rolling had multiple convictions for armed robbery.The police were also informed about a bank robbery, which occurred near the home of Christa Leigh Hoyt on the day of her murder. The perpetrator was not caught, but that same day a police officer noticed a suspicious man, whom he tried approach, but the individual vanished. Nevertheless the officer found a screwdriver, a bag of money and a cassette player with a tape inside. This tape was to play an important role in bringing the case to trial.Law enforcement arrested Danny Rolling, whom Maines describes as "relaxed, cordial and calm". The police officer visited him in prison and asked him to provide a blood sample for the investigation. To his amazement Rolling agreed. The results showed that the sample provided a matched to all three crimes. Rolling pleaded not guilty, leading law enforcement to build their case to for trial.Several weeks later officers decided to listen to the tape that was found in a cassette player. The police were also informed about a bank robbery, which occurred near the home of Christa Leigh Hoyt on the day of her murder. The perpetrator was not caught, but that same day a police officer noticed a suspicious man, whom he tried approach, but the individual vanished. Nevertheless the officer found a screwdriver, a bag of money and a cassette player with a tape inside. This tape will play an important role in bringing the case to a trial.Law enforcement arrested Danny Rolling, whom Don Maines describes as "relaxed, cordial and calm". The police officer visited him in prison and asked to provide a blood sample for the investigation. To his amazement Rolling agreed. The results showed that the sample matched to all three crimes. Rolling pleaded not guilty, leading law enforcement to build their case to for trial.Several weeks later officers decided to listen to the tape that was found in a cassette player. He remained in custody until the trial began in 1994, when Rolling pleaded guilty. He then confessed to the murders in Louisiana and said that his motive for the killings was to become a "superstar" similar to Ted Bundy, an American serial killer, who kidnapped, raped and killed numerous women. Rolling also blamed his actions on his evil alter-ego called Gemini.While waiting for the trial he was diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder and paraphilia (intense sexual arousal to atypical objects). The Gainesville Ripper was sentenced to death in 1994 and was executed with lethal injection in 2006.Maines described his case as the "worst" and most "heinous" crime he ever worked on during his 42 years of service.The case inspired many books and novels, but the most famous representation was the Scream saga, written by Kevin Williamson. The struggling screenwriter recalled how he got the idea after watching a news report about the Gainesville murders at a home he was house-sitting.Williamson says he became petrified after noticing that one window in the house was open. He channelled his fear into writing a screenplay, which he sold to Miramax studios, owned by the Weinstein brothers, for $400,000. The movie was released in 1996 and grossed $173 million worldwide.

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https://sputniknews.com/20220116/somali-government-spokesman-wounded-by-explosion-in-mogadishu-reports-say-1092292752.html

Somali Government Spokesman Wounded by Explosion in Mogadishu, Reports Say

Somali Government Spokesman Wounded by Explosion in Mogadishu, Reports Say

According to the report, the incident occurred outside the official's house. So far, no group has claimed responsibility for the attack. 16.01.2022, Sputnik International

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Spokesman for the Somali federal government Mohamed Ibrahim Moalimuu has been injured in an alleged suicide attack in the capital city of Mogadishu, Reuters reported citing a witness. Reuters also cited a photographer at the scene of the incident, saying that body parts are scattered all around the area.Several photos and videos, purportedly taken at the site of the incident, have since emerged online.

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https://sputniknews.com/20220116/some-of-americas-nato-allies-were-unsettled-by-certain-us-ideas-at-security-guarantee-talks-1092298501.html

Some of America's NATO Allies Were 'Unsettled' by 'Certain US Ideas' at Security Guarantee Talks

Some of America's NATO Allies Were 'Unsettled' by 'Certain US Ideas' at Security Guarantee Talks

During the Russia-NATO negotiations on Moscow's security guarantee draft agreements earlier this week, the alliance reiterated its reluctance to stop its... 16.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-16T14:19+0000

2022-01-16T14:19+0000

2022-01-16T14:26+0000

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Some NATO countries were "unsettled" with "certain ideas" that US officials put forward in recent negotiations with Russia on security guarantees, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has quoted unnamed diplomats from the alliance as saying.Behind the scenes, however, "some allies - particularly those close to Russia  were perturbed by several ideas floated by US officials at talks with Russian counterparts before they were aired with allies", the insiders claimed.Other allies, the sources went on to argue, are concerned that with NATO rejecting Russia's key demands, the US may seek minor concessions, allegedly in a bid to pacify Moscow."NATO is offering scraps. The US could offer larger pieces of meat, mostly from the vulnerable part of the animal, which is the [alliance's] eastern flank", one of the sources said.'Nothing Without NATO's European Allies', US Envoy Says Smith stressed that "there was broad support for engaging in a dialogue", arguing that every NATO country "brings a different history to the table, everyone sits in a different corner of Europe". "NATO brings European allies to the table. Nothing about them without them  NATO assures that", the ambassador said.Russia Wants 'Written Responses' From US to Moscow Security Guarantee Proposals Russia's Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov, for his part, told Newsweek that "it must be admitted" that Moscow's discussion with the US and NATO "have not yet yielded any significant results".He said that the main topic of the talks "was to preserve peace and stability in Europe by working out security guarantees on the basis of draft agreements proposed by Moscow".The draft accords were presented to the US and NATO in December 2021. The documents stipulate legal obligations that NATO will refrain from advancing eastwards and accepting new members from the former Soviet Union, especially Ukraine and Georgia.The agreements also oblige the alliance to refrain from creating NATO military bases on the territories of former Soviet republics, with a separate proposal pertaining to the non-deployment of short- and intermediate-range missiles in the region.Tensions over Ukraine, meanwhile, show no signs of slowing as the US and its Western allies continue to accuse Russia of amassing troops near its border with Ukraine and preparing for an "invasion". Moscow rejects the accusations as unsubstantiated, also underscoring its sovereign right to deploy troops within Russia's borders at its own discretion.

https://sputniknews.com/20220115/us-nato-ready-to-continue-dialogue-with-russia-after-nato-russia-council-dept-of-state-1092274462.html

https://sputniknews.com/20220112/german-lawmaker-says-russia-rightfully-demands-nato-ban-ukraine-from-joining-alliance-1092217483.html

us

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Oleg Burunov https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/09/0b/1080424846_0:0:2048:2048_100x100_80_0_0_3d7b461f8a98586fa3fe739930816aea.jpg

Oleg Burunov https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/09/0b/1080424846_0:0:2048:2048_100x100_80_0_0_3d7b461f8a98586fa3fe739930816aea.jpg

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Oleg Burunov https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/09/0b/1080424846_0:0:2048:2048_100x100_80_0_0_3d7b461f8a98586fa3fe739930816aea.jpg

russia, us, talks, nato, agreements, missiles, diplomats, deployment, countries, security guarantees
https://sputniknews.com/20220116/stoltenberg-says-nato-wont-agree-to-keep-military-within-pre-1997-borders-1092303995.html

Stoltenberg Says NATO Won't Agree to Keep Military Within Pre-1997 Borders

Stoltenberg Says NATO Won't Agree to Keep Military Within Pre-1997 Borders

Russia previously slammed the alliance's creeping expansion, saying that NATO should return to the positions that existed at the moment of signing the 1997 Russia-NATO Founding Act.

2022-01-16T20:26+0000

2022-01-16T20:26+0000

2022-01-16T20:33+0000

military & intelligence

russia

jens stoltenberg

nato expansion

arms control

russia-nato row on european security

security

troops

talks

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NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Sunday the bloc would never pull allied troops from member states that had joined it since 1997, but is ready to discuss arms reduction with Russia.This would mean having a second-class NATO of countries not protected by the alliance, the secretary-general said, adding "we will never introduce that."On Monday, Russia and the US held a strategic stability dialogue meeting in Geneva. The bilateral talks were followed by a NATO-Russia Council meeting in Brussels on Wednesday, the first since 2019, and OSCE talks in Vienna the next day.According to the Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov, the talks were meant to "preserve peace and stability" in Europe by putting legally binding guarantees down on paper.On December 17, Russia released its draft security suggestions to the United States and NATO, which include mutual security guarantees in Europe, non-deployment of short- and intermediate-range missiles within reach of each other's territory, and NATO's non-expansion eastward into former Soviet republics surrounding Russia.In 1997, Russia and NATO signed the Founding Act, under which the alliance pledged to "carry out its collective defense and other missions by ensuring the necessary interoperability, integration, and capability for reinforcement rather than by additional permanent stationing of substantial combat forces." However, three former Warsaw pact members  Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic  joined NATO right away in 1999, followed by Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia, as well as Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Slovenia in 2004.NATOs expansion after the Cold War has been the largest to date, both in the number of new members admitted and in terms of the political consequences.

https://sputniknews.com/20220116/nato-russia-relations-near-red-line-due-to-alliances-military-support-of-ukraine-peskov-tells-cnn-1092300360.html

russia

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military & intelligence, russia, jens stoltenberg, nato expansion, arms control, security, troops, talks
https://sputniknews.com/20220116/taliban-fighters-use-force-against-afghan-women-protesting-for-rights-in-kabul-1092298696.html

Taliban Fighters Use Force Against Afghan Women Protesting for Rights in Kabul

Taliban Fighters Use Force Against Afghan Women Protesting for Rights in Kabul

KABUL (Sputnik) - The Taliban* on Sunday used force against Afghan women who once again took to the streets of Kabul to protest violations of their rights and... 16.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-16T14:00+0000

2022-01-16T14:00+0000

2022-01-16T14:00+0000

protests

afghanistan

taliban

women

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https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/09/04/1083794987_0:160:3073:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_baabf3c2fadfa243386d09982f144a1c.jpg

According to the source, the Taliban fired tear gas and pepper spray at the demonstrators.Last week, the Taliban's Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice issued posters in Kabul ordering Afghan women to cover up. Also, the ministry had prohibited women from travelling without having their faces covered in public transport. The Taliban had also banned women from appearing in media and attending educational institutions without conforming attire.After the Taliban takeover in August, Afghan women have repeatedly protested in a number of cities in the country, asking that their rights be respected and for representation in the government and local authorities.*Organisation is under UN sanctions over terrorist activities

afghanistan

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protests, afghanistan, taliban, women
https://sputniknews.com/20220116/trump-toughest-country-to-deal-with-was-not-china-north-korea-or-russia--its-us-1092289564.html

Trump: Toughest Country to Deal With Was Not China, North Korea or Russia  It's US

Trump: Toughest Country to Deal With Was Not China, North Korea or Russia  It's US

The 45th president continues to criticise the Biden administration over its purported inability to deal with an influx of illegal immigrants and foreign policy... 16.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-16T03:46+0000

2022-01-16T03:46+0000

2022-01-16T04:50+0000

joe biden

donald trump

russia

china

military

trump rally

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According to former US President Donald Trump, the toughest country he dealt with during his term in office was the United States."This crowd is a massive symbol of what took place because the people are hungry for the truth: They want their country back", Trump told his "Save America" rally. "I want their country back between the open borders and the bad elections, and we were always thought of a beautiful country that had fair elections, and now we're [the] laughingstock all over the world for many reasons".Trump Says Never Had Problems of 'Lack of Respect' From Other StatesPer the ex-president, there were no issues with Russia and Ukraine, or Taiwan and Chinese President Xi Jinping during his term.Trump exaggerated Moscow's statements regarding the possibility of deploying military infrastructure abroad, claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin is allegedly planning to "go into" Cuba and Venezuela.Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told RTVI on Thursday that he was not going to confirm or rule anything out either with respect to the possibility of Russian military infrastructure being deployed to Cuba or Venezuela.US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Thursday, when commenting on Ryabkov's statement suggesting that Moscow could be considering a military presence in Latin America, that this issue was not raised during the strategic stability talks but the US would deal with such a situation "decisively" if it were to arise.2024 ElectionsTrump appears to have hinted at a possible re-election bid in 2 years."I do believe that 2024 will be even more important, [but] this is the year we are going to take back the House, we are going to take back the Senate, and we are going to take back America. This is so important".

russia

china

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joe biden, donald trump, russia, china, military, trump rally
https://sputniknews.com/20220116/uk-authorities-concerned-about-anti-vaxxer-movement-as-it-tends-to-extremism-report-says-1092299711.html

UK Authorities Concerned About Anti-Vaxxer Movement as it Tends To Extremism, Report Says

UK Authorities Concerned About Anti-Vaxxer Movement as it Tends To Extremism, Report Says

The coronavirus pandemic has spawned numerous conspiracy theories, which in turn galvanized anti-vaccination movements across the world with protests staged against safety restrictions, vaccine mandates and COVID-19 passports.

2022-01-16T17:15+0000

2022-01-16T17:15+0000

2022-01-16T17:15+0000

uk

protests

pandemic

extremism

death threats

vaccine hesitancy

coronavirus

covid-19

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British authorities are concerned about its home-grown anti-vaxxer movement as it has tended towards violent extremism, The Observer reported, citing a government source. According to the insider, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is receiving updates from police and counter-terrorism officials about individuals prepared to "undermine national health security".Among the agencies who have the responsibility of monitoring the anti-vaxxer movement is the Home Offices department for security and counter-terrorism and its research, information and communications unit. Other offices assessing the movements activity are the counter-extremism analysis and insight programme (CEAI), extremism analysis unit (EAU) and the counter-disinformation unit, which is part of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.Conveyor Belt to Extremist GroupsAside from ordinary protests, members of the anti-vaxxer movment have been known to send death threats to schools which host vaccination programmes. Last month they stormed a COVID-19 resting site, which they apparently mistook for a vaccination centre. Videos posted online show demonstrators insulting medical staff, accusing them of "genocide".One of the most outspoken activists is Piers Corbyn, who has recently been arrested after he encouraged demonstrators to find MPs who voted for COVID-19 safety restrictions, and burn their offices.One of the groups involved in protests is Alpha Men Assemble (AMA). According to The Observer, which viewed messages by its members on the Telegram messaging app, AMA has offered its followers training in self-defence with "professional men" and told them to buy "black style uniforms". The group, which has 7,000 followers on Telegram, encouraged members to adopt anti-surveillance tactics  telling them to communicate offline or via ham and citizen band radios as well as to use burner phones.AMA also said several former servicemen joined its ranks. "Im English. Ex RAF. My mission statement was a 'force for good'. I believed in that," read a message on Telegram according to The Observer. Another anti-vaxxer group Veterans 4 Freedom mentioned violent insurrection in which vaccination centres are targeted, The Observer writes.Assessment conducted by government departments described the movement as a "conveyor belt" which delivers new recruits to extremist groups, including racially and ethnically motivated organisations.Milo Comerford, head of research and policy at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, said governments in Europe and North America are struggling with the growing prominence of a highly ideologically eclectic movements, which emerge at the intersection of COVID-19 conspiracies and extremism.

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2022

Max Gorbachev

Max Gorbachev

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Max Gorbachev

uk, protests, pandemic, extremism, death threats, vaccine hesitancy, coronavirus, covid-19
https://sputniknews.com/20220116/us-surgeon-general-predicts-tough-next-few-weeks-due-to-omicron-variant-1092304150.html

US Surgeon General Predicts Tough Next Few Weeks Due to Omicron Variant

US Surgeon General Predicts Tough Next Few Weeks Due to Omicron Variant

US Surgeon General Predicts Tough Next Few Weeks Due to Omicron Variant

2022-01-16T21:04+0000

2022-01-16T21:04+0000

2022-01-16T21:04+0000

us

vaccinations

surgeon

coronavirus

omicron strain

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US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy warned Sunday that the next several weeks will be tough as the number of positively tested with COVID-19 would continue to grow due to the spread of the new Omicron variant.According to Murthy, the US is currently seeing 800,000 new cases daily. However, the situation has stabilized in some states, including New York.The doctor stressed that it is important to surge resources to hospitals that are struggling, and double down on precautions, including vaccinations. Murthy noted that he is disappointed with the US Supreme Court ruling that banned president Joe Bidens vaccine mandate for large private businesses.Murthy added that the administration nevertheless welcomes the voluntary implementation of vaccine-or-test requirements and a third of the Fortune 100 companies have put these in place, and many more outside have.While the surgeon general did not give a prediction as to the number of infected people that the US could expect in the near term, he underscored that the most important job of vaccines is to save your life and keep you out of the hospital.And by that measure, these vaccines and boosters are working and working well, he said. Now, you will hear, as many people have already heard, about people who have cases that are mild or asymptomatic, people who test positive despite being vaccinated or boosted. But keep in mind, what is often being prevented there is a more severe infection.On Thursday, the Supreme Court struck down the governments Occupational Safety and Health Administrations (OSHA) COVID-19 vaccine mandate that required workers of businesses with 100 or more employees to get vaccinated or tested every week.

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2022

Alexandra Kashirina

Alexandra Kashirina

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Alexandra Kashirina

us, vaccinations, surgeon, coronavirus, omicron strain
I was extremely disappointed to read the many misleading statements made in the CT Mirror story How state keeps unclaimed money away from public [Connecticut, Page 1, Jan. 5].

In this age of misinformation, its important to get the facts. Therefore, I want to correct these false narratives. Suggestions in the article that state officials purposefully work in a partisan conspiracy that keeps unclaimed money to cushion the budgets of the General Fund and Citizens Election Fund are unequivocally false.

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With over 15 years of management experience at the Office of the Treasurer administering Connecticuts unclaimed properties, I have been dedicated to reuniting rightful owners with their property, while ensuring compliance with state law. As immediate past vice president for the eastern region and a long-standing member of the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA), I have been focused on best practices for reconnecting property to rightful owners. And, throughout my career, the division has and will continue to return property diligently and lawfully to rightful owners. I want to explain how Connecticuts program actually works.

Unclaimed property refers to assets that are often abandoned or forgotten cash deposits in banks and other business entities. Connecticuts unclaimed property program was established over a century ago as a consumer protection law, requiring the Office of the Treasurer to receive, account for, and safeguard these funds until rightful owners make claims. By law, unclaimed property is turned over to our office once the holder of the assets cannot locate the owner for generally three years or more. However, the right of owners to get their property back is guaranteed by the state forever. Legal requirements to transfer some of these assets annually for the public good, including the states General Fund and Citizens Election Fund, do not inhibit in any way the ability of rightful owners to claim their property.

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Since Treasurer Shawn Wooden came into office in 2019, he has taken key steps to improve the efficiency of the unclaimed property program, making the states process for property owners to identify and submit claims easier than any time in the history of this program.

In fact, in fiscal year 2020, Connecticut ranked second nationally in rate of return of unclaimed property, according to NAUPAs annual report covering 48 states that submitted performance data. That year, Connecticuts rate of return was 55.11%, while the national average was 40.33%.

The Connecticut Capitol, 2020. (Mark Mirko / Hartford Courant/Hartford Courant)

Last February, our office rolled out a new CTBigList.com website, giving Connecticut residents the ability to make paperless claims online, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Data on this website is now updated daily. Following these updated features, CTBigList, claims increased by nearly 32%, realizing Woodens efforts to make the process easier for residents to file a claim.

CTBigList.com lists unclaimed property valued at $50 or more in compliance with state law. Everyone can get their money back, even with unclaimed property valued under $50. In addition to the CTBigList website, customer service is available by calling to speak to a representative who can look up a potential claimants name, including searching for properties below the statutory threshold unlisted online.

Over 99% of Connecticuts unclaimed properties are either valued above the statutory $50 threshold for publication or associated with names that can be found through the CTBigList online search. (STEPHEN HILGER / BLOOMBERG NEWS)

It is important to note that over 99% of Connecticuts unclaimed properties are either valued above the statutory $50 threshold for publication or associated with names that can be found through the CTBigList online search. This means that less than 1% of all unclaimed properties require a phone call for a quick name search for individual values under $50. Most people who file a valid claim on CTBigList get more money back than initially identified because our office matches the claimant with unclaimed property of any value in our system. The added dollar amount returned to rightful owners often relates to unclaimed property under the statutory $50 threshold automatically matched and added to a claimants name by our office when their claim is processed.

I am proud the unclaimed property division annually returns millions of dollars to thousands of rightful owners. Its now easier than ever to get your unclaimed property in Connecticut. We encourage everyone to visit www.CTBigList.com or call 1-800-833-7318 to see if youve got money.

Maria Greenslade is an assistant treasurer at Connecticuts Office of the Treasurer, leading the unclaimed property division since 2006
https://sputniknews.com/20220116/watch-two-hostages-escape-texas-synagogue-hostage-taker-minutes-before-he-is-shot-dead-by-police-1092303809.html

Watch Two Hostages Escape Colleyville Synagogue Attacker Minutes Before He Is Shot Dead by Police

Watch Two Hostages Escape Colleyville Synagogue Attacker Minutes Before He Is Shot Dead by Police

Mentally-ill British man Malik Faisal Akram, who had recently travelled to the US and acquired a handgun on 'the street', took a rabbi and three other men... 16.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-16T21:11+0000

2022-01-16T21:11+0000

2022-01-16T21:14+0000

us

texas

jews

synagogue

hostage situation

lancashire

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The tense moment when two Jewish hostages escaped from a Texas synagogue was captured on video.In the footage from ABC news local affiliate WFAA, two men suddenly burst out of a door in the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in the town of Colleyville. Suspect Malik Faisal Akram, a British national from Blackburn in Lancashire who had recently travelled to the the US, is seen pursuing the pair gun-in-hand, only to halt in the doorway before retreating back inside.FBI SWAT team commandoes stormed the building on Saturday night. Akram was killed, although full details of the circumstances have yet to be released.An FBI spokesman said later that the British hostage-taker was "singularly focused on one issue," which was not "specifically related to the Jewish community."Akram took four hostages at the synagogue during worship on Saturday morning, the Jewish sabbath. He reportedly demanded the release of Dr Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist, but released one hostage earlier in the day.Siddiqui was jailed for 86 years in 2010 for the attempted murder of US military officers while under arrest in Afghanistan, in circumstances which her Houston-based lawyers still contest. Akram's family said they were "devastated" by his death and "do not condone any of his actions and would like to sincerely apologize wholeheartedly to all the victims involved in the unfortunate incident".His brother Gulbar revealed the family had talked to Faisal for hours during the siege in a bid to persuade him to surrender.

https://sputniknews.com/20220116/biden-calls-texas-synagogue-hostage-situation-an-act-of-terror-1092302178.html

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texas

lancashire

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James Tweedie https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/08/1c/1080307270_0:3:397:400_100x100_80_0_0_7777393b9b18802f2e3c5eaa9cbcc612.png

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us, texas, jews, synagogue, hostage situation, lancashire
Standardbred Canada has a full-time contract position available in the Member Services department.

Position: Member Services Agent

Status: Full Time - Contract

Department: Member Services

Reports To: Member Services Manager & Registrar

Our Mission:

Standardbred Canada is the national leader that records and communicates information about Standardbred breeding and racing.

Our Vision:

Standardbred Canada is an essential support for the standardbred horse industry in Canada.

Our Values:

Its about the H.O.R.S.E. of course ... Honesty / Integrity, Own It, Respect, Service to Others, Excellence

Youre invited to be a part of our fun, dynamic and professional team.

We are Standardbred Canada (SC), a non-profit association with over 6,000 members and the National Breed Registry for harness racing in Canada. We maintain and manage pedigree and racing data for standardbred horses in Canada and promote and support the industry by offering equine news and services for our members and race fans through a national magazine, website and excellent customer service.

We have a full-time contract position available in the Member Services department of Standardbred Canada. This position will begin in March 2022 and extend to October 2023.

Responsibilities (include but are not limited to):

 Assist with the execution of stake contracts including collection of stake payments and memberships

 Add events and maintain stake content on SC Database, SC Website including stake advertising in TROT Magazine

 Assist with Pedigree Services

 Assist with transfers and claims process

 Assist with foal registration process

 Process membership registrations when required

 Respond to telephone and email inquiries

 Scan, index, and quality control of electronic imaging of documents

 Assist with daily mail processing

 Must be able to work collaboratively with other staff members

 Provide back up to the other staff of Member Services department

 Other duties that may be assigned

Qualifications:

 Background knowledge of the Standardbred industry

 Excellent customer service skills

 Intermediate working knowledge of Microsoft Word and Excel

 Self-motivated, enthusiastic, resourceful, and strong team player

 Ability to work in fast paced environment

 Detail oriented with excellent time management skills

Interested applicants are asked to please send your cover letter, and resume to:

[email protected].

Deadline for application: February 15, 2022

We thank all those who apply but only those applicants who are selected for an interview will be contacted.
MY friends dog was on the same kind of heartworm medicine that I give to my dog. Her dog died last week in the emergency clinic from a disease called IMHA. The emergency doctor told her that it could have been related to the heartworm medicine she gave two days before or the Lyme disease vaccine that was given a week earlier. Should I change types of heartworm medication?

Please do not change heartworm medications, or worse yet stop giving heartworm preventives, because of this story. IMHA, or immune mediated hemolytic anemia, is an immune system malfunction where the body attacks and destroys its own red blood cells.

We do not understand enough about the immune system to know for sure why it occasionally malfunctions. We do know that there is a genetic component of the IMHA disease. Certain breeds and certain lines can carry the gene. This is the only certain cause in all cases. But we also know that in susceptible animals any stimulation of the immune system can trigger an attack.

The immune system is stimulated by thousands of different challenges every day. Bacteria in the mouth or skin stimulate the immune system. Viruses and pollens in the air stimulate it. Chemicals and detergents in the environment cause immune stimulation. Bug bites and protein in food can set off an immune reaction.

Vaccines are designed to stimulate an immune reaction, so they indeed can trigger a crisis in patients with IMHA. Any medication has the potential to stimulate the immune system if an animal is sensitive to it. When a patient with IMHA has a crisis event, it is usually impossible to tell exactly what set it offunless it is associated with a vaccine or known insect bite.

While the details will have to wait for a future column, I also believe strongly in vaccination for Lyme disease for almost all dogs. I recommend the newer recombinant-DNA vaccines that are very gentle on the immune system compared to the older whole cell products that are more likely to cause a negative reaction.

A pet with a history or family history of IMHA should probably limit vaccines as much as possible. Talk to your veterinarian about the most appropriate program for your individual pet.

Heartworm medication is frequently blamed for IMHA reactions by pet owners, but there is no scientific evidence that the preventives currently on the market stimulate the immune system any more than other medications and chemicals pets are exposed to. It turns out that roughly one in five dogs having an IMHA crisis had a heartworm preventive in the past week.

Many people take the easy answer and suggest this is evidence of a link. But correlation does not mean causation. The same percentage of dogs who get hit by cars also have had a heartworm pill in the past week. Why? Because most dogs get these medicines once a month, not because the pills cause car accidents!

The main point here is that, unless your pet is directly related to your friends, you should not change your pets regimen based on her unfortunate circumstances. The risk of heartworm disease is very high in Virginia. Four to six thousand dogs are diagnosed with the disease every year in our state.

The preventives also reduce the incidence of intestinal parasites, which infect as many as one in three dogs and pose a very real risk to human health. Almost every dog in Virginia should receive a dose monthly.

We also see more and more Lyme disease every year. I see dogs get sick and even die from Lyme disease much, much more frequently than I see IMHA.

Dr. Michael J. Watts owns Clevengers Corner Veterinary Care in Amissville.
I HAVE several issues that I believe the Virginia General Assembly should take up during its 2022 session just begun.

The first is drafting a referendum to decide if Richmond should remain the states capital.

During the past five or six years, Richmond has come under increased criticism because of its Confederate statues and the fact that it was the capital of the Confederacy.

Statues have been defaced, desecrated and ultimately removed because they have been deemed offensive to some. Road names have been and continue to be changed because of what some people consider their offensive nature.

Despite the cleanup, the fact remains that the city was once the capital of the Confederate States of America. Thus, no matter how many name changes are made, the stain will always remain.

So why should the capital of Virginia be associated with the Confederacy? Maybe the time has come when it should be moved somewhere else.

Where? That, of course, would be for the voters to decide if the proposed referendum passes. Roanoke might be a good option since it is more in the geographic center of the state. Or maybe Harrisonburg. Or Staunton.

Nope, not Staunton, because that city is still associated with the insane asylum that used to be there. Absolutely not politically correct.

Yet the new capital should definitely be on the west side of the Blue Ridge Mountains and away from current political pressures.

Maybe we should tear down the present Capitol and turn it into a city park. Or maybe remove the present inhabitants of the entire city and turn the whole area into a national park.

One thing that absolutely should be changed is the name of that Powhite Parkway. That offends me every time I see or hear it. Some try to say this is pronounced Pow-hite Parkway, but we all know it is Po White Parkway, short for Poor White Trash Parkway, and about as racist as you can get.

Another matter the legislature should take up is dividing Virginia into two states. The people in the rest of the state have very little in common with Northern Virginia, so that area needs to be split off and the state of North Virginia created.

Better still, give Northern Virginia to the District of Columbia. D.C. could then annex Prince Georges and Montgomery counties from Maryland and become its own state.

What would be the boundaries of North Virginia? Everything north of the Rappahannock River becomes North Virginia, including the counties of Loudoun, Fauquier, Prince William, Stafford, Fairfax and Arlington.

Let North Virginia build its own roads without taking revenue from the rest of the state. Let the people there establish their own government.

Finally, the General Assembly should consider allowing dogs to vote in state and local elections. It is generally conceded today that dogs are part of the family, so why should any part of the American family be prevented from voting?

All the time I hear, Thats my baby, referring to the family dog. If thats your baby, then he should be entitled to cast a vote.

Of course, the General Assembly should adjust the age limit so that dog years could be taken into consideration. Whatever is compatible with 18 years in human life should be the minimum.

The biggest problem with this proposal is determining whether dogs are Republicans or Democrats. We know for certain that cats are Democrats, but dogs are more unpredictable. They could be members of either party and politicians would worry that they would upset the balance of power.

Personally, I would suggest that hunting dogs be labeled Republican and house dogs be labeled as Democrats. But thats something that would have to be worked out by the legislature.

Cat owners may cry for equal rights, but there is no way I would let any cat anywhere near a voting machine. You talk about voter fraud! Cats absolutely cannot be trusted.

I know the General Assembly has a lot to deal with in the next two months, but I believe that these are issues which should demand the legislatures full attention.

Columnist Donnie Johnston lives in Culpeper County. Email him at djohn40330@aol.com .
Tonia Verbeck has always had an eye for antique and vintage items and a heart for local businesses. Thats why, five years ago, she decided to put together what is now known as the Heirloom Market in Bayard.

I started with more vintage and antique items  just buying up from auctions and garage sales, and it got to the point where my husbands like, Whats your plan here with all this stuff? I dont know I like it, but I dont really have room for it, Verbeck said. But another huge part is handmade  its really important to me to support, I think its just an amazing thing to be a small business supporting other small businesses within your business.

The biennial market began in a barn on a farm near Bridgeport. Verbeck gathered many of her antiques to sell and invited various vendors to partake as well. Since that first farmyard experience, the market has grown not only into a 70-vendor market, but also its own storefront in downtown Bayard.

My idea behind it was pop-up style, so I never really anticipated it being a Monday through Saturday kind of storefront, she said. My thought was maybe just once a month, open up  so kind of similar to what we were doing with the markets, but on like a monthly (basis), a little more often. But again, not a weekly storefront  not like a traditional storefront I should say.

The pop-up idea didnt quite stick, however, thanks to the pandemic, Verbeck said.

Then COVID hit, and so that prevented us from even opening up our doors. Originally, we were set to open in March of 2020, and (we) had our big grand opening and everything lined up and (we were) devastated when that all hit, she said. So, we held out till the end of May and had a grand opening at that point. And, it was obvious that I couldnt ask people to flock in here once a month, because compared to the markets, you know, we were getting a pretty good flow (of traffic). And so, I, at that point, made the decision to open up on Friday and Saturday every weekend.

That weekly opening quickly turned into a daily one. The Heirloom Market Mercantile, which the storefront is called, now has Monday through Saturday hours.

It wasnt long that Verbeck decided to expand once again.

We were entering the summer of 2020, and that was kind of the first time that people were just revving to get out. We were seeing so many people flocking to the Midwest  from I mean, the amount of people Ive had in here from New York, LA, Chicago, I mean, its wild, she said. They are all just trying to get out, and theyre coming to the Midwest and just seeing what were all about, just hitting the road. And so, these travelers would come through and theyd ask, Wheres there to get a cup of coffee or bite to eat? And originally, my back porch of my building was just utilized for storage, and so it got me thinking, I could maybe swing that. So, then we added on the coffee shop.

The coffee shop in the back of the building, called The Vault, has filled one more need in the small community of Bayard, Verbeck said; even though she often gets questions about how her handful of businesses can thrive in such a small market.

I think its surprising to a lot of people that it is going well. I think the other benefit to where were at and just kind of what people are used to in the Panhandle is you have to drive to go to just about anything, she said. Its a good in between sort of place.

Verbeck attributes a lot of her success also to the fact that shes already established herself in the community with the biennial spring and fall markets, which she still hosts in downtown Bayard.

Without kind of having the markets and having that kind of familiarity with my customers  I dont know  would it have been as successful? Im not sure. But, just people knowing that we did that and had been doing it for quite some time, and with each market, its continued to grow, she said. I really believe had I not had the markets and the reputation and the building from starting that, maybe it would have taken a little bit longer to get the business off the ground and running.

For Verbeck, its not just been about providing a place to shop in Bayard; its been about providing an experience.

I think the shoppers that have come to the market, they just, theyre looking for an experience, right? So, they want to come, they want to shop, they want to eat, drink, she said. And so, its kind of provided a place to be able  like a destination to be able to do all of that.

Verbecks hope is to one day see small-town Bayard have a flourishing downtown atmosphere, like the one she has in her storefront and at her markets. If more businesses might open up next to hers, she said she could see Bayard becoming another Panhandle destination.

Id love to see this town just full of other shops for people to make the trip here and just be able to make a whole day out of it, she said. Thats my dream.

The Heirloom Market Mercantile, located at 401 Main St. in Bayard, is open Monday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. The Vault coffee shop is open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday.

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Picture a mature, broad-branched tree like an oak, maple or fig. How does it reproduce so that its offspring dont grow up in its shadow, fighting for light?

The answer is seed dispersal. Plants have evolved many strategies for spreading their seeds away from the parent plant. Some produce seedlings that float on the wind. Others have fruits that actually explode, ejecting their seeds.

And more than half of all plants rely on wildlife to disperse their seeds. This typically happens when animals eat fruits from plants or carry away their nuts, then excrete or drop the seeds somewhere else. In tropical rainforests, animals disperse the seeds of up to 90% of tree species.

Today the Earth is losing species at a rapid rate, potentially representing the sixth mass extinction in its history. In a newly published study, we examine what this loss means for seed dispersal, focusing on birds and mammals that disperse fleshy-fruited plants.

We assessed how seed dispersers help plants shift their geographic ranges to reach habitats newly suitable for growth  a crucial mechanism for surviving climate change. If not enough seeds disperse to track the environmental conditions like temperature and precipitation that plants require, the plants could be stuck in settings where they will struggle to survive. This could lead to losses of plant species, along with the valuable products and services they provide, ranging from food to carbon storage.

Researchers follow brown spider monkeys in a Colombian tropical forest to determine which plant seeds they are dispersing.

A new era for plant movement

Animals have been dispersing seeds for millions of years, but the relationships between plants and their seed dispersers have changed dramatically in our modern era.

Berries in California are no longer eaten by grizzly bears, which disappeared from the state a century ago. On the island of Madagascar, seeds no longer travel in the bellies of gorilla-sized lemurs, which went extinct there about 2,300 years ago. In France, seeds dont catch a ride on the fur of lions or between the toes of rhinos that once lived there, as shown in prehistoric cave paintings. When animals disperse seeds today, their movement is often hampered by roads, farms or built-up areas.

For most animal-dispersed plants  especially those with large seeds, which require large animals like tapirs, elephants and hornbills to spread them  these changes mean a big reduction in seed dispersal, and a great slowdown of plant movement.

Quantifying whats been lost

Only a small fraction of the thousands of seed disperser species and tens of thousands of animal-dispersed plant species have been studied directly. Many seed disperser species are extinct or so rare that they cant be studied at all.

To overcome this challenge, we pulled together data from published studies showing which bird and mammal seed dispersers eat which fruits, how far they spread the seeds, and how their digestive systems effects on the seeds help or hinder germination. These three steps together describe whats required for successful seed dispersal: A seed must be removed from the mother plant, travel some distance away from it and survive to become a seedling.

Next, we used machine learning to generate predictions for seed dispersal, based on the traits of each species. For example, data on a medium-sized thrush in North America could help us model how a medium-sized thrush species from Asia dispersed seeds, even if the Asian species wasnt studied directly.

Using our trained model, we could estimate seed dispersal by every bird and mammal species  even rare or extinct species for which there isnt any species-specific data on the seed dispersal process.

The last step was to compare current seed dispersal to what would be happening if extinctions and species range contractions hadnt happened. For fleshy-fruited plants, we estimate that because of bird and mammal losses, 60% fewer seeds are being dispersed far enough worldwide to keep pace with climate change by shifting locations. Further, we estimate that if currently endangered seed disperser species such as bonobos, savanna elephants and helmeted hornbills became extinct, global seed dispersal would decline by an additional 15%.

The impact of past seed disperser declines has been greatest in areas including North America, Europe and the southern part of South America. Future losses of endangered species would have their most severe impacts in areas including Southeast Asia and Madagascar.

With fewer seed dispersers present, fewer seeds will be moved far enough to enable plants to adapt to climate change by shifting their ranges.

Seed dispersers help sustain forests

Seed dispersal also helps forests and other natural ecosystems recover from disturbances like wildfire and deforestation. This means that mammals and birds play a major role in sustaining natural vegetation.

Most forest recovery around the world happens through seed dispersal and natural forest regrowth rather than via people planting trees. Seed dispersal by animals is especially important for tropical forests, which can grow back relatively quickly after they are logged or burned.

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Seed dispersers also promote biodiversity by helping to ensure that a large number of plant species can survive and thrive. Ecosystems that contain many plant species with diverse genetic makeups are better equipped to handle uncertain futures, and to sustain the ecosystem functions that humans rely on, such as storing carbon, producing food and timber, filtering water and controlling floods and erosion.

There are ways to increase seed dispersal. Making sure patches of similar habitats are connected helps species move among them. Restoring populations of important seed dispersers, ranging from toucans to bears to elephants, will also help. And global models of seed dispersal like ours can help scientists and land managers think about seed dispersers as a nature-based solution for addressing climate change.

Evan Fricke, faculty fellow in ecology and evolutionary biology, Rice University; Alejandro Ordonez, assistant professor of global change biology, Aarhus University; Haldre Rogers, associate professor of ecology, evolution and organismal biology, Iowa State University; Jens-Christian Svenning, professor of ecology, Aarhus University.

Evan Fricke receives funding from the National Science Foundation.

Alejandro Ordonez receives funding from the Aarhus University Research Fund.

Haldre Rogers receives funding from the US National Science Foundation and the US Department of Defense's Joint Region Marianas and Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program. She is affiliated with the nonprofit organization, Tano Tasi yan Todu.

Jens-Christian Svenning receives funding from numerous research funding agencies and private foundations, currently mainly VILLUM Fonden, Independent Research Fund Denmark, European Commission, Novo Nordisk Foundation, and Danida Fellowship Centre. He is on the Supervisory Board for Rewilding Europe.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

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With 1.4 billion consumers, China is a place with abundant potential. China also is ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, a longtime belligerent which enslaves its own people, steals intellectual and tangible property, and flouts fundamental values like national sovereignty, free enterprise, democracy, and the rule of law around the world. While Congress has taken several small steps to restrain China this year, including passing the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act which bans products made with slave labor in Chinas Xinjiang region, the Biden Administration is failing to more directly confront Chinas aggression.

January 15th is the second anniversary of the U.S.-China Phase One trade deal negotiated by President Trump and provides an opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of our approach to China. We have had some clear wins under the Phase One agreement, but President Bidens inaction could undo this progress even as we work to build on it. By signing the Phase One trade deal, China committed to increase market access for American goods across four sectors -- agriculture, services, manufacturing, and energy -- and make key reforms to practices damaging American businesses like intellectual property theft and currency manipulation.

Two years later, China is nowhere near fulfilling its obligations under Phase One. While the final numbers for December 2021 are not out yet, experts say between January 2020 and November 2021, Chinese imports of American goods reached only sixty percent of the Phase One target. China also failed to fulfill other commitments like instituting intellectual property reforms. On issues like Canadian dairy and European aircraft subsidies, America has not given our allies a free pass when they fail to meet their trade commitments; we certainly must not let the Chinese Communist Party off the hook.

Over the last several weeks, China has continued to antagonize nations around the world, conducting war games targeting democratic Taiwan, banning Lithuanian products and other European products containing Lithuanian components because of a diplomatic dispute, and provoking uncertainty about control of Ugandas only international airport. Negotiating trade agreements globally is a critical way for us and our potential partners to grow economically and counter Chinas influence. In addition to demonstrating the value of economic and political freedom to developing nations, these agreements ensure we have a seat at the table when China tries to exploit their influence. Restarting negotiations with Kenya, completing our trade agreement with Japan, and re-entering the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) are easy first steps the Biden Administration should be taking where much of the work has already been completed.

President Biden needs to stop watching and act. The Presidents foreign policy team has done little to take on China, and his administration is producing only outlines for action with no detail. That is not good enough. President Biden must also address Chinas blatant disregard for international trade laws by working to reform the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO was built to check nations like China when they cheat. However, as it stands now, with no functioning WTO dispute settlement process and the Biden administration declining to act, China is running rampant. Americans and the friends of freedom around the world cannot afford to wait.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Georgia Tuesday to push their partys bill to federalize U.S. election procedures on terms favorable to Democrats. We are going right to the belly of the beast, or ground zero, for voter suppression, voter subversion and obstruction, senior White House official Cedric Richmond told Politico.

Led by Stacey Abrams, who refused to accept the results of the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election (she lost), Democrats have used the unsupported notion of widespread voter suppression as the foundation for two bills -- the For the People Act in the House and the later Freedom to Vote Act in the Senate -- that would throw out every state voter ID law in the country; that would legalize ballot harvesting nationwide; that would mandate universal mail-in ballots; that would mandate nationwide same-day and automatic voter registration; that would mandate nationwide acceptance of late-arriving mail-in ballots; that would remake the campaign finance system; and much, much more.

One bill has already passed the House, where it is easier to pass partisan measures, even when one party has only a tiny majority. But there is no way in the world the bill can pass the Senate, where Democrats do not control a majority of the seats. Theres no proof Democrats can even win a simple majority vote -- that is, muster all 50 Democrats for the bill and then rely on Vice President Harris to break the tie -- much less that they can overcome the 60-vote hurdle posed by a Republican filibuster.

So of course Democrats want to get rid of the filibuster. But even if they could do that, they would be left with the 50-votes-plus-Harris strategy, and at the moment, at least two Democratic senators -- Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema -- arent going along. You cant enact anything in the Senate with 48 votes.

And now, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his GOP allies are pushing back. The political left keeps pitching their big lie that mainstream state voting laws are somehow Jim Crow 2.0 if the governor who signs the bill happens to be a Republican, McConnell said last week. In one of the states that triggered this meltdown, the new proposals mandated more days of early voting than many Democrat-run states provide. Our democracy is not in crisis. Repeating this rhetoric does not make it factual. The 2020 election saw the highest turnout in more than 100 years.

As for the filibuster, McConnell noted that just a few years ago, in 2017, 32 Senate Democrats -- including then-Sen. Kamala Harris -- signed a letter opposing changes in the legislative filibuster. And a decade before that, current Majority Leader Charles Schumer vigorously resisted getting rid of the filibuster. The ideologues in the Senate want to turn what the Founding Fathers called the cooling saucer of democracy into the rubber stamp of dictatorship, Schumer said in 2005. They believe if you get 51% of the vote, there should be one-party rule. ... They want to make this country into a banana republic where if you dont get your way, you change the rules. Itll be doomsday for democracy if we do.

Doomsday for democracy if the filibuster were eliminated! Now, of course, Schumer believes the precise opposite of what he said back then. Given his statements and actions, it is no exaggeration to say that Schumers hypocrisy, when it comes to the legislative filibuster, is simply off the scale. (McConnells is not; when then-President Donald Trump urged majority Republican senators to get rid of the legislative filibuster, McConnell said no.)

Why is this fight happening now? Democrats appear to be deeply frustrated by their inability to pass their current top priorities -- the far-reaching voting bills, plus yet another huge spending bill -- with their 50-vote non-majority in the Senate. Their ambitions have outstripped their power in the Senate for the last year. Now the approach of midterm elections makes it even more difficult to get what they want done. So they are lashing out at Republicans and seeking to change the rules. Look for more, not less, of that as the elections grow nearer.
Admission to Air Power Park is free and visitors are able to take a self-guided tour of park displays, which feature jets, missiles and rockets. There is also access to an existing playground for children. (Handout / HANDOUT)

The Hampton History Museum is asking the community to support a potential space-themed playground.

The museum is applying for a grant to fund a destination-learning playground connected to STEM learning and space at Air Power Park, as well as other improvements.

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The museum has asked interested community members to share their support and ideas via an online form by Friday. The comments will be shared with the grant committee.

The outdoor park opened in 1963 and has remained open during the pandemic.

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Admission is free and visitors are able to take a self-guided tour of park displays, which feature jets, missiles and rockets. There is also access to an existing playground for children.

The link to the Google Form to offer comments is available on the citys website www.hampton.gov.

Jessica Nolte, 757-912-1675, jnolte@dailypress.com
Capitol Dispatch is a weekly politics feature focusing on the actions of our local representatives during the 2022 legislative session. It will run every Sunday during the session.

The first week of the legislative session ended without major votes on any of Washingtons hot-button issues. Local representatives expect that to change next week as decisions about the long-term care program move through the House of Representatives.

Two bills modifying the program passed out of the House Appropriations Committee this week. House Bill 1732 would delay the start of the program and the collection of wages until July 2023. House Bill 1733 would make it easier for veterans and workers who live outside of Washington to exempt themselves from the program.

Many of the Republican representatives from Southwest Washington indicated support for the bill delaying the program, but hoped the ultimate result would be a complete abolishment.

Im glad the majority recognizes there are problems with it and this thing isnt ready. But I think it should be a flat-out repeal, Rep. Ed Orcutt said.

The long-term care program collects 0.58% of the paychecks of participating workers to create a benefit pool available once they retire. The benefit would be a one-time payment of $36,500 that could be used for care and transportation.

More than 450,000 Washingtonians opted out of the program during the one-time window to find other coverage. Sen. Ann Rivers suggested the program could have done good by getting people to buy private long-term care insurance instead of participating in the state program.

Board of Health protest fallout

Outshining anything that happened during the first week of the legislative session was the protests outside of Thursdays Board of Health meeting.

Hundreds of people appeared outside the meeting in Tumwater based on widespread false reports the board was preparing to vote on involuntary quarantines for people not vaccinated against COVID-19.

In reality, the board was updating a section of code that allowed superior court judges to order isolations for extreme instances of people knowingly spreading sexually transmitted diseases. A separate agenda was an update about adding COVID-19 vaccines to the list of shots required for students.

Walsh briefly visited the protest and spoke to the assembled crowd. In an interview Friday, Walsh questioned how many of the people outside the Board of Health had bought into the misinformation. He also said the Board deserved a section of the blame for not being transparent about what was actually set to be addressed.

The initial agenda was vague to the point of misleading and it specifically referenced three of the most controversial subsections of the Washington Administrative Code that exist, Walsh said.

Sen. Jeff Wilson made radio appearances ahead of the meeting trying to calm down rumors. Wilson said Friday that while the cause of the public outcry wasnt true, he was happy to see that level of public participation in government agendas.

Because the agenda isnt entirely clear, I can see how it adds to the confusion when that rumor was injected into that process, Wilson said.

Orcutt and Wilson propose tow truck driver protections

Last year, two tow truck drivers were killed while responding to crashes. A Longview truck operator was among three people killed in a fatal crash outside Castle Rock in April and a Kalama driver was hit by a passing truck trailer in September.

Kalamas Rep. Orcutt introduced a bill meant to offer tow truck drivers more protections from passing vehicles. The bill went through a public hearing with the House Transportation Committee on Thursday. If it ends up passing the House, Wilson has a version ready to go in the Senate.

The protections outlined in House Bill 1709 would allow tow truck drivers to use rear-facing blue lights along with the traditional red lights while at the scene of an accident.

I am trying to give drivers more warning and I think a blue light will do a good job. People know to slow down and pull over when they see those lights from law enforcement, Orcutt said.

The bill is being amended after hearing concerns from law enforcement during Thursdays hearing. Orcutt said officers were worried about causing confusion if tow trucks used the lights while driving to a scene of an accident instead of just at the response.

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As Lower Columbia College President Chris Bailey dug through the colleges enrollment data for the current school year, he ran into a surprising number: only 28% of the colleges current students are men.

Lower Columbia College has had a majority of female students for more than a decade. According to the Washington State Board of Community and Technical Colleges, women currently make up 54% of the states community college students.

This school year, however, saw the largest decline among the male student body and has created the biggest gender gap for the school.

We knew there was a trend, but to see the sharp fallout, it was a little disconcerting, Bailey said.

Bailey and directors at the college suspect the decline says more about men forgoing college for other jobs than a wave of female students coming through. They are working with superintendents in Cowlitz and Wahkiakum counties to reach more male high school students about the benefits of the colleges trade programs.

At the same time, LCC also is trying to address areas where the gender divide is imbalanced the other way. In the classes for the manufacturing and transportation trades, men can be more than 80% of the student body.

When Natasha Allen enrolled in the colleges welding program around a decade ago, she often was the only woman in the program for a year. Allen now is a welding instructor and has been vocal about getting more women into the program. This year, one of her blocks of classes had a female majority among its nine students.

The need for a broader pool of possible skilled workers is phenomenal. Its better for companies in Cowlitz County and across the U.S. when they have more people to pick from, Allen said.

Immediate work offers draw in young men

Ryan Flatz saw the enrollment split when he graduated from Toutle Lake High School. While he went on to Washington State University, many of the other guys in his class went straight into the workforce or didnt complete college.

Flatz understood why many of his friends made that decision. After years of students being told college was the ideal next step after high school, students his age started to see college graduates struggle to find work in the areas of their degrees.

Eventually, I think they became disenfranchised with the traditional mantra of going to college right out of school, and the trades have been in such high demand, said Flatz, who is now enrolled in the nursing program at Lower Columbia College.

The pandemic has exaggerated that split while driving down total college enrollment rates. A report released Thursday by the National Student Clearinghouse found at least 900,000 fewer students are enrolled in colleges nationwide this year, compared to the fall of 2019.

One of the steepest drops in enrollment was among men at public two-year colleges. Their college participation rate dropped by 16% over the last two years.

At the same time, the expectation that degrees are needed for high-paying jobs has not gone away. A study from Georgetown University last year found around a quarter of workers with an associates degree or some college experience earned more than the median worker with a bachelors degree.

We want them to be successful earlier, to get them on a path to a career instead of a job. And that is an opportunity to get good benefits, pay and security, Bailey said.

Boosting women in the trades

One of Allens current students is Jeanelle McConnell. McConnell said she had two previous attempts at completing college in eastern Washington but struggled to find the field in which she wanted to work.

It wasnt until I knew a female welder, when one of my friends got into it, that I ever considered it as a career, McConnell said.

McConnell is a welder for a shop in Longview while taking evening classes at LCC. Flatz splits his time between the emergency department at PeaceHealth St. John Medical Center and the college nursing program.

Both students said their college experiences, while nontraditional, convinced them to advocate for the benefits of college to potential students.

If they want to make a change in their life or enter a new field or move vertically to a higher role, I think now is a better time than ever to enroll, Flatz said.

LCC Director of Outreach Nicole Faber oversees the colleges efforts to reach out to students at high schools in the colleges two county service area. Faber said providing flexibility for students outside of the traditional college age range was one way for the school to balance its student body.

On the younger side, that flexibility looks like the Running Start program that allows students to earn high school and college credits for the same classes. Faber said the dual-credit approach can make it easier for students to prepare for the transition to a college workload.

Faber said the college also is planning to increase in-person recruiting events and campus visits as much as the continuation of COVID-19 will allow.

Virtual learning and visits might be a stigma, but theyre also part of figuring out how to adapt to meet the needs of our students, Faber said.

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Apple iPhone SE 3 is expected to look very much like the previous models of iPhone SE. What more can we expect?

Apple enthusiasts are waiting to get a glimpse of the iPhone SE 3 design elements ahead of its expected launch in the next 2-3 months. The iPhone SE 3 has been in development for more than a year and the expected launch of the next iPhone SE is still unknown, but several leaks and rumours about the launch date, design, specs, and features have surfaced on the internet. The iPhone SE 3 leaked renders suggest that the phone will not have a boxy design like the Apple iPhone 12 and iPhone 13, but will instead have the same old design. Some reports indicate it will have a hardware upgrade and the same design as its predecessor, while others claim the iPhone SE 3 look will be completely new.

However, a recent leak revealed the computer-aided design of the iPhone SE 3 for the first time. According to the renders, the iPhone SE 3 will look identical to its predecessors, the iPhone SE 2020 and iPhone XR. Even though, it may get a few notable changes. The front of the display may have a notch for Face ID. While, on the back, there is likely too be a single camera with a flash. Like its predecessor, the iPhone SE 2020, the iPhone SE 3 will not have a Touch ID, TenTechReview along with tipster David Kowalski leaked renders show. According to the leaked images, the phone appeared to be in white. While, the power button and SIM tray are located on the right side, and the volume controllers are located on the left side.

The iPhone SE 3 has been tipped several times in recent weeks. According to previous reports, the new model will be backed by Apple's A15 Bionic technology, which will also power the iPhone 14. The Qualcomm Snapdragon X60 5G chipset processor is also expected to be included in the Apple iPhone SE 3, which will be backed by 3GB of RAM. In terms of storage, the phone could have 129GB instead of the 64GB available in the current iPhone SE 2020. According to leaks, the iPhone SE 3 might have a single 12MP camera sensor as well as an external X60M 5G baseband chip for better photography.
A 4 billion-year-old meteorite from Mars that caused a splash here on Earth decades ago contains no evidence of ancient, primitive Martian life after all, scientists reported Thursday. In 1996, a NASA-led team announced that organic compounds in the rock appeared to have been left by living creatures. Other scientists were skeptical and researchers chipped away at that premise over the decades, most recently by a team led by the Carnegie Institution for Sciences Andrew Steele.

Tiny samples from the meteorite show the carbon-rich compounds are actually the result of water  most likely salty, or briny, water  flowing over the rock for a prolonged period, Steele said. The findings appear in the journal Science.

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During Mars' wet and early past, at least two impacts occurred near the rock, heating the planet's surrounding surface, before a third impact bounced it off the red planet and into space millions of years ago. The 4-pound (2-kilogram) rock was found in Antarctica in 1984.

Groundwater moving through the cracks in the rock, while it was still on Mars, formed the tiny globs of carbon that are present, according to the researchers. The same thing can happen on Earth and could help explain the presence of methane in Mars' atmosphere, they said.

But two scientists who took part in the original study took issue with these latest findings, calling them disappointing." In a shared email, they said they stand by their 1996 observations.

While the data presented incrementally adds to our knowledge of (the meteorite), the interpretation is hardly novel, nor is it supported by the research, wrote Kathie Thomas-Keprta and Simon Clemett, astromaterial researchers at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Unsupported speculation does nothing to resolve the conundrum surrounding the origin of organic matter in the meteorite, they added.

According to Steele, advances in technology made his team's new findings possible.

He commended the measurements by the original researchers and noted that their life-claiming hypothesis was a reasonable interpretation" at the time. He said he and his team  which includes NASA, German and British scientists  took care to present their results for what they are, which is a very exciting discovery about Mars and not a study to disprove the original premise.

This finding is huge for our understanding of how life started on this planet and helps refine the techniques we need to find life elsewhere on Mars, or Enceladus and Europa, Steele said in an email, referring to Saturn and Jupiters moons with subsurface oceans.

The only way to prove whether Mars ever had or still has microbial life, according to Steele, is to bring samples to Earth for analysis. NASA's Perseverance Mars rover already has collected six samples for return to Earth in a decade or so; three dozen samples are desired.

Millions of years after drifting through space, the meteorite landed on an icefield in Antarctica thousands of years ago. The small gray-green fragment got its name  Allan Hills 84001  from the hills where it was found.

Just this week, a piece of this meteorite was used in a first-of-its-kind experiment aboard the International Space Station. A mini scanning electron microscope examined the sample; Thomas-Keprta operated it remotely from Houston. Researchers hope to use the microscope to analyze geologic samples in space  on the moon one day, for example  and debris that could ruin station equipment or endanger astronauts.
Ukraine said Sunday it had "evidence" that Russia was behind a massive cyberattack that knocked out key government websites this past week, while Microsoft warned the hack could be far worse than first thought. Tensions are at an all-time high between Ukraine and Russia, which Kyiv accuses of having massed troops on its border ahead of a possible invasion. Some analysts fear the cyberattack could be the prelude to a military attack.

On Friday, Washington also accused Russia of sending saboteurs trained in explosives to stage an incident that could be the pretext to invade its pro-Western neighbour.

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"All the evidence points to Russia being behind the cyberattack," the Ukrainian digital transformation ministry said in a statement. "Moscow is continuing to wage a hybrid war."

The ministry urged Ukrainians not to panic, saying their personal information was protected.

The purpose of the attack, it added, "is not only to intimidate society. But to also destabilise the situation in Ukraine, halting the work of the public sector and crushing Ukrainians' trust in the authorities".

The Kremlin earlier rejected the claims and said there was no evidence Russia was behind the attack.

"We have nothing to do with it. Russia has nothing to do with these cyberattacks," President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told CNN.

"Ukrainians are blaming everything on Russia, even their bad weather in their country," he said in English.

Kyiv said late Friday it had uncovered preliminary clues that Russian security services could have been behind the cyberattack.

Ukraine's SBU security service said the attacks in the early hours of Friday had targeted a total of 70 government websites.

The website of the foreign ministry for a time displayed a message in Ukrainian, Russian and Polish that said "be afraid and expect the worst."

Within hours of the breach, the security service said access to most affected sites had been restored and that the fallout was minimal.

- Microsoft warning -

But Microsoft warned Sunday that the cyberattack could prove destructive and affect more organisations than initially feared.

The US software giant said it continued to analyse the malware and warned it could render government digital infrastructure inoperable.

"The malware, which is designed to look like ransomware but lacking a ransom recovery mechanism, is intended to be destructive and designed to render targeted devices inoperable rather than to obtain a ransom," Microsoft said in a blog post.

Microsoft said it had not so far identified a culprit but warned that the number of affected organisations could prove larger than initially thought.

"Our investigation teams have identified the malware on dozens of impacted systems and that number could grow as our investigation continues," it said.

"These systems span multiple government, non-profit, and information technology organisations, all based in Ukraine. We do not know the current stage of this attacker's operational cycle or how many other victim organisations may exist in Ukraine or other geographic locations."

- 'Language of force' -

Senior government official Viktor Zhora told AFP on Friday that the hack was one of the "biggest" cyberattacks of the past few years.

Russia has amassed tanks, artillery and tens of thousands of troops near the border of Ukraine and demanded guarantees that its neighbour will never join NATO.

Senior Russian and Western officials held three rounds of talks in Geneva, Brussels and Vienna over the past week but there was no breakthrough.

By the end of the week, Washington warned that Moscow could stage a false flag operation within weeks to precipitate an invasion.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Kyiv and its Western partners were working on a broad "package to contain Russia" that would include "painful" new sanctions and moves to ramp up defence cooperation with the West.

Speaking to Germany's Bild newspaper, Kuleba said Putin "only understands the language of force."

"If Putin wants to know why neighbours are seeking to join NATO he only needs to look in the mirror," he said in remarks released by the foreign ministry on Sunday.
BEIJING  Chinas politically volatile global trade surplus surged to $676.4 billion in 2021, likely the highest ever for any country, as exports jumped 29.9% over a year earlier despite semiconductor shortages that disrupted manufacturing.

The countrys monthly trade surplus in December swelled 20.8% over a year earlier to a record $94.4 billion, customs data showed Friday.

China piled up a series of monthly export surpluses in 2021 but they prompted less criticism from the United States and other trading partners than in earlier years while their governments focused on containing coronavirus infections.

Exports rose to $3.3 trillion in 2021 despite shortages of processor chips for smartphones and other goods as global demand rebounded from the coronavirus pandemic. Manufacturers also were hampered by power rationing in some areas to meet government efficiency targets.

The surplus with the United States, one of the irritants behind a lingering U.S.-Chinese trade war, rose 25.1% in 2021 over a year earlier to $396.6 billion. Trade envoys have talked since President Joe Biden took office in January but have yet to announce a date to resume face-to-face negotiations.

Exports to the United States gained 27.5% over 2020 to $576.1 billion despite tariff hikes by Bidens predecessor, Donald Trump, that still are in place on many goods. Chinese imports of American goods rose 33.1% to $179.5 billion.

In December, Chinas monthly trade surplus with the United States rose 31.1% over a year earlier to $39.2 billion. Exports to the U.S. market rose 21.1% to $56.4 billion while imports of American goods edged up 3.3% to $17.1 billion.

This month, Chinas global export volumes are likely to weaken due to congestion at ports where anti-coronavirus restrictions are imposed and to changes in global demand as shippers clear backlogs, said Julian Evans-Pritchard of Capital Economics.

Wed still bet on export volumes being lower rather than higher by the end of this year, Evans-Pritchard said in a report.

Chinese imports in 2021 rose 30.1% to $2.7 trillion as the worlds second-largest recovery rebounded from the pandemic.

Economic growth weakened in the second half of the year as Beijing carried out a campaign to reduce what it sees as dangerously high debt in the real estate industry, but consumer spending was above pre-pandemic levels.

Manufacturing activity edged higher in December but new export orders contracted, according to survey earlier by the government statistics bureau and an industry group, the China Federation of Logistics & Purchasing.

Chinese exporters benefited from being allowed to resume most normal business in early 2020 while foreign competitors faced anti-coronavirus restrictions on travel and trade. That advantage carried into 2021 as other governments renewed controls in response to the spread of new virus variants.

Earlier, forecasters said Chinese exporters would benefit from the spread of the latest variant, omicron, which Beijing appeared to be keeping out of the country. More recently, however, China has responded to outbreaks within its own borders by imposing travel restrictions on major cities including Tianjin, a manufacturing center where omicron was found.

Chinas global trade surplus was a 26.4% increase over 2020, which economists said then was among the highest ever reported by any economy. They said the only comparison as a percentage of the economys size likely was Saudi Arabia and other oil exporters during their price boom in the 1970s, but their total revenues were smaller.

The swollen trade surplus has strained the ability of Chinas central bank to manage the exchange rate of its yuan, which has risen to multi-year highs against the U.S. dollar as money flows into the country. The Peoples Bank of China has tried to limit the ability of banks and other traders to speculate on the currencys movement.

Chinas trade surplus with the 27-nation European Union, its second-largest trading partner, swelled 57.4% in 2021 over a year earlier to $208.4 billion. Exports to the EU rose 32.6% to $518.3 billion while imports of European goods gained 19.8% to $309.9 billion.

In December, Chinas trade surplus with Europe widened by 85.9% over a year earlier to $25.1 billion.
Elected officials from some of the largest counties in the state traveled to Brazos County on Wednesday for the Texas Conference of Urban Counties annual Education and Policy Conference.

This years event, which had in-person and virtual options, was the first time the conference has taken place in Brazos County, one of the organizations smaller members. Members from as far as El Paso traveled to the Texas A&M Hotel and Conference Center to attend the Jan. 12-14 forum with sessions on the economy, renewable energy, the State Legislature, health and human services and other roundtable discussions.

Weve got 32 of the most populous counties in the state, representing about 72% of the population, and so the issues that impact Harris County and Dallas County and Bexar County are very similar to what Brazos County faces, just on a little bit smaller scale, Adam Haynes, policy director for Texas Conference of Urban Counties, said.

The event, which was held virtually last year, allows county judges and commissioners to come together and talk about what challenges they face and the solutions they have found for those needs, Haynes said. For a place like Brazos County, he said, county officials can talk with representatives from other counties that have seen similar growth and can better prepare to meet the countys infrastructure needs over the next five years.

That information also can be shared with less populous rural counties.

Among the attendees to the opening session were Brazos County Judge Duane Peters, Brazos County commissioners Steve Aldrich and Nancy Berry, Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp and Reps. John Raney and Kyle Kacal.

Haynes said he hopes the conference can serve as a reminder that all urban counties in the state are linked and face similar issues.

One of those issues has been the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Adm. Brett Giroir, College Station resident and coronavirus testing czar under President Donald Trump, served as the keynote speaker at the events opening session Wednesday and said he sees public health as a local sport.

The federal government is here to support and provide recommendations, provide money and resources; the governors have an important role in leading, but its really a local endeavor, he said before speaking to the group. Thats where the rubber meets the road. Were at a stage in the pandemic where we are going to have to understand that were going to have to live with some degree of COVID over many years. We want to minimize the impact, but we are going to have to plan for a different scenario. COVID is not going away.

And secondly, we have to live with the unforeseen consequences of the pandemic: mental health issues, overdose deaths, missed cancer screenings and people having late-stage cancer, so all these individuals are going to have to deal with it.

Another aspect of public health he addressed was the notion that about 80% of peoples health, quality of life and longevity is based on social and environmental factors local officials can provide. Just the remaining 20% is centered on medical care.

Though he is not a local official, Giroir said he thinks the county leaders attending the conference will understand that there is a great deal of commonality in what they face.

There are underserved populations in the middle of Houston, and theyre underserved populations in El Paso and out in rural Texas, he said. They all have to work with the state and federal governments and the associated politics. But the bottom line is, you know, that these are the people where the rubber meets the road. They have to rise above all that because they are accountable to the people to get actions done and preserve public health, but also to preserve jobs, the economy, kids going to school, and our way of life. Thats really where the rubber meets the road. This is, as we say in the military, the pointy end of the spear. This is where it really happens, and they all have that in common, no matter where they come from.

Addressing the group during his presentation, Giroir said, the expectation is that the country will have to deal with COVID-19 for years.

One of his public health goals is to minimize hospitalizations and deaths among vulnerable populations, saying it can be done through vaccinations  including the booster  and the use of N95 and KN95 masks. He noted cloth masks are not as effective at protecting against the contagious omicron variant.

He stated the booster is important because the first two doses act like one in the long term, so the booster increases a persons protection against the virus.

Outside of COVID-19, Giroir said he wants to see pharmacists utilized more in helping patients and local officials implementing programs and initiatives to address learning and health disparities in their communities.

I dont know how you deal with that, but theres going to have to be some program or were going to have health disparities, learning disparities, economic disparities, social injustice like weve never seen before because were leaving the poorest behind while the well-to-do stay ahead, he said. Just a fact. Im not trying to be Republican or Democrat; thats just the way it is.

One of the most significant ways of addressing disparities, he said, is working on providing people the opportunity for education, for employment, for safe communities, for ability to exercise, for eliminating food deserts. Food deserts are places where it is difficult for people to find affordable fresh food items.

One of the reasons why I was so excited about coming here is because I see the future of medical care in your hands, he said. Youre not physicians; youre not pharmacists; youre not whatever, but I can only do a little bit. The Congress can only do a little bit. It really starts at the community level.

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Harry Raisor, the former director of Easterwood Airport in College Station and a U.S. Air Force veteran, died last month. He was 91.

Raisor joined the Air Force after graduating from West Virginia University and served as a pilot for 22 years, including two tours in southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.

Raisor moved to College Station in 1977 and served as the director of Easterwood Airport for 22 years. He served as the chief pilot for Texas A&M and played a major role in the development of the airport, securing federal funding and overseeing the addition of runways, the creation of the McKenzie Terminal and the addition of hangars, said his son, Scott Raisor.

I dont think anyone loved the airport more than he and I did, and it really showed in the kind of improvements that he made, said John Happ, who succeeded Raisor as director of the airport following Raisors retirement in 1999. He taught me so much about how to run an airport, how to deal with the university, and how to deal with the Federal Aviation Administration.

After he retired from the airport, Raisor served as a reserve Brazos County constables deputy until 2014.

Scott and Randy Raisor said their father enjoyed traveling and working on cars and could fix almost anything.

He kept saying that he lived a great life. He got to see the world, Scott Raisor said.

Raisors daughter, Michelle, said one of her fondest memories of her father was when he returned from Vietnam.

We were all waiting out at the runway for him with our dog, and as he stepped off the plane, our dog went crazy and broke from my hands and ran over and jumped on Dad, she said.

Raisor often credited his wife, Jo Ann Forman Raisor, who died in 2014, for how well the children turned out, Michelle Raisor said.

As far as military families go, when the husband goes into the military, its really the wife going into the military as well, so I really appreciate that he gave my mom a lot of credit, Michelle Raisor said. He was bigger than life for sure, and Im going to miss him.

He was always there for us kids, Randy Raisor said. He instilled a great sense of work ethic in all of us kids and we were always taught to work hard, do it on your own, but Im there as a safety net if you ever need me.

Happ said Raisor was a dedicated family man.

We always talked about family. He treated everybody at the airport like family, but he absolutely cherished both his boys, his daughter, and his wife, Happ said.

A memorial service is set for Feb. 4 at Grace Bible Church, 700 Anderson St., in College Station beginning at 2:30 p.m.

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Work on a new broadband network that will cover the majority of King William County is on course to begin this year after the county secured a $5.4 million grant.

Former Gov. Ralph Northam announced the approval of the countys application for a Virginia Telecommunications Initiative grant on Dec. 13.

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Steve Hudgins, deputy county administrator, gave a detailed timeline of the project to the Board of Supervisors on Jan. 10.

Hudgins said the grant paves the way for the county to enter into contracts to begin work on the network that would bring about 250 miles of fiber optic cable to unserved parts of the county. He said the project is due to be kicked off at a contract negotiation meeting between King William County, All Points Broadband, and the Department of Housing and Community Development on Jan. 24.

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All Points, the broadband provider, is due to enter into an administration agreement with King William County shortly afterward.

The county is to contribute $2.5 million, just 14% of the total project cost, leveraging American Rescue Fund money. All Points is to secure $9.2 million via its own private corporate investment, Dominion Energy, and Rappahannock Electric Cooperative  56% of the total project cost. The VATI grant money will meet the remaining 30%. The network is set to serve 2,236 unserved locations.

Hudgins said All Points will start low-level design work after King William County signs an agreement with the DHCD.

Four months after that agreement they are going to actually be digging in the dirt, construction will be underway, Hudgins told the board, Seven months after that agreement, the first customers will be installed. Eighteen months after that the network will be substantially complete.

Construction of the network is expected in King William in the third quarter of 2022. Hudgins said its too early to tell which customers will receive broadband first.

Hudgins remains hopeful supply shortages that have plagued projects across the county will have a minimal impact on the broadband rollout. (All Points) did say, because we all have concerns about materials and availability, that they are a significant buyer from their vendors and they put in these forecasts way back in September when you decided to submit for that application, he said.

The board heard the town of West Point will not be part of the network and will continue to receive services from Cox Communications. Although the new service is described as ubiquitous for the county, parts of northern and central King William fall under a contract secured two years ago with Atlantic Broadband. The company was given about six years to install broadband.

Before this grant money came out that was the only area of the county that was going to be making money for these providers, Hudgins said. He urged residents to sign up for the new service.

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This is the only way we are going to secure broadband for the majority of King William  otherwise we are going to leave King William behind, said Ed Moren who was elected as the chairman of the Board of Supervisors on Jan 10.

Residents and businesses wishing to preregister for broadband should visit All Points website at fiber.allpointsbroadband.com.

David Macaulay, davidmacaulayva@gmail.com
Not everything in politics is partisan: President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican, are singing in unison.

Frustrated by supermajority requirements to get favored legislation passed by their respective Senates, each has taken the position that simple majorities should prevail on important public policy votes.

Biden made his pitch last week, saying the U.S. Senate, where he once served, should change its rules so that a simple majority of 51 members would be required to approve voting rights legislation he supports. Under the current rules, it takes 60 of the 100 senators, making it easy for the Republicans and their numerical minority to block the Democrats and their numerical majority.

Its not at all certain that Bidens side would prevail even with a rule change. But it is certain that, without it, the voting bill is doomed.

Patrick isnt on the presidents side when it comes to that voting legislation. But he feels the same way about majorities, a feeling hes made clear several times since entering public office 15 years ago. As lite guv, and before that as a state senator from Houston, Patrick has railed against rules and traditions that require consent from a supermajority of senators before legislation can be debated.

For years, that was known as the two-thirds rule. It required nods from 21 of the states 31 senators before a bill could be debated under most circumstances, and it kept legislation with narrower majorities out of consideration. That didnt seem fair to Patrick, who was in the Senates Republican majority but was often pushing legislation that didnt have enough support.

Unless Republicans had 21 members  and all of those members were in favor of a particular bill  they didnt have the political juice to debate, much less to get something done on that issue.

Patrick complained about it from the start, beginning with his freshman term in 2007: We should have simple majority vote. What happened to majority rule? What about Jefferson and Madison and Monroe? It was all right for them.

The Senate had 21 Republicans at the time, but the freshman from Houston was buried. The Senate voted 30-1 to keep the rule in place and used it to stymie legislation on voter ID, abortion, school vouchers and guns, to name a few.

When Patrick became lieutenant governor, the Senate had 20 Republican members and he got them to change the rule to require 19 senators  three-fifths  instead of 21. Last year, the Senate had 18 Republicans; they changed the rule to five-ninths, meaning 17 senators are now required to bring legislation up for consideration.

And over the years, the Senate (along with the House) has passed legislation that had been stuck under the old rules, requiring voter ID, restricting abortion in the state and making it legal for most Texas adults to carry handguns without licensing or training.

When it comes to Senate procedure, Patrick is a man after Bidens own heart.

And Biden has run into the same kind of roadblock Patrick faced 15 years ago: The Senate doesnt seem to want to change its rules. Arizona Democrat Kyrsten Sinema came out Thursday against the presidents wish to change the Senates filibuster rules, though she said she supports the voting legislation hes touting.

Thats how it goes when legislative majorities are small and the battles hinge on how the rules work. Legislators play the rules to their advantage. And when they are successful  and playing the rules in this way is one thing federal and state legislators are very good at  their opponents often have no choice other than resorting to the tactics Patrick and Biden chose.

Its not partisan politics. Its parliamentary politics, played by people in all parties: If you cant win under the current rules, you can give up or you can change the rules.

Ross Ramsey is executive editor and co-founder of The Texas Tribune. He writes regular columns on politics, government and public policy.
The Senate is poised to debate critical democracy reform legislation, the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act, which would set national baseline standards to protect voting access, end partisan gerrymandering, safeguard elections from sabotage, restore the critical protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and much more. Both have majority support in the Senate.

The only thing that stands in their way is the Senate filibuster.

In this crucial moment, it is important to consider the filibusters history. Far from being an immovable impediment, the filibuster has been modified hundreds of times to ensure that critical Senate business can move forward  including just last month to raise the debt ceiling. This history demonstrates that there is ample precedent for future changes to allow the Senate to function as the Framers intended, allowing for substantial debate, deliberation, and ultimately passage of essential legislation to secure American democracy.

Public business

must go forwardConfronted with the failure of supermajority rule under the Articles of Confederation, the Framers of the United States Constitution intentionally created a system based on majority rule. The Founders designed the legislative branch with the idea that simple majorities would prevail.

In Federalist No. 22, Alexander Hamilton called minority rule a poison. He wrote:

The public business must, in some way or other, go forward. If a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of a majority, respecting the best mode of conducting it, the majority, in order that something may be done, must conform to the views of the minority; and thus the sense of the smaller number will overrule that of the greater, and give a tone to the national proceedings. . . . It is often . . . kept in a state of inaction. Its situation must always savor of weakness, sometimes border upon anarchy.

The Constitution empowered each chamber of Congress to set its own rules. In the Senates early days, its norms and customs discouraged endless debate.

While the Senates first rules in 1789 included a Previous Question motion that a majority could theoretically use to end debate, in practice it was seldom needed. When Vice President Aaron Burr recommended scrapping the rule as a housekeeping matter in 1805, the Senate obliged.

Experiments in obstructionWithout a formal rule on the books to end debate by majority vote, it became possible for Senate proceedings to drag on indefinitely.

In 1834, the Senate censured President Andrew Jackson. In 1837, Jacksons allies muscled through the Senate a resolution expunging his censure, but not until opposing senators mounted a lengthy floor debate  the Senates first filibuster.

While myriad delay tactics flourished on the floor, before the late 1800s, nearly every measure that senators filibustered eventually still passed the chamber.

At the turn of the century, pressure built as endless debates began to block the Senate from actually voting and passing important measures. After senators successfully stymied a proposal from President Woodrow Wilson during World War I, the Senate adopted a new rule enabling formal limits on floor debate. The 1917 cloture rule permitted a two-thirds supermajority to vote to close debate on a given matter.

From Reconstruction through the passage of landmark civil rights legislation in the 1960s, a powerful bloc of senators relied heavily on filibuster tactics to obstruct progress on racial justice for Black Americans and others.

Sen. Strom Thurmond infamously held the floor for more than 24 hours before the Senate handily passed the Civil Rights Act of 1957. The filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 went on for 74 days before a Senate supermajority ultimately voted to end debate and easily passed the bill.

Most other matters that passed the Senate did so without requiring a supermajority vote. Needing to file for cloture in order to end debate and secure a matters passage was still relatively rare.

Gridlock takes overStarting in the 1970s, the practice of requiring a supermajority in order to end debate skyrocketed. What was once the exception became the new norm.

In response to calls for reform, the Senate in 1975 lowered the supermajority threshold required to end debate from two-thirds (67 votes) to three-fifths (60 votes). Then-Sen. Biden voted for this reform. In 1976, 1979 and 1986, he also supported other successful reforms designed to expedite floor debate and deliberation.

Sen. Robert Byrd also played a key role in these reforms. As Majority Leader in 1977, he spearheaded another effort to curb delays taking place in the period after a supermajority already had voted to end debate. Byrd also helped design the budget reconciliation process, creating a pathway for major legislation to pass the Senate by simple majority.

Over this same timeframe, the Senate created a system allowing a bill facing a filibuster to be placed on the back burner so that other Senate business still could continue. Under this dual-tracking setup, filibusters proliferated without senators being required to hold the floor.

By the 2000s, needing a supermajority to end debate transformed into a de facto requirement. In the 10-year period between 2011 and 2020, there were more cloture motions filed (1,024) than in the 60 years from 1947 to 2006 (960).

Restoring the ability

to debate and decideOver 350 historians and other scholars note that the Senate is now the worlds only legislative body with an effective supermajority requirement for common legislation. This has impaired legislative policymaking, aggrandized executive power, worsened partisan polarization, and decreased policymaking continuity. As they indicated, we share a common concern that todays filibuster is, on balance, weakening Congress  while creating the very supermajority requirement the Founders clearly sought to avoid. We fear it is also weakening democracy. ...

The modern-day filibuster prevents real deliberation by essentially requiring a supermajority for the Senate to begin even debating legislation. As senators dont have to hold the floor to block either debate or a vote, obstruction is a frequent occurrence. The result is that the Senate conducts few real debates and little public deliberation.

The Senate originally was designed as a majority rule body. Between 1969 and 2014, at least 161 changes to the filibusters supermajority requirement were created. Many of these changes created a way to pass legislation through a simple majority, privileged vehicle. The privileged matter moves to the top of Senate business, allows for a set time period for debate, and can then pass by majority vote.

The Senate always will be unique. Senators are elected to represent entire states, making them accountable to broad constituencies, and they serve six-year terms, making them less susceptible to cyclical fads. The Senate always will be a place of deliberation, consensus building, even delay  a chamber marked by fierce and lengthy debate. But sooner or later, there must be a path for the nations business to get done.

The Brennan Center for Justice, located at New York University Law, works to reform and defend our countrys systems of democracy and justice.
The names are indelibly entered in the annals of America: James Cheney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, Viola Liuzzo, Emmett Till, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, Carol Denise McNair and, of course, Martin Luther King Jr.

They, along with so many others, gave their lives so that Black Americans could vote and share in the great American Dream.

The efforts of many Americans led, in 1965, to the Voting Rights Act, which ended such blocks to voting as literacy tests and poll taxes and required six Southern states  Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Virginia  to get preapproval for any changes in voting and elections. Alaska, Arizona and Texas were added 10 years later.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that the preapproval regulations no longer could be enforced.

Perhaps the court acted too soon.

In recent years, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement and after former President Donald Trumps false claims of election fraud in the 2020 election, several states have introduced legislation that would restrict access to the polls.

Proponents say the reforms are needed to protect the integrity of future elections, which already were fairly and honestly conducted by Republican officials and Democratic officials. Critics say such measures are unnecessary and are designed to disenfranchise many American voters.

We cant help but wonder how the Rev. King would react to the changes already enacted or proposed in so many states, including Texas. Of course, we can never know since King was murdered almost 54 years ago.

On Monday, we celebrate the 93rd birthday  he actually was born Jan. 15, 1929, in Atlanta  of Americas preeminent civil rights leader who opened Americas eyes to the wrongs being visited on Blacks a century after this nation fought a terrible civil war over the issue of slavery.

The theme for this years MLK Day observance is Daring to Dream: The Radical Imagination of a New Generation.

A release from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, said, We ask our audience, campus, and greater community critically examine how little has actually changed since the Civil Rights Movement. With Gen-Z and Millennial generations at the forefront of this new wave of social disruption in the name of racial, economic, and social justice, question 1) how and why our current institutional structures continue to leave behind historically marginalized communities, 2) what can we learn from the Civil Rights Movement to close these gaps between the privileged and historically marginalized that King sought to change and 3) how we can use our radical imagination and community building to address these obstacles.

So many young Americans dont remember Martin Luther King Jr., never learned of the sacrifices he and so many other people made to gain basic rights for all Americans.

Some of us will march in Kings memory on Monday. Others will attend special prayer services. Perhaps most of us will go to work as usual.

But we mustnt forget the Rev. King or any of the others who worked so long and so hard, who suffered pain and torture from their fellow Americans in order to win the vote for all people.

One of the best ways to honor the Rev. King is to register to vote. The deadline to register for this years March 1 party primaries in Jan. 31. Applications to register are available at the Brazos County Clerks office, public libraries, high schools and government offices.

After filling out the application, be sure to return it to the clerks office by Jan. 31.

And then, on March 1, go vote in either partys primary. The people selected in those primaries will face off in the Nov. 8 general election.

Each of us can make a difference in countrys future, but only if we vote.

A strong voter turnout would be a wonderful way to honor Martin Luther King Jr., this year and every year.
Cybersecurity teams from Microsoft on Saturday disclosed they identified evidence of a new destructive malware operation dubbed "WhisperGate" targeting government, non-profit, and information technology entities in Ukraine amid brewing geopolitical tensions between the country and Russia.

"The malware is disguised as ransomware but, if activated by the attacker, would render the infected computer system inoperable," Tom Burt, corporate vice president of customer security and trust at Microsoft, said, adding the intrusions were aimed at government agencies that provide critical executive branch or emergency response functions.

Also among those affected by the malware is an IT firm that "manages websites for public and private sector clients, including government agencies whose websites were recently defaced," Burt noted.

The computing giant, which first detected the malware on January 13, attributed the attacks to an emerging threat cluster codenamed "DEV-0586," with no observed overlaps in tactics and procedures to other previously documented groups. It further said the malware was found on dozens of impacted systems, a number it expects to increase as the investigation continues.

According to Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) and Microsoft Digital Security Unit (DSU), the attack chain is a two-stage process that entails 

Overwriting the Master Boot Record (MBR)  the first sector of any hard disk that identifies where the operating system is located in the disk so that it can be loaded into a computer's RAM  on a victim's system to display a fake ransom note urging the target to pay an amount of $10,000 to a bitcoin wallet

A second-stage executable that retrieves a file corrupter malware hosted on a Discord channel that's designed to search for files with 189 different extensions, then irrevocably overwrite their contents with a fixed number of 0xCC bytes and rename each file with a seemingly random four-byte extension.

The malicious activity is "inconsistent" with cybercriminal ransomware activity for reasons that "explicit payment amounts and cryptocurrency wallet addresses are rarely specified in modern criminal ransom notes" and "the ransom note in this case does not include a custom ID," Microsoft said.

The development comes as numerous government websites in the Eastern European country were defaced on Friday with a message warning Ukrainians that their personal data was being uploaded to the Internet. The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) said it found "signs" of involvement of hacking groups associated with the Russian intelligence services.

"Given the scale of the observed intrusions, MSTIC is not able to assess intent of the identified destructive actions but does believe these actions represent an elevated risk to any government agency, non-profit or enterprise located or with systems in Ukraine," the researchers cautioned.

However, Reuters earlier today raised the possibility that the attacks may have been the work of an espionage group linked to Belarusian intelligence that's tracked as UNC1151 and Ghostwriter. "Multiple significant intrusions into Ukrainian government entities have been conducted by UNC1151," cybersecurity firm Mandiant disclosed in a report in November 2021, pointing out the group's operations as those aligned with Belarusian government interests.
KEARNEY  Carolyn Scheidies knows the power of the number three.

I think trilogies work because the first one sets it up, the second one carries the story and the third one wraps it up, the Kearney-based author said from her home office. I do have a series of books with a fourth story and one with a fifth, but theres something about the three-book series that seems to be really strong. When you go beyond that, you get into a long-term series of stories where you keep writing about the same characters forever.

Scheidies latest book, Three Sisters of Stanhavon Castle, combines three novels into one book, part of her Regency Romance Collection, published in October by Booklocker.com. The book retails for $24.

The three books are:

 The Solicitor and the Marquis Niece

 The Earls Brother and the Healer

 Sara and the New Marquis

While writing Three Sister of Stanhavon Castle, Scheidies had more ideas but decided to tell the stories of the three sisters and limit herself.

I think that three-book idea is strong enough and carries the characters along enough that you get to know the characters  and then say goodbye at the end of three books, she said.

The plot: After the death of their parents, their loving Uncle Rupert, the Marquis of Stanhavon, raised the three girls while living in a crumbling ruin of a castle. The war left the family coffers practically empty. The Marquis raised the girls with an independent spirit along with a strong faith.

Scheidies set the story during the Regency era, roughly 1795 to 1837, in Great Britain, a time known for its elegance and achievements in the fine arts and architecture. During that period Jane Austin wrote Pride and Prejudice, the Napoleonic Wars ended and Emily Bronte wrote Frankenstein.

In the novel, the stories continue. After the death of their uncle, Jerusalem Jerri, the oldest at 19, wonders how shell care for her younger siblings. Bethlehem Beth, only a year younger, aspires to the healing profession but must deal with challenges from other doctors who refuse to believe that young woman should be in the medical profession. Sara, at 17, struggles with her health  and with a determination to save the castle.

More complications occur when an heir suddenly shows up and wants to destroy the castle to right a wrong done to his branch of the family generations earlier.

Scheidies, who writes a weekly column for the Hub, thinks she might not write another series of books.

It takes so much time and energy to write, especially books in a series, she said. My guess is that this is my last series that I will write.

Scheidies plans to continue writing and maybe even produce a stand-alone novel, but not a series of books.

I can rant and rave about anything, she joked. But its one thing to have it in your head and to write short articles as opposed to a book-length thing. That takes so much time and effort. Its formulating it, publishing it and then marketing it  the time commitment is huge. I just dont think I have the energy for it anymore.

Writing a book like Three Sisters of Stanhaven allows Scheidies to construct a world of characters and situations.

Usually I start with a problem, she said about her writing process. Its like throwing a stone in the water and it starts rippling out. Thats how a I formulate a lot of my stories. I get an idea and I start working outwards to see if it has substance. I started with the first book, of course, and continued working forward. How does that affect everything else?

The ripples of her storytelling helps to mold the future stories in the series.

You can read the stories individually but they work best together because there is a thread that holds them all together, Scheidies said. I actually have a lot of research material about the time because Ive written a lot of books set in that period. I love history and I just ended up falling in love with that period.
Mary Walker Clark is an award-winning travel writer. Her book, Landing in My Present, about the loss of her flying father, details her trip to follow his WWII footsteps in India and China. Her stories are featured in the Paris News and may be found at her blog, Mary Clark, Traveler. She is a member of the North American Travel Journalist Association. Clark lives in Paris, Texas and may be contacted at maryclarktraveler@gmail.com.
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The Board of Supervisors quizzed Treasurer Mary Sue Bancroft about King William Countys real estate and personal property tax software at their Jan 10 meeting after the commissioner of revenue discussed problems with the software at Novembers meeting.

While Bancroft said she likes the system, she acknowledged some other staff struggle with it and described the quirks and kinks.

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Bancroft said during last weeks meeting that the Edmunds system is becoming more responsive but cited ongoing issues.

Its very frustrating, thats all  I had an issue recently where one persons history transaction from 2018 wasnt there at all, she said.

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I also came to find out Edmunds had missed about 1,000 accounts to put in with the 2018 historical information. I brought that to their attention and they did get that fixed  I think its getting better, she said.

Bancroft described the system as a very big learning curve.

In November, King William Commissioner of Revenue Karena L. Funkhouser noted ongoing problems with the real estate and personal property tax software, resulting in glitches such as homeowners getting bills for properties they have not owned for up to 10 years.

Funkhouser urged the Board of Supervisors to prioritize the issue. The county currently uses Vision software to manage real estate records and Edmunds software for financial management, payroll, real estate and personal property tax billing, business license processing, meals tax and permitting.

Funkhouser cited serious problems with the Edmunds product. County systems engineer Travis Wolfe worked with Edmunds for more than a month to fix the issues from September onwards. While Wolfe created a file from Vision in the proper format to update information in Edmunds relating to real estate transfers, increased assessed values for new construction, and the creation of new parcels, Funkhouser told the board the file contained an unacceptable number of errors. Seven of the 93 new construction accounts in Edmunds failed to update the new owners. A further 22 accounts failed to show the correct value for improvements. Other glitches prevented new parcels from being created by the software.

Funkhouser told the board in November she reviewed the initial contract set up between Edmunds and former County Administrator Bobbi Tassinari. It stated Edmunds would convert the initial existing data into their software. She could find no mention of the continual data transfer necessary between Vision and Edmunds or any guarantee that the data transfer would be accurate.

As real estate taxes support 46% of the countys budget, accurate real estate information is extremely important, she told the board.

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Funkhouser detailed issues with the software that she said caused staff to spend long hours manually entering information, including the deputy commissioner manually changing 1,839 records relating to business names, mailing, and property addresses location.

During the November meeting, Supervisor Stephen Greenwood said citizens often ask him why there have been so many problems with property tax assessments.

People are getting stuff mailed to addresses they have not lived at for five or 10 years, he said.

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Chairman Travis Moskalski said the Edmunds decision and contract were an administrative decision made by the county administrator and other staff at the time.

Edmunds GovTech is a Florida-based software company. The company did not respond to an email before this storys publication.

Previous issues

Uncollected tax issues have plagued King William County in recent years. In December 2020, a turnover audit revealed the King William Treasurers Office had $14.4 million in uncollected real estate and personal property taxes dating back to 2000. About $3.4 million remained uncollected at the time of the audit.

According to the report, the amount of uncollected taxes grew exponentially over time. Following the Dec. 5, 2020, tax deadline, the total amount of taxes uncollected was about $3.4 million.

Tassinari resigned in February 2021 after learning a county supervisor and the former Commissioner of the Revenue Sally Pearson withheld information pertaining to the countys tax reassessment, according to emails obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

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Four months earlier, a position in Pearsons office was defunded by the Board of Supervisors after she refused to participate in the reassessment process, a duty assigned to her office. While the county contracted out the assessment to BrightMinds, a Roanoke-based, state-accredited reassessment firm, Pearson and her staff were required to verify the data submitted by the company. They did not. Pearson announced her resignation in November 2020, but worked through January when a special election was held to fill her seat.

Tassinari stated in her resignation email that it was irresponsible for the board to withhold information from her and her staff, and as a result, had wasted her staffs time and the situation could have been resolved sooner.

David Macaulay, davidmacaulayva@gmail.com
CHICAGO - About a dozen activists gathered Saturday at the 95th Street train station to protest the upcoming release of the former Chicago police officer who killed Laquan McDonald.

Jason Van Dyke, who was sentenced to 81 months in prison, stands to be released Feb. 3. But community activist William Calloway thinks the ex-cop who was found guilty of killing the 17-year-old in 2014 should remain behind bars. Calloway and others are calling for Chicago U.S. Attorney John Lausch to federally charge Van Dyke.

You got a white man that murdered a boy, shooting him 16 times in cold blood on camera, Calloway said at a news conference at the CTA Red Line stop. And the federal government has not even touched him. Thats not justice. Thats racism. We got to call it what it is.

The group is also calling for a citywide shutdown of the Chicago Transit Authority until its demands for Chicagos top federal prosecutor are met.

But Rev. Marvin Hunter, McDonalds great-uncle, told the Tribune he did not agree with the protests aim. Activists time would be better spent working for systemic change, he told the Tribune.

Getting Jason Van Dyke to go to jail, to federal prison, at best it will only cost the taxpayers more money, he said.   If we really want to have change, if we really want to use this for a moment for change, then let us get criminal justice reform for real.

Hunter said he bears no anger or ill feelings about Van Dykes impending release, though he remains displeased that Judge Vincent Gaughan sentenced Van Dyke only on the second-degree murder conviction  not the 16 counts of aggravated battery of which he was also found guilty. The decision allowed for a lower sentencing range and the opportunity for day-for-day credit, meaning Van Dyke only had to serve half his 81-month sentence.

(Gaughan) threw the work of those jurors, those 12 men and women, he just threw that out the window, Hunter said.

LaShawn Littrice, another activist at Saturdays protest, implored reporters to look at the exhaustion on the groups faces after finding out about Van Dykes scheduled release.

We are here because we are outraged, Littrice said. We are disgusted. We are traumatized, and we are hurt.

The protesters also chanted, Say his name. Laquan McDonald, and Black Lives Matter before fanning out to pass out flyers in support of a CTA shutdown. Calloway said they are trying to convince the transit unions to agree to halt movement on the trains and buses until Van Dyke is federally charged.

You have Black men in the federal penitentiary for nonviolent drug offenses doing more time than Jason Van Dyke has done in the state penitentiary, Calloway said. Thats not justice. Thats horrible. And we can change that.

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CHICAGO - Class is back in session for many college students across Illinois, and for some, the start of 2022 has felt eerily reminiscent of the spring of 2020.

Cases of COVID-19 have continued to surge and break records  the Illinois Department of Public Health reported 37,048 cases on Thursday  and many schools like DePaul University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Northwestern University and the University of Chicago have opted to temporarily shift to remote instruction.

As a result, students say they are battling feelings of uncertainty again as they work to stay motivated and stick to a routine.

Hope Mailing, a 20-year-old University of Chicago student, said she was really bummed when the administration announced that classes would be remote until Jan. 24.

I mean, its fine, it just feels like last year, she said. One of my professors yesterday was like, Hey, how do I make it so I can see everybodys faces? and I was like, wow, this just, this feels like March 2020.

Mailing said remote learning makes her schooling feel like less of a priority, and it has taught her the art of missing classes. She added that while, in theory, she would like to stick to a good schedule, it can be easy to fall into the habit of sleeping in and watching a lot of TikTok.

Nonetheless, Mailing said she is finding ways to make the most of her remote learning experience.

Even just like getting up and going on a walk every day, it really helps to, like, have little things to look forward to, she said.

Jonah Kaye, another University of Chicago student, said that while remote learning is not the end of the world, he felt that the universitys decision did not make much sense.

We are going to remote for two weeks because we dont want omicron to spread in our community, but then in the letter, they acknowledge that when we come back after two weeks, there will be a lot of cases from omicron, he said.

Kaye, 22, created a petition over winter break to advocate against remote instruction. It was signed by 75 students and 20 parents and alumni.

I was just upset, and I felt like I knew other students were upset too, he said.

The University of Chicago did not respond to requests for comment.

For Nadia Hernandez, a 19-year-old student at DePaul University, one of the most challenging parts of remote learning is combating Zoom fatigue. She said she makes a conscious effort to monitor her screen time by getting fresh air, reading books and engaging in intentional human interaction.

Though Hernandez said the switch between remote, in-person and hybrid learning environments has been a big transition, it has also taught her to be resilient.

You have to kind of be prepared for anything, she said. Depending on how this quarter is going to go, I feel like as long as I just know, like, anything can be done from my computer, I should be all good.

DePaul will resume in-person classes next week, and the university announced Thursday that it will be requiring booster vaccines for all students. For Hernandez, this news came as a relief.

Im really happy with it, she said. I just wish it would have come sooner.

As the community prepares to return to in-person instruction, Eugene Zdziarski, vice president for student affairs at DePaul, said the school is working to connect students with health promotion and wellness resources and provide them with as much accurate information as possible.

I continue to be impressed with our faculty, staff and students in their ability to adapt and be innovative as well as the resilience thats come with this, he said. Its been a tough couple of years, but, again, I think weve learned a lot.

Northwestern University is also nearing the end of its remote learning period, and classes are set to resume in person on Tuesday. The universitys COVID-19 dashboard confirmed 686 new positive cases during the week of Jan. 7, down from a record high of 909 the week before.

John Volk, a 21-year-old Northwestern student, tested positive for COVID-19 and is quarantined in the schools isolation housing. He said remote classes have not been too difficult to manage on top of his illness, but the experience has been different from last year since he is in true isolation.

I cant even go, you know, outside to go for a walk when I need to clear my head or whatever, Volk said. I cant go get something good to eat at the dining halls.

Northwestern student Emily Yang, 18, who also tested positive for COVID-19, said her professors were very supportive while she was staying in isolation housing. Yang could not access some of the textbooks that were mailed to her while in quarantine, so her professors sent her the chapters she needed.

I know the professors are trying their hardest on the academic front, Yang said, but I think that just the ability to make friends in class and be able to kind of make, like, study groups, or just (meet) people that you can, like, ask to send pictures of the textbook, for example  its something that they cant really replicate.

Yang was released from quarantine Thursday, and her friends, including 18-year-old Andrew Chang, were happy to have her back.

I sprinted to her when I saw her coming to campus and gave her a really big hug, he said.

Northwestern University declined to comment.

University of Illinois students will begin their spring semester remotely on Tuesday. J. Rex Tolliver, the vice chancellor for student affairs, said the decision was made to help ensure the campus will be as safe as possible for students to return.

Tolliver said that though these are difficult times for students, the university has done remote learning before, which means it has had the opportunity to find better ways for students to stay connected and maintain a balanced lifestyle.

Regardless, Tolliver said students should not hesitate to ask for help if they are struggling.

Reach out immediately, he said. Dont wait, dont try to think they can handle it, reach out to us and let us help them.

Tolliver said the university will make final decisions on Monday about how to resume in-person instruction.

U. of I. senior Charlie Foster, 22, said that though he was upset to hear about the return to remote instruction, the transition should be easier since the online infrastructure is already in place.

Foster has to take extra care to leave his apartment to stay motivated when classes are online, but on the whole, he said the remote experience has taught him to be more flexible.

COVIDs a big thing, but theres going to be way more events that happen in life, period, that youre never going to see coming, he said. And you have two options: You can sit there and complain about it, or you can do your best to adapt to it.

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CHICAGO - A 30-year-old woman was due in court Saturday after allegedly stabbing a dog and an 82-year-old woman to death a week ago at her Rogers Park neighborhood home, Chicago police said.

Another woman, 60, was injured but survived.

Jordan Shipp, of the 2100 block of West Birchwood Avenue, was charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder and aggravated cruelty to animals, police said.

Shipp was identified as the person who stabbed an 82-year-old woman to death, stabbed another woman, 60, several times, and stabbed a dog to death on Jan. 8 at the Birchwood Avenue address, police said.

She was arrested Friday in the 5100 block of North California Avenue and is due in bond court later Saturday.

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WHEATON  Authorities have been searching for a suburban Chicago inmate who was allowed to leave jail to attend a family member's funeral but did not return.

An arrest warrant was issued for 23-year-old Bruce T. Berrier after he left DuPage County Jail on Tuesday at 8 a.m.

A judge had granted his request to attend a memorial service, interment and family lunch related to his brother's funeral, according to T he Chicago Sun-Times.

Court documents said he was supposed to return to the jail by 2 p.m., but he did not. Police found his Berrier's monitor at Arlington Cemetery in Elmhurst.

Berrier pleaded guilty to gun charges in July 2021 and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

DuPage County authorities did not have an update on the case on Sunday.

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The South Carolina Cotton Growers meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Jan 25.

The meeting will be held at the Santee Conference Center on 1737 Bass Drive in Santee.

Registration begins at 8:15 a.m. and the meeting will end at 2:30 p.m.

Participants will receive commercial and private applicators pesticide re-certification credits. Certified crop adviser credits will be offered also.

Attendees will receive a report from the National Cotton Council of America and South Carolina Department of Agriculture, and receive an update on the price outlook for 2022.

Attendees will also hear about the latest science in seeds and seed quality, insect issues and the impact of water quality on pesticide efficacy.

A review of the 2021 crop as well as an update on new crop varieties will also be presented.

The event is sponsored by the South Carolina Cotton Board and the Cooperative Extension: College of Agriculture,, Forestry and Life Sciences.

Peanut Growers annual meeting

SANTEE -- The South Carolina Peanut Growers annual meeting is scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 27.

The meeting will be held at the Santee Conference Center at 1737 Bass Drive in Santee.

The program begins with registration at 8:30 a.m. and ends at 4 p.m. Trade show booths will open at 8:30 a.m.

A sponsored lunch will be provided.

The event is sponsored by the South Carolina Peanut Board and the Cooperative Extension: College of Agriculture,, Forestry and Life Sciences.

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Narayan said the state has also launched Elevate Women scheme to fund the start-ups launched by women. (Photo: Pixabay/ Representational)

Bengaluru: Extolling the start-up policy of Karnataka, the state Minister for IT-BT and Skill Development Dr C N Ashwath Narayan on Sunday said that out of 46 start-ups chosen from across India for the National Start-ups Awards-2021, 14 are from Karnataka.

Addressing a press conference on the achievements of start-ups from Karnataka on the occasion of National Start-ups Day, Dr Narayan said 2,173 applications were submitted from across the country for the awards this year.

Among the total applications, 549 were from Karnataka, he added.

"Of the 46 start-ups set to get the national awards, 14 are from Karnataka, which is 30 per cent of the awards given this year to start-ups," Narayan told reporters.

He said the state is at the forefront in terms of infotech, fintech, meditech, agro-tech, biotech and industrial innovations.

According to him, Karnataka is the only state that gives seed fund to the start-ups and has chosen about 200 such companies to give seed funds.

Under the Amrit- Start-up Scheme to celebrate the platinum jubilee of India's independence, the government is funding 75 start-ups, the minister said. He also said that those getting the funds include companies launched by backward communities, women and minorities.

Narayan said the state has also launched Elevate Women scheme to fund the start-ups launched by women.

"Based on the performance of the start-ups, we give up to Rs 50 lakh as seed fund. We have so far given seed funds to 498 start-ups, of which about 200 got this year," the minister said.

The start-ups from Karnataka which received the national awards include Umbo Idtech, Athreya Global Solutions, Leucine Rich Bio, Rubanbridge, Naffa Innovations, Simplotel Technologies, Zentron Labs, Shapos Services, Stellapps Technologies, Steradian Semiconductors, Marketxpander Services, Blinkin Technologies and Thinkerbell Labs, the minister said.
COLUMBIA -- The South Carolina Department of Education (SCDE) has partnered with Mental Health America of Greenville County (MHAGC) to sustain the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline as both organizations work to combat the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on child wellbeing.

Our students have and continue to face unprecedented challenges in their academic and home lives, said State Superintendent Molly Spearman. We encourage all students who are struggling to cope with loss and adversity to reach out and seek support. This hotline provides a great service that is being utilized more than ever. This funding will ensure it remains active now and into the future, allowing students an avenue to secure the services they need to be successful in life and in school.

In 2019 through a two-year capacity-building grant offered by Vibrant Emotional Health and in partnership with the South Carolina Department of Mental Health, MHAGC began serving the entire state of South Carolina with the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. The grant ended in September 2021, and the South Carolina Department of Education has provided $250,000 in gap funding to preserve the hotline until additional funding from grants are secured in 2022.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is a 24-hour, 7-day a week confidential hotline, chat, and texting service that offers a nonjudgmental sounding board for people to talk about life's struggles and offer a listening ear and to provide crisis intervention. Students can call 800-273-8255 or text 864-77-TEENS (83367) and get connected with crisis intervention specialists and local resources.

As of October 2021, MHAGC reported youth aged 7 to 19 made a total of 2,891 calls, texts and other messages to the hotline, making 2021 the year with the highest call volumes for the age group. The top two primary issues were suicide and family relationships.

Our youth are struggling more than ever, said Jennifer Piver, MHAGC executive director. We see that in the calls where 46% of the youth are experiencing suicidal thoughts. Since school started this year, we have intervened in 45 suicide attempts, the youngest was 7. Currently, our SC Lifeline does not have sustainable funding and we are incredibly grateful that Molly Spearman heard this need and the SC Department of Education granted this funding so that the calls from our youth are answered in SC.

MHAGC is also launching the new 988 number in July 2022. Like 911, 988 will serve as a nationwide calling code and easy to remember number that offers support for emotional and suicidal crisis. The number will also be added to student ID badges.

For more information about MHAGC and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, please visit https://www.mhagc.org/.

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BOWMAN Bowmans January town hall began with the swearing of Ike Carter as he resumes his seat on town council, and the swearing in of Shawn Glenn, who is taking the spot left by Leroy Harley. Carter was sworn in by his wife, Sherry, and Glenn was sworn in by Mayor Patsy Rhett.

The second reading of Bowmans 2022 budget was held at the town hall, with the third and final reading to be held during the February meeting, after which copies of the budget will be available upon request at town hall.

Bowman is adopting the South Carolina Municipal Associations Business License Ordinance in which the licenses will be acquired either in town hall, or through the SCMA website directly by the business owner. The new ordinance will take effect in April and will be voted into action at a later meeting. The ordinance will replace all active business license ordinances in effect per the agreement, which can be inquired about at town hall.

Funding for new streetlights through the S.C. Department of Transportation will see that there are additional streetlights erected through Bowman.

Bowman will be erecting an electric marquee for the town in the coming month that will allow the mayor and town clerks to display various announcements to the town at large.

Councilwoman Shaquetta Pelzer and Carter announced that proposed layouts of the town park redesign are available by request through town hall.

Pelzer announced that there will be a second Unity March this year on Sunday, Feb. 6 at 2 p.m. starting at town hall.

Pelzer is looking into holding a Black History Month event Saturday, Feb. 26 in which she hopes to have several speakers from Bowman talk about their achievements to encourage those in the community to excel and to boost pride in the town of Bowman.

The Harvest Festival committee is looking for volunteers as they get together to discuss plans for this years festival.

The next meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Feb. 1 at town hall located at 131 Poplar St.

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ROWESVILLE Rowesvilles January meeting began with the swearing in of the duly elected officials Mayor Paul Bishop, Councilwoman Carolyn Groom, and Councilwoman Lannie Sanders; Groom was elected to serve as mayor pro tem for her term by council.

Bishop is currently working with Erica Wright of the Municipal Association and Brian Gaines with the state of South Carolina to receive funds through the American Recovery Act, which over the next two years Rowesville will receive approximately $30,000.

US Census data for Rowesville shows a decline in the towns population; in 2000 the town had a population of 378, and the recent census indicated 304. Mayor Bishop hopes that future plans for the town will aid the towns growth.

Bishop is considering implanting a version of President Lyndon B. Johnsons Highway Beautification Act in the town that would seek to clean up and revitalize the community. He wants to start with Highway 21 and River Drive, the main roads of Rowesville, and wants to enforce the zoning laws that have been lax and let blight seep into the town. He is aware there will be pushback once the program starts but feels it will lead to a better town overall.

Bishop plans to end the business license fee in Rowesville on the grounds that is an unfair tax on the brick-and-mortar businesses in Rowesville, that the mobile business can skirt by the town not having the means to monitor them entering the town to work. Rowesville will still require the licenses but there will be no fee to acquire them, and the proposal will be voted on in the February meeting.

The Rowesville Community Center will remain closed and unrentable for the month and the issue will be revisited during the next meeting.

Bishop thanked all those who attended the bulb party this past year where those in attendance checked that all of the Christmas lights were functioning properly.

Council held the first hearing of the 2022 budget, with the second reading occurring at the February meeting.

The next council meeting will be held at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 7 at Rowesville Town Hall, 309 River Drive.

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The Bringing Our Best Care  Bamberg, Orangeburg, Barnwell and Calhoun, or BOBC2, collaborative wrapped up its last pop-up mental health clinic on Dec. 10 as part of a pilot program designed to provide easily accessible, community-based mental health services.

The behavioral health consortium is made up of more than 120 volunteer members, most of them behavioral/mental health providers. The consortium has held two clinics in each county this year, with each targeting young adults aged 18 to 26 who may be in crisis, including dealing with mood disorders. Psychiatric care has been among its components.

We got the community together to see where we could fill gaps, strengthen collaborations and just work better together to serve the residents and their behavioral health needs. So we created the behavioral health consortium, and out of that our first project became the mental health popup clinic, said Dee Robinson, the deputy director of the Tri-County Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse.

Robinson was among the officials gathered on Dec. 10 at Orangeburg County Library for the final clinic of the year.

Jessica Seel, director of behavioral health initiatives and workforce development at the South Carolina Office of Rural Health, said the pilot program grew out of the collaborative whose formation was funded through a three-year $1 million federal grant provided through the SCORHs Rural Communities Opioid Response Program.

She said the federal grant funded the formation of the BOBC2 collaborative, but has not funded the pop-up mental health clinics which are being run on a volunteer basis by collaborative members.

The grant was applied for in 2019 and ends this year, but Seel said the grant is being reapplied for so that the collaborative will be able to reach a wider swath of people.

We were able to undertake this project due to our funding through the Rural Community Opioid Response Program. Our first connection was with Ms. Dee Robinson from Tri-County Alcohol and Drug Commission. She really got this project started with Dr. Doris Paez, Seel said.

Paez, a psychologist with the Regional Medical Center, said, This is the first pilot project of the collaborative. As part of this project, we do continuing education for providers, and we also have an opportunity to interact with each other. That way, we can move forward together better and act in a cohesive manner for all of these counties.

Bridget Winston, director of communications at the SCORH, said, To date, this is a volunteer-driven effort. It was designed as a pilot project to assess what aspects of the project should be expanded upon, or if the project did not warrant further energy. We would seek financial support for future phases of this program.

Providers are able to receive continuing education units from the South Carolina Area Health Education Consortium as part of their participation with the clinic.

Robinson said, I think the progress has been amazing. The amount of providers that have come together in the four counties has really been wonderful. At every clinic, weve had no less than 12 providers available for the residents of each county. Its really a  wide variety of representation at each clinic, too. Weve had financial assistance, psychology, social work, substance abuse, domestic violence and nursing staff.

Paez said, Theres a sense of more of a community among us, which is part of the collaborative goal, and this is just our first project. We see this now as an opportunity to then move on to other projects, or to support projects that other organizations may already have going on.

She said the collaborative may target other age groups in the future.

We will get together again on Jan. 20. Were up to 125 members that represent primarily providers, but also administrators, assistants, front office people, anyone that has a connection to the work. We will make some decisions about what pieces of this make sense to continue and how, Paez said.

Winston said, We are currently considering how the pop-ups can be taken to where the people are, by this doing at high-population sites such as the detention center, schools or neighborhoods. Some community colleges and other education entities have expressed an interest in having the pop-up clinics at their sites.

Dr. Bryan West, medical director of the RMC Behavioral Health Center, said, I am proud of the work weve done. We are implementing these clinics and these training sessions, which is a big step in the right direction to community collaboration.

He continued, I think that these pop-up clinics are our attempt at meeting people where theyre at. So maybe they dont have an acute psychiatric situation, but theyve got a psych question, a psych problem or a psych concern. The hospital is actively trying to increase psychiatric services in parallel with our community resource partners.

Seel said the collaborative demonstrates the resilience of rural communities in providing needs services for its residents.

Change can be made with grassroots efforts, and I thats exactly whats happening here, she said.

Contact the writer: dgleaton@timesanddemocrat.com or 803-533-5534. Follow "Good News with Gleaton" on Twitter at @DionneTandD

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The T&D Region apparently made it through this weekend's winter storm with no reported problems, but snow is in the forecast again for the end of the week.

If they didn't prepare for this one, they need to prepare for the next one, Calhoun County Emergency Services Director David Chojnacki said.

The National Weather Service says below-normal temperatures have the potential to bring another round of winter weather at the end of this week.

Early forecasts for Thursday night show a 40% chance of rain and snow showers, with a low of around 29 degrees. There is also a 40% chance of rain and snow forecast for Friday and Friday night.

Temperatures Friday are forecast to reach a high of 39 and Friday nights low is forecast to dip to 23.

Overall next week there could be some snow around as the pattern is favorable, but there is significant uncertainty, NWS Meteorologist Matt Gropp said. It is way too early to provide any specific details.

Chojnacki recommends individuals have at least three days of food on hand, although a two-week supply is always a good goal.

He also stressed the importance of an alternative heat source in the event power is lost.

If you use a generator, never use it near the house and never in the house or in the garage because of carbon monoxide, Chojnacki said. Stay tuned to the NWS for their updates on a regular basis.

Chojnacki encouraged individuals to follow the Calhoun County Emergency Management Agency on Facebook at facebook.com/ccemac

This weekends storm brought no reports of power outages or downed trees in Calhoun County through mid-day Sunday.

The National Weather Service posted no reports of storm damage in Bamberg, Calhoun and Orangeburg counties.

A lake wind advisory is in effect for the entire region until 10 a.m. Monday.

Motorists should still be cautious of potential black ice spots on roads and are encouraged to reduce speeds on Monday morning.

Wind gusts are forecast to be about 28 mph Monday morning, with wind chill values in the lower 20s.

Temperatures at the Orangeburg Municipal Airport fell to around 34 degrees Sunday morning, remaining above the critical freezing line. There were no issues with icing on roads and power lines.

According to the NWS radar, some freezing rain was visible for a short time between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. in portions of Calhoun County, although there were no reports of significant accumulation.

The Sandy Run area of Calhoun County, the area expected to see the most significant icing, saw a low temperature of about 33.

The Orangeburg Department of Public Utilities reported no power outages and there were no outages reported from local electric cooperatives.

Through 10 a.m. Sunday morning, about .47 inches of rain had fallen at the Orangeburg airport.

Through late morning Sunday, about .39 inches of rain fell near Denmark and about .76 inches fell near St. Matthews. The bulk of the rainfall moved out of the area shortly after 1 p.m. Sunday.

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For years, we argued that states in the South should face no more scrutiny in drawing electoral districts than all other states. That was during a time when the Voting Rights Act of 1965 required preclearance of voting districts to ensure that minorities had ample opportunity at being elected. The need for preclearance ended in 2013 with a U.S. Supreme Court decision that it is unconstitutional to subject one state to preclearance while others are exempt.

Fast forward to 2022 and reapportionment plans for the state legislature are being challenged by civil rights groups with a legal case focused on the newly drawn map for the S.C. House of Representatives. Out front in the case are the South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union.

They charge that new districts intentionally discriminate against Black communities in the state and deny Black voters equal opportunity to participate in the political process and elect candidates of their choice.

The lawsuit alleges the new House map is a racial gerrymander that intentionally packs and cracks Black communities. Cracking refers to splitting communities of color into different districts to prevent them from exercising greater political power. Packing refers to placing people of color into the same district in greater numbers than necessary to elect candidates of choice to prevent them from exercising greater political power in surrounding districts.

As much as the politics of reapportionment will always be controversial and the power of the party controlling the legislature to draw lines is a very real product of elections, its hard not to take exception with what has happened with reapportionment in Orangeburg County, one of the states counties with a large African American population.

Local governments in Orangeburg County have joined in expressing opposition to the House remapping that essentially does away with a district that keeps Greater Orangeburg intact.

In a nutshell, veteran Orangeburg Rep. Jerry Govan is drawn out of a city district and is moved into a district that is presently represented by Calhoun Rep. Russell Ott. Bamberg County Rep. Justin Bamberg would be in the new boundaries of what was Govans district. Greater Orangeburg is split with Orangeburg County potentially being left with the likelihood of only one resident House member.

Even with the loss of population from 2010 to 2020, Orangeburg County is a large enough population center to have representation beyond one resident member of the House. The county potentially loses in terms of numbers of minority lawmakers as well as representation for communities of interest, notably Greater Orangeburg.

And the remapping problems are not just with the House. Senate District 39, formerly represented by veteran African American lawmaker John Matthews, has always had boundaries conducive to Black representation. That has changed.

District 39 has been redrawn to reduce the number of Orangeburg County voters and increase the number of Berkeley County voters. The district is currently represented by African American Sen. Vernon Stephens, D-Bowman.

I am just concerned Orangeburg County has lost some of its power in some sense, Stephens has told The T&D. That will maybe be a detriment as we continue looking at economic development.

The newly redrawn District 39 now has about 27,943 residents in Orangeburg County and 65,208 residents in Berkeley County. About 12,832 residents are in Dorchester County. There are a total of 105,983 residents in the new District 39.

The Black voting-age population for District 39 has changed under the new map, standing at 39%, with a white voting-age population of 50%.

As Stephens has said, the current district is the complete opposite in terms of population breakdown. If voting trends of the past hold true, Stephens chances of re-election in 2024 are in doubt. Not exactly a tribute to the longtime service of Sen. Matthews.

As stated, reapportionment is a political process, but beyond the party in power drawing lines that benefit its electoral interests, there is a need to respect the need for representation for localities and people with common interests. The plans resulting from the 2020 census have not done justice to Orangeburg County.

It will now be up to the courts to decide whether plans with which we cannot agree go too far in diluting the strength of minority voters in an area of a red state heavily populated by Black voters.

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Christopher Green, a native of Hollywood, Florida, believes in paying it forward. Twenty years ago, when he found himself in South Carolina navigating the choices inherent to college and life away from home in an unfamiliar city, a wise male father-figure reached out to offer guidance. Since then, Green, who now calls Orangeburg home, has been compelled to seek a life of counseling and a path of mentoring others in a quest to inspire the continuation of this type of positive, interpersonal relationship among men.

In fact, he recently published a book titled, "Mentoring at its Best: Stories of Young Men Who Triumphed Over Adversity," which is available on Amazon.com. The book, based on the real lives of some of his mentees, offers the revelation to young readers that there are others their age who are dealing with lifes challenges and the realization that with resources, sound advice and good choices, they can achieve their goals.

I believe that this book is very important because it tells the stories of young men who overcame challenges and struggles to become successful in life," said Green. "They had issues such as ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), bullying or growing up without the father in the home.

I wrote this book to let young men know that they are not the only one going through certain things. To me when they read this book, they will understand that they are not alone.

As an integral part of the text, the writer focuses on females raising sons in an area called From a Mothers Heart.

Even when parents read the book, they will realize that their sons are not the only ones going through something and that other mothers may have similar situations," Green says. "This section shares stories from moms expressing challenges that they faced with their sons, what they did, their experience and what they overcame.

After each story, the author includes a series of questions for the reader to answer to elicit an interactivity with the content and to invoke deeper thinking and reflection.

It creates a dialog conversation with the book, Green says, suggesting that it is a great resource for young men, parents, teachers, counselors and mentoring groups.

During his book-signing, held on Saturday, Dec. 11, 2021, the book sold out quickly.

When he first moved to Orangeburg, Green said that he not only had the desire, he had the need to mentor young males because he felt so inspired that someone took the time out to counsel him. Appreciative of the experience, the author and mentor said he feels so grateful for the opportunity that he has had to be a part of so many peoples lives and work with so many young men over the years.

I wanted to pay it forward because I knew that some young male here needed someone like me to help lead them to become successful in life, Green said.

A graduate of Benedict College in Columbia, with a B.S. in education, Green continued his search for further personal and professional growth at South Carolina State University where he received two masters degrees  one in individual and family development and the other in professional school counseling.

As a man driven to teach and counsel youth, Green currently serves in several different roles from his work as project director for the Voorhees College Gear Up program to his contributions as a youth minister at Victory Tabernacle. He is a proud member of the Orangeburg Branch of the NAACP and of the Delta Zeta Lambda Chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc.

Through his involvement and outreach, Green presents himself as a community activist, event organizer and philanthropist. In his personal life, he and his wife, Sabrina, have one daughter, Harper Christian Green.

About eight years ago, in an effort to create lasting impact in the community and to perpetuate a culture of success for young men, Green founded Open-Mind Mentoring, which is a nonprofit organization. He and his team of mentors originally worked with and in schools, but due to restrictions with COVID-19 over the past several years, their program transitioned to a virtual platform using videoconferencing such as Zoom for one-to-one, personalized mentoring opportunities.

The community needs to know that there is an organization in Orangeburg that is available to help mentor our youth to become better individuals and productive citizens in our society, said Green. We have youth that are faced with various issues and when they feel that they have no one to reach out to, they turn to the streets, drugs and other things that hinder them from being successful in school and in life. We are here to provide that support, he added.

Deandria Bennett, a young mother from Orangeburg, said she has known Green since she was a young girl attending church where he was a youth minister.

He has always been someone people can look up to," Bennett said. "He has always made sure that he is the kind of person who walks a certain kind of path, someone who people can be proud to know.

I have twin, 12-year old boys. When I found out that Chris has this mentoring program, I was real interested. They could benefit from this because they are lacking that strong male figure in their life. Mom can only do so much, Bennett said adding, When you know people like this in the community, I am reaching out for that help.

For more information on Open-Mind Mentoring, a nonprofit organization geared to the development of youth in Orangeburg and surrounding areas, please email openmindmentoring@gmail.com.

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(TBTCO) - Thi truong chung khoan Viet Nam co ban van giu nhip on inh trong quy au nam nay, tuy nhien, thi truong chiu ap luc ieu chinh kha manh ke tu cuoi thang 3 en nay do tac ong tu cac yeu to ngoai bien va cac vu viec sai pham mang tinh on le cua mot so ca nhan, to chuc. Theo cac chuyen gia, nhung tac ong en tam ly ngan han cua nha au tu la kho tranh khoi, nhung ay la co hoi e huong dong tien i ung huong, giup thi truong gan uc, khoi trong e phat trien ben vung.
Covid is no threat to thousands of Hindu marriages being held in north coastal Andhra Pradesh from February 2. (Representational Photo:DC)

Visakhapatnam: Covid is no threat to thousands of Hindu marriages being held in north coastal Andhra Pradesh from February 2. The virus was a big worry last year and the year before but there is palpable relief now.

Marriages are being held in temples, Kalyana mandapams and hotels depending on the financial status of the families but no cancellation has been reported from any of the north coastal districts. People rather cut down the number of guests, limiting them to less than 200.

We have not received any cancellations. We will insist on the Covid protocol and restriction in the number of guests to 100 for indoor events and 200 for outdoors, said executive officer of Simhachalalm temple, Suryakala.

Well-known priest of Visakhapatnam, Moola Ramu, said marriages would be begin from the auspicious days of February 2 (Satabisha Nakshatram), February 6 (Rohini and Aswini), February 10 (Rohini), February 11 (Mrigasira) and February 19 (Uttara and Hasta). February 10 and February 11 are the most auspicious days this year, he said.

There will be no marriage from February 20 to March 20 due to Mudham and auspicious days begin from March 21 and continue till June end, he said.

Around 60 to 70 marriages will be held on most auspicious days atop the Simhachalam temple shrine. Even if Covid restrictions are followed, there would be around 7,000 people arriving for these on any given day, said Siripurapu Shankar, well-versed with the administrative affairs of the temple.

Families mostly from rural areas of south Odisha and north coastal Andhra prefer Simhachalam, Annavaram and Arasavalli (Srikakulam) and the crowding will be less compared to the events of the middle and upper-middle class who organise marriages in function halls and hotels, Shankar said.

YSRC leader Bhaskar Rao said people have paid advances and will not cancel the marriages at this stage though the Covid numbers have marginally risen of late. They might reduce the number like last year, he said.
BEIRUT  Lebanons Energy Ministry on Sunday denied as totally and completely untrue a report on an Israeli TV station that claimed the US had agreed a deal to supply Israeli gas to Lebanon.

Heres what we know:

 The Ministry of Energy and Water confirms that the gas supply agreement that is being worked on between the Lebanese government and the sisterly Egyptian government clearly and explicitly stipulates that the gas should come from Egypt, which owns large quantities of it, and consumes within the same country more than a hundred times what it will provide to Lebanon, the statement issued by the ministry read.

 The statement adds, what is being circulated about the fact that the gas will be Israeli gas is totally and completely untrue.

 Israels Channel 12 news had reported on Saturday that a deal to supply Israeli gas to Lebanon had been brokered by Amos Hochstein, Washingtons special envoy and coordinator for international energy affairs, and signed in secret over the weekend.

 A deal to supply Egyptian natural gas to Lebanon is part of a US-led initiative announced during the summer by US Ambassador Dorothy Shea to help alleviate chronic electricity shortages in the crisis-hit country. The deal has been months in the making and is now, according to reports, close to being finalized.

 A second element of the US-led initiative entails supplying the Lebanese power grid with electricity imported from Jordan, also via Syria. Questions have been raised over the extent to which  if at all  both parts of the plan would involve the US making exceptions to the sanctions regime it imposed on Syria under the Caesar Act, which targets individuals and entities collaborating with Bashar al-Assads government.


Im new to Wyoming  I started my job as the Star-Tribunes community reporter in early September.

But it hasnt taken long for housing to become front-of-mind for me.

Ive overheard life-long Casperites remark, astounded, about how quickly housing prices have climbed in the past year. Ive also noticed new apartment complexes and subdivisions spring up around the citys periphery to keep up with its growing population.

And Ive spoken with people caught in the cycle of homelessness, overwhelmed by their search for an affordable, dignified place to live.

Advocates, officials and journalists have long followed the housing crises unfolding around the state, and what cities are doing to tackle them:

The Wind River Reservations expanding population has led to homelessness, overcrowding and racial discrimination within its housing systems, as told in a series by Wyoming Public Media in 2016.

The Jackson Hole News&Guide has documented the citys struggle to provide enough affordable housing for its working population.

Laramie just passed an ordinance establishing its first rental housing code, the Laramie Boomerang reported.

But Wyoming doesnt have a dedicated housing reporter. Thats why were starting our new series A Roof Over Our Heads  because getting the bigger picture requires consistent coverage.

The Star-Tribunes photographer, Lauren Miller, and I are working together to document the current state of housing in Wyoming, how we got here and what steps we could take to do better.

Here are some things on our radar so far:

Inequality: Is Wyomings housing system fair? If not, where are there disparities, and who are they hurting?

Housing stock: Are there enough places to live? Do they meet Wyomings needs? Where is new housing being built, and what does that look like?

Insecurity and homelessness: Are assistance programs doing enough to help cost-burdened and homeless residents? What about these programs is working, and what isnt?

This series will be patchwork, and thats on purpose. Housing is a broad topic  so broad that its hard to define  but a deeply personal one, all the same. It cant be done justice by just one kind of story.

That includes everything from shoe-leather, out-on-the-street reporting, to deep dives, to intimate profiles of the people caught up in the housing crunch.

Most importantly, we want to listen  really listen  to what you have to say about this.

If you have any questions, please dont hesitate to reach out.

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CHEYENNE  House Bill 231 is one of those measures that pass the Legislature with little attention.

Yet the new law enacted by the lawmakers last year fits nicely into the states need for flexibility and innovation in higher education.

Sponsored by Rep. Joe MacGuire, a Casper Republican, it protects the credits anyone received from a state college or university, regardless of the length of time since they were awarded.

Any Wyoming institution of higher education receiving funding from the state of Wyoming shall accept as valid and transferrable any college level credit hour previously completed with an acceptable grade in any other Wyoming institution of higher education.

An institution of higher education may decline to accept a credit hour only if there is a lack of demonstrable applicability to the current educational standards of the institution. the new law reads.

It also requires the college or university to set up an appeals process so a returning adult does not have to accept the opinion of an advisor, the law reads.

MacGuire said in an e-mail that he decided to sponsor the bill to help adult students returning to college.

McGuire, a businessman and attorney, said that over the years he had friends and associates including some who attended Casper College with him, who have worked through one career.

Typically oil and gas, and during one of the downturns, they wanted to return to school to finish a degree.

But they were told that since it was more than 10 years since they left school their college credits had expired and they would have to start over, he added.

When he asked former University of Wyoming President Laura Nichols about the 10-year expiration, she said it was because of the schools accreditation standards.

He knew that was not true, he said, having looked it up before the question.

When I asked her to show me the 10 year expiration in writing she pivoted and said well, it is customary. he said.

Hence the bill.

During his speech to the floor of the House MacGuire said, if like me the student took Fortran and the college said Fortran isnt applicable to anything  he would accept that decision.

(Fortran is a programming language used in math and science. It is regarded as a relic today.)

But if the student was told the same thing about calculus credits, he or she would want the right to appeal to someone other than a counselor.

His bill which passed easily dovetails with the Wyoming Tomorrow scholarship proposal.

The scholarship bill has had a tougher time with the Legislature.

Having been studied for about six years, it passed the House easily last year but died in a Senate committee.

Legislators said the snag was money; the original bill was financed from the states Hathaway scholarship program.

Find another revenue source and it will work, supporters said.

So the legislative leaders gave it another trip to the Joint Interim Education Committee for a re-do.

In November last year, the Joint Education Committee voted 8-6 to sponsor it in the February budget session a move that will require a two-thirds majority vote.

The committee vote indicated this may not be an easy sell this time.

The Tomorrow scholarship would go to individuals 24 years old or more who may be married with children and a house and want to finish a degree or to switch careers completely to another profession. Or it may be for someone who wants a certificate in another line of work and the college can provide the training.

Sen.Chris Rothfuss, D-Laramie, told the Joint Education Committee, in November that the the essential need is for flexibility in higher education scholarships.

As Rep. Albert Sommers, R-Pinedale, said earlier, The age of the traditional student has gone away.

Joan Barron is a former capitol bureau reporter. Contact her at 307-632-2534 or jmbarron@bresnan.net

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An increase in measles cases in January and February 2022 is a worrying sign of a heightened risk for the spread of vaccine-preventable diseases and could trigger larger outbreaks, particularly of measles affecting millions of children in 2022, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNICEF have warned.

Pandemic-related disruptions, increasing inequalities in access to vaccines, and the diversion of resources from routine immunisation are leaving too many children without protection against measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases.
Many people are struggling during this Covid-19 pandemic as prices increase, while many are 
Those with authority over others often become wolves because the people under their charge 
I wonder if any of my readers have thought about this. Why did you get the 2022 cost-of-living increase in your January Social Security checks? After all, that check you get in January is the Social Security payment for December. In other words, you get your first 2022 COLA increase in your December 2021 Social Security benefit. So why is that?

Well, it has to do with the power of the senior citizen lobby in this country. When old folks gripe about something, especially when it comes to Social Security, Congress cant act quickly enough to make them happy. And this business about getting the COLA one month early is a good example of that.

Automatic annual cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security checks first started in 1975. (Before that, it took an act of Congress to hand out increases in Social Security benefits.) And when those automatic COLAs started, they were always properly paid in the January Social Security check that was sent to folks in February. And for the first several years, people just accepted this procedure.

But then in the early 1980s, seniors began to complain. They griped, Why do I have to wait until February to get my first COLA increase for the year? Someone should have simply explained that they were getting the increase properly and on time. They were getting the COLA in their January checks paid in February.

But thats not how things work when it comes to placating riled-up senior citizens. Explanations werent in order. Instead, legislation was called for. So, in 1983, Congress passed a law saying that seniors would get their COLA increases in January of each year  in effect, one month early. Problem solved. Grandma and Grandpa are happy!

I can think of dozens of other times when Congress jumped to fix a perceived Social Security problem just to keep senior citizens happy. I only have space in this column to share one more.

And this one also has to do with the annual COLAs. As part of the process for establishing the automatic COLAs back in the 1970s, the Social Security Administration had to come up with a formula for calculating increases to peoples Social Security checks  which they did. But after COLAs were paid for a couple of years, someone noticed the formula was wrong. Social Security beneficiaries were getting increases that were slightly higher than the law intended.

Once the mistake was discovered and the SSA notified Congress, several decisions had to be made. For one, they had to figure out what to do about all the Social Security beneficiaries who received the overly generous COLA adjustments. Congress decided to let them keep the money. (It would have been political suicide to send overpayment letters to every senior citizen in the country demanding repayment of the incorrectly paid funds.)

The second choice Congress had to make was to decide where to draw the line  to figure out which people would have their benefits figured using the proper COLA formula. And they drew that line at 1917. In other words, they said everyone born in 1917 and later would have his or her Social Security benefit figured using the corrected formula.

Sounds simple enough, doesnt it? But once again, Congress bowed to pressure from senior citizens born after 1916 who griped that they were getting lower benefits than their older peers. So, Congress decided to set up a transition period from the old (incorrect) formula to the new (proper) formula. They said that everyone born between 1917 and 1921 would have his or her benefit figured using a special formula.

So, we ended up with the following scenarios. People born after 1921 had their benefits figured using the proper (and lower) COLA formula. People born before 1917 had their benefits figured using the incorrect (and higher) formula. And people born between 1917 and 1921 had their benefits figured with a special formula not quite as generous as the one used for the pre-1917 crowd but more generous than the one used for the post-1921 crowd.

Youd think everyone would be happy, right? Well, what happened next was pretty bizarre. Social Security recipients born in 1917 and later started to complain that they werent getting quite as much as folks born in 1916 and earlier. Someone should have splashed some cold water in their faces and said, You are being paid correctly. Its the folks born before 1917 who are getting overly generous benefits. And on top of that, you are getting Social Security benefits at a higher rate than anyone born from 1922 on.

Instead, mobs of angry senior citizens around the country started to form into groups demanding justice. Even advice columnist Ann Landers got into the fray. Shes the one who came up with the infamous moniker: notch babies. And all these so-called notch babies mistakenly thought they were singled out for lower benefit adjustments than everyone else. To repeat the facts: They were getting slightly lower benefits than people born 1916 and earlier, but they were getting higher benefits than everyone born after 1921.

Then greedy lobbying groups got into the mix and really muddied things. They sent letters to folks born in the so-called notch years telling them they were being cheated out of Social Security benefits and asking for donations to fight this injustice. And to help fill their coffers even more, the lobbyists deceitfully expanded the definition of those notch years to include everyone born through 1926. Some inexplicably even pushed the notch cutoff into 1930s dates of birth! So senior citizens of all ages started sending in tens of millions of dollars  money that paid for many overpriced lobbyists and some pretty nice office space on K Street in Washington, D.C., but money that accomplished nothing else. After all, there really was no injustice to fight.

Sadly, millions of seniors born between 1917 and 1926 or even later went to their graves bitter and disappointed  including my own mother! Those few who are still alive believe to this day that they are being cheated out of Social Security benefits. If you know one of these people, please tell them to enjoy what time they have left on Earth and stop fretting about an alleged injustice that never happened.

If you have a Social Security question, Tom Margenau has a book with all the answers. Its called Social Security: Simple and Smart. You can find the book at creators.com/books. Or look for it on Amazon or other book outlets. To find out more about him and to read past columns and see features from other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com.

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Growing up in Montreal, Canada, we had a bit of a skewed idea of where fruit comes from. Trees, such as we knew them, didnt produce much more than leaves and acorns  and of course, maple syrup.

Fruit? That grew in the supermarket.

So it was with delight that 5-year-old me, on a visit to Moshav Meitav in sunny Israel, saw fruit hanging there on the trees! If I wanted a lemon, a pomegranate or a grape, all I had to do was ask one of my doting relatives to pick me up so I could reach, and I could pick a piece of fresh fruit.

The memories of that visit have stayed with me, and now that I live in Tucson  where the climate is far more hospitable to fruit trees than Montreal is  Im proud to be the owner of pomegranate and clementine trees.

But my perspective has changed from that of 5-year-old me.

I still marvel at the fruit that grows, year in and year out, for my family to enjoy. But now I realize that it doesnt grow on its own. It takes hard work; pruning, irrigation, keeping away pests and harmful diseases. And some would say that it takes more than that. It takes a green thumb.

Thats the term for someone who seems naturally gifted with the ability to nurture plants. You either have a green thumb, or you dont, people say. If you plant something and it thrives, you are said to have a green thumb. If the tree you carefully planted dies inexplicably, you dont have it. I certainly dont have it.

But what I learned on that visit to Israel all those years ago is that it isnt the color of your thumb  or even the extent of the effort you put in  that determines the yield and success of your crops. Its the blessing of G-d. And farmers are some of the most faithful people because they know better than anyone that their efforts will only go so far in determining the success of their crops. The rest is out of their hands.

Planting a seed takes faith. You could have ground that seed into flour, and turned that into bread. But instead, you planted the seed and hoped for the best. Yes, the rules of nature dictate that a seed planted will germinate and produce a plant, containing many seeds  because thats how G-d created it. And sometimes, G-d decrees that that particular seed, or crop, not be as fruitful. Entire nations have been wiped out by famine and blight; by crops that did not yield as they should have.

Our very lives depend on the fertility of the land, but like kids in Montreal, we sometimes have a hard time visualizing where our food comes from, or remembering how much we depend on the bounty of the land and its creator.

That is why, not long after the champagne is popped, the fireworks are launched, and the confetti is scattered, Jewish people will be celebrating a different type of new year. The 15th of the month of Shevat, the Talmud tells us, is the new year for trees. We mark the day by enjoying fruit  particularly the fruits that the Holy Land of Israel is blessed with  and taking the time to think about the blessing of G-d, who tells each blade of grass to grow.

This year, as we celebrate the New Year for Trees, lets remember that its not a green thumb that enables us to plant and harvest the food we enjoy. Its G-ds blessing.

Tucson faith leaders, we would like to include your original sermon or scriptures of encouragement. Sermons must be written by the person submitting them, not borrowed from another source or writer. If you are a faith leader from any religion or denomination, please contact Sara Brown at sbbrown@tucson.com.

Meet the Rabbi Rabbi Yehuda Ceitlin is the outreach director at Chabad Tucson. He was born in Canada, educated in Israel, ordained in Brooklyn, New York, and has guided Jewish communities in Europe, the former Soviet Union, Namibia and Nepal. He has been living and teaching in Tucson with his wife and four children since 2010.

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Under state law, marijuana sold at Arizona dispensaries has to be tested not only for potency levels but also to ensure the drugs are safe for consumers.

That testing provides consumers with information they can use to purchase the type of marijuana they want safely since marijuana that has higher levels than allowed of such things like herbicides and pesticides cannot legally be sold.

And while the legislation doesnt require that growers, producers or dispensaries label those products with the results, every item sold in a dispensary in Arizona must have an accompanying certificate of authorization that attests to its potency and safety.

For example, if you purchase marijuana from a dispensary with a high level of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the psychoactive ingredient of the plant, you can request the third-party, state-approved certificate showing the results of lab tests related to the batch that marijuana was originally in.

Many brands advertise their most potent marijuana flower to be 30% THC by volume. Labs can certify the marijuana has that level of potency. It means that plant contains 300,000 parts per million of THC, said Robert Brodnick, co-founder and CEO of Titan Laboratories, located at 2175 E. Valencia Road. That means a third of that flower, the THC, is basically oil.

Like other third-party testing labs, Titan is set up for testing of cannabis products, including determining the potency of marijuana plants. But as Brodnick and others explained, theres a lot more the state requires labs test for than just potency and most of it is tied to making sure products are safe enough to hit dispensary shelves.

Testing for mold, pesticides

While Titan Laboratories is awaiting final approval by the Arizona Department of Health Services to start doing tests required by the state for products to make it onto dispensary shelves, Brodnick explained said the lab is already up-and-running for informational testing, which essentially is the same thing.

He also explained that there are five main categories of tests that the state of Arizona requires for every analyte (or test specimen), known as the Big Five: microbials, pesticides, residual solvents, heavy metals and potency.

Thats pretty similar to what a lot of states test for, Brodnick, who has worked in the marijuana testing lab industry in California and Hawaii, said. Arizona did a really good job of having well-defined quality control.

Each specimen, is subjected to the battery of tests, each calibrated to look for a different one of the Big Five.

In order to pass, or more accurately, not fail, the marijuana must meet specifications laid out in the Arizona Administrative code, according to Brodnick.

For instance, according to the code, in the Pesticides section, there are different allowable amounts in parts per million for a host of different pesticides. And just because a specimen, especially a marijuana flower specimen, might not meet standards at first, that doesnt necessarily mean it failed.

Safety and remediation

It can be remediated.

In the case of marijuana flower that contains over the maximum allowable amount of a certain pesticide or microbial contaminate, the code advises to remediate and retest, or destroy. There are slightly different rules for remediation for different analytes, like edibles and concentrates, since those cant as easily change form.

Remediation for marijuana flower can happen in a few different ways, said Will English, the other co-founder of Titan Laboratories.

You could, for instance, send it through an extract process to turn that flower into distillates (distillates are products that contain high amounts of THC and other psychoactive compounds) and that extract process will almost certainly kill anything, he said.

The tainted weed could also be remediated by being cooked and eventually turned into edibles. However, English confirmed there are some microbial contaminates, like salmonella, listed in the Arizona code, where remediation is not possible.

If you see that? Must destroy, English said. No, theres no remediation. You have to destroy that product.

Thats not exceedingly rare, according to English and Brodnick. However, here in Arizona, theyve found that the No. 1 contaminate to make it into analyte samples is a class of fungus typically called black mold.

Were kind of checking for it two ways, English said. One, were doing a direct test with it to see if that DNA is in there and were also checking for its toxins. Because that is a serious contaminant.

How testing came to be

After doing $2 billion in sales in 2021 between its medical and brand-new adult-use recreational marijuana programs, its fair to say the state is in a green rush, raking in cash and producing cannabis. That can all be attributed to voters overwhelmingly approving Proposition 207 in November 2020 to legalize recreational use of the drug.

But along with new recreational marijuana and additional dispensary licenses being granted by the state in Proposition 207, earlier in 2020 the state passed legislation, Senate Bill 1494, making it mandatory that any retail product in Arizona be tested for potency as well as a battery of potential contaminants.

The medical program has been around for almost a decade, but Nov. 1, 2020, was the first time that there was ever a state mandate to test, said Sam Richard, executive director of the Arizona Dispensary Association, an organization that lobbied for the change in rules.

Most dispensaries, growers and producers adhered to a stricter, more professional testing regimen for their crops and products sold medical patients, Richard said.

But he conceded legislation was needed to ensure safety in the industry, even before recreational marijuana legalization, in the face of the states relatively large medical marijuana program.

For scale, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services, the department of administering and regulating both medical and recreational pot program in state, there are nearly 350,000 medical marijuana card holders in the state. Thats more than 4% of the states total population.

Now, with passage of Proposition 207 and SB 1494, the state is this close to bridging its medical and recreational testing regimes, Richard said. The differences come down to one or two different pesticides being on one list as not acceptable and not the other.

Either way, the increased testing is good for consumers, dispensaries and producers, and the industry at large, Brodnick said.

Producers and customers want to know these things, he said. Because they see: better product, better market. But without the state testing, there wasnt really a core requirement before that.

Edward Celaya is a breaking news and marijuana reporter. He has been on both beats since May 2021.

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Updated with information from Thomas Sheridan's book "Arizona: A History."

By now youve probably heard a land acknowledgment, even if you werent quite sure what it was.

It often happens at the beginning of a meeting or an event, especially at the university. A host starts the program by saying something along the lines of: I want to acknowledge that were on the ancestral lands of the Tohono Oodham and Pascua Yaqui people.

The words might be more formal, more verbose or more edgy  stolen or unceded are often invoked  but thats the basic idea.

The University of Arizona formally adopted a land acknowledgment last year, long after they had become common at UA events. The Tucson Unified School District has a student read one before each board meeting. Other institutions, like the Tucson Museum of Art, also have one.

And now the Pima County Board of Supervisors will consider adopting a land acknowledgment at Tuesdays meeting.

This is not only a respectful thing for us to do as a board, but I think its an acknowledgment of our shared history, Supervisor Adelita Grijalva said at the first discussion of the idea, at the Dec. 21 board meeting.

Other supervisors seemed inclined to support the idea, which Grijalva proposed, but they simply wanted to land on an agreeable text. Then, the acknowledgment could be recited at each meeting, along with the pledge of allegiance.

What seems simple at first glance, though, is not simple at all. This aspect of our history is fraught with violence, trauma, denial and misunderstanding.

A land acknowledgment can even do more harm than good, especially if it does nothing but lighten peoples guilt. So its worth pondering what you should consider when deciding on a land acknowledgment.

Whats the point?

The question that struck me when I first started hearing land acknowledgments at UA events some years ago was, Whats the point? Its one thing to acknowledge that the university, and Tucson itself, sit on land that belonged previously to the Tohono Oodham people.

Its a fact, yes, and it brings up the ugly truth of our national history: That the country was built on the displacement of Indigenous people from their own homes and lands.

But just saying that doesnt do much good. Thats the top concern I heard when interviewing a variety of people with an interest in the practice.

A land acknowledgment is worth whatever time and effort our nonnative allies put into it, and also worth about as much as the action they take after it, said Wayne Ducheneaux, executive director of the Minnesota-based Native Governance Center. Its good to do it, but there has to be action.

This group, which helps Indigenous nations strength their governance, has tackled the issue in a couple of publications. First they published A Guide to Indigenous Land Acknowledgment," and a few months ago, Beyond Land Acknowledgment: A Guide.

They emphasize that serious research and learning, along with an action plan, should go along with any land acknowledgment.

When I asked Ned Norris, the chairman of the Tohono Oodham Nation, about the idea, he was skeptical but supportive.

Our ancestors have lived in this region since time immemorial," he said. The surrounding jurisdictions, governmental entities have been here for quite a few years. I dont want to sound sarcastic, but its kind of interesting that this many years later people want to start acknowledging our existence, or our ancestors existence in this area.

I do think its a good idea, he went on. I think its a much better idea if we dont just simply put the words together and make that statement at the beginning of, in this case, every county board meeting session, but that its more than just words.

Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cazares-Kelly, a Tohono Oodham tribal member and the first Indigenous person elected to countywide office here, sent me a statement supporting the idea.

Land acknowledgments are an important way to learn about and honor the local Indigenous communities in the area, she said. Creating a statement pushes organizations, universities and even governments to interact more with the Indigenous community whose traditional lands they occupy. It creates an opportunity to learn more about the true history of the region.

Words matter, too

History, of course, is also contested terrain that we can stumble over in our word choices.

The University of Arizonas new land acknowledgment, introduced in July, says:

We respectfully acknowledge the University of Arizona is on the land and territories of Indigenous peoples. Today, Arizona is home to 22 federally recognized tribes, with Tucson being home to the Oodham and the Yaqui. Committed to diversity and inclusion, the university strives to build sustainable relationships with sovereign Native Nations and Indigenous communities through education offerings, partnerships and community service.

As these things go, its a good statement. For me, though, it brought one question to mind, based on a book I had recently read: What about the Apache people?

That book, by Karl Jacoby, is called Shadows at Dawn: An Apache Massacre and the Violence of History. In part, it documents the infamous Camp Grant Massacre of more than 100 Apaches carried out by Tucsonans near the confluence of Aravaipa Creek and the San Pedro River. It also reveals the rough and contested character of Tucson and Southern Arizona in the 1800s.

Much of the life of this area revolved around Apache people. There were the so-called Apaches Mansos, 486 of whom lived in Tucson in 1835.

"Tucson in the 1830s was as much an Apache as a Mexican community," historian Thomas Sheridan wrote in "Arizona: A History."

And there were the many Apache people living just east of the area, across Redington Pass at the San Pedro River and beyond to the east, north and south.

Its hard to talk about the Apache history sympathetically, because Apache people are described in accounts from the 1700s and 1800s mostly as raiders and attackers, to be feared and fought. The attackers of 1871, most of whom were Tohono Oodham, justified the attack as a response to Apache attacks against them.

Apache people go unnoticed in local land acknowledgments because they dont have a reservation near Tucson. The San Carlos Apache reservation is a 90-minute drive to the north. Their historical presence also brings up touchy issues wed rather ignore altogether.

Which Indigenous communities you recognize is incredibly complicated, author Jacoby, a history professor at Columbia University, said when I spoke with him Friday. Thats one of the many challenges of this.

The fact that the Apaches are not close to Tucson now is an artifact of this 19th century history of violence, he said.

So how do we acknowledge that?

Its about land

Some people have turned against land acknowledgments altogether. A married couple of anthropologists, Valerie and Mike Lambert of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, wrote an influential piece last year challenging their value.

As members of the Association of Indigenous Anthropologists, theyve convinced the American Anthropological Association to suspend their land acknowledgment and the use of Indigenous blessings at their professional meetings.

One of their key objections to land acknowledgments, Mike Lambert said: They did not acknowledge Indian ownership of the land. Theyd say Indian stewards and custodians of the land. Nice of them to take care of it, and now its ours."

Its extremely important in a land acknowledgment that there is an acknowledgment of ownership, he said. If youre going to say its a land acknowledgment, it needs to be about the land.

In addition, repeating over and over that settlers took over the land can have a traumatizing effect, especially if it leads nowhere else.

The way the land acknowledgments get told, theres an erasure of the trauma of land dispossession, Mike Lambert said. Its like, Way back when, wonderful people were taking care of the land. Now theyre gone. 

When I asked Norris about land acknowledgments opening up generational wounds, he was matter of fact.

If some folks feel its going to bring up a historical trauma, then maybe it needs to. So be it, he said. Thats the reality of some of the things our ancestors have faced over the course of time.

Perhaps that says something about how non-Indigenous people like me should approach land acknowledgments.

Theyre awkward at times, but they ought to be. And if they get the facts right while leading to something more, theyre probably worth doing.

Contact columnist Tim Steller at tsteller@tucson.com or 520-807-7789. On Twitter: @senyorreporter

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An early strategy to fund Move Tucson shows the money needed to address the citys transportation needs is far from secured, with a large chunk of it relying on uncertain federal grants and upcoming voter decisions.

Move Tucson is a 20-year-long transportation master plan that was approved by officials last year. The plan outlines projects ranging from street repaving to transit system upgrades, and carries a price tag of $13.1 billion  or a third of the citys budget over the next two decades.

It was intended only to show what Tucson needed, not what could be realistically accomplished, however.

Officials instead set a smaller goal to raise transportation funds by $128 million annually, which is enough to complete some top-priority projects but still represents a 50% increase from the current funding level.

City Manager Michael Ortega presented options to meet that funding goal during Tuesdays city council meeting, where it was made clear that Move Tucson will live or die depending on how residents vote at the ballot box in the near future.

Still, even if voters choose to fund the master plan, the city will need to find and secure at least $100 million in extra grant money to reach its goal over the next 20 years  something thats far from a sure thing.

We know what we want, we know what we need, now we have to start talking about how to fund this, Mayor Regina Romero said. We need to get ourselves ready because once we have a plan in hand, a vision in hand, then we need to start working steadily into funding that vision.

Funding sources

Among the more dependable funding sources in Ortegas strategy is the Highway User Revenue Fund. The program uses money collected by the state, such as vehicle registration fees or license taxes, to pay for road work in cities and towns across Arizona.

Tucson has already received about $6 million in HURF funds during each of the past two years. That amount is expected to jump up to $11 million annually after 2023, creating some extra money for Move Tucson.

The City Council also pulled $14 million from Tucsons general fund to put toward road repair recently, something that has not been done historically because money for road work has come mainly through sales tax revenue or grant funds.

Ortega expects the city to continue spending general fund money on road work for at least the next five years, though it may extend beyond that if its still an affordable option.

The two new funding sources will only create a combined $19 million in extra funds each year  just a drop, however, in the $128 million bucket that needs to be filled if the city hopes to reach its Move Tucson goal.

The fact that this mayor and council is able to invest general fund money and have focused that as a priority is huge, Ortega said. But unfortunately, even though where I come from $14 million is a lot of money, thats not going to cut it. Thats not going to get it to the point where we can address the needs that were identified in Move Tucson.

Voters role

One of the largest funding sources for Move Tucson, Proposition 101, has funded road work through a half-cent sales tax since 2017. Its up for voter renewal in May, but there are many uncertainties surrounding what exactly the updated initiative will look like.

For the past five years, Prop. 101 funds have been divided into two spending categories: 60% went to resources for Tucsons public safety departments and the other 40% went to street maintenance.

Its not clear if it will be split the same way this time around. If it is, only $10 million in extra roadway funding would be generated each year.

On the other hand, it could create more than $50 million in new transportation funds annually if it all goes to road work  about 40% of whats needed to reach the Move Tucson goal  though it would also cut funding for public safety vehicles, equipment and facilities by about two-thirds.

The other Prop. 101 uncertainty is whether it will even be a half-cent tax. City officials need to decide this month whether to increase it to a full penny, but that will depend on what happens with another funding source  the Regional Transportation Authority.

The RTA has funded projects across Pima County using its own half-cent tax since it was approved by voters in 2006. Since then, it has provided over $30 million for Tucsons projects each year, and it could be up for voter renewal as early as 2024.

Tucson has threatened to leave the RTA by Feb. 1 unless its complaints are addressed, including a governance structure that the city said disenfranchises Tucsonans and a large funding gap that is threatening the completion of Tucsons RTA projects.

We need the folks at the RTA to understand that were not going to bluff on this, Councilman Paul Cunningham said. We need to be really clear to the RTA that, if we have to go this alone, we will if we dont get some of the things we need.

The RTA disputes that the funding gap is its responsibility, and city officials said negotiations with other RTA members have not been fruitful. Theres also only one RTA meeting left until Tucsons withdrawal deadline, making it appear unlikely that a deal will be reached in time.

The full-cent Prop. 101 tax is Tucsons backup plan. It would cover the lost RTA money and could generate over 70% of the extra funds needed for Move Tucson, depending on whether Prop. 101 is used to fund road work exclusively.

City officials have to sort out those details by Feb. 1 in order to get Prop. 101 on the ballot. What they decide, and how residents vote on the initiative, could impact the quality of Tucsons roads for decades.

Were less than a month now from our Feb. 1 line in the sand, and we have a Prop. 101 election called for May, Councilman Steve Kozachik said about the pressing decision. We havent had any real substantive public discussions about Prop. 101 and what that looks like.

City short by millions

Regardless of what form Prop. 101 takes and whether Tucson remains in the RTA, the city will still be short of meeting its annual funding target. The yearly shortfall could be in the tens of millions.

The gap will have to be filled with money from unspecified federal grants  and theres no guarantee Tucson will win those awards, how many grants will be available in the next 20 years or if it will be enough to cover the gap.

City officials are confident they have a good shot at winning some extra funds through the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Plan, a $1 trillion federal bill that dedicates billions to transportation projects across the country.

Mayor Romero was invited to the White House for the bills signing last month, suggesting Tucson may be a shoo-in to receive a piece of that money in the near future.

Tucson is poised to compete well for these additional infrastructure funds, Ortega wrote in his memo. We are organizing our approach to ensure the highest likelihood of success.

As of now, its unclear how much Tucson could receive through the infrastructure plan or any other grant opportunities the city will depend on to fund its transportation projects.

City staff are expected to provide more details on the currently ambiguous federal and competitive grant programs piece of the Move Tucson funding strategy as those conversations evolve.

Reporter Sam Kmack covers local government. Contact him at skmack@tucson.com.

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The following is the opinion of the writer:

Midway through our conversation, a little boy waddled into the room.

I was talking with the boys mother inside a migrant shelter in Nogales, Sonora, several years ago. As the toddler walked over to his mother, she told him dale un beso, indicating he should give me a kiss hello. The little boy made his way over to me on his stocky legs. When he got to my feet, he looked up at me, grinned and stretched his arms up.

I remember bending down from what seemed an impossible height so he could give me a kiss. He wrapped his arms around my head, as much as he was able to with his chubby, little arms, and gave me a tiny kiss on the cheek. His mother watched with a smile on her face, apparently pleased at the politeness of her son. The whole thing took just a few seconds, but Ill never forget that sweet gesture.

His mother and I went on to talk about their situation, a story similar to hundreds of other migrants Ive spoken with over the years: She wanted a better life for her son and the only way she could see to do that was to head to the United States.

I hope they made it wherever they were headed and the boy is reading comic books, learning his multiplication tables and running around with his friends. Why on Earth would I want anything else for him?

The reason I bring this up is last week a group of Arizona lawmakers gathered in Phoenix to tell the world they think migrants like the little boy and his mother are part of an invasion. They want Gov. Doug Ducey to exercise war powers to repel them, a dubious argument that likely has more to do with making these legislators look tough than actually accomplishing anything.

An invasion would normally be referenced in terms of a nation-state invasion, but when you look at these numbers, I think its safe to say that this is an invasion, said Rep. Jake Hoffman, a Republican from Queen Creek, the Associated Press reported.

Hoffman wasnt wrong that a lot more migrants are coming to the United States via the U.S.-Mexico border. But he and the 20 or so other legislators at Wednesdays press conference seem to have forgotten what can happen when immigrants are cast as faceless invaders.

The most chilling example came in 2019, when a man shot and killed 23 people and injured dozens more in a Walmart in El Paso, saying this attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.

I heard echoes of those words last month, after the Star published an extensive report I helped write on migrants dying while crossing the border in Southern Arizona. A reader sent this message to me: If you had any balls, you would support shooting any scum illegal alien trash that stepped foot on US soil.

We can talk about immigration policy and people crossing the border illegally. Those issues deserve serious discussion. But that discussion becomes impossible if we puff our chests, turn our brains off and punch down at people who by and large are just trying to find a better life for their families.

Curt Prendergast is the opinion editor at the Arizona Daily Star. Contact him at (520) 573-4224 or cprendergast@tucson.com

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I had to cancel a trip to Iceland when my fully vaccinated daughter and her boyfriend, who was supposed to travel with us, contracted COVID-19. I had to cancel all the prepaid components of our trip, which required many emails and phone calls. I was within the cancellation window for all the components of our vacation.

Most refunds were prompt. But Im having trouble with the Blue Lagoon, a resort hotel, and a snorkeling trip. The Blue Lagoon will not respond to any inquiries, even though I received confirmation of cancellation. I have not seen a refund from them.

DIVE.IS, the snorkeling tour company, claims they never received my emails to cancel. They later responded to my inquiries via email  so the company must be receiving them  and also via Facebook. They said their tech team would look into it, but that was more than a week ago, and I have heard nothing since.

I contacted them again but have received no response. Im just wondering what else I can do to get results from a company in Iceland. I have told them that we will rebook someday, so I want to be able to do business with them again. I am worried that both of these companies will just ghost me, and I have no recourse.

Can you help me get a refund of my prepaid Blue Lagoon and snorkeling tickets?  Kim Josund, Lake Forest Park, Washington

A: Both the hotel and the tour operator should have promptly acknowledged your cancellation and returned your money.

And I realize you have heard this before, but it merits repeating: Things got a little crazy during the pandemic when it came to refunds. Companies that normally respond to a refund request quickly have taken weeks or months to respond. There is no excuse for that.

Lets take these cases one by one. Blue Lagoon appeared to be in business during the time of your visit but apparently deprioritized refund requests. So, when you contacted it, the hotel just put your request on the back burner. You were, indeed, within the cancellation window. You kept a paper trail of your correspondence with the resort, even though no one responded.

It was just a matter of being persistent and polite with Blue Lagoon. Thats really difficult when youre dealing with a large cancellation like yours. And frankly, you shouldnt have to wait for a refund. They took your money in a few seconds  is it asking too much to return it in a timely manner?

On the snorkeling tour refund request, a look at your records reveals that they hadnt acknowledged your timely cancellation of the dive trip. If you dont receive an acknowledgment, you shouldnt assume the email was received. So, you reached out to them again.

I contacted Blue Lagoon on your behalf. It offered a full refund, which you should have received under the terms of your purchase. DIVE.IS offered you a voucher for a future trip. You accepted both and plan to reschedule your trip to Iceland.

Christopher Elliott is the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler magaz ine. You can read more travel tips on his blog, elliott.org, or email him at chris@elliott.org
The annual Young Peoples Creative Writing Contest from Tulsa City-County Library kicks off Feb. 1.

The contest is open to students ages 10 to 18, who live or attend school in Tulsa County, or have a non-resident Tulsa Library card.

Students may submit works in five categories:

Short story. Limited to 1,500 words.

Informal essay on a topic or issue giving your opinion or recounting a personal experience. Limited to 1,500 words.

Poetry limited to one poem of 300 or fewer words.

Short play 10 pages or less with featuring no more than six characters and three locations.

Comics/Graphic story. Entry must be a complete story, not a fragment of a larger work and limited to eight pages.

Each category will have three age divisions: ages 10 to 12, 13 to 15 and 16 to 18. Participants may enter one manuscript per category but may enter all categories within their corresponding age group.

Cash prizes are awardedin the following amounts: $100 for first place, $50 for second place and $25 for third place.

All entrants will be invited to the awards presentation 6 p.m. Friday, May 6. Featured speaker Nikki Grimes, winner of the Tulsa Library Trusts 2022 Anne V. Zarrow Award for Young Readers Literature, will help present awards.

For more information: 918-549-7323, tulsalibrary.org/YPCWC.

The Sound of Music

Theatre Tulsas production of The Sound of Music, the final creation of the legendary duo of Rodgers & Hammerstein, continues with performances at the Tulsa PAC, 110 E. Second St.

Based on the memoir of Maria von Trapp, the musical is the story of a prospective nun who, before she is to take her final vows, is sent to serve as a governess for the seven children of a widowed Austrian naval officer.

She soon forms a bond with the children, using music to bring them together; this relationship captures the attention of Captain von Trapp, who finds himself drawn to her. But familial bliss is threatened as the rise of Nazi Germany threatens their lives.

Kara Staiger stars as Maria, with Mark Frie as Captain von Trapp. Two separate casts of young performers will alternate as the von Trapp family children throughout the run, which continues through Jan. 30.

Performances are 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 16, 23 and 30; 8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 21; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 22; and 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, Jan. 28-29; at the Tulsa PAC, 110 E. Second St.

Tickets are $29.25-$47.50. 918-596-7111, tulsapac.com.

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Chinese premier congratulates Kazakh PM on assuming office

Xinhua) 09:40, January 16, 2022

BEIJING, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Friday sent a congratulatory message to Alikhan Smailov on his assuming office as Kazakh prime minister.

In his message, Li said China supports Kazakhstan's efforts to safeguard national security, social stability and people's well-being.

Li expressed his belief that under the leadership of Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and the Kazakh government, Kazakhstan will restore stability and unity as soon as possible, and step towards its development goals.

Noting that since the establishment of the diplomatic ties 30 years ago, China-Kazakhstan relations have always maintained high-level development, Li said China is ready to work with the Kazakh side to implement the consensus reached by the two heads of state, and continuously deepen practical cooperation, so as to lift the China-Kazakhstan permanent comprehensive strategic partnership to a new level for the benefit of both nations and peoples.

(Web editor: Peng Yukai, Liang Jun)
The woman was adamant after the Chevrolet Suburban in which she was riding was stopped by a Tulsa Police officer.

The officer had pulled the vehicle over one day last fall because it matched the description of one witnesses said was associated with an attempted robbery that had just occurred inside a Walgreens store.

The woman repeatedly stated to Tulsa Police that they had no jurisdiction over her because she was Native American, records show.

Less than two months later, a Broken Arrow man came home to find his two Boston terriers dead or near death. A neighbors two German shepherds had broken through a 6-foot privacy fence separating their backyards. The dogs entered the mans home through a doggie door while he was gone and attacked his Boston terriers, leaving them fatally injured, according to a police report.

Broken Arrow Police and a city Animal Control officer responded to the dog attacks, but the owner of the German shepherds ordered city workers off his property, claiming Broken Arrow didnt have jurisdiction over him because of his tribal heritage, records show.

These are just two examples of the myths and struggles taking place across eastern Oklahoma since the U.S. Supreme Courts 2020 McGirt decision.

The landmark ruling, which reaffirmed that Congress had never disestablished the Muscogee Nation reservation, meant the state of Oklahoma doesnt have jurisdiction to prosecute criminal cases involving Native Americans in much of the eastern half of the state. Those cases now must be brought in either federal or tribal court.

Since the McGirt ruling was issued in July 2020, tribes impacted by the decision have filed over 10,000 criminal cases, according to an informal Tulsa World survey. But many of those cases would not have been possible were it not for a program that was already in place.

The program, called cross-deputization, permits authorities from various local law enforcement agencies to jointly enforce tribal, state and federal laws.

Such agreements are common now across the state.

No crime that we could enforce

For Valerie Bowman, who was in the Chevrolet Suburban stopped by police, the McGirt decision didnt mean what she had hoped it would.

After the officer detained everyone in the vehicle, he broke the bad news to Bowman.

It was explained to Bowman that all Tulsa Police officers are cross-deputized with the Muscogee Nation Lighthorse and Cherokee Marshals, according to a criminal complaint filed Oct. 22 in Tulsa federal court.

Bowman, a member of the Muscogee Nation, pleaded guilty Jan. 7 to five counts in a six-count indictment that charged her with robbery in Indian Country. In one of the robberies Oct. 2, Bowman admitted to spraying a Tulsa Dollar General cashier with bug poison before grabbing cash from the till and running away.

But for the Broken Arrow man whose dogs were killed, no criminal charges have been brought against the owner of the German shepherds, nor will they ever, tribal officials confirmed to the World.

A police report of the Dec. 1 incident indicates the Muscogee Nation lacks a criminal law that would apply in a situation involving dogs attacking and killing another persons pets. A Broken Arrow police supervisor learned that fact when he contacted tribal authorities about the case.

Muskogee (sic) Creek Nation informed him that there is no crime that we could enforce in this situation, the report states.

Indeed, while many cities have laws against allowing a dog or cat to roam at large, harboring a vicious animal or possessing a large number of domesticated pets, no such laws exist at the Muscogee Nation, a Tulsa World review of the online tribal crime code indicates and confirmed Thursday by the tribal officials.

Tribal law says a mischievous animal slaying of a person is a felony for the animals owner, but no code addresses the killing of other domesticated pets or the issue of a dog roaming at large.

In many cases, our laws do not mirror those of Oklahoma nor the widely varied laws of individual municipalities, like Broken Arrow, the Nation wrote in response to questions posed by the Tulsa World about the incident. Within the scope of our current laws, the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Attorney Generals Office is considering all legal avenues to address this tragic situation and to provide for the ongoing safety and security of all Oklahomans.

The Nation said it has initiated eviction proceedings against the owners of the German shepherds, as the residence is tribally owned, but in the end the Nation concedes the only way John Travis may get justice is through the civil courts.

The Nation is looking at ways to immediately cover omitted areas of law and, in the long-term, expand its tribal laws to cover any criminal subjects where our current tribal laws may be silent, the Nation said in a statement.

Sorry, buddy, Im cross-deputized

Meanwhile, the Nation said it would continue to partner with municipal leaders and, through cross-deputization, with law-enforcement agencies within the boundaries of its reservation.

The Muscogee Nation said it currently has 63 cross-deputization agreements with entities within its sovereign boundaries.

We view cross-deputization agreements as an important part of working collaboratively in support of public safety for everyone, the Nation said.

Indeed, since the Supreme Court issued its ruling finding that the Muscogee Nation reservation still existed, such beliefs  that a local nontribal law enforcement officer didnt have jurisdiction over an American Indian within Indian Country  appear to have mistakenly increased with it.

Tulsa District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler, in an interview last week, said suspects will say almost anything to avoid arrest.

The people who are committing crimes are going to try to find a way to get out of it, so Ive heard those anecdotal stories of people who are pulled over by a local municipal agency who claimed the officer didnt have the authority, Kunzweiler said. But the officer said, Sorry buddy, Im cross-deputized, so I have the ability to do that kind of work.

Kunzweiler described cross-deputization agreements as a useful tool for law enforcement agencies.

Any nontribal law enforcement agency can enter into cross-deputization agreements with tribal authorities, Kunzweiler said. So they have the authority to investigate and make arrests of individuals who may commit a crime that they subsequently determine to be Indian, Kunzweiler said.

As an example, Kunzweiler said a nontribal police officer who is cross-deputized with the tribe whose reservation they patrol can arrest a tribal member suspected of drunk driving.

The risk to public safety is enormous if officers do not have the authority to make those public safety decisions, Kunzweiler said.

Broken Arrow City Manager Michael Spurgeon said in an interview last week that all of the citys police officers are cross-deputized with the Muscogee Nation Lighthorse.

Spurgeon has nothing but compliments for the Muscogee Nation and Principal Chief David Hill.

He said the tribe has bent over backwards to work with Broken Arrow officials while he has been city manager.

We literally communicate with them on a weekly basis, Spurgeon said.

Asked about the tribes handling of the dog attack case since Broken Arrow Police forwarded their incident report to the Nation, Spurgeon was again conciliatory.

Im confident they are doing everything they can to address that situation, Spurgeon said.

The city manager said it is vital that both governments work together, especially in the post-McGirt world.

We have to work together because we are serving the same citizens, Spurgeon said.

I had no idea what it meant

For Travis, whose dogs were killed, talk of cross-deputization agreements is of little comfort.

He filed a civil lawsuit against his neighbor shortly after the incident.

His attorney in the case, Tony Allen, said his client had little choice.

Mr. Travis situation is one where hes in a limbo area where theres nothing criminally that, it appears, could happen, Allen said. Thats why we decided to pursue the civil suit.

The lawsuit, filed in Tulsa County District Court, alleges civil trespass, creation of a nuisance, property damage and infliction of emotional distress in a petition that seeks a judgment in excess of $75,000 and an order declaring the dogs to be dangerous or a nuisance.

Travis, in an interview with the World, said its been difficult to get over the tragedy.

Lucy and Katy, the 5-year-old pets Travis said he has owned since they were 8 weeks old, were my family.

Its been a month and half, and nothings been done, Travis said. The people are still there. The dogs are still there. Its a bad situation.

Travis said he doesnt hold any ill-will against Broken Arrow police officers, saying their hands were tied by the situation.

Before all this happened, I had heard about McGirt, but I had no idea what it meant to us or how it would affect us, Travis said. Its kind of like weve got people living amongst us that have a different set of laws to live by almost.

The owner of the German shepherds could not be reached for comment.

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SAND SPRINGS  More than 12,500 Oklahomans have been lost to COVID-19, and many of their families no doubt experienced the unique anguish of deciding when to let them go  when to silence the cacophony of machines working overtime to keep these husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers and other beloveds on this side of the veil.

Im a reserved person, I think, Mattie Fish, 84, said. Im not a leader. I dont like to make decisions.

But late on a Thursday evening last Feb. 11, her older son, Roger Fish, took a phone call from the hospital in Oklahoma City where his brother, Ashley Fish  Matties younger son  had been transferred. Ashley, who was on a ventilator fighting COVID, had taken a turn for the worse, they said, and Mattie needed to go to the hospital and make a decision.

So she and Roger and Ashleys children went the following morning, braving the biting cold and icy roads, to say goodbye to Ashley, 53.

He was in a coma, but they told us he could hear us, Mattie said. So I told him that his whole life had been dedicated to his children and that he was a good father.

After Ashley died, the family returned to the Sand Springs residence they have called home since 1965. Just hours later, on Saturday morning, they called us to St. John (in Tulsa) to do the same thing for Elmer, Mattie said.

Unlike Ashley, Elmer Fish, 85, was conscious, but everything was just bad, his wife said. There was nothing encouraging.

He didnt want to go on the ventilator. That wasnt even an option at that point, Mattie said. Early on, he had told the nurses that he didnt want the ventilator.

Elmer hadnt wanted to go to the hospital, either, after his doctor told the couple that he probably had COVID, so the doctor sent him home to recuperate, but he told Mattie that if Elmer got worse, she should call for an ambulance. And on Friday, Feb. 5, with Elmer unable to catch his breath, thats what she did.

Elmer hadnt been in good health, anyway, she said, but he fought the virus for more than a week.

Mattie and Roger gave the hospital permission to withhold life support, and Elmer died early on Valentines Day, just five weeks and three days shy of the couples 60th wedding anniversary.

A joint funeral service was held for Ashley and Elmer at Angus Acres Baptist Church, where Elmer and Mattie attended for decades. Mattie said the auditorium was full of mourners.

But the familys grief would continue.

A little more than six months after Ashley and Elmer were laid to rest, Roger got sick.

I know he heard me

I leaned heavily on Roger after Ashley and Elmer passed, Mattie said, and after he got sick, I told my pastor, I just dont know what Im going to do.

I went up to the hospital every day. Roger was in St. Francis (in Tulsa), she said. He had a hard struggle, and everything was negative. His kidneys shut down early on, and they just never did come back.

Roger, who went into the hospital on Sept. 2, also had repeated cardiac and blood pressure episodes.

I tried to prepare my grandkids that if he survived, he was going to have a long-term recovery, Mattie said.

Eight weeks after Roger entered the hospital, on Thursday, Oct. 28, his mother was asked for permission to cease life-sustaining measures.

On Friday, I couldnt go up there, she said. I just couldnt.

Roger, 59, died the next day when his blood pressure shot up and he went into cardiac arrest. Medical personnel performed CPR but were unable to save him.

I had talked to him, Mattie said. Maybe he tried to protect me (by dying anyway). I knew he wouldnt want to live like that. I just knew it wasnt going to be good, but I just couldnt let go  just couldnt make a decision.

That was my last conversation with him, she said. I know he heard me. I know he heard me.

Now theres just a few of us

Raley Fish is just 17, but shes old beyond her years.

Ashleys daughter, she plans to graduate from high school this year  a year early  and care for her younger siblings, Sammie, 16, and Rollin, 11.

Their older brother, Riley Weir, is attending college in Kansas.

Mattie is the younger kids guardian now, but none of them feels like its fair for an 84-year-old woman to have to raise a houseful of grandkids.

And, as their recent experience has shown, you can never know how long a person will live.

She wouldnt say she does, but I know she has hard times sometimes, Raley said of Mattie. I feel like shes doing a fantastic job, honestly.

Still, Raley is taking on more of the responsibilities.

My dads important thing was school. The toughest he was on us was about schoolwork, she said. We needed to have As and be good students, so I keep on my siblings about that and keep up with that myself because I feel like thats what he would want us to do.

And she says shes ready for whatever else comes.

Im going to be 18 this year, she said. And I would do anything for them.

Family was always a big thing, Raley said.

All of them were parents to all of us kids. Everyone was always around, she said. We were all like one big family.

And the family thats left now, well, its struggling.

Its been really tough without all of them, Raley said. The holidays were hard. We always seemed to have a big family, and now theres just a few of us.

I didnt see my life going this way

For her part, Raley tries to focus on the future.

She and Sammie attend classes at Barnsdall High School, while Rollin goes to Angus Acres Elementary School.

But Raley also takes pre-nursing classes at Tri County Tech in Bartlesville and basic education classes at the Rogers State University campus there in hopes of getting into RSUs nursing program.

I always wanted to be a nurse, she said. Its what me and my dad had always talked about. I like to help people.

She acknowledges that the very pandemic that has stolen so much from her family makes it difficult to think about a career in health care.

It does feel scary with the pandemic going on, she said, but there has to be somebody to help all these people.

Ashley actually survived his first battle with COVID. He became infected in August 2020 and was pretty sick for a week or two.

He was like, That was the worst thing I ever went through, Raley said, adding that he got very serious about wearing masks and taking other precautions, saying, Nobody should have to go through what I went through.

The second time he became ill, he suddenly spiked a fever of 104. The hospital tried to admit him, but Ashley wouldnt agree to that until he was able to ensure that his children would be cared for.

He went back the next day, and he was there for about a month before he died, Raley said.

She said she believes that her father would have gotten vaccinated against COVID if he had had the opportunity, and she added that the rest of the family has since done so.

We all live with my grandma, and shes older, and she doesnt want to get it because shes all we have, she said.

Thats a lesson that Raley and her family have taken to heart.

You cant really take any moment for granted, she said. The whole time they were in the hospital, I kept telling myself they were going to make it, but they didnt make it. I remember my dad telling us we were all his angels, but he thought he was going to make it, and he didnt.

Raley said she has some better days and some not-so-good days.

I wont say I feel cheated, she said. I know lifes unfair, but I didnt see my life going this way. I dont know why this happened to us.

Ive only got me

Lacey Fish said her father, Roger, was always quiet until you got to know him.

He was a listener and great advice giver, she said.

That was especially important for Lacey, whose mother, Wendy Fish, died in 2016, leaving Roger to finish raising Lacey. And now, with her father gone, too, Lacey sometimes wonders where to turn for that listening ear.

I definitely feel alone  more than Id like to admit, actually, she said. I love my family. Theyve really helped me through these tough times. But nothing compares to the love and care from your mom and dad.

Its definitely hard around the holidays and birthdays, she said. But I know they are with me in spirit. I wouldnt wish for anyone to have to lose a parent so young, or, even worse, both.

Im 24 and have no parents or siblings. Ive only got me.

Lacey lives in the house she shared with her parents and works at a hair salon, but she said she doesnt know if thats a long-term plan.

After all Ive experienced in hospitals, with multiple family members being admitted throughout the years, I think I want to do something in health care  possibly a nurse of some sort, she said. I dont know, honestly. Im still figuring that out.

Lacey said Roger started feeling icky early one week in late August, but by the end of the week, he felt so bad he left work early.

I made him an appointment to get tested, which was obviously positive, she said. After a week of not getting noticeably better, he asked me to take him to the hospital.

For the next three weeks, Rogers family couldnt see him.

After he tested negative, we were able to go and see him and even get a few pictures with him, Lacey said. He was doing better, and they were even talking about sending him to a rehab facility until he was 100% again.

And then he took a turn for the worse when he developed a bacterial infection in his lungs, she said. He was then put on a ventilator.

I didnt even get to see him before. The doctors asked if he wanted to make a phone call, and he told them he didnt even think he could talk, Lacey said. It must have been so scary for him because hes the one that told the doctors he couldnt breathe anymore on his own.

He was on the vent for about a month before he passed.

I think he would be proud

Lacey said Roger never thought COVID would be that bad. I didnt even think it would be bad.

Mattie said Roger was planning to be vaccinated but that we were always so busy.

But Lacey said there were hesitations about the vaccine, too.

He was up in the air about it, which is understandable. He had heard about many side effects and so on, she said. Looking back, I really wish he had gotten it.

I was sort of against it, as well, until I noticed that COVID was literally attacking my family, she said. I got vaccinated soon after he passed away. I think he would be proud of my decision.

Lacey still struggles with the loss, especially this time of the year.

Its very hard for me at the moment, she said. We just had the holidays, and his birthday is at the beginning of January.

I feel very isolated some days  just deep in my thoughts. And other days, I enjoy the happy memories and pictures and music we shared together.

He truly was my best friend  my whole heart.

Lacey also offered advice about remembering whats important.

You shouldnt take anything for granted, she said. If I learned anything in 2021, it would be that. I never wouldve thought this would happen to me  losing three of my closest family members in less than nine months.

Spend time with your grandparents, aunts, uncles  even if its just a phone call here and there, she said. You never know when the last time you will see them will be.

Life is hard right now, but I know God has a plan for me. Better days will follow, and thats all Im looking forward to.

Video: What you need to know about at-home COVID tests.

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Gun fight: State Sen. Lonnie Paxton, R-Tuttle, called for the removal of OK2A President Don Spencer, an influential gun-rights lobbyist, because of comments Spencer made last month.

According to Paxton, Spencer told an audience in Duncan, We win at the ballot box, so we dont have to go to the ammo box.

Paxton, R-Tuttle, who chairs the Senate Public Safety Committee, said the remarks crossed every conceivable line of decency and could put the lives of legislators and other elected officials in danger.

As the leader of OK2A, his shameful and dangerous comments will result in the loss of his credibility and the ability to advance OK2As agenda in the Public Safety Committee, Paxton said.

Spencer has been critical of lawmakers who do not follow his exact lead, but calling for pulling out the ammo box to deal with non-compliant legislators is a new low, Paxton said.

Spencer said he has no plans to resign.

If (the comments) were so horrific, why would the state senator need to bring it up a month later, Spencer said.

Tom Vineyard, OK2A board chairman, said the board fully supports Spencer. The remarks should not be construed as inciting violence, he said.

Spencer has been president of OK2A, which stands for Oklahoma 2nd Amendment, for six years and is a registered lobbyist.

Power to the gov: State Sen. Julie Daniels, R-Bartlesville, filed a series of bills giving the governor a great deal more authority over the appointment of judges and members of several health care-related licensing boards.

In the case of judges, the governor would make appointments solely with the consent of the Senate.

The other bills would largely eliminate professional organizations such as the Oklahoma Medical Association from the process of choosing members to the boards that oversee licensing and conduct of physicians, nurses, behavioral health professionals and psychologists.

Hard knocks: State Sen. Kevin Matthews announced the opening next month of the North Tulsa Community Construction School, a training program for former justice-involved Oklahomans.

In other words, people who have been in trouble with the law.

Although the school will not be operational for several more weeks, a reception is planned for 3 p.m. Monday at 3304 N. Delaware Ave., a block from the Tulsa Police Departments Uniform North Division.

Matthews said the program is a collaboration of the Urban Innovative Development Corporation, the 1st Step Male Diversion Program, David Collins of Fenix Construction Group, Carl Walker and Carls Contractors, and Meals on Wheels, which is sponsoring food for participants.

Participants are expected to learn building trades while helping with Habitat for Humanity projects.

Ikley-Freeman pleads: Former Sen. Allison Ikley-Freeman, D-Tulsa, in August entered a plea of guilty to a misdemeanor charge of negligent homicide. She received a five-year deferred sentence.

She had originally been charged in 2020 in Lincoln County with first-degree manslaughter, a felony, but prosecutors dropped the charge and refiled it as a misdemeanor.

The charge stemmed from a May 22, 2020, collision on the Turner Turnpike that left Enrique Lopez of Bristow dead. Ikley-Freeman was headed to the Capitol for the legislative session.

After looking at everything, we didnt feel like it was a manslaughter type of case, a felony, said Lincoln County Assistant District Attorney David Slane. We felt more like it was an accident involving speed and bad road conditions.

The charge was reduced with the blessing of the victims family, Slane said.

Politics didnt play any part of it, Slane said. I felt like it was the right thing to do.

Ikley-Freeman and the state are named as defendants in a civil case in Lincoln County stemming from the collision filed by Shelley Lopez, the victims spouse.

Ikley-Freeman could not be reached for comment.

Ground up: Third District Congressman Frank Lucas said the University of Oklahoma has received a $1.7 million grant to develop a thermal heating project involving an old oil field and several Tuttle school buildings.

Help wanted: The Oklahoma Department of Human Services announced incentives of up to $7,000 for former child welfare specialists who return to the department and for current employees who recruit them.

Campaigns and elections: After being scorched for a tweet criticizing Oklahoma schools for closing or going to distance learning because of COVID-19, State Education Secretary and Republican state superintendent candidate Ryan Walters tried to make amends with a half-day stint as a substitute teacher at an Oklahoma City charter school.

State Democratic Party Chairwoman Alicia Andrews dismissed it as publicity stunt.

Im just shaking my head, said Andrews. Walters is invited to sub at a hand-picked charter school by one of his campaign donors to demonstrate that he gets what teachers and students face with COVID infections and critical staff shortages? That isnt substitute teaching; its taking advantage of students plight.

Research claim: Republican U.S. Senate candidate Jackson Lahmeyer, who last month was photographed with the leader of a Q-Anon group based in Dallas, last week told followers that the federal government is involved in virus research that requires a steady supply of fresh but never frozen aborted babies.

Scholarship app: Application deadline is April 30 for Republican Womens Club of Tulsa Countys $1,000 scholarships to high school senior girls graduating in spring 2022.

Applicants must be a registered Tulsa County Republican or have a registered Republican parent or guardian living in Tulsa County.

Contact rwctulsaeducation@gmail.com for more information.

Bottom lines: State Auditor and Inspector Cindy Byrd said her office found that the town of Bennington in southeastern Oklahoma has failed to pay more than $100,000 in payroll taxes and that its police chief and others have benefited from misappropriation of public funds. ... Oklahoma is one of three states to cut both personal and business income tax rates for the current tax year, the Tax Foundation reported. ... State Rep. Ajay Pittman, D-Oklahoma City, was the only Oklahoman to receive the Council of State Governments 20 under 40 award. ... State Rep. Mark Lepak, R-Claremore, was appointed to the CSLs Fiscal Affairs & Government Operations Committee. ... State Sen. President Pro Tem Greg Treat, R-Edmond, is a member of the Republican State Leadership Committee, the GOP PAC focused on legislative elections. ... State Sen. Nathan Dahm, R-Broken Arrow, is trying to revive the notion of a state militia separate from the National Guard, an idea floated several years ago to no avail. ... A recent survey listed Tulsa as the 10th-worst city in the nation for dog-walking.

 Randy Krehbiel and Barbara Hoberock, Tulsa World

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Randy Krehbiel Staff Writer I have been with the Tulsa World since 1979. I'm a native of Hinton, Okla., and graduate of Oklahoma State University. I primarily cover government and politics. Phone: 918-581-8365 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 sky-is-falling rhetoric from state leaders and local law enforcement over the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court McGirt decision appears to be a dramatic over-reaction.

The court in a 5-4 decision found that Congress never dissolved the Muscogee Nation reservation, and that has been extended to at least five other tribes. That means Oklahoma prosecutors have no authority on these reservations to try cases involving Indigenous people, moving jurisdiction to federal or tribal courts.

The pushback from those prosecutors and state leaders was swift, unrelenting and includes unfounded scare tactics.

There have been 235 inmates releasedout of about 25,000 Oklahoma inmatesdue to the decision with 71% charged in federal or tribal courts, according to Tulsa World reporter Curtis Killman in an analysis of records obtained through the Oklahoma Open Records Act.

Among those not charged, more than half were serving nonviolent, drug-related sentences. The others fell into a gap, typically with a non-tribal suspect on certain felonies falling outside a statute of limitations.

Congress can shore up the gap, if it wants. It also could dissolve the reservations, though there is not much appetite for that in Washington, D.C., recognizing the long history of broken treaties and injustices in Indian Country.

The Tulsa World analysis shows that the tribes and U.S. attorneys have done a stellar job ramping up to adjust to the decision; dangerous criminals are not walking the streets. Though we want the statute of limitations issue addressed, that wont be an problem for future crimes.

The infrastructure has shifted; for every crime, there is a jurisdiction. Some tribes are continuing expansions and adjustments.

This is no get-out-jail-free card. In some cases, defendants in retrials get the same or more severe sentences.

Just recently, former Tulsa Police officer Shannon Kepler was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years. This comes after three mistrials in Tulsa County District Court and a fourth ended with a conviction and 15-year sentence, reversed based on his tribal citizenship. Also, Jimcy McGirt received a life sentence on sex crimes in federal courtequivalent to his state convictionafter his victory at the U.S. Supreme Court.

State and local leaders have evolved the ruling into a political wedge. Gov. Kevin Stitt called the decision the most pressing issue for Oklahoma, during a pandemic and economic fallout. Attorney General John OConnor filed lawsuits to reverse the decision that includes several friend-of-the-court briefs including one approved by Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum.

Going into battle mode after the decision has worsened relationships between tribes and states. Those already were fragile after Stitt challenged the gaming compacts and ended a compact for hunting and fishing licenses last month. Its time to set it aside.

Oklahoma and the sovereign nations within its borders are stronger when working together. We appreciate efforts of the U.S. attorneys and tribal leaders in adjusting to McGirt.

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With cases in Oklahoma and beyond skyrocketing as the omicron variant overtakes delta-strain infections, at-home tests for those exhibiting symptoms can be hard to find. Here are other options (an ID and insurance card are required unless otherwise noted):

Tulsa Health Department is offering free COVID-19 testing to those who are uninsured. Schedule a test through THDs website, tulsa-health.org, or call 918-582-9355.

Access Medical Care, solvhealth.com

Arc Diagnostics  No-appointment drive-thru testing at 5124 S. Peoria Ave.

Arc Diagnostics Owasso  Drive-thru testing by appointment, arcdiagnosticslab.com.

Ascension St. John  COVID-19 testing for the public is handled through Regional Medical Laboratory by appointment, mostly from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays. There are multiple RML locations in Tulsa County, with a high-capacity drive-thru facility at 9330 E. 41st St: rmlonline.com

Axis HealthCare System  Locations in Bixby, Bartlesville, Inola, Pryor and Sapulpa offer drive-thru testing with no out-of-pocket cost. PCR tests are done in-house, with results in 24-48 hours. Go to axishealth.net or call 918-943-3790.

Community Health Connection, 12020 E. 31st St.

Curative  No-appointment drive-thru testing at 501 S. Cincinnati Ave.

CVS locations

Med Express, 2140 S. Yale Ave.

MedWise Urgent Care Center/Walk-In Clinics, medwiseuc.com

Morton Comprehensive Health Services, 1334 N. Lansing Ave.

NOHS Medical Clinic  Appointment based testing at 6732 E. 41st St. Call ahead to schedule: 918-794-4777

Saint Francis Health System  Appointments are recommended for office-visit testing at Warren Clinic locations around Tulsa. Warren Clinic Elm in Broken Arrow has a drive-thru clinic in the southwest parking lot that is open seven days a week during urgent care hours, with no appointments required. Stay in your car and follow the pink signs.

Walmart locations

Note: Hillcrest Health System/Utica Park clinics offer testing only through primary care providers.
The construction of the first phase of a US$2.3 billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) power center was initiated in Quang Tri Province, north-central Vietnam this weekend.

The provincial Peoples Committee organized the groundbreaking of Hai Lang LNG Power Center in Hai Lang District on Saturday.

The project, which covers an area of 120 hectares, will have a capacity of 1,500MW and is expected to supply 8.25 billion kilowatt-hours to the national grid each year.

The cost is estimated at VND54 trillion ($2.37 billion), of which VND13.4 trillion ($590 million) is funded by a consortium of investors including T&T Group, Korea Gas Corporation (KOGAS), Hanwha Energy Corporation, and Korea Southern Power Company (KOSPO).

The Hai Lang Power Center will include a port, which is capable of handling vessels carrying up to 226,000 cubic meters of gas and receiving 1.5 million metric tons of LNG per year in the first phase.

The facility is expected to be put into commercial operation between 2026 and 2027.

At the groundbreaking ceremony, chairman of the Quang Tri Peoples Committee Vo Van Hung said that the project will bring the province one step closer to becoming a center of renewable energy in central Vietnam.

Hung asked the developers to make sure that the project meets all quality and safety standards.

The provincial administration will provide favorable conditions for the project to be implemented as scheduled, the chairman added.

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As an acclaimed photographer specializing in capturing the uniqueness of nature, Bjorn Persson, a Swede, has a special affinity for tigers.

He spoke with Tuoi Tre News about his work capturing the mysterious, massive cats ahead of the 2022 Lunar New Year, the Year of the Tiger, which is due to be celebrated in Vietnam on February 1.

During the discussion, Persson recounted his unforgettable experiences photographing tigers in the wild, art projects he has participated in to help preserve a variety of endangered species, and his thoughts on animal conservation.

Photographer Bjorn Persson is shown in this supplied image.

I am sure that you have taken many photos of tigers as a wildlife photographer, right? How many countries have you visited to photograph these animals?

I have only been able to photograph tigers in India. They exist in several Asian countries, but are exceedingly difficult to find due to the harsh and remote environments in which they live. Also, the world population of tigers has dropped by 97 percent in the last 100 years, lowering the likelihood of seeing one in the wild.

There are actually more tigers in zoos and captivity right now than in the wild. In Vietnam, where there are just a small number of tigers left, the last one was photographed with a camera trap in 1997.

[The photographer refers to data supplied by the World Wide Fund For Nature - WWF and CNN.]

A tiger's eyes. Photo: Bjorn Persson

Tigers are sometimes called 'the kings of the jungle.' I know you used the phrase 'tiger land' in one of your social media posts. In your opinion, does this nickname hold true?

I definitely think that the tiger is the true king of the jungle. It is at the very top of the food chain, and its size and appearance are mind-blowing.

Tigers are actually the biggest cats in the world, even bigger than lions. A fully grown adult can weigh up to 300kg.

And they are certainly one of the most beautiful and powerful creatures that have ever walked upon earth. For two million years, they have existed but now it is up to us to decide whether or not we want them to be a part of our future.

What do you love most about tigers? What characteristics of the tiger do you find most impressive?

Seeing [a tiger] in the wild is an almost unreal experience. With their striking bright colors and awe-inspiring stripes, they look like they come straight out of a fairy tale.

I cannot think of any other animal with such a beautiful and powerful appearance, and it is easy to understand their spiritual importance and they have played such a significant role in tales and legends throughout history.

A tiger is in the sun. Photo: Bjorn Persson

Do you have any unforgettable memories relating to tigers?

It is hard to pinpoint one experience. Every encounter, minute, and second with a wild tiger stays with you forever. You almost have to pinch your arm to make sure youre not dreaming when you see one. Each and every meeting [with a tiger] is unique.

What are the most difficult aspects of photographing tigers? Is it more dangerous than taking photos of other species, like lions and leopards?

Because you must stay in a jeep when photographing tigers, there are no direct dangers involved. Tigers are some of the strongest and most aggressive animals in the world, so you need to be incredibly careful and not take any risks.

Most of the attacks that happen are accidents that take place in local villages. They usually involve farmers and fishermen and are a direct consequence of the human-wildlife conflict. In the past, tigers had vast areas to patrol. They need these big areas to hunt and survive.

Today, tigers are limited to small habitats. That is one of the main reasons for their shrinking numbers.

A tiger is next to a pond in the jungle. Photo: Bjorn Persson

You seem to love all of the wildlife species, but do you have any 'bias' toward tigers?

Tigers are definitely special to me. They are one of a kind and dont look like any other creature. With their long cultural and spiritual heritage, they are probably one of the most admired and romanticized animals in the world. Throughout the world, you can find statues and symbols resembling tigers.

I cannot think of any other animal that leaves you with such a strong impression after seeing it in the wild. In my work of photographing tigers, I try to portray their poetic beauty and the fragile ecosystem that they are a part of.

My photos are not just close-ups, like traditional wildlife photography or documentaries. I use black and white to feature the essence of the tigers and I try to capture their souls. You can discover more of my work at www.bjornpersson.nu.

A tiger wanders in a jungle. Photo: Bjorn Persson

I still remember a special and unique project you published about three three years ago in which you collected human fingernails to replace rhino horns. What has the project achieved over the past few years.

The Nails for Extinction campaign was remarkably successful and became a viral hit. The idea was to make a point about how stupid the rhino horn medicine industry truly is and how meaningless the extinction of this beautiful animal is. Rhino horns consist of the exact same material as human fingernails.

That is why I asked people to donate their nails (instead of money) to provide people who buy this illegal product with a substitute medicine. I offered it to the Chinese and Vietnamese market, but obviously, the intention was not to make money.

My only goal was to provoke a strong response. And it worked. The campaign was highlighted in media all over the world. Stopping poachers is essential to protecting endangered animals, but even more effective is educating the people who buy these products, thereby putting an end to the pointless demand.

Photographer Bjorn Persson is seen taking a photo of a rhino in this supplied image.

Do you have any similar projects designed to protect wild tigers?

Yes, I am a proud ambassador for the UK-based NGO Save Wild Tigers. They have done a remarkable job of fighting for tigers. A few years ago, I helped organize the worlds largest-ever tiger photography exhibition. Over 30 renowned wildlife photographers were asked to donate their best tiger images, and the prints were then shown at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

Hundreds of thousands of people were able to see the show and learn more about the critical situation of the tiger. I love to work this way and it is very effective. To inspire and engage by showing the beauty of our wildlife, instead of scaring and threatening people into reacting.

I am certain there will be more ideas in the coming year of the tiger. We have to be creative in fighting wildlife crimes.

Thank you so much, Bjorn Persson!
Pacific nations and humanitarian groups struggled to establish communications with Tonga on Sunday after a tsunami triggered by a massive volcanic eruption cut telephone and internet connections, raising concerns for the tiny island nation.

An underwater volcano off Tonga erupted on Saturday, triggering tsunami warnings and evacuation orders on the shores of Tonga as well as several South Pacific islands, where footage on social media showed waves crashing into coastal homes.

Internet and phone lines went down at about 6.40 p.m. local time on Saturday, leaving the 105,000 residents on the islands virtually uncontactable.

"The images of the volcanic eruption in close proximity to Tonga are hugely concerning," Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, located about 1,481 miles from Tonga, said in a statement on Instagram.

"Communication as a result of the eruption has been difficult, but our defence force team and Ministry of Foreign Affairs are working as we speak to establish what's needed and how we can help," she said.

The New Zealand foreign ministry said there were no reports of injuries or deaths as yet but communications were limited.

Ardern will address the media at 3 p.m New Zealand time (0200 GMT) to give an update on the situation.

A Planet SkySat image shows the underwater volcano Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai two hours before its eruption in Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai, Tonga, January 15, 2022. Photo: Planet Labs PBC/via Reuters

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) Pacific Office in Suva, Fiji said it was monitoring the situation and had no updates on damages or casualties.

Tongan churches in New Zealand organised prayers for their families back home.

"We pray God will help our country at this sad moment. We hope everybody is safe...," Maikeli Atiola, the Secretary of the Wesleyan Church of Tonga in Auckland said, Radio New Zealand reported.

The Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai volcano has erupted regularly over the past few decades but Saturday's eruption was so loud that residents parts of faraway Fiji and New Zealand said they heard it.

Satellite images captured the volcanic eruption on Saturday as the explosion sent plumes of smoke into the air and about 12 miles above the sea level.

The sky over Tonga was darkened by the ash.

The eruptions triggered tsunami warnings across the Pacific, with the United States and Japan urging people on their Pacific coastlines to stay away from the shores.

Australia issued a marine tsunami warning for the New South Wales coastlines, Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island, and said local beaches along the states coast have been closed. A tsunami advisory was also issued in New Zealand.
Police were negotiating with a man believed to have taken people hostage at a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, during a religious service on Saturday that was being broadcast online.

The Colleyville Police Department said FBI negotiators remained in contact with the hostage taker late Saturday afternoon, after a male hostage was released uninjured more than six hours after the crisis began.

Other hostages were still being held.

The police said it had evacuated residents from the area around Congregation Beth Israel as it deployed SWAT teams after responding to an emergency call at 10:41 a.m. No injuries have been reported and it remained unclear what weapons, if any, the man had.

There were initially four hostages, including the rabbi, according to a person familiar with the situation who was not authorized to speak publicly.

A law enforcement vehicle blocks the street where a man has reportedly taken people hostage at a synagogue during services that were being streamed live, in Colleyville, Texas, U.S. January 15, 2022. Photo: Reuters

The man could be heard having a one-sided conversation in what appeared to be a phone call during a Facebook livestream of the Shabbat service of the Reform Jewish synagogue in Colleyville, which is about 16 miles (26 km) northeast of Fort Worth. The livestream cut off around 3 p.m. EST (2000 GMT).

Before the livestream was ended, the man could be heard ranting and talking about religion and his sister, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. The man could be heard repeatedly saying he didn't want to see anyone hurt and that he believed he was going to die, the newspaper said.

President Joe Biden has been briefed on the "developing hostage situation," his press secretary said. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Twitter that he was monitoring the situation and was praying for the safety of the hostages.

An armored law enforcement vehicle is seen in the area where a man has reportedly taken people hostage at a synagogue during services that were being streamed live, in Colleyville, Texas, U.S. January 15, 2022. Photo: Reuters

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said officials from the state's Department of Public Safety were also on the scene working to get "the best and safest outcome."

Barry Klompus, a member of the congregation since it opened in 1999, said he tuned into the livestream.

"It was horrible listening and watching, and it's that much more horrible not knowing," Klompus said in a telephone interview.

Though he was not able to clearly understand what the man wanted, Klompus believed the man wanted to talk to his sister.

Law enforcement vehicles are seen in the area where a man has reportedly taken people hostage at a synagogue during services that were being streamed live, in Colleyville, Texas, U.S. January 15, 2022. Photo: Reuters

A U.S. official briefed on the matter told ABC News the hostage-taker claims to be the brother of Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui, who is serving an 86-year U.S. prison sentence on her 2010 conviction for shooting at soldiers and FBI agents, and demanding she be freed.

But authorities have not yet confirmed his identity, the official told ABC News.

Siddiqui is being held at a federal prison in the Fort Worth area.

The president of the Union for Reform Judaism, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, said on Twitter the union was "very grateful to law enforcement who are working to free the hostages." The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish advocacy group, said it was aware of the standoff, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a U.S. Muslim advocacy group, condemned the man's actions.

Law enforcement vehicles are seen in the area where a man has reportedly taken people hostage at a synagogue during services that were being streamed live, in Colleyville, Texas, U.S. January 15, 2022. Photo: Reuters

"This latest antisemitic attack on Jewish Americans worshipping at a synagogue is an act of pure evil," CAIR said in a statement.

Klompus said he did not know of any significant previous threats to the congregation.

"We don't have a security officer on staff but we have what I would say is a very good relationship with the local police," he said.
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Here are todays leading news stories:

COVID-19 Updates

-- Vietnams Ministry of Health recorded 16,378 COVID-19 cases in 60 provinces and cities on Saturday, raising the national tally to 2,007,862, with 1,715,147 recoveries and 35,480 deaths.

Society

-- A cold front is forecast to affect northern Vietnamese provinces from Monday, lowering temperatures to between 12 and 15 degrees Celsius in the delta and to below five degrees Celsius in mountainous areas.

-- Police in the northern province of Tuyen Quang have apprehended a 52-year-old man for spreading information and documents that defamed the people's administration and insulted leaders of the Party and state.

-- Sales of peach blossom trees in Hanoi ahead of this years Lunar New Year have been quite slow although prices have decreased by about one-third compared to previous years.

-- The first phase of the construction of a US$2.3 billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) power plant, designed with the capacity of 1,500MW, was initiated in the north-central province of Quang Tri on Saturday.

-- Police in Binh Tan District, Ho Chi Minh City confirmed on Saturday they had arrested a 54-year-old man for colleting 'protection money' worth up to VND12 million ($528) a month from a local beer parlor.

-- A man and a woman who are both 23 years old have been captured for robbing three women before using the stolen property to buy narcotics and a pair of wedding rings in Ho Chi Minh City earlier this week.

Business

-- Vietnams gross domestic product (GDP) in 2021 increased by 2.58 percent from the previous year, the Vietnam News Agency quoted the General Statistics Office as saying.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
Ho Chi Minh City has documented 17 more infections of the Omicron coronavirus variant, bringing the total Omicron cases detected so far in the city to 30.

The latest patients are Vietnamese returning from abroad and they have been put in quarantine at Field Hospital No. 12 in the citys Thu Duc City upon their arrival, the municipal Department of Health reported on Saturday.

All these 17 cases had no common COVID-19 symptoms, such as fever, cough or difficulty breathing, the agency said.

Among the previous 13 imported Omicron cases, 12 have been discharged from hospitals and the other, an 82-year-old woman with some underlying health conditions, is being treated at the Ho Chi Minh City Hospital for Tropical Diseases.

Nationwide, 68 imported Omicron patients, all Vietnamese, have been detected in different localities since the first case was confirmed in Hanoi on December 21 last year.

Ho Chi Minh City leads in Omicron cases with 30 infections, followed by Quang Nam with 27 cases, Da Nang with three, Thanh Hoa and Khanh Hoa with two each, and Hanoi, Hai Duong, Hai Phong and Long An with one each, according to the the Ministry of Health.

The Omicron mutant was designated by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a variant of concern on November 26, 2021, two days after it was first reported to the WHO by South Africa.

The strain, which health experts stated appears to be more contagious but less virulent than previous mutants, has now been reported in over 130 countries and territories and has become dominant in many places, according to international media.

The health ministry said it has been updating information about the Omicron strain from the WHO in order to cope with any new epidemic developments properly and timely.

Ho Chi Minh City, with some nine million inhabitants, had administered over 8.14 million first vaccine shots and some 7.33 million second jabs to its adult population as of Saturday, the national COVID-19 vaccination portal reported.

Local health authorities expect to give the third vaccine doses, including booster shots and additional primary jabs, to all people aged 18 and older by January 30, according to Nguoi Lao Dong (Laborer) newspaper.

The city has recently seen its daily COVID-19 cases and deaths fall sharply, to 364 and 16 on Saturday, compared to 1,270 and 74 a month earlier, the Ministry of Healths data shows.

However, the southern economic hub remains the locality suffering the most from COVID-19 in Vietnam, with 512,368 infections and 19,797 fatalities documented since the pandemic erupted in the Southeast Asian country in early 2020.

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Residents have been highly concerned over the information about the construction of a hydropower plant in a tourist village in Vietnams Central Highlands.

The Department of Industry and Trade in Kon Tum Province announced on Saturday that the Ministry of Industry and Trade had previously approved five small-scale hydropower projects in the province in late August 2020.

Among them, the Dak Bla 3 hydropower plant is expected to be built along the section of Dak Bla River in Dak Ro Wa Commune under Kon Tum City.

On January 21, 2021, Chien Thang JSC sent a document to the Kon Tum Department of Planning and Investment regarding its intention to invest in the project.

The plant will have a capacity of 8.6MW, cover 84 hectares, and cost about VND250 billion (US$11 million).

The investment department later asked relevant sectors for their feedback so that the agency could present a detailed proposal to the provincial Peoples Committee.

The location where the hydropower plant is expected to be built in Kon Ko Tu Village in Kon Tum Province, Vietnam. Photo: Tran Van / Tuoi Tre

A probe by Tuoi Tre (Youth) showed that the construction site will be located near the Kon Ko Tu tourist village in Dak Ro Wa Commune.

Local residents have expressed their concern and opposition to the project, said that it would negatively affect their lives and the villages tourism development.

Most people in Kon Ko Tu live on tourism, A Thuyet, a resident stated, adding that the village is famous for its beautiful waterfalls along Dak Bla River.

The construction of the hydropower plant will cause the waterfalls to lose its attractiveness, Thuyet continued.

In addition, the project will also pose dangers to the lives of the locals as they still use water from the river for their daily activities.

The entrance of Kon Ko Tu Village in Kon Tum Province, Vietnam. Photo: Tran Van / Tuoi Tre

Upon the request of the project developer, the Peoples Committee in Dak Ro Wa Commune convened a meeting with representatives and elders of Kon Ko Tu Village to seek their opinions on the construction.

However, no one agreed to the implementation of the project, said Doan Van Hau, the commune chairman.

An official from the Peoples Committee in Kon Tum City said he has not heard any information about the construction of the Dak Bla 3 hydropower plant.

The official believed that the administration would not approve such a project.

Nguyen Thanh Man, chairman of Kon Tum City, said that the city currently has one hydropower plant on Dak Bla River, and the local administration shall not allow the construction of another plant.

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A man and a woman have been arrested after they had committed a robbery before using the stolen property to buy a pair of wedding rings and narcotics in Ho Chi Minh City earlier this week.

Police in Binh Chanh District confirmed on Saturday they had apprehended Tran Hoang Tuan and Ngo Thi Ngoc Nguyen, both 23, for robbery.

Preliminary information showed that Tuan carried Nguyen on a motorbike in Binh Chanh District at around 4:00 am on January 10 to hunt for prey.

They spotted a group of three women who were walking on a street and attempted to snatch one of the victims handbag.

As their first attempt did not succeed, the couple decided to turn around and stage an incident.

Nguyen attacked the woman with the handbag, claiming that the victim had seduced her husband.

As the victims friends intervened, Tuan also joined the fight.

Items related to the case in this photo supplied by police officers

The robbers managed to snatch the victims necklace and handbag, which contained an iPhone and VND2.5 million (US$110), during the quarrel before running away on their motorbike.

They sold the necklace later the same day for VND6 million ($264) and spent VND4 million ($176) on a pair of wedding rings.

They also sold the iPhone for VND2 million ($88).

Tuan and Nguyen then hid their motorbike at an apartment building in southern Binh Duong Province and spent the rest of the money on narcotics.

After the victims reported the case, police officers were able to identify the suspects before capturing them on Friday.

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Tonight on Back Roads, guest presenter Joe OBrien taps into his inner Bear Grylls in this adventure to Cradle Mountain in the wilds of the Tasmanian Highlands.

Joes hike begins in Mole Creek where he comes face to face with Mugsy, a teenage Tasmanian Devil with a blood curdling scream.

Next stop is Sheffield, the gateway to Cradle Mountain, where Joe meets flamboyant local Mark Beach Ross. Mark takes Joe on a tour of Sheffield to see what saved this town from the fate of many others in rural Australia  murals. The town boasts hundreds of murals, many are of nearby Cradle Mountain, native animals and a mysterious man, Gustav Weindorfer. To find out more about the man in the murals, Joe heads off to the small town of Wilmot for Weindorfer Memorial Day.

At the local hall, the festivities begin with a celebration of the lives of Gustav and his wife Kate Cowle. Joe learns how their love story gave birth to one of the most stunning parks in the world  the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park.

Next, Joe sets off on a hike around Cradle Mountain. His guide is legendary food dropper, Wes Moule. Wes carries up to 50 kilos of food to drop off for hikers camping or staying in the huts along the famous Overland Track. Wes and Joe make it to a hut just in time before the Cradles treacherous weather closes in. Over a cuppa Joe reflects on how Cradle Mountains rugged beauty can bring you to your knees but how it can also fill your soul.

8pm Monday on ABC.
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears uswhatever we askwe know that we have what we asked of him. (1 John 5:14-15)
French MPs discussed a bill this week to legalise the consumption of cannabis. Proposed by the hard-left France Unbowed party (LFI), it is not expected to find government support, but several recent polls show public opinion shifting in favour of legalisation.

Caroline Janvier and Jean-Baptiste Moreau from the ruling LREM party were among MPs from five parliamentary groups in support of a bill which would "legalise the production, sale and consumption of cannabis under state control".

A similar proposal put forward by Esther Benbassa from the France Unbowed party back in 2014 was rejected.

"This law is designed to end the repression associated with managing this drug and replace it with a public health policy for users," the MPs wrote before presenting the bill for debate at the National Assembly on Thursday.

They consider punitive measures alone were not helping to reduce consumption or related risks.

France is Europes biggest consumer of cannabis, according to a report from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), but it remains illegal and heavy fines apply.

Changing views

A number of recent opinion polls, however, show attitudes towards cannabis use are changing.

In June 2021, an Ifop survey showed 51 percent of French people were in favour of decriminalising cannabis  the highest number since 1970.

In September 2020, three mayors from the conservative Republicans (LR) party published an opinion piece in agreement with such a step, but they were quickly whipped into line.

Right wing mayor of Reims and pharmacologist Arnaud Robinet says he supports the legalisation of cannabis, mainly as a way of controlling quality in the interest of public health.

He also suggests it would have a positive economic impact on farmers and sellers as well as provide a source of tax revenue for the government.

Story continues

The rules over cannabis use vary significantly within the EU, according to data gathering site Prohibition Partners.

Malta became the first EU country to legalise the cultivation and personal use of cannabis in 2021, after the United Nations removed the plant from its list of the worlds most dangerous drugs in 2020 and recognised its therapeutic uses.

Germany, Switzerland and Luxembourg are expected to follow Maltas example in 2022, and Italy has pledged to hold a referendum on cannabis reform.

The subject is likely to gain ground in the lead up to France's presidential election.

Light at the end of the CBD tunnel?

In a separate development, the Constitutional Council on 7 January handed down a decision stating that CBD or cannabidiol, one of substances in the cannabis plant, did not fall into the category of an addictive drug, nor did it have any harmful effects on health.

The product, known for treating epilepsy and multiple sclerosis, provides a calming effect on people suffering from anxiety and depression.

The announcement effectively overturned a government decree issued on 31 December 2021 in the Journal Official which stated that "the sale of flowers or fibres in all their forms on their own or mixed with other products is banned, as is the possession and consumption".

However, permission was granted for the "growing, import, export, industrial and commercial use of Cannabis sativa L", as long as the hemp plant has only 0.3 percent of THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive component in the plant) as opposed to 0.2 percent noted in the decree published in July 2021.

European courts in 2020 rejected a ban on the so-called "well-being hemp" in France, stating that it was harmless and could not be considered a drug or a medication. This ruling allowed for CBD products to be put on the market across the EU.

In June 2021, the final appeals court ruled that CBD could be sold in France if it was produced in a European country. But the court did not rule on whether selling CBD in France was legal or not, leaving it in legal limbo.

The Constitutional Council decision in January effectively clears up what was a confusing legal situation for the CBD industry, and hailed as a victory by manufacturers in the hemp production sector.

CBD is estimated to have a potential market value in France of around 700 million euros.
Falls Community Hospital and Clinic officials this past week were forced to keep a COVID-19 patient on a ventilator in the emergency room for three days before they could find a hospital with a higher level of care to accept him.

The patient was transferred Thursday and is doing fine, but the episode was just one example of the struggle area health care providers are experiencing this month as a highly contagious coronavirus strain boosts hospitalizations and sidelines medical staff.

Jessica Ford, interim administrator for the Marlin-based facility, estimates that 15% of its 115 staff members were out last week, either recovering from COVID-19 or quarantining after possible exposure.

Dr. Mike Hardin, chief clinical officer at Waco Family Medicine, said about 20% of the 110 nurses and 10% of the 100 doctors there have been out this week for the same reasons.

Lisa Maxwell, director of communications for the Texas Nurses Association, said there are reports that as many as 20% of the nurses in Austin missed work this week.

This past week saw a record 4,902 new daily cases in McLennan County, while hospitalizations increased about 30% from 111 to 144. In the Waco region and elsewhere, the stress of the pandemic also taking a personal toll on health care workers after nearly two years.

We are hanging in as best we can, Ford said. Our staff is exhausted, and we are pushing through as much as we possibly can. It has definitely affected all of us here. Staff members are having to work additional shifts to cover for those who are out.

Hardin said the 13 Waco Family Medicine system sites in McLennan County and one in Bell County average around 900 patients a day. With the current COVID-19 surge, those numbers have swelled to more than 1,000 daily, he said.

I would say that the surge plus staffing shortages related to the surge have been something that is new for our organization to handle. Its been without precedent, Hardin said. But Im very proud of the way staff has been flexible to make the changes necessary to take care of the volume of patients weve seen. Weve had to be creative about outdoor clinics, telemedicine visits, allowing people who are on quarantine to get telemedicine visits and provide free at home COVID tests for our patients to be able to meet the needs of the pandemic.

Hardin said the systems goal is to provide same day or next-day access for care and diagnoses of COVID patients. Waco Family Medicine has shifted employees into an outdoor COVID clinic and is trying to use telephone and virtual visits as much as possible.

We have also temporarily closed one to two clinics a day to redeploy that staff to other sites to make it full service on those sites and to take care of the COVID surge, Hardin said.

Ascension Providence officials said in a statement that starting Monday, the Waco hospital temporarily will suspend elective surgeries and procedures that require admission to an inpatient bed. Officials said the suspension does not affect outpatient cases, but is necessary at this time to deal with the surging virus.

As the latest increase in COVID-19 cases continues to put pressure on our hospitals, emergency departments and healthcare professionals, we are taking extra steps to keep patients safe and preserve our hospital staffing plan, the Ascension Providence statement said.

All urgent and emergent cases will proceed without interruption. We continue to evaluate the situation daily and will return to normal services as soon as possible. Ascension Providence welcomes additional medical personnel available through the state and will continue to work with the state to meet the current staffing challenges. Ascension Providence has plans in place to safely care for all patients in our community, according to the statement.

A spokeswoman for Baylor Scott & White Hillcrest said the the ongoing COVID-19 spike is putting extraordinary pressure on our hospitals, our emergency departments and our health care professionals.

Across our organization, our multidisciplinary teams continue working to make sure we have adequate staffing, supplies, equipment and capacity to care for an increase of patients in the coming weeks, the hospital said in a statement to the Tribune-Herald. Our COVID-19 staffing preparation efforts include continuously studying and forecasting our staffing levels and deploying and recruiting team members. Our staff are critical to our ability to continue responding to the pandemic, and we thank them for their continued dedication to serving our communities.

The statement said the hospital is working with patients and physicians to reschedule non-emergency procedures when doing so would create additional capacity for COVID-19-positive patients.

Shelley Blackwood is the director of the McLennan Community College two-year nursing program. She said in response to the prolonged COVID-19 crisis, the State Board of Nursing added global pandemic response to its list of essential skills nursing students must master before they can become registered nurses.

We have a professional nursing concept course where we prepare them for the type of stresses they will encountered as nurses and bedside leaders, as providers of patient-centric care. We teach them time management, but also we teach them self-care, Blackwood said.

We teach that as part of the global health element. Nurses are math, science number crunchers. And those who are interested in epidemiology realize it was not going to be short-lived. We realize how viruses behave, how they mutate. But for anyone to say they knew it was going to last this long and knew what we would be in for, that would not be truthful.

Blackwood has read all the stories about burnout, fatigue, retirements and resignations among health care professionals in the past two years. She said she doesnt know anyone who has walked away from nursing because of the pandemic.

I dont hear what people might think we hear, she said. Sure, there is stress. There is emotion. I have heard frustration. But not with the hospital or the profession but with the unknowns of the virus, not knowing what to expect. The most frustrating thing for nurses is seeing what their patients go through with this virus.

While Blackwood doesnt know anyone who left the profession because of COVID-19, she said she has seen what she calls vaccine hesitancy among nurses and her students. She said about 99% of her 123 current nursing students are vaccinated.

But would-be nurses cant go through the program without working at hospitals, which want their employees to be vaccinated or have approved exemptions. That requirement has caused a slight decrease in applications, she said.

I think it goes back to nurses being data-driven and results-driven, and there hasnt been a lot of research. There hasnt been enough time. There is a lack of evidence. I certainly am pro-vaccine. I set that example, she said. But students are fearless. They are not afraid of the virus. Our application numbers were healthy, but vaccine hesitancy has decreased the number of folks wanting to enter the school.

Dr. Farley Verner, an infectious disease specialist who has served as the countys local health authority for the past 20 years, said as high as the reported case numbers may be, some estimates suggest they are only a sixth of the true number.

He said the only other health crisis that compares to this in his lifetime of 68 years is the AIDS epidemic of the late 1980s and early 1990s, although it affected fewer people and was spread out over a longer period of time. He said he knows the prolonged pandemic is having a negative effect on health care workers.

I cant see a way that after two years of dealing with this that someone could escape having emotional and physical effects of what they have been through, with the long hours, heavy patient loads, limited effective treatments, dealing with isolation issues and visitation policies that have everyone upset, including the health care workers, because they are not able to be as supportive as family, Verner said.

It does take a toll and everyone deals with it in their own way. I just know that going into this current surge that people are already tired. I had one comment to me, You know, I dont know if I can do this again, and that was from someone I know can do it again and will. But it is just a signal that people are struggling, he said.

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One of the more important  and often overlooked  moments of the civil rights movement was Martin Luther King Jr.s midnight kitchen table experience in 1956, which shaped his (and our) future.

King was 27 years old and in his second year as pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, within eyesight of the Alabama capitol. He had been helping lead the city bus boycott, which brought an ongoing barrage of death threats to his house, mail and phone. Some days, there were as many as 30 to 40 calls, often in the evening, trying to force him to return back to Atlanta.

King would just lay down the phone and, if at night, go back to bed. But one call, around midnight on Jan. 27, became pivotal for him.

While his wife, Coretta, and their infant daughter slept nearby, the caller, a man, said, N-----, were tired of your mess. And if you arent out of this town in three days, were going to blow up your house and blow your brains out.

Shaken more than usual, King, as later recounted, went to their small kitchen, made a pot of coffee, buried his face in his hands and prayed aloud: Lord, Im down here trying to do whats right  But I am afraid  I must confess  Im losing my courage.

King, in his own words, said, I could hear an inner voice saying to me, Martin Luther, stand up for truth. Stand up for justice. Stand up for righteousness. I will be at your side.

His fear quieted at that moment and left him, though never the threats. A bomb blew up on the front steps of his modest home three evenings later. Fortunately, despite the wreckage, no one was injured.

From the damaged porch, King called his gathered supporters out of their anger, and into nonviolence and love for their enemies.

Dr. King lived without fear for another 12 years, always going forward, knowing his life was at risk. If I am stopped, this movement will not stop. The world is better for his living without fear.

What we can take from Kings kitchen table experience is the importance of spiritual grounding to move onward in the hard, sometimes perilous struggle for justice, allowing no fear to detour our journey forward.

King learned his anchoring from Howard Thurman and Rev. James Lawson, forerunners of black liberation theology, and Mohandas Gandhis nonviolence. He was carried along by the Negro spirituals.

Spiritual grounding is essential. Our human history teaches us that. This is not about religiosity, going to church and so on, but that deep personal spiritual anchoring, whatever ones faith tradition (or none).

If we lack this tethering, our striving for justice will be short-lived and yanked away by distraction or fear of societal disapproval, retaliation, physical danger, financial insecurity and so on (the list is long).

Community grows because we give back; it does not grow in a vacuum.

Our annual commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr., should honor not only him, but, as he often pointed out, all those who struggled in danger to themselves without fear. We should reflect on how their deep spirituality moved them (and us) closer to the dream. Consider Harriet Tubman, Fannie Lou Hamer, John Lewis  and all those unnamed individuals before us, many of whom faced repercussions or death. We should honor, and imitate, their spiritual grounding and fearless courage.

Black Lives Matter has raised up a challenge and put it directly in our face. Likewise, the pandemic, now two years old, has laid bare the extravagant economic dislocations that oppress people of color and poor people.

Many want to rise to the challenge. Others will drift in their solipsism. People who want to be among those working for justice should consider more deeply grounding themselves so as to be fearlessly true to the struggle, and not wind vanes.

James C. Harrington, retired founder of the Texas Civil Rights Project, is an Episcopal priest in Austin.
Ive started a few small Texas companies in recent years in both Georgetown and Dallas, but patent trolls have never sued me for patent infringement. Not even once.

After all, patent infringement lawsuits can turn into some of the most expensive litigation in the United States, often costing millions of dollars. Small companies just do not have enough money to even cover the litigation costs of the patent holder. So contrary to a column by Jean Anne Booth [The patent troll menace, Dec. 8], patent trolls dont generally attack small companies because a patent lawsuit against a small company is guaranteed to lose money for the patent holder.

For entrepreneurs here in Texas, Big Tech is the big threat. Big Tech multinationals steal patented technologies from startups like mine, and they keep doing it because laws protecting patent rights for startups have been gutted by Big Tech lobbying in Washington.

By dominating the internet, Big Tech multinationals regulate access to entire markets through their app stores, devices, online stores and search engines. They dont put much energy into inventing new stuff because they monitor what sells and then just steal it, embed it into their products, saturate the market and run the startup out of business.

In other words, its a Big Tech smash and grab.

A really good example of the Big Tech smash and grab involves ParkerVision Inc. ParkerVision is like many startups that invent important technology. It created a computer chip that revolutionized the wireless industry, turning mobile phones into smartphones. And you guessed it, Big Tech stole it, forcing ParkerVision into patent litigation in the federal courts of Waco and elsewhere.

ParkerVision needed a very small radio frequency (RF) transceiver. RF transceivers convert radio signals into digital signals so that a computer can use it. Big Tech believed that the radio signal should not be destroyed, so they used a decades old technology called a superheterodyne transceiver, superhet for short. But superhets could not be put on a single computer chip, and this made RF transceivers bulky and power hungry. If you remember cellphones back in the 1990s, you know what I mean.

ParkerVision first tried to improve the superhet but quickly learned what Big Tech experts already knew  it could not be improved. ParkerVision then questioned the Big Tech consensus that the incoming radio signal should not be destroyed. After all, once its converted to a digital signal, it is no longer used. So, ParkerVision went against the Big Tech status quo, and instead of preserving the radio signal, ParkerVision destroyed it by transferring its energy to the digital signal. Surprisingly, this produced a superior digital signal using only a couple of parts that could easily be put on a single computer chip.

ParkerVisions new patented technology shocked Big Tech giants with greater range, faster data, improved signal quality of RF transceivers. Because it was all on a single chip, it enabled the miniaturization of RF transceivers, thereby opening space for all the features of future smartphones.

Soon Qualcomm, a Big Tech wireless multinational, and the rest of the wireless industry stole the technology. But as a Qualcomm executive said at the time, ParkerVisions technology is virtually the holy grail of RF receiver designs. So, it is ParkerVisions technology that changed the wireless industry forever, making possible the smartphone.

Big Tech can grab whatever technology they want because they smashed the legal framework protecting the patents of startups. Due to Big Tech lobbying, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively eliminated injunctions, which means that you cant stop Big Tech from stealing your inventions. The America Invents Act created administrative tribunals in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office with a sole purpose of invalidating patents. Unaccountable government lawyers run these tribunals and are bonused to invalidate patents. Kill rates are above 80 percent, and most are patents that belong to startups.

Booth wants us to support Texas Sen. John Cornyns Restoring the America Invents Act, which makes those administrative tribunals even worse for startups by enabling Big Tech to smash more patents so they can grab the technology.

Big Tech is the big threat to startups  not some patent troll cartoon invented by Big Tech to prop up a scary story that enables them to take what is not theirs and profit from it.

Paul Morinville is former executive with Dell Technologies, as well as a Texas inventor and entrepreneur with multiple early-stage tech companies focused on enterprise software, video processing, artificial intelligence and more in the U.S and Asia. He is the founder of US Inventor , an advocacy firm representing inventors and startups in Washington, D.C.
The friends were out catfishing when they came across the vehicle. They fear the man could have gotten hypothermia, or perished if his vehicle had reached the well-known Sans Souci Island wing dam.
CEDAR FALLS -- Dave Baker of Ankeny will portray Sgt. George Cruikshank at the Jan. 20 meeting of Cedar Valley Civil War Roundtable. The 7 p.m. meeting takes place at the Community Foundation of Northeast Iowa, 317 Greenhill Circle, Cedar Falls.

The meeting will also be available on Zoom.

In 1861, Cruikshank and several other men in the Fort Dodge area went to Dubuque to enlist and were attached to the 11th Pennsylvania Cavalry. There were not enough soldiers to form an Iowa unit. Baker will interpret Sgt. Cruikshank and his Civil War experiences.

Roundtable meetings are open to anyone interested in the Civil War. For further information email cvcwrt9@yahoo.com.

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WATERLOO  A Waterloo man who as accused of setting his cousin up for a synthetic marijuana robbery has been found guilty of a lesser charge.

Daijon Jarell Stokes, 28, had been charged with first-degree robbery, which carries a hefty 25 years in prison.

But Friday, jurors found him guilty of a reduced charge of assault with intent to commit serious injury, a misdemeanor with a two-year maximum.

Stokes hugged his defense attorney, James Metcalf, upon hearing the decision, and Metcalf thanked jurors.

Prosecutors had claimed Stokes was upset with his cousin, Cedrick Ordell Smith, over an outstanding $150 debt. The state alleged Smith sought the help of 20-year-old Dayton Sanders and 17-year-old Alvonni Stone to rob Smith during a K2 deal in the Kwik Stop parking lot on West Ninth and Washington streets.

Stokes told jurors he was actually headed to a different convenience store across the street when he spotted Smith  with whom he had an ongoing dispute aside from the debt  and decided to attack him. He said there was no robbery plan, and he didnt know Sanders and Stone were carrying guns.

Surveillance video from the store showed Stokes run up to the drivers side door of Smiths red Ford Fusion and begin throwing punches as Stone entered the Fusions passenger side door.

The Fusion lurched forward, with Sanders running after it. The Fusion briefly stopped as Smith fired three shots, and Stone fired a single shot toward the car, which the sped off.

Sanders, apparently hit by a 9 mm bullet from Smiths gun, darted across the street, almost being struck by a passing sport utility vehicle and then collapsing in the median. Police said they found an empty .45-caliber handgun next to Sanders body.

No charges were filed in Sanders death. Stone was charged as an adult with robbery and intimidation with a weapon. Smith was arrested on drug charges. Both of their cases remain pending in court.

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WATERLOO  A long-planned marina project in downtown Waterloo could be underway as soon as this year.

The City Council is expected to award the project  being overseen by the Iowa Department of Transportation  to Lodge Construction of Clarksville during the councils Tuesday meeting, rescheduled from Monday due to the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday.

Lodge was the low bidder, at $1,281,571.05, underbidding Peterson Contractors in Reinbeck by less than $400. Peterson came in at $1,281,955.58, according to city documents. The average bid of the six received was $1.4 million.

The Iowa DOTs plans include a 50-foot boat channel excavation, concrete infill, a parking lot, a retaining wall and an 11-foot kayak shared-use path, as well as landscaping that doubles as erosion control.

Noel Anderson, the citys planning director, previously noted the city was committed to building a marina on the river through a development agreement with the Tech Works district. It is in the citys long-term riverfront renaissance plans.

The proposed marina would be located on the Cedar Valley TechWorks campus on land donated by Deere and Co. on the rivers west bank near the intersection of West Commercial Street and River Road.

The marina, which will be near the Manatts concrete plant, is part of an Iowa Reinvestment District application approved by the state in 2015. That IRD program is expected to provide $12 million in state sales and room tax for projects on the Cedar Valley TechWorks campus.

Preliminary designs for the marina estimated its total cost in 2015 to be $2.7 million. It would include a boat sales and storage building, 18 rental boat slips, a boat fueling station and pontoon rentals on the west bank of the Cedar River.

The Iowa Department of Transportation in 2019 agreed to cover 80% of the cost of both the marina and the Shaulis Road recreational trail extension. Before the pandemic upended plans, construction was slated to begin in late 2020.

The council in 2019 approved funding agreements with the Iowa Department of Transportation to cover 80% of the cost of both projects slated for construction next year. The city is likely to pony up at least another $800,000 toward the project.

In other business, the council will consider whether to approve:

Wage increases for all city employees at 3% in fiscal year 2022, and most employees at 2% for fiscal year 2023, as was approved in collective bargaining agreements with the six unions covering Waterloos employees.

Exceptions to the FY 2023 agreements were police and fire employees, who will receive 3% raises along with AFSCME Local 195 police lieutenants, and 2.75% increases for the citys evidence coordinator, data systems and records manager, and code enforcement officer.

An amendment to a development agreement with All-In Grocers developer that was postponed at the Jan. 3 meeting.

Because it was postponed, the council must consider the item again, Anderson said, even though the minimum assessed value rising to $4 million was already approved at special session this past Monday.

The amendments language thus still includes remov(ing) the obligation of (Central Property Holdings) to provide a mortgage as security, which had caused confusion and the postponement Jan. 3.

City Clerk Kelley Felchle said the city was recommending it be voted down or postponed indefinitely.

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DES MOINES  In four years, every Iowans income would be taxed at 4% by the state under a new proposal from Gov. Kim Reynolds.

Reynolds introduced her flat income tax proposal during last weeks annual Condition of the State address to the Iowa Legislature, encouraging the lawmakers to pass her idea.

Flat and fair, Reynolds proclaimed during the speech.

The idea of a flat tax has been around for years, and has its fair share of both supporters and critics.

Steve Forbes ran on a national flat tax platform as part of his 2000 presidential campaign. Supporters say a flat tax is fair and simple. A common pitch has been that a flat tax would make filing taxes simple enough to fit on a postcard.

Critics say a flat tax is unfair because it asks the lowest wage-earners to pay the same rate on their taxes as high wage-earners. They prefer a more progressive tax structure that taxes higher wager-earners at higher rates than low-income workers.

Ten states have a flat state income tax, including Iowas eastern neighbor, Illinois. The list includes more blue states like Michigan and Massachusetts, but also red states like Kentucky and Utah.

Eight states have no state income tax. The remaining states, including Iowa, have varying forms of progressive, or graduated, income tax structure.

In 2021, Iowa had nine state income tax rates, tied for the second-most in the country. Most Iowa workers income was taxed at between 4.14%, with rates increasing as income increased to a top rate of 8.53% for those earning more than $78,435 of taxable income.

As a result of tax reform passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Reynolds in 2018, the number of tax brackets will be reduced to four, ranging between 4.4% and 6.5%.

Under Reynolds new plan, top state income tax rate would be eliminated each year over the next four years, until in 2026 every Iowa worker, regardless of income level, pays 4%.

Theres never been a better time in Iowa for bold, yet practical tax reform that meets the priorities of the state, allows Iowans to keep more of what they earn, and creates a highly competitive tax system, the governors state budget book reads.

The plan would reduce state revenue by $226 million in the first year, and by $1.6 billion at full implementation, according to the states nonpartisan fiscal and legal analysis division. The current state budget  which funds things ranging from education to the justice system to state-run mental health institutions  is just more than $8 billion.

The governors staff insists that if state revenues and spending continue to grow at their recent average rates, the flat tax plan can be implemented without forcing reductions in state spending.

Thats money that can be reinvested into our economy and used to promote the prosperity of every Iowan, Reynolds said during her speech. Yes, well have less to spend once a year at the Capitol, but well see it spent every single day on Main Streets, in grocery stores, and at restaurants across Iowa. Well see it spent in businesses instead of on bureaucracies.

Tom Sands, a former Republican lawmaker who chaired the Iowa House committee that deals with tax policy and is now president and chief executive officer of the Iowa Taxpayers Association, called Reynolds flat tax proposal bold and a good one.

Moving to a flat tax is something that a lot of us have talked about over the years, but its been hard to get there, said Sands, who was a state lawmaker from 2003 to 2016. (A 4% flat income tax) makes us a lot more competitive as a state.

Peter Fisher, research director for the liberal-leaning policy advocacy group Common Good Iowa, said of Iowas three tax systems  income tax, property tax and sales tax  only the current income tax system is somewhat progressive, in that it asks high-income workers to pay a greater share of their income than low-income workers. The flat tax would change that.

So if you lower that at the top, youre just skewing the system even more in favor of higher incomes, Fisher said.

Fisher noted a transition to a flat tax would be a significant reduction for high-income workers  the top rate would drop from 6.5% to 4%  and only a modest reduction at best for lower-income workers, whose rate would drop from 4.4% to 4%.

In other words, the highest-paid workers would see a 38.5% income tax reduction, while some lower-income workers would get just a 9% reduction.

Its highly skewed in favor of top incomes, Fisher said.

The governors office has said that all Iowans would see a reduction in state income taxes, and the average Iowa wage earners tax burden would be lowered $1,300.

Fisher, however, said that average number is skewed by the large reductions that high wage earners will receive. Fisher said the median Iowa taxpayer will see a reduction of just $600.

Half of the taxpayers are going to get $600 or less, Fisher said.

The governors office said that, according to its calculations, the median  or middle  tax reduction will be $900.

Many Republicans have argued that lowering the states income tax  or eventually eliminating it altogether, as some Senate Republicans have established as their goal  will make Iowa more attractive to people to work and live here.

They point to data that shows New York and California were among the states with the highest percentage of lost population in 2021, while Texas  which has no income tax  was among the states with the largest percentage of growth.

It is a particular point of emphasis for state policymakers, given Iowas sluggish population growth.

Iowa grew by 4.7% from 2010 to 2020, which was well below the national average of 7.1% although better than the Midwest region as a whole, which grew just 3.1% in that time, according to U.S. census data.

One thing we do know is states with either no income tax or low income tax are a destination place for other people to move, Sands said.

Data does not fully support that opinion, which many supporters of tax cuts often espouse. For example, in 2021 Illinois  which has a flat income tax  was among the states with the highest share of residents who moved out of the state, according to an annual study by the moving company United Van Lines.

Meantime, Vermont  which has the fourth-worst total state tax burden, according to the Tax Foundation  had the highest share of people moving there, according to the United Van Lines study.

There have been a lot of studies, and what you find is overwhelmingly people move because of climate, because of a job, because if theyre retirees they want to be near their kids, Fisher said. For some people (taxes) matter, but overall this is not going to suddenly get people to come to Iowa because the top income tax rate is lower.

Republican legislative leaders praised Reynolds proposal and said they are eager to begin working on legislation. Reynolds proposal has not yet been produced in bill form, but should be soon after it goes through the legislation-making channels at the Statehouse.

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WATERLOO  The Cedar Valley spent much of Saturday digging out after a winter storm dropped six inches of snow Friday night.

The fast-moving storm dropped heavy snow across a large swath of the Midwest on Friday, where travel conditions deteriorated and scores of schools and businesses closed. Iowa was hit the hardest. Brad Small, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said the airport in Des Moines saw more than 14 inches of snow and a big swath of the central and southern Iowa recorded between 9 inches and a foot of snow.

The Iowa State Patrol reported that 207 motorists were assisted and 78 crashes had occurred in the four hours between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. Friday, according to the Des Moines Register.

A National Weather Service map shows unofficial reports early Saturday morning indicating parts of the Waterloo-Cedar Falls metro area received between six and eight inches of snow.

The top wind speeds ranged from 20 to 26 miles per hour, but individual gusts were reported between 28 and 36 miles per hour by the Waterloo municipal airport, according to the NWS.

In addition, temperatures dipped from north of freezing, where they sat to begin this week, and the high Saturday was 16.

The Iowa Department of Transportation was reporting terrible roadway conditions for most highways in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls metro area as people got going at 7 a.m. Saturday, but conditions improved throughout the day.

Cities in and around Des Moines received a bulk of the snow, in some cases reportedly more than two feet. Other parts of north and south central Iowa also had reports of double digit snow.

The NWS reported snow quickly winding down from north to south away from the Waterloo-Cedar Falls metro area by 3:30 a.m. Saturday, with expectations the snowstorm, which The Weather Channel named Izzy, headed east into other states this Martin Luther King Jr. weekend.

Tow bans had been in place in parts of Iowa, mostly south and southeast of the Waterloo-Cedar Falls metro area. The city of Waterloo had declared a snow emergency from 1 a.m. Friday to 5 p.m. Saturday.

In addition, a snow emergency was in effect in Jesup and Gilbertville through 6 p.m. Saturday.

Forecasts of snow and ice as far south as Georgia on Saturday put a big part of the Southeast on an emergency preparedness footing as shoppers scoured store shelves for storm supplies and crews raced to treat highways and roads as a major winter storm approached from the Midwest.

In Virginia, where a blizzard left thousands of motorists trapped on clogged highways earlier this month, outgoing Gov. Ralph Northam declared a state of emergency and urged people to take the approaching storm seriously. In North Carolina, some store shelves were stripped bare of essentials including bread and milk.

Things are looking up this week weather-wise for the Cedar Valley, with no snow in the forecast and highs in the 30s today through Tuesday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Waterloo school board chooses six superintendent semi-finalists during Wednesday closed session Potential Waterloo Schools' leaders chosen from pool of 22 applicants will be interviewed by board Jan. 19.

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WATERLOO  It was a chance viewing of a flier on the door of Jubilee United Methodist Church, offering participants the chance to take a bus tour down to Southern civil rights locations, that piqued the interest of Bobby Jo Paige.

The rural Grundy Center woman, who is white, had grown up with parents who were involved with equal rights for all, who even in the 1940s and 50s invited people of color into our homes. Shes read about and given money to civil rights causes over the years.

But Paige was stunned at some of the things she learned and saw during last falls MLK Freedom Bus Tour.

She learned more than 12 million people had been abducted from African countries over the centuries, with 2 million dying en route, as she stood in the spot where a large market for enslaved people once stood.

To think that people ... could look down that street and see these human beings being sold  children  its like, I guess they just didnt see it. I dont understand it, Paige said. It bothered me.

She visited the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, and viewed the lynching memorial, honoring the more than 4,400 Black people killed by white mobs between 1877 and 1950, and viewed the wooden poles on which the names of those killed are carved.

Its shocking, Paige said, noting that memorial affected her the most. It hurt deep, I guess because I dont understand this kind of hate.

Despite that, Paige recommends the trip to anyone, saying it was fabulous and she learned every day of the trip.

I would encourage anyone with an open mind and an open heart to take this, she said. People dont want to hear this, but its time that we learn what happened, and whats still happening.

Thats exactly what Abraham Funchess is hoping to hear from participants on the annual five-day MLK Freedom Bus Tour, sponsored by Allen College, which takes participants to Memphis, Montgomery, Selma and Birmingham to visit museums and historic places surrounding slavery and the civil rights era.

Funchess, the executive director of the Waterloo Commission on Human Rights, has run the trip annually since 2018, with a year off in 2020 during the pandemic. He said he wasnt sure if the ongoing pandemic would affect attendance for the 2021 trip, then was astounded to see the largest number of participants yet  41 packed the bus in November.

We market the trip as experiencing, once again, those spaces and places of human rights, of civil rights activity, that allows one to explore the cornerstones of democracy, Funchess said. And I think that resonated with a lot of people.

This year, the groups excursions included the Heritage Tour in Memphis, which included a stop at a home once used on the Underground Railroad; the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, where four children were killed in a Ku Klux Klan bombing in 1963; the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, the site of the Bloody Sunday beatings of civil rights marchers in 1965; and more.

This is the signature tour for me, Funchess said. These are the places that kind of kicked off the modern civil rights movement, the modern Black liberation movement. And so, to me, those will always be important.

Funchess said the tour even inspired Waterloo City Councilor Nia Wilder to run for office. Wilder, who has gone on the trip multiple times and shot video of the trips, confirmed Funchess account.

Going on the tour made me more confident in the voice I have; it gave me the reassurance I didnt know that I needed, Wilder said. Seeing so many Black people hold positions that made a difference made me want to do the same.

Others have also taken the trip more than once, including Kathy Kratchmer of Clarksville, who went in 2019 and again in 2021.

Her first trip, she noted she was overwhelmed by the amount of information presented. In November, she was able to focus on the legacy of slavery, making connections from sustained family separations and abuse to normalized atrocities in our present day, including longstanding disparate treatment of Black citizens.

Surely the extrajudicial killing of Black and Brown people is one that is getting long overdue attention, Kratchmer said. But still, large parts of our populace are indifferent to it, justify it, or prefer to look the other way.

Funchess said hes glad people like Paige, Kratchmer, Wilder and others are able to come home after the MLK Freedom Bus Tour, inspired to make change in their own community, in any way they can.

The whole point is to hopefully give the participants something palpable that they can hang onto, so that they are inspired to come back and to help change policy in the local context, he said.

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WATERLOO -- The Salvation Army of Waterloo/Cedar Falls is looking for volunteers to help in the kitchen for noon lunch on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.; and in the perishable goods pantry on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

In 2021, the noon lunch provided 6,166 meals to community members and the pantry redistributed 391,057 pounds of food back into the community. Food that would have otherwise been thrown away, instead, went to feed 9,819 community members that didnt where their next meal would come from.

Volunteers work directly with the food program manager. Volunteers must be able to stand for extended periods of time and lift at least 10 pounds. No experience necessary.

For additional information, contact Katie Zimmerly, volunteer and community relations coordinator, at (319) 235-9358, or katie.zimmerly@usc.salvationarmy.org.

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CEDAR FALLS  Well before his I Have a Dream speech in 1963, but after he became well-known for the Montgomery bus boycott, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to the University of Northern Iowa.

He and his wife, Coretta Scott King, were invited to what was then the Iowa State Teachers College by President James Maucker in the fall of 1959. King, at that time known mostly for his work on equal voting rights and the successful bus boycott, spoke to a packed crowd of students and teachers at Lang Hall in a morning address Nov. 11.

The concept of understanding, creative, redemptive love which seeks nothing in return, which can love the person doing the deed while hating the deed, was the center of the movement, King said in that address, according to the College Eye newspaper. We felt in our struggle that we had cosmic companionship  while we walked, we didnt walk alone.

King arrived in Waterloo the day before his Cedar Falls speech, in a trip sponsored by the Waterloo NAACP chapter. He was greeted at the airport by Mayor Ed Jochumsen and other civic leaders, and spoke at Waterloo West High School later that evening, according to the Nov. 10, 1959, issue of the Waterloo Daily Courier. He spoke at what was then State University of Iowa the night of Nov. 11.

But that historic visit to UNI more than 60 years ago had been lost to history, and rarely  if at all  taught to students in the intervening years.

We didnt know any of this, said Sophie Buckley, a UNI senior. Its amazing.

I know there is a monument for Martin Luther King behind Maucker Union, but I would have never known the reasoning behind that, said Kaitlyn Shaw, a UNI senior majoring in elementary education.

Buckley was one of several students who first learned about the visit last semester, after local historian Charles Pearson spoke to their literacy education class taught by associate professor Shuaib Meacham.

In my experience, students who come from outside Waterloo, especially more rural parts, have terrible misconceptions about Waterloo, Meacham said. Charles was just another person that I thought, OK, my students could really benefit from hearing his perspectives on Black history in Iowa.

Pearson, who began Preserve Black America, which has taken on projects like the Iowa Civil Rights Trail Project, came back multiple times at the request of students, whom Meacham allowed to come up with their own projects in a community engagement model. As a result, they learned not only about Kings visit, but about the actions of the UNI 7, who held a sit-in at Mauckers house in 1968 protesting the lack of a space and inclusive curriculum for Black students at the college.

We learned that James Maucker was really good friends with Martin Luther King at that time, and their wives were really good friends. And (Coretta Scott King) even came back to UNI after Martin Luther King died, said Sydney Shatek, a UNI junior and elementary education major.

One of the UNI 7, Terri Stevens, also recounted her first-hand experiences, in which several students were temporarily suspended from UNI and arrested for their sit-in.

She told them its important to make their cause public, Meacham said.

Out of that, students chose to build two websites to let others know about the history: One, called Mauckers Forgotten Legacy, chronicles specific historic events during Mauckers tenure, like Kings visit and the UNI 7. Another talks about UNIs and the broader Cedar Valleys Black history, and features resources teachers can use in their own classrooms.

People in Cedar Falls didnt even know about this stuff, said UNI junior Jordan Block. It tells us, as future educators, that we need to know ... that we should get to know our own community and see what weve been missing out on.

Shatek agreed.

He made us think outside the box with these projects; it wasnt what I was expecting from a literacy education class, she said.

A previous version of this article, drawing from the UNI students' website, noted UNI 7 activist Terri Stevens had been arrested during the sit-in. Stevens said she was not arrested.

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There was something missing at the Statehouse last week as the 89th Iowa General Assembly convened its 2022 legislative session: reporters on the floor of the Iowa Senate.

The powers that be in the Senate have decided to move reporters out of the press work stations on the chamber floor and into the upstairs gallery.

According to a statement from Iowa Capitol Press Association President Erin Murphy, Vice President Kathie Obradovich, and Secretary Katarina Sostaric, supported by the Iowa Broadcast News Association and the Iowa Freedom of Information Council:

Media access to the people who make laws is a critical component of representative government. Primarily for this reason, the Iowa Capitol Press Association is extremely disappointed in the Iowa Senates decision to move reporters out of the press work stations on the chamber floor and into the upstairs gallery.

In moving reporters off the floor, the Iowa Senate becomes one of only a handful of state legislative chambers across the country to limit access in this way, according to information from the National Conference on State Legislatures. For more than 100 years, reporters have worked from the press work stations on the chamber floors in the Iowa House and Senate to cover the Legislature and the taxpayer-financed officials who make state laws. For more than 100 years, the setup has served all parties well: the press, state lawmakers, and most importantly the public, which has benefited from the reporting that comes from that access.

Having real-time access to lawmakers allows reporters to provide important clarification, context and additional information to the public. Lawmakers who have real-time access to reporters can pass along news that might not otherwise be reported, and also hold journalists accountable for errors or unclear information in stories. Putting reporters in the upstairs galleries puts up new barriers to this process, and makes it more difficult for reporters to serve as the eyes and ears of the public. The better we can do our job, the better understanding the public will have of what their elected representatives are doing on their behalf.

We are pleased the Iowa House has pledged to maintain press work stations on the House chamber floor, and we hope the Iowa Senate reconsiders, and works with the press to return reporters to the Senate floor.

Its hard to imagine a good reason for majority Republicans to restrict access to the peoples business, but its firmly in line with the partisan trend in recent years. Since gaining trifecta control in 2017 of all three branches of government in Des Moines, Republicans have been less and less inclined to legislate out in the open. The words dead of night have been tied to everything from the 2017 law gutting Iowas 40-year-old collective bargaining procedures, to abortion restrictions in every session since, to last years law prohibiting mask mandates by counties, cities and schools in the midst of a pandemic. Of course, when youre ramming through highly controversial measures in the wee hours, the less said about it the better. But in all those cases we received a full accounting the next day, because our reporters were on the scene.

And its not just the Legislature. The governors office also cant be bothered with pesky requests to provide public information to reporters, even though it is legally mandated to do so.

Three media organizations and their reporters sued Gov. Kim Reynolds last month alleging she has repeatedly violated the states open records laws by ignoring requests for government records. The reporters said they have tried to get public records from Reynolds office starting as early as April 2020 without success, waiting for months and in some cases well over a year.

Apparently willing to allow those queries to hang fire indefinitely, the governors office did an about face Dec. 17, a day after being sued, and announced a new system for handling open records requests. Reynolds spokesman told reporters the coronavirus pandemic created increased records requests that had slowed processing. Luckily, the pandemic didnt slow the response to lawsuits.

And if youre of a mind that in a good-government state like Iowa lawmakers have little to hide, think again.

Just remember how taxpayers footed the bill for $7.5 million in settlements since 2017 in four sexual harassment lawsuits.

Kirsten Anderson, former Iowa Senate Republican communications director, got $1.08 million and her attorneys $705,000 to settle a sexual harassment suit in September 2017. She was fired hours after filing a 2013 complaint alleging the Senate GOP Caucus was a boys club with rampant sexual harassment.

Anderson explained the need for the press to keep close tabs on government officials pretty succinctly after her lawsuit was settled:

Putting more sunshine on these issues is good, and I think it would have quashed my situation pretty fast. I think there needs to be more accountability. Its disappointing that there hasnt been, and there still isnt.

The Capitol tends to foster an atmosphere that protects people who act badly, Anderson said. Which is why its important to have reporters close at hand monitoring how public affairs are conducted and public finances are distributed.

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A good portion of the Soviet Unions fleet, armed with nuclear-tipped missiles, sailed toward Cuba. Between them and landfall a strong force of the U.S. Navy rode the waves. Having discovered the placement of missiles in Cuba that could reach the southeastern United States, President Kennedy had imposed a quarantine, prohibiting Russian attempts to further arm the island nation. The two forces reached proximity to each other in international waters. Then, to the relief of everyone, the Russians honored the quarantine and pulled back. Secretary of State Dean Rusk described the moment this way: We were eyeball to eyeball, and I think they just blinked.

We are very close to the same situation today in Eastern Europe. Two nuclear powers in confrontation over the Ukraine and the presence of NATO in areas previously dominated by the old Soviet Union. Russia has amassed 125,000 to 175,000 combat troops and equipment on the Ukrainians border, whose presence means an invasion of the country could be forthcoming. If Russia chooses to do so, the U.S. and allies have promised to respond with massive and devastating economic sanctions, and military equipment, but not troops, to the battleground. In fact, our Senate this week may pass sweeping authority for the president to so act on the economic front.

But maybe, just maybe, there may be a solution in some of the Russian leaders demands on NATO expansion. Vladimir Putin has asserted that he finds a strong U.S. presence in Eastern Europe and the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union intolerable, that his response time to an attack is only five or six minutes. Here is why that last statement is important. An ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile), one capable of flying over 3,000 miles, must fly very high. In fact, it leaves the Earths atmosphere and then returns to the target with what is called G.A., a fancy term for gravity assist. The unclassified time for a nation to be able to respond to a nuclear attack is 20 minutes.

That is a critical time span. When confronted with nuclear armed opponents, both the United States and the former Soviet Union decided on the doctrine of MAD, or mutually assured destruction. If neither could win such a war, it made no sense for either to start one. MAD will become obliterated when either Russia or the U.S. perceives that they have obtained first strike capability, which is the capacity to eliminate the response of their opponent. All of this leads us back to the conclusion that the situation in the Ukraine and Eastern Europe is very dangerous. A Russian invasion followed by strangling economic sanctions could push Russia into an arms race tempting the unthinkable, the use of a nuclear option. That the conflict may intensify is a given with Putins demands, particularly that we withdraw NATO back to the lines that existed after the Second World War.

So far, the administration has responded with simple denial of Russias ultimatums. However, the situation may present an opportunity to insure greater stability in realm of nuclear confrontation. Recently in the Washington Post, David Ignatius, who writes on foreign affairs, acknowledged that from a negotiation standpoint, it was hard to see any wiggle room. But upon further reflection, he pointed out that at the start of meetings between the two countries and NATO members some early confidence-taking steps could prove beneficial. A drawdown of military presence in Europe by both sides, renegotiated limits and locations of short and intermediate range missiles, and other steps could remove each sides perceived need for pre-emptory military action. Mutual discussion may present the opportunity for a more stable and less explosive relationship.

We can hope for these types of developments. If Putin continues his demand to be able to create a Russian sphere of influence in the now independent countries of what was the Soviet Union and central and eastern Europe, then the situation may indeed become dire. We could find ourselves and our adversary staring at each other again, eyeball to eyeball.

Dave Nagle is a Waterloo attorney and former U.S. congressman.

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An update was made in the question about Cedar Falls paraeducators to reflect the correct pay range.

Q: How much does the Humane Society pay for a cat? I see they charge $25 to adopt one.

A: The Cedar Bend Humane Society does not pay for or purchase cats. The majority of cats come to the shelter as stray cats roaming the streets of Waterloo, Cedar Falls and surrounding areas, said Executive Director Kristy Gardner. Many of these cats have been neglected or abandoned and are sick or injured and desperately in need of medical care. We also accept cats surrendered by owners that can no longer can keep or care for their pets. Every cat that enters our facility receives vaccinations and medical attention upon their arrival.

Once a cat is placed on our adoption floor, it has no time limit and will remain with us until it finds a new home.

Adoption fee for a cat is $45. If a family chooses to adopt two cats at one time, the adoption fee for the second cat is reduced to $25. Several times each year, adoption fees are reduced to as little as $10 to encourage families to adopt.

Q: Can you print the names and telephone numbers of all of the Cedar Falls City Council?

A: The seven Cedar Falls city councilors are Gil Schultz (Ward 1), Susan deBuhr (Ward 2), Daryl Kruse (Ward 3), Simon Harding (Ward 4), Dustin Ganfield (Ward 5), Dave Sires (at-large) and Kelly Dunn (at-large). Each have their phone numbers available to the public on the citys website: Schultz, (319) 939-0193; deBuhr, (319) 277-8974; Kruse, (319) 277-1100; Harding, (319) 346-6695; Ganfield, (319) 553-6899; Sires, (319) 231-1569; Dunn, (319) 215-6891.

Q: When you have a COVID test done, can they tell which variant you have?

A: No. The tests that are run by doctors in offices and hospitals dont sequence and specify the variant, says infectious disease expert Amesh A: Adalja, M.D., a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

Q: What does an average obituary cost in The Courier?

A: Call (641) 421-0514 for information about running an obituary in The Courier.

Q: Cedar Falls Schools paras base wages range from $11.77 to $12.40 an hour. How can the district justify raises to administrators and offering $1,000 for teachers who give notice to resign? How can Cedar Falls justify such low rates to paras?

A: Current pay rates were jointly negotiated by the district with the Cedar Falls Educational Support Professionals in March 2021, said Adrian Talbot, Cedar Falls Community Schools executive director of human resources. He added that pay rates for paraeducators, in combination with the comprehensive package of benefits, are competitive with those offered by other districts in Northeast Iowa. The $1,000 early notice incentive was available for teachers who notified the district by Jan. 4. Talbot said funding for this was available through the federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Act. The districts 22-member administrative team received an increase of 2.91% for salaries and other benefits for the current year. Superintendent Andy Pattee received a 5.73% increase in overall compensation for 2021-22.

Calls are taken on a special Courier phone line at 234-3566. Questions are answered by Courier staff.

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Starting January 15, many Americans can get home Covid-19 tests at no cost through their private insurance. They can obtain the tests from pharmacies, retailers and online vendors.
(The late) Sen. Pete Domenici excelled at bringing home federal resources to meet New Mexicos needs. But as chair of the Senate Budget Committee, he was also keenly aware transparency and fiscal scrutiny were essential. Projects had to be justified.

New Mexico is receiving an unprecedented amount of federal money at a time when it is also receiving a record-breaking level of oil and gas revenue. The sums available are staggering, the opportunities and challenges enormous. Unfortunately, our history is less-than-accountable utilization of funds.

While there is a Capital Improvement Plan, it is just the starting point for setting priorities. The governor and Legislature agree to fund statewide projects off the top of available capital outlay funds.

The next step  deciding how the remaining funds are allocated  is an ad hoc, hit-or-miss hodgepodge. The governor and each legislator are allocated a portion of this pot of money, and each decides how his or her share should be spent. This often results in projects not being fully funded or delay-related cost overruns. The drawn-out funding often makes projects obsolete by the time they are completed. Others never get built.

New Mexico is the only state to use this system. It is also the only state to divide funds for local capital projects without a centralized department or committee vetting them.

This is no small matter. According to the Department of Finance, as of July 2021, 3,766 outstanding local projects authorized between 2016 and 2021 have an unspent balance of $1.9 billion. An additional $585 million was outstanding for public school capital outlay projects. Outstanding funds include unspent but encumbered funds.

This system complicates the budget process. It is impossible to achieve strategic goals. It dilutes focus and ties up significant chunks of money for years.

Now is the time to clean out this clog in the fiscal pipeline and fully fund these capital projects. Then change the system to be strategic, transparent and efficient.

The State Investment Council is focused on optimizing permanent fund earnings. For spending, it would make sense to have a bipartisan group of experts with diversified, technical backgrounds evaluate capital infrastructure projects.

During the upcoming session, the Legislature will be spending billions of federal dollars in addition to preparing a budget that last year totaled $7.4 billion. It is an excellent time to create a best practices process with internal controls to minimize waste, abuse and fraud.

Denise Greenlaw Ramonas worked on energy and a wide range of issues in the United States Senate as a professional staffer for Sen. Pete V. Domenici. She served as the assistant secretary of the Senate for two majority leaders and was elected the first female chief clerk of the N.M. House of Representatives.
Theres not a lot of talk in Santa Fe these days about expunging criminal records. Or legalizing drugs, expanding alcohol sales, reforming the legal doctrine of qualified immunity or defunding police.

A record-shattering 117 homicides in Albuquerque last year and violent crime across the state have flipped the political script from a year ago, and rightly so. A Journal poll in October found 87% of Albuquerque residents were concerned about the crime rate in the city. The number jumped to 90% among those 65 and older. Overall, 35% of respondents reported feeling unsafe in the city, and for good reason. Crime dominated the mayoral race last fall and remains a top priority among state lawmakers.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller, Attorney General Hector Balderas, Bernalillo County District Attorney Raul Torrez, top law enforcement officials and legislators from both sides of the aisle announced the governors four get tough on crime measures at a news conference on Thursday. While bills are still being drafted, the Journal Editorial Board supports the foundational ideas behind each:

Rebuttable presumption

The proposal thats grabbing the most attention, and pushback from defense attorneys, would redefine the parameters for pretrial detention for those facing the most serious violent crimes. Its prompted by the release of high-profile defendants pending trial who have gone on to commit heinous new crimes.

The states chief public defender, Bennett Baur, says people on pretrial release have not been a significant cause for increases in violent crime. Torrez and others dispute that. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Marian Matthews, D-Albuquerque, has not been filed, but Torrez says it would add more steps and extra scrutiny for judges in pretrial detention hearings involving a narrow group of violent crimes.

Under rebuttable presumption, certain crimes would make a defendant presumed to be too dangerous to be released while awaiting trial, and defendants would have the chance to rebut that. The judge would take that information, as well as other factors, into consideration when determining whether a person should be held pending trial.

The governor says rebuttable presumption would put a wedge in the revolving door of recidivism. Torrez, who is running for state attorney general, told Journal editors and reporters in a Zoom meeting Friday I continue to believe that the impact that these individuals are having (on public safety) is substantial.

Tougher penalties

Second-degree murder: Another of the governors priorities would increase penalties for certain violent crimes. One measure would increase sentencing for second-degree murder from 15 years to 18 years and remove the statute of limitations, which currently expires after six years. Rep. Bill Rehm, R-Albuquerque, has sponsored this reform for years and said we are the only state in the nation that has a statute of limitation on murder.

Using a firearm: Several other proposals would increase penalties for gun crimes. Unlawful possession of a handgun would become a felony rather than a misdemeanor. Fleeing a law enforcement officer when it results in injury would become a third-degree felony and a second-degree felony if it results in great bodily harm. The proposal would also enhance the penalties for brandishing a firearm during a drug transaction. The signal here is there is risk to you, youre a risk to us, and we arent going to tolerate it anymore, the governor said Thursday.

More law enforcement

The governors fourth proposal includes a 19% raise for N.M. State Police officers and a recommendation to create a $100 million fund to recruit, hire and retain law enforcement and staff in departments around the state. When crime victims give up on calling police because responses take too long/never happen, you need more people in uniform answering calls for service.

There are numerous other crime proposals drafted so far; given how outsized the issue is in New Mexicans lives, here are a few that deserve debate:

House Bill 64, introduced by Rep. Miguel P. Garcia, D-Albuquerque, would stiffen sentencing enhancements for brandishing a firearm. Another bill offered by Garcia, HB 16, would appropriate $5 million to the Crime Victims Reparations Commission to fund advocates for victims of gun violence and violent crime.

House Bill 53, also introduced by Rehm, would strengthen courts authority to issue a warrant to conduct chemical tests for those suspected of operating a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Rehm, a retired police officer and sheriffs department captain, also has HB 26, which would make carrying a firearm while trafficking a drug a third-degree felony. HB 28 would increase the penalty for a felon possessing a firearm. HB 29 would define organized retail crime in the criminal code. HB 31 would expand the types of felony convictions that qualify for life imprisonment under the states three strikes law, so narrow it has never been used.

Senate Bill 1836, by Sen. Craig Brandt, R-Rio Rancho, makes it a fourth-degree felony to make a shooting threat.

New Mexicans who have had a family member slain or friend robbed at gunpoint dont care if the reforms come from Republicans or Democrats. They just want something done. Now. So lawmakers should stay focused. Much of the states future is predicated on reducing crime. Remember the record number of homicides and Albuquerques unsuccessful bid to land U.S. Space Command? Lawmakers should.

Pass a budget. Work on crime. And get it done in time.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.
RIO RANCHO  Karen Johnson-Bey dealt with setback after setback in expanding her restaurants dining area because of COVID-19, but now the owner of KLynns Southern & Cajun Fusion is finally preparing to launch that extra space.

The project to add extra dining space started in December 2019. Johnson-Bey said everything was set to go at least two weeks before COVID-19 entered New Mexico in March 2020. And now itll soon come to fruition, officially opening Saturday, Jan. 22  National Southern Food Day.

We are very excited. Its been a long time coming, Johnson-Bey said.

KLynns first opened in 2015. Johnson-Bey said her restaurant kept growing to where extra dining space was necessary to accommodate extra patrons and equipment.

That one side just wasnt enough, almost immediately, she said.

Johnson-Bey said KLynns, at 4300 Ridgecrest Drive in Rio Rancho, will be able to seat an additional 30 customers in the new dining area  more than double the indoor dining capacity.

It accommodates everything we need to grow, she said.

Johnson-Bey said the new space will give her about 1,200 total square feet of dining space.

KLynns was hit hard by the financial toll of COVID-19, like other locally owned eateries. Johnson-Bey said she had to settle for carryout only in the early days of the pandemic, then dealt with staffing shortages after indoor dining services were restored.

She also said she couldnt initially use the brand-new silverware shed bought because use of the dishwasher was limited, as no one was willing to work during the onset of the pandemic.

Its been a lot, it really has, she said.

KLynns serves Southern delicacies like gumbo, jambalaya, fried catfish, sweet potato pie and beignets.

Johnson-Beys called the Rio Rancho area home since 1977, and she said its better that she was able to expand operations here rather than elsewhere.

This (space) had sat here quite a while, vacant, she said. It made more sense according to the contract to go this way, and thats what I did.

For more information, visit klynnsfusion.com.
Jose Tolosa has traveled the world during his 14 years with ViacomCBS.

He often blazed new trails and merged similar paths along the way.

Yet, when Tolosa visited Meow Wolfs permanent installation, Omega Mart, in Las Vegas, Nevada, his mind was blown.

You come into an environment that seems normal, he says. Then, very quickly, you scratch your head. From that point, your imagination is running wild.

This is also how Tolosa felt when he visited Meow Wolfs two other installations  Convergence Station in Denver and House of Eternal Return in Santa Fe.

When you walk into a Meow Wolf experience, you forget about reality, he says. You start immersing yourself into these worlds and they lead you to a realized story. Its amazing how quickly you forget where you are.

Tolosa will have a hand in moving the multiverse forward as he takes the reins as Meow Wolfs CEO.

He was drawn to Meow Wolf because of its mission to impact peoples lives through art and creativity.

The founders have been able to take this mission out to the masses, he says. Its enabled a wider reach. Thats the opportunity I saw. The sky is the limit and theres so much potential in growing the company.

Tolosa is looking forward to incorporating more technology into all aspects of Meow Wolf.

The storytelling is solid, he says. As we continue to grow the storytelling, it creates more of an impact.

Vince Kadlubek, former Meow Wolf CEO and founder, says he got the chance to know Tolosa during the recruitment process and is excited hes taking the position.

Hes a phenomenal human with extensive leadership experience who is focused on integration, transparency, developing a unified culture, empowering creativity and being driven by social impact, Kadlubek says. Joses inclusion into the team provides us with the opportunity to evolve the company in a healthy direction, one that is firmly rooted in our core mission and empowers our truest intent.

Tolosa takes over the role from co-CEOs Carl Christensen, Ali Rubinstein and Jim Ward, who became interim co-CEOs in October 2019.

Ward, originally chief content officer, stepped down as co-CEO in 2021 and remains an advisor to the company. Christensen and Rubinstein will return to their original roles as chief financial officer and chief creative officer, respectively.

Meow Wolf continued to grow in 2021 as it opened its permanent installations  Omega Mart and Convergence Station  during the pandemic.

According to Meow Wolf, it welcomed over 1.7 million visitors at its three locations, which includes its original installation House of Eternal Return.

Tolosa will be spending a significant amount of time in Santa Fe, though his family will remain in New York.

I havent seen a city like this, he says of Santa Fe. Im quite intrigued by how the city is growing as well. There are so many elements coming into play at the same time. Im looking forward to this adventure.
Copyright  2022 Albuquerque Journal

An Albuquerque Police Department detective was suspended for four days following an internal affairs investigation into the botched identification that left an innocent 17-year-old charged with murder and locked up for six days in 2019.

Jessie Carter, a former APD homicide detective, was recently suspended for 32 hours without pay for the mistaken identity of Gisell Estrada as a murder suspect. Rick Ingram, a former APD homicide sergeant and Carters supervisor at the time, was given a letter of reprimand.

Recently released documents obtained through an Inspection of Public Records Act request detail the Internal Affairs investigation into Carter, Ingram and Scott Norris, who supervised the Criminal Investigations Bureau at the time and was not disciplined for the incident.

Both Carter and Ingram have since left the homicide unit. Carter is now on the U.S. Marshals Task Force and Ingram took a position at the Crime Lab before becoming a sergeant in the Northeast command.

Carter, who has been with the department since 2008, joined the homicide unit five years ago and has been the lead detective on a number of homicide cases involving teenagers.

The American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico is suing the city of Albuquerque over Estradas wrongful imprisonment.

The IA investigation said it was a fundamental oversight for Carter not to have conducted follow-up interviews to confirm the identity. Investigators also concluded that Prosecutor Natalie Lyon failed to scrutinize the investigation due to a fondness for Carters prior work and just signed off on the arrest warrant for Estrada.

In response to the findings, Lauren Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the 2nd Judicial District Attorneys Office, said like the judge who approved the warrant in this case, our prosecutor determined that there was probable cause for an arrest based on the information provided in the affidavit by the detective in this case.

She said subsequent revelations about the deficiencies in the investigation made the DAs office reevaluate its warrant review procedures  and prosecutors now require a more detailed account of the steps taken to identify potential suspects.

These added requirements are especially important when working with agencies that provide little to no specialized training for their detectives, Rodriguez said.

For his part, Ingram failed to manage how Carter was conducting his homicide investigations, leading to an incomplete investigation and the wrongful arrest, according to the internal affairs investigation.

It cannot be overstated that basic investigative steps would have easily excluded this juvenile from (Carters) case had he waited on the information, followed up appropriately and not skipped basic steps of good detective work, Deputy Chief Michael Smathers wrote in a Sept. 1 memo to police Chief Harold Medina.

Attorney John DAmato, who represented Carter, criticized the internal affairs investigation.

If youre going to do a fair investigation, do it within 90  or 120 days of the incident, he said.  Theres a contract, theres a standard operating procedure and there is a settlement agreement, all of which call for 90-day to 120-day investigations.

DAmato said, in hindsight, any case can be done better, and he noted that Carter was relying on the word of the school resource officer when he arrested Estrada.

Any case, pick a case out of PD, pick a case out of any lawyers office  and (ask) could they have done something more?  If the answer is yes, 32 hours suspension because you didnt. So yeah, I have a problem with the case, he said.

The murder case

It started when a suspect in the July 10 robbery-turned-slaying of Calvin Kelly, 21, showed Carter the Facebook profile of Lexi, the girl who allegedly masterminded the crime.

Carter sent two photos from the profile to an Albuquerque High School resource officer, and an administrator identified her as Estrada, a student aide. Lyon then signed off on an arrest warrant charging Estrada with an open count of murder, armed robbery and conspiracy.

Carter arrested Estrada on Nov. 8, despite the teen and her attorney telling him he had the wrong girl, and she was booked into the juvenile detention center.

Five days later, another suspect arrested in Kellys homicide told Carter you have the wrong Lexi, I just spoke to her yesterday. Estrada was released on her own recognizance the next day and Carter identified Alexis Pina as the suspect known as Lexi.

The IA investigation

APD Commander Dennis Tafoya submitted a referral for an investigation on March 24, 2021, three months after the ACLU filed a lawsuit, claiming Carter failed to conduct a thorough investigation in the case.

The IA investigation found the probable cause for Estradas arrest relied mainly on secondhand confirmation from a school resource officer after a school employee felt they knew the identity of a homicide suspect.

Text messages in the file show Carter sent the officer two photos of Alexis Pina wearing heavy makeup and striking a pose, both selfies. The officer replied still active student here now before Carter asked what is her name.

In response, the officer sent a detailed student profile of Estrada that included a photo.

Following an interview with Carter, investigators found he did not articulate any additional investigative steps he could have taken to add some substance to what was at best a good lead. Carter also didnt conduct a follow-up interview with the school employee to assess her certainty that Estrada was the suspect.

The school employee saying a picture looks like someone is nowhere near any threshold of probable cause or thorough detective work, an investigator wrote.

Carter told investigators that Estradas attorney did not provide any evidence to him that she was not the suspect before he was reminded that a defense attorneys participation was not mandatory and probable cause always rests solely on the police.

Carter also said he was in constant communication with Lyon and she approved the warrant, which investigators said was a compelling fact and provides some mitigation.

Lyon told investigators she had no reason not to believe what (Carter) said and we trust what our detectives are doing. Lyon said Carter was old-school and detailed in his casework, adding she enjoyed working with him more than anyone else in the homicide unit.

I think very highly of (Carter) and it was very unfortunate that this case happened to him because I think he is a fantastic detective, Lyon told investigators.  He couldve trained a lot of those homicide detectives to do more than what they were doing.

Investigators found Lyons statement was poor and not very helpful, centering on her respect and fondness for the detective and his overall reputation for quality, detailed work.

The reputation of detective Carter provided comfort to (Lyon) and she did not scrupulously review his work on the arrest warrant affidavit and made a perfunctory decision to approve it, an investigator wrote.

Investigators wrote the harder truth in this matter is that APD and Carter alone stand responsible and liable for the investigative work that led to Estradas wrongful arrest.

Carter told investigators he had never had his work questioned in this way or been the subject of an IA investigation.

Investigators noted that Carters career to date had been commendable but none of that addresses the realities of this case. In the end, Carter was found to have violated APD policy and served his 32-hour suspension between Sept. 24 and Nov. 5.
Copyright  2022 Albuquerque Journal

Why did the deer cross the road?

More importantly, did he make it safely to the other side?

To help reduce crashes and connect animal habitat, the New Mexico Transportation and Game and Fish departments have released a draft Wildlife Corridors Action Plan.

Matt Haverland, the transportation departments wildlife coordinator, said the report is a deep dive into areas with disrupted migration corridors and high rates of wildlife-vehicle collisions.

Its pretty crucial that we come up with ways to address this for the safety of traveling public and safety of wildlife, Haverland said.

The 700-page report focuses on mule deer, elks, pronghorns, bighorn sheep, black bears and cougars.

But the plan also considers smaller fauna like rabbits, foxes, Gila monsters, snakes and javelina.

Crash hotspots

Car crashes with deer and elk topped the states collision hotspots in northern and southern New Mexico over the past two decades.

An average of 634 incidents involved deer each year, and 169 involved elk.

New Mexicos been collecting all forms of crash data for a few decades now, from either the State Police or local municipalities or sheriffs departments, Haverland said. What we did was take that data and narrow it down to collisions with wildlife.

U.S. 70 southwest of Ruidoso was the top wildlife-vehicle collision hotspot based on the number of crashes per mile.

The crashes come at a hefty cost  as much as $11 million in property damage and injuries across the state in 2019.

Dollar values assigned to injured or killed animals also climbed into the millions.

Wildlife corridors

Corridors outlined in the report connect separate animal populations and are used by herds to find seasonal or alternative food, water, mates and habitat.

Game and Fish uses GPS and radio collars to track movement of big game herds and pinpoint major corridors, said spokesperson Tristanna Bickford.

Our biologists determine the best number of animals to put collars on based on the likelihood of if theyll stay together in a group or split off, Bickford said. Were regularly collaring deer, elk and pronghorn.

Game and Fish biologists are currently using this method to track and map seasonal migration patterns for dozens of pronghorn collared east of Chama.

Michael Dax, western program director for the Wildlands Network, said that data can help the state see where fencing needs changed or where lands should be closed to the public during calving or migration seasons.

A lot of conservation stops at state or international borders, he said. Of course these are borders that wildlife do not see, so we need to work on the large landscape scale.

The Wildlands team has tracked animal movement of 30 different species for two years with trail cameras in southwest New Mexico where Interstate 10 crosses the Peloncillo Mountains into Arizona.

In the long-term, this area will be key to continental connectivity of jaguars and Mexican wolves, and for reconnecting bighorn sheep habitat, Dax said.

Safe passage projects

Game and Fish and NMDOT have completed 10 safe wildlife passage projects in the last 20 years  mostly across northern and central New Mexico.

The report lists 11 new priority projects to address crash hotspots and wildlife corridors:

 U.S. 550 north of Cuba

 U.S. 180/NM 90 Silver City

 U.S. 70/NM 48 Ruidoso

 I-25 Glorieta Pass

 U.S. 70 Bent Sacramento Mountains

 U.S. 64/U.S. 84 Tierra Amarilla to Chama and U.S. 84 from Chama to Colorado line

 U.S. 285 Rio Grande del Norte National Monument north of Tres Piedras

 I-25, U.S. 64, NM 505, and NM 445 south of Raton to Maxwell

 I-10 Peloncillo Mountains/Steins

 I-25/U.S. 550 Sandia-Jemez Mountains/Bernalillo

 NM 38 Questa to Red River

All the recommended projects include fencing to keep animals off highways and funnel them to crossing structures.

Many of our existing projects also have wildlife detection systems, Bickford said. Those systems can sense an animals presence based on body heat and movement, and then theres a flashing light to alert motorists that theres wildlife in the area.

Existing road infrastructure and the regional landscape influenced the crossings chosen for each project.

Different species are also more likely to use some structures more than others, Haverland said. Bighorn sheep are more likely to use overpasses than culverts. Even within species, like with mule deer, those that reside in urban areas may use a smaller culvert than mule deer in a more rural area.

Funding sources

The proposed projects have price tags ranging from $17 million to $50 million.

Bryan Bird, southwest program director for Defenders of Wildlife, said now is the opportune time for New Mexico to take advantage of federal and state funds for wildlife crossings.

Both Defenders of Wildlife and Wildlands Network helped craft the 2019 state law that directed agencies to create the action plan.

Since humans have built infrastructure including highways and urbanization, animals habitat has been sliced and diced into islands of good habitat, Bird said. Its important to us that we facilitate wildlife movement and ensure that our human progress doesnt impede that.

The agencies could receive state and federal allocations to fund the crossings.

The recently-passed federal infrastructure package also includes $350 million in competitive grant funds for projects to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions.

States, tribes and municipalities can apply for the grants.

Game and Fish has also requested a $9 million special appropriation from the Legislature.

That money could be used to leverage project funds from the Recovering Americas Wildlife Act, a federal bill awaiting a hearing in Congress.

The New Mexico report also proposes cheaper, short-term solutions like smaller fencing projects and warning signs.

Although theyre expensive, these projects do pay for themselves, from a driver standpoint and with the outdoor recreation economy, Dax said. Hunting and wildlife watching are huge pieces of our economy.

The state agencies contracted with Daniel B. Stephens and Associates to create the plan.

New Mexico university experts and natural resource departments from tribes and pueblos contributed data.

After a two-month public comment period, the group will release the final plan.

The report included climate change impacts, which was unique, and the economic benefits of protecting wildlife movement in the state, Bird said. I dont think many other states have taken such a hard look at wildlife movement needs within their boundaries.

Theresa Davis is a Report for America corps member covering water and the environment for the Albuquerque Journal.
Copyright  2022 Albuquerque Journal

Blood donations are down 25% in New Mexico, causing a historic low in blood supplies, according to Vitalant, a nonprofit organization that collects blood from volunteer donors across the United States.

When we dont get these blood donations in, we cant supply hospitals, said Evelyn Rosado, communications manager for Vitalant in New Mexico. Doctors have to make decisions on if they are going to do that surgery they have had scheduled for two months or put those on the back burner so that they can have that blood for emergencies.

Vitalant services 900 hospitals across 28 states. The donation shortages facing New Mexico are a problem in the rest of the country as well, due in part to the swiftly-spreading omicron variant of COVID-19 forcing the cancellation of community blood drives and decreasing the pool of healthy and available donors.

COVID is a big part of it, Rosado said. But there was also a bit of a downturn (in donations) during the holidays.

She said donations of any blood type are needed, but there is a critical need for O types, the most transfused type.

Albuquerque hospitals are concerned about the decline in blood donations.

We currently have adequate blood supplies to meet demand, however we are asking our providers to use our blood supply conservatively, said Dr. Aaron Pritchard, medical director of blood banks for Lovelace Medical Center, Heart Hospital of New Mexico and Lovelace Womens Hospital.

Mark Rudi, media relations manager for University of New Mexico Health Sciences, said that like many hospitals around the state and the country, UNM Hospital is facing a blood supply shortage.

As the states only Level 1 Trauma Center, blood is critical in treating many of our patients and in saving lives, Rudi said. UNM Health encourages New Mexicans to help our team and community by donating blood.

Vitalant is offering a special incentive to give blood. During January, which is National Blood Donor Month, people donating blood with Vitalant anywhere in the country will be entered into the $5,000 Big Game Giveaway to win one of four $5,000 prepaid gift cards redeemable by email.
Celebrity

It is unveiled that the Rebecca 'Aunt Becky' Donaldson-Katsopolis depicter on 'Fuller House' and her fashion designer husband were not at home when the incident happened.

Jan 16, 2022

AceShowbiz - Lori Loughlin and her husband Mossimo Giannulli's home in Los Angeles has been raided by thieves. It was reported that the robbers stole their $1 million worth of jewelry earlier this month.

According to TMZ, the Rebecca "Aunt Becky" Donaldson-Katsopolis depicter on "Fuller House" and the 58-year-old fashion designer were not at home when the January 3 incident occurred. The outlet claimed that a housekeeper was the one to discover the break-in.

Law enforcement sources informed the publication that the robbers entered Lori and Mossimo's property by smashing a bedroom window. Based on home surveillance video, police determined that the thieves "dressed in all black and wore masks."

It remains to be seen whether Lori and her spouse were targeted. However, authorities believe that the theft involved a South American burglary crew who hit locations and then left the country. Lori reportedly has strengthened security at her home since the ordeal as police are investigating the case.

A representative for Lori said in a statement that she is thankful no one was hurt during the heist. The rep noted that Bob Saget's sudden death helped the mother of Olivia Jade and Isabella Rose put the burglary in "perspective" for her.

Lori and Mossimo themselves attended Bob's funeral in Los Angeles. In addition to the couple, the comedian's "Full House" co-stars John Stamos, Dave Coulier, Candace Cameron Bure, Jodie Sweetin as well as Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen were in attendance.

Other guests included Jeff Ross, John Mayer, Dave Chappelle, Kathy Griffin and Jonathan Silverman. Chris Rock, Seth Green, Jimmy Kimmel and his wife Molly McNearney as well as John Stamos' wife Caitlin McHugh were also there.

The 65-year-old funnyman was found dead at the Ritz-Carlton Orlando on Sunday, January 9. His official cause of death has yet to be revealed.
The Hunga Tonga Volcano released a sonic boom into the atmosphere several miles over the eruption site due to the pent-up eruptive force. The eruption originated in the vicinity of the Pacific Island and was called one of the most explosions and was seen on satellite, its proper designation called Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai.

Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano powerful eruption

According to officials, the volcanic eruption affected areas like the entire Island of Tonga, including Fiji, which both were affected by the shockwave, reported the Express UK.

Tonga's Hunga Tonga volcano just had one of the most violent volcano eruptions ever captured on satellite. pic.twitter.com/M2D2j52gNn  US StormWatch (@US_Stormwatch) January 15, 2022

Additional warnings were issued to locals of possible tsunami alerts and other dangers. On social media, locals in the vicinity posted videos that captured large waves coming to shore in coastal areas after evacuation.

According to a tweet from @US_Stormwatch, the image captured on a satellite displayed the volcano's force. The forced exhibited made it one of the most powerful seen in the footage.

Violent eruption sparks tsunami alerts

Based on accounts, the eruption took all of eight minutes that was thunder and fury, and the sonic booms were louder than thunder as heard far away to the Fiji Islands. It was about eight hundred kilometers from the actual volcanic event, said the officials in Suva.

Power generated by the eruption was even felt in New Zealand shockwaves from the explosion were heard by many.

Meteorologist Jared Silverman from New Zealand posted a comment online due to the incredible power of the Hunga Tonga volcano event. He said it was unfolding on the satellite view and called the eruption frightening, cited News Funnel Live.

Read Also: Ring of Fire: World Has 1500 Active Volcanoes, Which is Active Today?

In the Tongan capital, Nuku'alofa, the ash from the event would fall from the skies.

Dr. Faka'iloatonga Taumoefolau, one of the locals, posted more pictures of the resulting ashfall. He remarked the volcanic material like ash and pebbles were darkening the sky.

@IliesaWT, another Twitter user, said the ash falling turns the island grey all over. Witnessing how far the ashfall would affect nearby.

Another video captured how black the sky got when pyroclastic ash fell after the eruption. Due to associated dangers to local people, authorities warned them to head to higher ground asap. Along with civilians moving to safety, Tongan King Tupou VI was moved from the royal shore palace via police and military detachment.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center recommended an alert after gauges located in American Samoa caught a 24-inch increase in sea level after the Tonga eruption.

Tonga Geological Services recorded that huge gas plumes, smoke, with pyroclastic ash would soar to twenty kilometers up.

An American Samoa official had a video posted immediately, told danger of a tsunami event, and said the safest place is to stay on higher ground. Other states like New Zealand are its national emergency management agency to look out for unusual currents and unpredictable surges in the northern and eastern coasts in the North and Chatham Islands.

Reports from Australia's Bureau of Meteorology posted online that a 1.2-meter tsunami wave was seen at Nukualofa.

On Saturday, the eruption started last Friday, with smaller ones before the big boom that affected the Tongan capital only sixty-five kilometers far. Hunga Tonga Volcano explosion had so much power that its shockwave reached up to New Zealand and blotted out the sun as well.

Related Article: Eruption of Dormant Antarctic Volcanoes Could Lead to the Rise of Sea Levels Globally, Affect Earth's Climate

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
As they got ready to play, I got Ronan settled on the couch with his fully-charged iPad so I could begin shoveling the driveway. Normally something my husband does, it would be up to me to clear it since he was out of town. I always offer anyway when he's home because it's a good, little workout for me. Knowing I'd do the bulk of the work myself, I needed to conserve my energy. The snow was heavy, and there was just so much of it. This time, I would have to shovel part of the street also. The one plow that went down our street one time during the early part of the storm managed to pack extra snow along the entire length of our 4WD truck that was parked on the street. Somehow, it dumped snow in front of it also.

While we waited for her safe arrival, my other kids took to the hills in our neighborhood to go sledding. I love to see them play outside! So happy, so full of energy, I smile big smiles when they get suited up for that kind of fun.

Forced to leave her car at a park, she walked the last mile home around more downed trees and through people's backyards in a foot of freshly fallen snow.

A utility pole on the street just behind ours, split in half, leaned and landed on the sagging power lines of the other side of the road. Neighbors had been using chainsaws to cut trees blocking several intersections, but they knew not to touch the utility poles. In a line of cars waiting to get around that area, my daughter sat in her cold, wet work clothes hoping it would only be a few more minutes before she was on our street. She was so close to us! But she had to turn around and was rerouted again.

We'd learned about the condition of the roads but it would take seeing them to believe how bad they were. Ronan's big sister experienced them firsthand. She had reported to work before any of the roads saw a flake of snow at 4am Monday morning. Normally a 25-minute drive, it took her 5 hours to get home. Even with 4-wheel drive, it would be a treacherous journey for Fiona. Snapped trees, thick snow, unplowed streets and icy patches in places that had been cleared peppered her drive back. When she needed it, people helped her get out of the places her car had gotten stuck. When it was safe, she helped clear the road of the jagged limbs blocking other people's paths. Stranger helping stranger, I was comforted knowing others were quickly helping my daughter get home. Once safely in our neighborhood, she could only get so far though.

Knowing it could be a bit of a wait to be called back, I didn't expect it to be an hours' long wait. When the doctor paged the nurses about Ronan, I think we were waiting 4 hours at that point. Those 4 hours don't include the harrowing 2 hours prior to arriving. Prior to our arrival, another kind of storm brewed, one that dumped 12" of snow in our area. We'd already lost power before waking up the day of the storm, and that was with only a few inches of snow on the ground at that point.

Ronan had been in and out of sleep. Tremoring. Coughing. Heart racing. Feverish. Trying to remain calm in the midst of a storm racking his now weakened body, he couldnt do much. At some points, he could barely lift his head. The only time Ronan was his usual self in those early morning hours was during the exam when he was triaged. A pro at sitting still when nurses take his temperature, blood pressure, and check his heart rate, I was grateful for his cooperation. The nasal swab, based on the symptoms he presented with, was another story. It took three people, me included, to convince Ronan to hold still and stay still for that invasive part of the exam.

Greeted by the most peaceful wintry scene last Monday morning, our Christmas vacation was now extended at least one more day. With all five kids home, including my oldest who was home from college, my Mommy heart was happy. My heart would go through a range of emotions over the next few days...

The next day, every muscle would ache, and not just because of exertion, but I would be grateful that I spent those few hours shoveling out the truck.

The power would remain out all day and into Monday evening. With the temperature dropping, I had to get the generator started. I'd never done that before and had misplaced the instruction book my husband typed up for me. Texting my husband to get step-by-step instructions, Ronan's younger brother and I worked together to figure that out. When we finally started it, we warmed up the house, made a quick dinner, and recharged all the devices. I also made a cup of coffee to have in the morning. It would be cold, but coffee is coffee no matter the temperature.

When everyone was fed, I looked for a few updates on the internet, which we can connect to when the generator is on. Curious about what the world looked like beyond our street, I was floored at images I'd see. It looked like a bomb went off in our neighborhood. Worse, the electric company had yet to post when crews would be dispatched. The roads were impassable for residents in many places, both inside and outside of our neighborhood. That meant they were also impassable for utility trucks. Too many trees were still blocking too many roads. Even if Ronan's big sister had made it to our street earlier, she wouldn't have been able to drive down it. A very large tree landed across both lanes. Neighborhood maintenance crews hadn't made their way toward our section yet, but once again strangers came to the rescue. Using chainsaws to chop the decades-old tree up into smaller logs, strangers, and neighbors, moved them off the road into a snow pile.

Getting the kids settled down for the night later was easy. Ronan was also tired even though he'd stayed inside where it was still fairly warm despite the heat being off most of the day. He'd had a slight fever Sunday evening but had perked up when the kids took turns watching him while I was outside. I would be grateful he'd sleep through the night that night. Crawling under the covers, I looked forward to another day off the next day. No way would all that snow melt away by Tuesday morning. We'd make the most of another snow day and enjoy some family time together.









Tuesday was a repeat of Monday: Shovel the walkway. Keep Ronan happy. Shovel the rest of the driveway. Check on Ronan. Shovel some more. Stay warm. We still had no updates from the power company, but I was hopeful we'd get the lights back on by evening. We had to - the gas can only had about 2 gallons left. We'd turned the generator off during the day so that we could power up later "just in case" we faced another cold night.

It would be more than just another cold night. Tuesday night would be one of the most frightening nights ever.

Before nightfall, we, like so many others did, ran out of gas for the generator. Even if I wanted to trek through the neighborhood to replenish our supply, gas stations had also run out of gas. The kids were helpful and said it wasnt too bad. Wed gone a night without heat before, so they bundled up and grabbed as many blankets as they could find. They also rearranged where they were sleeping so we were closer in a warmer area of the house. Ronans bedroom stayed surprisingly warm, so I settled him back in his bed after dinner. Hed slept in very late that day and also napped for the few hours I was tending to things outside. Since the kids had gotten their fill of snow the day before, they stayed with Ronan while I got rock salt on the driveway, moved the broken limbs from a tree in our yard, and talked with a sweet neighbor who had brought some gas to us.

I couldnt sit still inside, so I stayed busy outside most of the afternoon. Temps would drop by nightfall, so everything that could be cleared needed to be cleared. My neighbor stayed with me, chipping away at ice, shoveling more snow off of the tops of our vehicles, and also keeping me company. Satisfied that I could manage the rest by myself, she said goodbye. Exhausted, more so than I thought I would be, I cleaned up the tools we used and headed back inside.

As it got colder outside, Ronans temperature started to rise. Mom, hes warm, one of the kids shared with me as I walked in.

His fever was back. His youngest sister had had one also on Sunday. Now, two days later, she, too, was starting to feel sluggish. I was also, but I chalked that up to all the work Id been doing outside. It would be an early-to-bed night for all of us. Before bed, we made a plan. Since fevers can bring on seizures for Ronan, I made sure to have his emergency meds with me in his room. Id sleep in there with him to monitor his temperature. Advice from my best friend had me bring the pulse oximeter with me also. Id checked Ronans readings earlier that evening and saw some troubling numbers. Oxygen was at 97, not too alarming, but hes a solid 99 kind of guy. It had been so long since Id checked his resting heart rate, but I knew it had increased. Since we had no internet at that point, texts and calls to others fed us information - What is an average heart rate for a 19 year old? What are signs/symptoms of pneumonia? When do you need to seek emergency care for covid? It hadnt dawned on me that this could be covid, but I wanted us to know what to look for. The more I read and reread, the more I wondered, Oh, boy. And oh, no. Could this be covid? Ronan cannot tell us where it hurts or when it hurts, so we rely on signs and symptoms, several of which by Tuesday night he was fully displaying.

Tucking everyone in after saying family prayers, I continued to pray for Ronan. He fell asleep instantly at 9pm.

Jarred awake at 3:23am, Ronans cough that started mid-afternoon Tuesday was pretty strong. Unable to clear the cough, he would get so winded afterwards. The fever that had gone away came back with a vengeance. The heart rate that had been just slightly elevated was now incredibly high. Grabbing the pulse/ox monitor and the stethoscope, I watched and listened. Then I woke up the kids and put a plan into action.

Kids, if Ronan begins to struggle, Ill need to take him to the ER. Ill bring Izzy. Fiona, youll stay with the others, I told the kids before we went to sleep. It was difficult to pick which kid would go with me and which ones would stay home. Each of them wanted to come with their brother, God bless them! We hadnt left the neighborhood yet, so I had no idea what to expect. I didnt know it, but God knew that Izzy, who happened to walk the entire neighborhood Tuesday afternoon with friends, needed to come with me. Fully awake and ready with our bags, at 3:55am she and I held Ronans hands and tippy toed up the icy driveway to the truck Id shoveled out.

The tremors were a sure sign that things were definitely going from bad to worse for Ronan. If the cough and high fever were not enough, the wildly high heart rate was also terrifying. So was having to drive through the darkened neighborhood over the power lines that lay limp on the frozen ground. Relying on Izzys memory, I went against every rule in the drivers ed book when we ventured away from our home and toward the hospital. Feeling full of energy the afternoon before, she and some teens wanted to walk to one of the restaurants outside of the neighborhood Tuesday afternoon. I thought they were nuts, but teenagers like to do things tired adults don't want to do, so I gave Izzy my blessing to go. It was midday when they left. She would stay out until sunset and be driven home by one of the dads of the kids.

Along the way during the day, the teens helped shovel driveways and made a little bit of spending money to buy food if the restaurant was open. It was, so the adventure was worth it. So was the knowledge Izzy gained while traversing the few short miles to the main roads. Without her with me when Ronan needed emergency medical attention in the middle of the night, I would not have been brave enough to keep going. Several times, I thought we should just turn around and go home. I prayed so hard in those moments, but Izzys voice was louder than the one screaming in my head.

"Mom, when you go down Mrs. K's street, remember the utility pole is down. You can't go under this one, so turn right. But you will have to go under another pole," she said confidently.

We only got one street away from ours when I had to reroute us. Backing up down the snowy street, there was no place to turn around until we were at the intersection again. Izzy asked if I could turn around in a cleared driveway. I thought about it, but one false move and wed land in a deep ditch opposite that cleared driveway. The thought of that scared me so much. Ronan would surely not make it if we got stuck. Feeling weak, even though my heart was racing with adrenaline, I said it would be safer to back up along the dark road.

Turning around, I snaked our way at less than 10 mph and approached the next intersection. "Okay, mom," my daughter started, "Remember when I said we walked all over this place earlier? You're going to have to trust me when I say go over them. Mom. DId you hear me? You have to go over them..."

Over what, I wondered.

It was pitch black, darker than dark with hundreds of branches hanging lower than usual under the weight of significant amounts of snow. Our neighborhood is a settled one, with thousands of trees lining the main streets, the side streets and peoples yards. Sounding like shotguns going off during the day, trees and large branches snapped one after another and came crashing to the ground even after the snowstorm had ended. Evidence of that lay all about us.

Rattling off instructions again, I listened to Izzy say, "Start slowing down now, stay as far to the right as you can...and...you can't see it yet, but go a little more to the right and go wide...now!"

Holy crap! I'd already been saying a string of Hail Mary prayers in my head. This next one was out loud. HAIL MARY, FULL OF GRACE...dear Lord, Izzy! That's the power line!!" I yelled trying to slow down. "MOM! Izzy raised her voice at me, GO, you need to keep going, just go wide and stay to the right, even when you turn. I never advocate for a child yelling at their parents, but had she not, we never would have made it around that area safely.









Trusting her, I did exactly what she said while driving down the hill. I could just make out the wires above us as I went under them. On a straightaway for another quarter mile, I switched to the Guardian Angel prayer. Imagining Ronan's Guardian Angel guiding us, traveling with us, keeping an ever vigilant eye on him and on whatever lay ahead of us, I kept going. Eyes wide open and taking in the storm destruction everywhere I looked, Izzy said, "Mom, remember I said you're going to see a few lines down? Well, the next set is approaching."

Not again!

I asked, "Honey, how many times am I going to go over these things??"

Without hesitation, she said, "Three. Keep going, the next one is right....now. GO, keep going, you can do this, Mom. You just need to trust me. The power is off, remember. I saw so many cars and people walking over them today. Just keep going."

I didn't know the route Izzy and the other teens took on their walk early, but they went on both main roads and many of the side roads. She knew where the dangerous pockets were.

"Izzy, I'm so nervous. I've never been this nervous to drive before!" I admitted to my 15 year old.

"Mom, you've got this. Plus, Ronan needs you to stay calm and keep driving." She was right. Ronan was tanking again. I could have called an ambulance, but trees still littered the roadways. If I was struggling in my 4WD truck, I couldn't imagine a large ambulance being able to navigate the barely cleared roads we still needed to travel.

Okay...Angel of God, my Guardian Dear my prayers continued both audibly and in my head.

The amount of snow that fell on our untreated roads would be something I'll never forget. Finally making our way out of our hilly, dark, terrifying streets, I crept toward the main roads. Hearing awful stories of stranded drivers, I was happy that we had a full tank of gas and that some lanes were a bit more cleared. On a normal day, Id reach speeds up to 50 mph on the route I was taking. That day, I never went faster than 25mph. It wouldve been too dangerous. It made our trip take longer but overall safer. I felt a sense of relief when a truck pulled out about 100 yards in front of us - it was sanding the streets. Thank God for the crews! We followed the truck the last few miles to the hospital, dodging cars that had been abandoned and also trees that had not been cleared off the roadways. Ive driven around obstacles before, but never so many in such a short stretch.









Finally in the parking lot of the ER, Izzy gently maneuvered Ronan out of the backseat. Weakened, he took her hand and let her lead him. I told her, Straight to the wheelchairs, remember he loves wheelchairs, I directed her as I grabbed his backpack. Id had Izzy also pack a backpack for herself. At the time we made the ER plan, there was no telling what the conditions would be outside nor what condition Ronan would be medically. If our local hospital couldnt manage Ronans symptoms, which has happened before, wed need supplies to get us through at least one night at the childrens hospital 2 hours away. We hoped things wouldnt get that bad, but we knew to be prepared anyway.

I will never hope for a seizure, but it took having a seizure in the ER to get Ronan to move to the top of the patient list. He needs to go back nextnow, the doctor barked.

Mrs. Jameson, you can bring him back. Well get his test results soon, but lets get a chest x-ray ordered and some other labs, the ER nurse said as we wheeled Ronan through the hallway. Looking around, I was stunned at how many patients I saw. Every ER exam room was full. Two of the ER hallways were also - people sitting in waiting room chairs, in wheelchairs and on gurneys. Some wrapped in blankets, some hunched over in discomfort, some looking far worse than Ronan.

The nurse apologized. The weather had impacted the staff, and some were out because they couldnt drive in through the snow. Others were out because they had covid. In fact, the patients in the hallways were delayed being admitted because of a shortage of nurses. The ones who worked upstairs where these patients needed to go were sick. How tragic! I thought. Praying Ronan wouldnt need to be admitted, another ER staff got the seizure padding attached to Ronans gurney.

Ronan had barely gotten a chance to transfer to the bed when his nasal swab results came back. Positive, the doctor whod called him back said, Lets plan on getting you discharged.

Stunned, I said, Discharged? We just

She started an exam on Ronan. His oxygen had dropped to 92 while we were in the waiting room but now crept up to 96. His temperature, which was as high as 103.8, had fallen to 100. His heart rate, which had jumped to 158, was back in the 90s. Ill have the nurse get you the forms. Youll want to continue to rotate fever reducers, keep him drinking liquids, and bring him back if he gets worse

But that cough, which was getting worse.

But that fever, which acted like an out-of-control yoyo.

But that risk for pneumonia, which is compounded due to the dysphagia, wed been told.

But that seizurewhere theres one, theres always more!

I asked for clarification when the very rushed doctor left. Speaking candidly to the nurse, I asked, She thinks hes okay to take home? I was so scaredjust getting here was risky. Now shes says its okay to travel back through all of that mess and to monitor him at home? What if he tanks again?



Bring him back, the young nurse offered. You can always bring him back.

I shouldve fought to keep him monitored there longer, but like a friend shared with me the next day, Cathy, you do not want to have him admitted if you can avoid it. Youd have no say in what they did to him. Theyre understaffed and dont follow a treatment plan that will help Ronan get better. Think of it as a blessing in disguise, even with how bad things are now. Trust me.

Like Id had to trust Izzy, I trusted my friend. A front-line worker whos seen the worst the medical system has to offer, she knows firsthand the horrors happening in some hospitals. Even so, I was very angry that we got the bare minimum from the local doctor while Ronan dealt with the worst symptoms. Had I had a fight in me that day, I know I wouldve balked at the care we did receive. Once we were home, and when my symptoms went into full swing, I put that anger aside. Anger wouldnt get Ronan better.

I wouldnt get me better either.









I wont go into the interventions I was able to use, but with my friends advice to stay away from the medical center, Ronan did recover. I, and my other children who later tested positive, recovered as well. It wasnt an easy road, Ill readily admit that, but we recovered. The struggle of getting better post-snowstorm, with still no power at the house, with a medically-fragile adult child who was very sick, and with me now sick, was great. What got us through was the power of prayer, small medical miracles we encountered along the way, and getting 2 hotel rooms several towns over.

When Ronans fever spiked again after wed come home from the ER Wednesday morning, my Mom and sister offered to help look for rooms for us. Neighbors were saying it would be at least another day, and up to 3-5 days later, for power to be restored. Id stayed so strong for so long, but hearing that had me crying in a heap. Seeing me cry made Fiona cry. Id relied so heavily on her. Without one complaint, shed step in before I needed to ask for her help. As much as I loved being home with her and the kids on that first snow day, we both knew that home was not safe for us anymore.

In less than an hour, we packed up for a projected 3-5 days and got the heck out of town.

Taking two cars - in case I needed to bring Ronan to the larger hospital wed be near, I held back tears while driving. Following my oldest, who mapped the way for us, I gripped the steering wheel. Are we really doing this? Is this really happening? I was in shock at all that wed had just handled. I was in awe at how strong my children had to be and continued to be.

Dear Lord, I prayed. Please help us! I am not strong enough to do this anymore.

Once checked in to the hotel rooms, more blessings poured in. Friends whod also left town for a warmer place to stay happened to text me. We rarely text, but she reached out, Hey, I hear your neighborhood got hit hard. Is there anything you need? Never one to accept help quickly, I prefer to be the helper, never the helpee. About to say No, were good, but thank you I let the Holy Spirit smack me upside the head. Yes, I replied. Yes, please. Delivering food, water, soup, Gatorade, OTC meds and more, she and her husband, who were unbeknownst to me just in the next town over, dropped off groceries to us in the morning.

Other friends near and far reached out on Thursday offering various gifts and services to us - advice, encouragement, dinners, keeping watch over our house, and even offering to clean it up, while we were out of town. Ronan was still not out of the woods, and I had yet to go through the worst of things myself, but each call and each message I would receive made me happily overwhelmed. I graciously accepted everything, thanking everyone for their kindness. Relieved of the thought of not having to do all the things for all the people when we did get to return home, I fell asleep.

That night, I slept the soundest Id been able to sleep all week.









A stranger turned friendly helper offered me the greatest advice when we were in the hotel. Hearing the same message twice in the previous 24 hours, I took her words to heart:

To grow and mature the way God wants you to, you need to accept peoples help. We never give others the opportunity to do that as much if we can help it. So let people help you now. Its their turn to show you Gods love.

And Gods love surely did pour in! To those who helped us, thank you. To those who prayed for us, who showered us with love, with groceries, with meals, with financial support, with medicine and with hope, thank you. To those who are waiting so patiently to help us next, thank you also. Your generosity feeds my soul! To those who didnt know we were in a tough situation but who now know, well happily take your prayers of thanksgiving that the kids and I survived one of the most harrowing weeks ever.

I wont hope for another snowstorm for a long time, but I will be better prepared for the next one (including the one forecasted for today!). What a test it was to get through last weeks storm and through everything we never expected to encounter with it.



Cathy Jameson is a Contributing Editor for Age of Autism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgpaULjZOl8
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Albany city manager meets career goal with promotion to top position

Alan Mauldin / File Photo: Alan Mauldin Albany City Manager Steven Carter, left, speaks with a participant during the 2021 Ties That Bind event at the Albany Civic Center.

Steven Carter

ALBANY  In much of his first five years in Albany, Steven Carter was behind the scenes. That changed in March 2021 when he was selected as the interim city manager after the departure of Sharon Subadan.

With his selection in mid-December as the permanent city manager, Carter is now decidedly front and center.

A Waycross native, Carter was employed by the city of Albany in 2016, and as chief information officer his duties included cyber security, network and operations, telecommunications and fiber infrastructure, and internet service delivery.

His promotion last year is one of the goals the U.S. Air Force veteran had set for himself after he embarked on a career in government.

I am grateful, humbled to have been chosen, he said. I have been working my whole career for something like this, so Im ready. I came to Albany to be a city manager (somewhere). I did not know I would be city manager in Albany. It is part of my career path.

In addition to experience in government, Carter worked in the private sector after retiring from the military with the agricultural chemical company the Griffin Corp. in Valdosta. He got his first job in government in Valdosta, where he started the citys first internet technology department. He later worked in technology with the San Diego Board of Education.

Carter was approved in a 5-2 Albany City Commission vote, with Commissioner Jon Howard stating prior to that meeting that his choice would be someone who had been a city manager in a city with problems and demographics similar to Albanys.

Commissioner Demetrius Young objected to taking the vote with two new commissioners coming on board in less than a month who he felt should have a say in such a momentous decision.

Howard has said he backs the new city manager 100 percent because his success and the new ideas he brings will impact all residents.

The fresh ideas are something Carter said he can deliver both personally and due to the staff that was assembled during Subadans tenure. He also takes a bottom-up approach of allowing department heads and assistant city managers the flexibility to implement new ways of doing business that are more efficient.

Each department is challenged to think of something innovative they have never done before, Carter said. My goal is to give them the guidance, the encouragement to figure out these things that challenge them daily.

The city manager said he also plans to build relationships between the city, residents and business leaders to help tackle some of the citys biggest issues of gang activity, inadequate housing and blight.

These are issues we all face, but we face them together, he said. I think people think the city is supposed to solve all the problems. Its up to everyone to solve the problems.

While a recent 143-count indictment against alleged members of the Purps street gang is a positive reflection on city, county and state law enforcement agencies, it will take more community involvement and the addressing of other issues to forge a long-time solution, Carter said.

We also need to look at parental involvement, the housing in our city, the job opportunities in our city, he said. All of these things are not things the city can address, but collectively with citizens and the business community we can work on those things.

Another priority in addressing crime, he said, is recruiting police officers and keeping them once they are hired, a problem for law enforcement agencies across the country.

One aspect of addressing the issue is pay, and the City Commission has increased officers pay in recent budgets. Another is providing benefits that make Albany a destination city for police officers.

I am in the process of putting together a benefits package that will make the city of Albany more attractive, Carter said. As people evaluate opportunities, they have to look at things other than pay, and we want to be competitive in pay.

I want a package that makes it difficult for people to leave and easy for people to start.

While the city provides fast broadband internet, Carter said he would like to see it accessible to more people and make it available to those whose budgets may not include internet service. The city has applied for a grant to make these goals a reality.

My vision is for everybody to have access to high-speed fiber optic internet, he said. That connected Albany is something Im working hard to make happen.

As an administrator, Carter said he will make himself available to everyone: residents, city workers and the business community. That input and support is important and something he said he is looking to cultivate.

He plans to initiate town hall meetings to give residents the opportunity to have their voices heard.

I am accessible, he said. I will talk to anybody and will make time to ensure people understand what were doing and how they can participate. My doors always open.
A felony arrest warrant has been issued for an Alva man after his ex-girlfriend said he borrowed her pickup and refused to return it.

Court records show on Dec. 28, 2021, Alva Police Officer Timothy Clapp was contacted by Woods County Dispatch telling him a Tyree Lynette Headrick wanted to report her ex-boyfriend Louis Jay Reese took her pickup and went to Kansas.

Officer Clapp contacted Headrick who said Reese had permission to use the pickup in Alva to go to work and run errands. She said she found out Reese picked up a girl in Alva went to Hardtner, Kansas, and is still there. She said...
Polls now show that four in five Americans accept that COVID will be around for good, and those who have been irrationally peddling fear about the virus are finally losing credibility fast. But significant and lasting damage to the country may have already been done.

Remember that when we were promised fifteen days to flatten the curve, it was only meant to delay cases, not prevent them. It was a pandemic, after all, and it was fully understood by public health officials and Americans that the virus would claim lives. The idea was simply to spread the hospitalizations and deaths over time so as not to overwhelm the nations healthcare system. But by our submission to the newfangled and liberty-strangling government interventions that were meant to work in service toward this goal, we effectively conceded that the rightful role of government is to manage hospital infrastructure and ensure Americans access to healthcare.

We may not want to believe that, but its true.

Imagine youre an upstanding citizen in your suburban community. You pay your taxes, you jump through the regulatory hoops and pay all the licensing fees to keep your beloved little neighborhood eatery up and running, and you try to give your best to your family and community every day. Then, one day in March of 2020, the government decides that a health emergency that might overwhelm some hospitals in some American cities is reason enough to make it illegal for you to make a living by selling a burger to your neighbor who wants to buy one.

More than that, its also reason enough to force your children out of school and to shutter your church. This is not because any hospitals near you are overwhelmed, mind you, but because some hospitals, somewhere, perhaps far away, might be overwhelmed at some point in the future. And this understanding between the government and its citizens continues long after capacity at any American hospital is seriously stressed beyond the norm, on the grounds that the unseen and omnipresent viral threat we potentially face could emerge and ravage the hospital infrastructure at any moment.

This isnt a far-fetched hypothetical, and this is a serious question: if our government can do all of that in an effort to manage the distribution of healthcare services, what cant the government do to manage it?

We conservatives lost this battle as weve lost so many other battles. Progressives, with all of their government, media, and corporate power, pushed beyond anything we ever could have imagined with lockdowns, school shutdowns, mask mandates, vaccine mandates, and more. To support all of this, progressives yell on social media that hospitals will be overwhelmed if the government doesnt maintain tight control over everything you do!

Having been thoroughly defeated and demoralized by an onslaught of propaganda campaigns fostering an insane level of public paranoia, conservatives and moderates yell in response (when theyre not being actively silenced by social media, that is), desperately hoping for compromise which might trigger some understanding among those in our political opposition: the hospitals arent at risk of being overwhelmed anymore, so please, government, theres no reason to keep controlling everything we do!



The difference between these two positions is easy to spot. One side believes that the virus is currently dangerous enough to overwhelm hospitals, whereas the other side does not. The common ground in these two positions should be equally easy to see, and its the presumption that if the virus is as dangerous as it is in progressives imaginations and their propaganda, the government might then reasonably have grounds to control everything we do in order to protect and direct healthcare services.

Weve had robust debates about the severity of the virus. The merits of this more important question -- whether our government even has the right to do such things to free citizens at all -- has been lost in a frenzy of institutionally orchestrated fear.

This was the question that we conservatives hoped the Supreme Court would address, but alas, they seem to have chosen to split the baby.

While I was ecstatic to hear that the Court ruled against Bidens OSHA mandate which would have forced all Americans working for private companies with 100 employees or more to vaccinate or test in order to earn a buck, I was furious to hear that Roberts and Kavanaugh sided with the leftist justices on Bidens vaccine requirement for healthcare workers as a condition of healthcare facilities receiving Medicare or Medicaid.

I intend to read the opinions in their entirety, but the surface logic for the decisions is utterly incomprehensible.

If the executive branch can unilaterally issue such a vaccine mandate upon private companies and workers, what is the difference between healthcare work and other work, and why werent both mandates upheld?

If such federal mandates are somehow constitutional via the routinely abused Commerce Clause, then Congress would have the right to exercise that authority, not the executive branch. And if that is the case, then both mandates should have been struck down.

Likewise, if the federal government has no right to exercise such authority because it is not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution, then both mandates should have been struck down.

Rather than appropriately ruling that the latter point is obviously the only correct position in keeping with the Constitutions Tenth Amendment (which has never been abrogated, by the way), the Supreme Court instead seems to have ruled is that the federal executive can violate the Constitution, but only in ways of which the Supreme Court approves.

More questions loom, especially when one considers how these rulings reflect the nature of the citizens relationship to our federal government. If it is somehow constitutional for Biden to demand vaccination among healthcare workers on the grounds that the federal government distributes federal benefits, why is it not constitutional to demand that a bank teller be vaccinated in order to receive Medicare, or Social Security, for that matter? We have all become coerced clients of the federal government in one way or another, after all, and though it wasnt pitched that way to our great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents, a life in which the federal government would have increased control over our lives is what they signed us up for, just as we are now potentially designing a future for our children in which the government administrates healthcare and distributes resources for the collective upon its own volition rather than the individual provisions they have the ability to devise.

This means nothing more or less than the forcible seizure of wealth and the bureaucratic rationing of resources and services based upon political considerations. And to prove it, look no further than the Biden administrations guidance to prioritize race in the distribution of lifesaving treatments for COVID patients -- based not upon ones individual needs or means, but on skin color alone.

What we are witnessing is both democracy and despotism existing at once in our nation. In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville, whose prescient tyranny of the majority warnings capture our current social and political landscape incredibly well, writes:

I want to imagine with what new features despotism could be produced in the world. I see an innumerable crowd of like and equal men who revolve on themselves without repose, procuring the small and vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls Above these an immense tutelary power is elevated, which alone takes charge of assuring their enjoyments and watching over their fate.

If America in 2022 is anything, its an innumerable crowd of people who seek equality amongst themselves, and they are anxiously self-absorbed, securing their own vulgar pleasures in an effort to fill the spiritual hole which would have once been occupied by God. And many of them seem to want nothing more than having an elevated government power which can both assure their enjoyment and issue soothing bromides about how its watching over their fate.

Photo credit: http://rebcenter-moscow.ru/ CC BY-SA 4.0 license
Well, it didn't take long for the bloom to come off the rose with regard to the Supreme Court's OSHA decision when Circle Back Jen and the president broadcast their intention to ignore the Court's ruling by encouraging businesses to implement their own vaccine mandates. One way or the other, the federal government is going to make sure everyone is vaccinated, or these people will at least do every conceivable thing in their power to make that happen  including enlisting the aid of their corporate heavies.

As Circle Back said, it is

up to individual employers to determine whether their workplaces will be safe for employees and whether their businesses will be safe for consumers. So President Biden will be calling on and will continue to call on businesses to immediately join those who have already stepped up, including 1/3 of Fortune 100 companies, to institute vaccination requirements to protect their workers, customers, and communities.

Like a good little boy, Biden reiterated his spokesweasel's comments (hat tip for "spokesweasel": Monica Showalter) in his statement to the country:

As a result of the Court's decision, it is now up to States and individual employers to determine whether to make their workplaces as safe as possible for employees, and whether their businesses will be safe for consumers during this pandemic by requiring employees to take the simple and effective step of getting vaccinated.

To that end, Biden said he would continue to "[use his] voice as president to advocate for employers to do the right thing" and, echoing the sentiments expressed by Psaki earlier, will "call on business leaders to immediately join those who have already stepped up  including one-third of Fortune 100 companies  and institute vaccination requirements to protect their workers, customers, and communities." At least they got their talking points lined up.

For a leader who is compelling individuals to choose between earning a living and a medical technology that is not fully vetted for its long-term adverse effects, and is openly hoarding and withholding monoclonal antibodies that reduce hospitalization and death by 70% and shorten illness by four days...it is rich when Biden says he is "disappointed that the Supreme Court has chosen to block common-sense life-saving requirements" that he further concludes are "a very modest burden" on employees.

Let me make sure you get that. Under the pretense of saving lives, Biden is literally forcing "life-saving" vaccines on people by denying them life-saving therapeutics and medications. In Seinfeld-speak, he has to kill people in order to save their lives.

Biden and Psaki might very well rue the day they defied the Supreme Court and publicly enlisted Corporate America to mandate vaccines the federal government was just told it has no authority to implement. Their comments above will be incontrovertible evidence of their intentions to, once again, circumvent the Constitution and the Supreme Court.

As for being "a very modest burden"? It at best shows how out of touch the elites are  at worst, how little they actually care about our lives.

While it is true that private corporations can condition employment on certain requirements  as long as their hiring practices and terms fall within existing civil rights and employment laws, as well as negotiated union agreements  if they terminate or refuse to hire employees based on their vaccination status, it raises the interesting question of whether businesses can lawfully deprive employees of their life, liberty, and property when that deprivation comes at the behest of the Executive.

Since the Court decided the OSHA case on federalism grounds, correctly clarifying that states  not the federal government  have police powers over public health, I wouldn't be surprised if blue states that already have onerous restrictions on our freedoms go full-blown Nazi on us.

If so, we can expect lawsuits right and left for deprivations of life, liberty, and property. There might also be 4th Amendment privacy violations  turns out the Canadian government secretly tracked 33 million cell phones during the pandemic to monitor the movement of Canadians. Does anyone doubt the same might be happening here?

Given that both the vaccinated and the unvaccinated can transmit and contract COVID, if they are being treated differently from one another with no justification for such a disparity, that would be an unequal application of the law under the Equal Protection Clause  as will be the case if hospitals and doctors follow through on government promises of prioritizing COVID treatment based on race as opposed to severity of illness.

Can't say I'm looking forward to years of litigation to resolve these matters, but when it comes to COVID, Democrats are like a dog with a bone. They aren't going to let it go and move on.

When individuals are deprived of essential liberties, the courts will usually employ a strict scrutiny test that covers two prongs: (1) does the state have a compelling interest in regulating public health during a pandemic, and (2) in doing so, did it take the least restrictive means?

Whereas, at the beginning of the pandemic, the government's "compelling interest" argument might have been more convincing, it will be hard-pressed to meet that standard as the urgent nature of the pandemic subsides, herd immunity strengthens and the virus weakens, vaccine efficacy and boosters continue to wane, and more information is revealed about side-effects.

Moreover, as more studies demonstrate the reliability and effectiveness of inexpensive protocols, monoclonal antibodies, and ridiculously expensive pills like Pfizer's Paxlovid and Merck's Molnupiravir, I doubt the government could satisfy the least restrictive standard  even today.

Another possible reaction from the Biden administration would be to search for another agency loophole or revisit the OSHA mandate by narrowly tailoring it to certain industries  but this would take a long time and just end up back in court.

When all is said and done, with the imprimatur of the Supreme Court and the support of the Bidenites, my money is on blue states being so drunk with power that they make life in Australia and Canada look like nirvana. Unless dips in election polling and approval numbers sober them up, it's time to pack your bags and head for freedom in the red states.

Image via Public Domain Pictures.
A psycho Indonesian girlfriend is suspected of stabbing to death her married British boyfriend after he was planning to return to his family abroad.

The suspect allegedly committed cold-blooded murder in Bali, Indonesia, while the victim was video calling his family. The killer hatched a plan to get away with the crime but failed due to the unconvincing alibis she had used.

Brtish man bleeds to death after being stabbed

Matt Harper, 48, is a UK national who was killed by the suspect, his girlfriend, Emmy Pakpahan, in cold blood and left him bleeding out from stab wounds later. She invented an alibi to cover up what she did, reported the Sun UK.

According to the local authorities, the father of two was video calling his stepdaughter and ex-wife when Pakpahan killed him.

The victim worked in the Karma hotel firm; the pair started seeing each other in July 2021 informed their acquaintances in Bali, Indonesia.

Emmy, the main suspect, is 40-years old and natural-born in Indonesia but has US citizenship due to a past marriage. It was she who told the police that her boyfriend had killed himself.

Indonesian girlfriend shows video of victim to cover up the murder

As proof of her claims that she was not guilty, a video was surrendered showing the victim on the floor bleeding out from an attack last Thursday, cited News AU.

The suspect took the video that showed the crime outside the property, and she added that the Briton locked himself in and stabbed himself fatally with the blade. Even took him to the hospital where he died from stabs to the neck and stomach, inflicted while on a video call.

Even adding to the drama to keep suspicion away from her; with the psycho Indonesian girlfriend sobbing how the crime involving her married British boyfriend happened in the first place.

Read Also: Breaking Bad Copycat Killer Stabs Man on the Head, Tries To Liquefy the Corpse But Got Caught by Police

Those who know them say they are not a couple as she claims but going out together. Even posting a snapshot saying 'Mr. and Mrs. Harper' on Facebook last October, noted the Mirror UK.

It gets odder as she posts on social media thanking her friends and family for support after Matt's passing, no mention whether before or after the murder.

Speaking to the camera straight and ups more drama saying his death is felt. Next, if she becomes unreachable, it's to sort out what has happened.

It seems that she was pre-empting accusations of her as the suspected killer of the Briton that the police will state that effect.

But the ploy failed, and the Bali police caught up to the psycho woman and charged murder in the first degree.

Allin Efashion, one of the murdered man's ex-girlfriends, spoke about him. She came before Emmy and said he was a great guy and the love of her life.

She revealed that Matt sent her messages days before his death saying he despised Emmy for destroying his life and regretted breaking up.

Girlfriend known scammer, untrustworthy

Many friends in the UK and Bali were shocked at the family man's death, and fears of ill intention from Pakpahan were felt.

Many of them called her untrustworthy, with several Bali FB groups calling her a scammer fooling foreigners off their money.

The victim arrived in Bali in February 2020, coming from Gloucester, for a job in paradise. He gets killed instead of enjoying his career as a chef in a tropical haven.

Despite her alibis, the psycho Indonesian girlfriend is caught for the murder of a British boyfriend, thinking she got away with it, but the cops figure it out and arrest her.

Related Article: Russian Rapper's Wife Commits 'Perfect Murder,' Dismembers Him Minutes Before His Death To Feed His Body Parts to Rodents

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Speaking in Atlanta last week, President Joe Biden made a startling declaration: those who disagree with him about how best to ensure the integrity of the American electoral process, he told Americans, are modern-day Confederates, racist traitors who are supporters of slave-holding rebel president Jefferson Davis.

If I could, I would tell President Biden about the history of my family  a family of Americans who disagree with him, and whom he now condemns as racist traitors.

My father served in the United States Army from 1942 to 1945. A grandchild of immigrants, and the only child of an aged widow, he answered the call gladly when his nation needed him. Raised in extreme poverty, he saw Army life as a step up  he actually thought Army food seemed decent, and there was usually plenty of it  and he was happy to do what his nation asked, willingly risking his life to fight Hitler's racist legions and to stop the spread of the racist ideology of Nazism.

The Nazis had lots of opportunities to kill him. He was shot at, strafed, and bombed in North Africa, on the island of Sicily, later at Anzio, and then in France. Four times he was decorated for bravery in combat. To the extent that he ever had a "safe space" in those years, it was usually right behind a dual 40 mm anti-aircraft mounting.

Like so many of his generation of citizen-soldiers, he was a humble man. He rarely talked, and never boasted, about his military service or his awards. No bumper stickers for him. He simply took it for granted that every healthy young man defended the nation in a time of need. I learned the story of his service career only after his death, when our family had to settle his final affairs with the Veteran's Administration. Were he alive today, I think he might wonder why our current president thinks his family could ever be on the side of racists.

His ancestors, in turn, might be even more surprised than he would be to learn that, because some of us disagree with Joe Biden and the Democratic Party on a matter of policy, we are all now Jeff Davissupporters. Two of them volunteered during the Civil War to fight in a regiment of Illinois infantry, battling Davis's rebel forces in Mississippi  risking their lives, as my father did, to answer America's call in a struggle to bring down a racist political system.

These parts of this American family's history are not so unusual. I have no doubt that tens of millions of other loyal Americans can produce ancestors who, like mine, literally risked their lives fighting racist regimes. This is something, it may be noted, that our president himself never had to do.

Despite the objections that many have courageously expressed, it is hard not to feel that the truly twisted nature of this president's Atlanta accusation has been underappreciated. Those millions who dare to have a different opinion about this important issue, he insisted, are all seditious racists. Our president has called me, and all our family who feel as I do, racist traitors to our country. Meanwhile, the men and women in this American family of seditious racists have shown themselves willing to sacrifice and to fight in support of our country's wars for more than 150 years.

A particularly bitter irony attaches to Biden's words in light of his posturing as the candidate of "unity" during America's last election. It is tempting to take the charitable view and dismiss the president's vile slander as the raving of a man now clearly in the grip of dementia. This is not an unreasonable view. There is increasing evidence to suspect that Biden has truly become non compos mentis. Quite possibly his words were the mere babbling of a man who is no longer capable of comprehending the meaning of the words that come out of his mouth. But this does nothing to explain the corrosively destructive response of his many defenders. When asked about the president's words, his press secretary could respond only by invoking Donald Trump.

Granted, President Trump said many harmful things, and he made statements that many of us believe did damage to our national political culture. But Donald Trump never uttered any statement that was more deeply false, more harmfully divisive, and in many senses more profoundly evil than Biden's invitation to regard all of those Americans who disagree with him as violent, racist traitors to our nation.

Those of us who differ with this president about voting legislation have not betrayed America. Far from it. Instead, we have been betrayed by a president who incites hatred against those who disagree, and who libels, marginalizes, and stigmatizes our contributions to, and our love for, this land. He owes all Americans a heartfelt apology.

Image: Marc Nozell via Flickr, CC BY 2.0.
There is no way to recover national political standing once a politician becomes a popular butt of humor, a punchline in a degrading joke. Ask Dan Quayle, who has disappeared from the scene so completely that nobody has even gotten him on the record about the vice presidency of Kamala Harris. My guess is that he is enjoying bitter laughter.

Last Thursdays interview with Craig Melvin of Democrat-friendly NBC sealed her fate. The Zen koan-like statement, "It is time for us to do what we have been doing. And that time is every day," closes the case, a brilliantly meaningless platitude that seems to demand meditation, as if there must be some enlightenment lurking in the vast mental emptiness.

But of course, there isnt. More and more people are reluctantly coming to the conclusion that the woman who is a heartbeat away from the presidency, whose incumbent is elderly and afflicted by dementia, is a dummy. I resisted that conclusion in part because, after all, she was elected Californias attorney general and senator and she is the daughter of two professors, but mostly out of fear for our nation. But as her ex-staffers multiply in number, reports are proliferating of those who know her up close privately saying that, yeah, she is that stupid.

The sole plausible explanation for her rise is disgraceful. When she was younger and prettier, she had a sexual relationship with a powerful married man decades older than she, and thanks to his influence in a corrupt one-party state whose media would never question a Democrat politician on the rise, she had high political office handed to her, ratified by voters dutifully accepting party dictates.

This, too, is utterly mockable, and now that the dam is breaking, will be mentioned more often as she becomes an embarrassment to the party.

In the wake of the Melvin interview, the Washington Free Beacon has put together a video resembling the old Saturday Night Live segments of deep thoughts with genuine Kamala quotes of notable vacuity:

And, it is far from the sole example of Kamala spouting nonsense:

The following report, if true, is mind-bogglingly dumb. From the UK Daily Mail:

Vice President Kamala is stepping up her media presence through pre-arranged TV interviews, with plans to win chits with elected Democrats through campaign appearances leading up to the 2022 elections following staff turnover. (snip) Harris is 'mulling' a higher media presence, the Washington Post reported. The former senator, who did not complete her single term after Biden selected her, is also planning an active campaign schedule.

I confess that I have engaged in speculation over the fantasy that the Democrats will find a way to dump first Kamala, and then Biden as a way of escaping responsibility for foisting these two disastrously stupid and inept politicians on us -- with the active connivance of the media who assured us it was totally normal for a presidential candidate to hide in his basement and draw double-digit crowds on the few occasions he ventured out for campaign events.

But Mark Wauck throws the cold water of reality on those hazy speculations, using his pet nicknames for our leadership duo:

Zhou isnt about to go anywhere, and even if he were inclined to, Dr. Jill wouldnt let him. Nor is Kama Sutra going anywhere. Further, if Kama Sutra could be pushed out, that would leave a 50-50 Senateand zero incentive for the GOP to confirm another Veep. If McConnell stiffed Obama on the Garland SCOTUS nomination, he could stiff anyone he wants on a new Veep.

My only response is, I confess, a bit far-fetched, though considering the circumstance, perhaps not unthinkable. If, somehow, Kamala were forced out of office (via a scandal?) and no successor confirmed, that would leave Nancy Pelosi in the line of succession if Joe Biden were unable to continue in office. At least until the next Congress is seated.

Would that scare McConnell and the Republicans into accepting, say, Hillary Clinton as VP?

Of course, the scare could work two ways. If there were a stalemate over confirming a replacement VP that lasted through early 2023, the Republicans choice of speaker could be Donald Trump, since there is no requirement that the Speaker even be a member of the House of Representatives.

I think the scenario of forcing out either Biden or Harris is unlikely. We are truly screwed with them at the top of the executive branch. I only hope that disaster does not strike before they and the Democrats are held responsible at the polls for this worst presidential administration in history.

Graphic credit: YouTube screengrab
Before there was Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Stephen Stills and Neil Young spent two years in a band called Buffalo Springfield, which released three albums and one smash hit. Exactly 55 years ago, For What Its Worth was on its way to a No. 7 peak on Billboards hot 100 list.

Theres something happening here. What it is aint exactly clear. This iconic song became the anthem of Vietnam war protests. But when it was first performed on Thanksgiving Day, 1966, Kent State was four years in the future. Stills was talking about the Sunset Strip Riots.

Pandoras Box, a nightclub that catered to teenage partiers, was about to be bulldozed. On November 12, 1966, teens staged a sit-in that turned violent. Stills witnessed it on his way to a gig, and the song was born. Later, he mused, Riot is a ridiculous name, it was a funeral for Pandoras Box. But it looked like a revolution.

That, I think, is why the song is so famous. It captured a feeling in the air. While revolutionary events are in process, few contemporaries notice. Stills did, and his words beckon us to do the same.

There is, indeed, something happening today. Pandoras Box has been opened and has unleashed war upon us. In the fog of that war, it is difficult to know exactly what it is. But our moment screams for everybody to look whats going down. If we dont, we will fall under the same harsh judgment that we pronounce on others.

Consider past cultures that failed to understand their own times and to stand against massive evils that we now see with 20/20 hindsight. How could the denizens of France not predict that a Reign of Terror would result from murdering priests and kings? Why didnt more Russians stand against the murderous Bolsheviks who were gaining power? That mistake cost 100 million lives over the next 70 years. What devilry gripped the cultured, Bach-loving Germans? They allowed a madman to turn their industry and efficiency into a murder machine.

While Stills thought the Sunset Strip Riots were hardly riots at all, he couldnt shake the sense that somethings happening here. They were more than another salvo in the Sexual Revolution. They crossed a new and significant line. On that night, the Sexual Revolution enveloped minor children.

The sit-in remained a peaceful protest until the stroke of 10 oclock. At that time, the LAPD was tasked with enforcing the citys curfew on minors. The people of Los Angeles had passed an ordinance to protect the innocence of children younger than 18. Push came to shove, and the Sunset Strip Riots were born.

The opening salvos of the Sexual Revolution were attacks on marriage. Its philosophical leaders, going back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and Percy Shelley (1792-1822), were intent on destroying the sacred bond between husband and wife. Divorce, fornication, and adultery were means toward that end.

But as the Revolution advanced, the crosshairs shifted to the children. Free Love was never the ultimate goal. It has always been a means toward an end. The goal is the breakdown of the family. Once the marriage vow is obliterated, the battle must shift to the natural bond between parent and child. While that remains, family bonds still have precedence.

Maybe Stills knew this consciously -- maybe, only subconsciously. But children were the focus of his haunting refrain, I think its time we stop, children. Whats that sound? Everybody, look what's going down. Whether Stills intended this, or not, Carl S. Trueman painstakingly documents the sexualization of children in his new book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self.

This book is a must-read for parents and policymakers who are interested in the health and well-being of children. It helps to explain how the innocence of children came under attack through the militantly atheist philosophy of people like Shelly. It, further, documents how Sigmund Freud deliberately sexualized every aspect of childhood development -- from breastfeeding to potty training.

It is precisely at this point that school boards and library associations come into the picture. Statutes protecting minor children obligate state actors to respect parental rights. But these statutes hinder the agenda to dissolve the natural family and replace it with the state.

Those who tell you that the arguments over objectionable books and curricula are about free speech, or about access to information, are either deceived or deceiving. The fact remains that statutory age restrictions on sexual consent (statutory rape) and access to sexual content (e.g. Restricted films) are legal recognition of parental rights. Violation of these laws violates parental rights. Nobody has the right to interfere in the sacred relationship between parents and their own children.

Will we, as a lawful society, respect parents who guard the innocence of minors? Will we help them maintain their sole authority to educate their own children in family formation and emotional health?

Or, will we undermine parental rights and give ever more power to teachers unions and library associations to indoctrinate our children in the philosophical thought-stream that brought us the French Revolution, the Bolsheviks, and the Hitler Youth?

According to legend, Pandoras Box contains war. The nightclub that circumvented parental rights and brought the sexual revolution to minor children could not have been more appropriately named.
It is fascinating how the meaning of the phrase conspiracy theory changes depending on who is using it. Or more specifically, it depends on how Democrats are using it to advance their political goals.

For years, if not decades, some Americans were noticing behind-the-scene, well-concerted efforts to impose on our country a form of semi-totalitarian regime, not unlike the one that collapsed in the Soviet Union three decades ago. However, anyone who pointed to facts that supported claims of coordinated attempts to reduce the governments accountability to the American people, restrict individual liberties, expand governmental powers, and strengthen federal law-enforcement agencies was promptly branded as a conspiracy theorist (think of the character Mel Gibson played in Conspiracy Theory) who might belong in a mental hospital and certainly shouldnt be taken seriously.

There were no conspiracies in America, we were told, and anyone who suggested that there were such conspiracies was insane, evil, or both.

That mainstream rhetoric changed a bit in 1998 when Ms. Hillary Clinton, defending Bill against charges of sexual misconduct with Monica Lewinsky, claimed he was the victim of a vast right-wing conspiracy. No one in the mainstream called her a conspiracy theorist, never mind asking for factual proof of her claim. Nineteen years later, when we were suddenly told that President Donald Trump colluded with Russia (another name for conspiring with Russia), despite (as we learned later) zero credible evidence supporting them, no mainstream narrator referred to House impeachment managers and their Congressional supporters as crazy conspiracy theorists.

But the progressive mainstream did not permanently abandonat least, not permanently soits disdain for conspiracy theories. It was back to its usual modus operandi during the 2020 presidential elections. Then, everybody who was concerned about plans to facilitate election fraud and cheating and, after the fact, was concerned about the swift destruction of evidence and the refusal to investigate to allay voters fears, was promptly relegated to the conspiracy theorist category.

Image: The conspiracy theorist (edited in befunky) by Morton Devonshire. CC BY-SA 3.0.

The Democrats reluctance to even consider the possibility of a conspiracy that was of great consequence to America magically evaporated on January 6, 2021, when tens of thousands gathered to hear Trump speak in D.C. about illegal irregularities and the loss of public trust in the election results and about 500 of those people ended up at the Capitol doing what leftists usually do (only without weapons). Now, in Democrat circles, it has become de rigueur to call those mostly spontaneously protesting individuals insurrectionists who conspired to overthrow the legitimate United States government. To date, no Democrats have dared to call Ms. Nancy Pelosi or Mr. Chuck Schumer conspiracy theorists.

Ultimately, for decades, depending on the political orientation of a person who made a claim of conspiracy, s/he has either been praised as a harbinger of unquestionable truth (if it was a mainstream Democrat or otherwise left-leaning individual who made that claim) or castigated as a mentally incompetent conspiracy theorist (if it was someone else).

There is a term in psychology that explains the above paradoxical attitudes of the mainstream ideologues in this respect. It is called projectiona tendency to ascribe ones own tendencies and motivations (usually, but not always, sinister) to others. It appears that the mainstream Democrats and the lions share of the progressive left suffer from this mental dysfunction.

They are the ones who continuously conspire to undermine our constitutional republic and yet they are blaming others for threatening our democracy. Then they continue projecting their false accusations of conspiracy on others, branding those others as conspiracy theorists who are falsely accusing the Democrat party of conspiracy to seize permanent political power for itself through cheating and intimidation.

Fortunately, once you understand their tricks, you can easily discern whats really going on based on what the mainstream Demo-Left is saying. Whatever sinister actions or plots they allege their adversaries are committing is pretty much exactly what they are already doing or are attempting to do.

So, if they accuse others of conspiring to overthrow the will of the American people, then they are actually conspiring to overthrow the will of the American people. And if they call their critics conspiracy theorists, then they are the actual conspiracy theorists who are making things up to feed their legendary lust for poweror maybe theyre saying those things just because theyre not very bright.

The puzzle is solved. You couldnt have made it any easier for us, Mr. Sajak. Can we have something more difficult to solve next time?

Outside of his work at American Thinker, Mark Andrew Dwyers recent columns are here and here. You can find his other commentaries here.
There are radical factions within the Democrat party that claim they have been awakened to an ongoing conspiracy that they are determined to thwart. The conspiracy began when the colonies were settled and continues to this day. The conspirators are white males who settled the country, formed governments, and passed laws to assure their supremacy and dominion.

The colonists had limited options regarding how to proceed when they arrived in the New World. Upon landing, when confronted by aboriginal people, they could have turned the Mayflower around and returned to religious persecution in England, negotiated an equitable arrangement with the native peoples, or used the advanced weapons technology they possessed to assure their survival in a hostile environment. The awakened radicals  let's call them woke  know that once the colonists chose to settle the continent on their own terms, they imported slaves from Africa to work the plantations in the South.

These facts are undeniable, but the conspiracy conjured by the woke moves adroitly from the realm of fact to fiction. They have concluded that the nation was founded for the benefit of white men, the Constitution was ratified to legitimize slavery, and other legislation was written to support white supremacy.

One might analyze American history and conclude that actions like the abolition movement, Civil War, constitutional amendments providing citizenship and voting rights to slaves, and civil rights acts that delivered equality to all people are part of a remarkable progressive history. The woke have concluded that these apparently altruistic actions were part of an elaborate scheme to conceal the conspiracy and assure white supremacy. They've concluded that all laws and any action, no matter how benevolent, are part of the conspiracy.

Considering this, it's not surprising that factions within the Democratic Party have chosen not to enforce laws that support the conspiracy. Why police the borders to enforce immigration laws that serve only as a protection for white people? The woke believe that the police are part of the conspiracy. They want to defund the police and have elected woke district attorneys in many cities that support criminals instead of prosecuting them. Their argument: Racists laws should not be recognized with enforcement.

If you question Woke arguments, you are dismissed as a racist. Disagreement makes you part of the conspiracy. Anyone who is not woke is a racist, misogynist, chauvinist, or likely all vile racial epithets rolled into a dangerous co-conspirator. If you speak your mind, even in jest, you must be ostracized to clarify your role as a pariah in the new woke culture.

George Orwell foresaw the doublethink and thought police that are now a woke reality. The woke have concluded that no rational person would deny their purview, so discussion is irrelevant. Freedom of speech should be suspended for those who disagree with them. If you don't travel down the same road as the woke, you are on the wrong road. Robert Frost suggested it can make all the difference to take the road less traveled. The woke would close all roads but the one they travel.

Their philosophy and conjured history are documented. The New York Times has published the 1619 Project recording opinions, myths, and smatterings of history, feigning a legitimate basis for the white conspiracy the woke have conjured. Liberal lawyers have hypothesized Critical Race Theory, which began the narrative that all laws are established to perpetuate white supremacy. This propaganda is now being taught in public schools and colleges in all parts of the country. Many parents are disturbed by this. The response from Democrats has been to tell parents they aren't qualified to provide input on their children's curricula.

President Biden has communicated clearly that he believes that the biggest threats to the security of the country are white supremacists. When one considers that liberals believe that anyone who isn't woke is a white supremacist, one must conclude that vast swaths of the public may now be investigated as terrorists. Billions of dollars have been spent to purchase sophisticated surveillance equipment that has been used to spy on innocent Americans. The FBI has been caught tampering with evidence provided to FISA courts so agents can illegally spy on Americans. There is no reason to believe that the government isn't illegally searching and seizing the personal property of innocent Americans.

American history tells us that Native Americans were treated poorly as the nation was settled. Slavery is evil. Importing humans to toil in the fields was a wrong that can never be made right. If a group of people wants to subscribe to a notion that white people conspire against the nation's minorities for their own benefit, that is their prerogative. If they want to engage in lively debate about this topic, bring it on.

But if the woke expect individuals and the culture to bend to their conjured notions, forget it. This is America, where everyone is free to think freely and reach his own conclusions.

The country has worked to change its culture. Hundreds of thousands of men died in a civil war to free the slaves. The Constitution was amended to provide rights to minorities and women. Laws were written to guarantee these rights. The woke ignore these facts, disseminate propaganda that divides the country, indoctrinate students with this propaganda, and threaten to investigate law-abiding citizens as terrorists. This must be stopped, and the course of the nation corrected before the country is overwhelmed by the carefully crafted conspiracy of the woke.

Image via Max Pixel.
Marketed as the worlds first phone with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset, the Motorola Edge X30 was officially unveiled in China last month. The phone has now appeared on the Thai device certification database NBTC. However, the device here is called the Motorola Edge 30 Pro and not Edge X30.

The model number of the Edge 30 Pro is listed as XT2201-1, while the Edge X30 goes by XT2201-2 (via MySmartPrice). So we know its the same device with a region-specific numerical marker (1 and 2). This indicates that Motorola could launch this as the Edge 30 Pro in all markets outside China.

Since the device arrived a month ago, its hardware specifications are already public. Barring a few color variants, we dont think much else will be different on the Edge 30 Pro.

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Motorola hasnt provided a release date for the global version of the Edge X30

While the Edge X30 (or the Edge 30 Pro) is already available in China, theres currently no information on its global release. But given other Motorola handsets are expected to break cover over the next few weeks, we should have a better idea in the coming days.

The Edge 30 Pro has a lot to offer in the hardware department. The phone will sport a 6.7-inch fullHD+ (2400 x 1080) OLED screen backed by a 144Hz refresh rate. The display also supports 10-bit colors and HDR10+ while the brightness can go all the way up to 700 nits.

Customers will also find 128GB and 256GB of storage options, while all versions will include at least 8GB of RAM. Theres a 50-megapixel primary camera with OIS, plus a 50-megapixel ultrawide sensor and a 2-megapixel depth sensor on the rear panel. Shutterbugs will love the fact that the Edge 30 Pro offers a mammoth 60-megapixel camera on the front panel.

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The device is only splash-resistant (IP52), so it cannot handle extreme weather conditions. The occasional droplets of rain should be fine, however. You will also find features like 5G, dual-SIM connectivity, and stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos. The Edge X30 runs Android 12 with the MYUI 3.0 skin in China. However, the global version should feature a relatively stock version of Android in line with existing Moto smartphones.
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Opposition to a Government plan to temporarily restore double-jobbing for Northern Irish politicians intensified on Sunday, amid calls for an immediate u-turn.

The UK Government is facing criticism over plans to allow MPs to retain their seats in Westminster while being elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly.

The return of the dual mandate, or double-jobbing, would allow DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson to contest the upcoming Assembly elections while also remaining MP for Lagan Valley at Westminster.

On Sunday, Ulster Unionist Party MLA Mike Nesbitt said the plan would bring a blush to Vladimir Putin.

Mr Nesbitt told BBC NIs Sunday Politics programme: This Government is going out of its way to prop up and support one party, and not for the first time.

I think it is absolutely scandalous and it reeks of corruption. And this Government reeks of corruption.

He said it did not matter if the rule change brought Northern Ireland into line with the rest of the UK.

Why did we stop it six years ago? Why are we bringing it back now? And why are we making it time limited? I think the answer is obvious. Its to help out one party  the DUP.

The UK Government plan would see dual mandates returning only until the next UK general election in 2024.

The current law banning politicians from double-jobbing as MLAs and MPs came into effect in 2016.

On the same programme, Alliance Party deputy leader and North Down MP Stephen Farry called on the Government to reconsider the plan and said he hoped the House of Lords would vote against the change to the law.

He called it a backwards step and said there had been a lack of consultation on the issue.

Stephen Farry wants ministers to reconsider the plan (Brian Lawless/PA)

Doing this so close to an election campaign is interfering in the democratic process.

Supporters of the amendment, Mr Farry said, were out of touch with public opinion here.

Sinn Fein and the SDLP have also criticised any return of double-jobbing, meaning four of the five parties that make up the Executive in Stormont have come out against the Northern Ireland Office plans.

Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill labelled it on Saturday a disgraceful interference in the upcoming Assembly election.

A spokesman for the Northern Ireland Office said: On Wednesday, the Government tabled an amendment to the NI (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Bill.

This followed a proposal by Lib Dem peer and former leader of the Alliance Party in Northern Ireland Lord Alderdice, during Committee Stage in the House of Lords, which could have allowed dual mandates to have been allowed indefinitely.

This was not opposed by his front bench.

The Governments proposal is for any dual mandates to be strictly time-limited to the subsequent Westminster election.

It will enable the smoother transition between legislatures should an MP wish to take a seat in the NI Assembly, and therefore supports the objectives of the Bill in promoting greater stability.

It will be subject to the usual parliamentary scrutiny as the Bill progresses.

On Sunday, Mr Farry distanced his party from the role played by Lord Alderdice in the growing controversy.

John Alderdice does not speak for the Alliance party and does not represent the Alliance Party. He is Alliance leader going back to the 1990s.

So, were talking about 20 years ago. There is clear yellow water between us and him in that regard. And, fundamentally, we think he has made a poor judgment call.

Mr Farry also rejected any suggestion that his party was motivated by a desire to contest a by-election in Lagan Valley which would be triggered if Sir Jeffrey stood down as an MP to return to the Assembly.

The Alliance Party made major inroads into the DUP majority in the constituency at the last election.

I am angry at this proposal but the issue of a byelection in Lagan Valley is well down my list of considerations in that regard, he said.
Omicron, the latest variant of COVID-19, has hit certain sectors of the economy hard, causing labor shortages and child care issues and making some Americans wary again of dining out.

But in a new interview with Yahoo Finance this week, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo offered hopeful news from business leaders she's spoken with recently amid all of this uncertainty.

They see [the problem] as short term," said Raimondo, who sat down in Washington, DC for an upcoming episode of Influencers with Andy Serwer. Folks are beginning to say, It feels like we are peaking, and going to start to come down the other side of the curve.

But, she added: It's anyone's guess how long it will take.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo says business leaders see the Omicron variant as a short-term threat. (Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

The Commerce Secretary's contacts aren't alone in this assessment: Schwab Asset Management CEO and CIO Omar Aguilar also projects diminishing omicron impacts on the business community. "We're going to have a very solid and robust earnings season," he told Yahoo Finance on Thursday, though he noted that the variant would have some impact on earnings reports.

A general view of optimism

At least in some regions of the U.S., specifically the Northeast, public health experts also appear to agree that the effects of the Omicron variant will be short term. Cases are starting to slow down in cities like New York and Chicago, where Omicron surged early on. Still, hospitalizations remain at record highs in many cities, straining medical facilities.

"We are teetering on the brink in health care" between increasing patient loads and sick staff at the hospital, Dr. Andre Campbell, a professor and ICU physician San Francisco, told Yahoo Finance Live on Friday. Still, he added, "We think that things will get better."

Around the world, there are reports that the Omicron-fueled COVID wave has shown signs it may pass. In South Africa, health officials recently announced that one of the first provinces to see Omicron has officially exited the fourth wave in terms of the technical definition of a wave.

Back in the U.S., Raimondo says that labor shortages are getting better but still a real issue, noting that recently changed guidance to quarantine for five days instead of 10 may be helping.

Raimondo has a long list of contacts in the business community since her early career as a venture capitalist and time as governor of Rhode Island, where she developed a reputation as very high touch.

Now, as Commerce Secretary, she often checks in with business leaders and reports that there's a general sense of optimism  as long as we don't get another variant.

Ben Werschkul is a writer and producer for Yahoo Finance in Washington, DC.

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United States governors aim to boost spending on climate change programs and to address the impact of severe weather conditions like floods and wildfires.

Governors Gavin Newsom of California and Jay Inslee of Washington have expressed their intention to allot more of their funds to promote clean energy like solar power and expand access to electric vehicles.

Governors in Republican-led states want to protect populations from the onslaught of wildfires, drought, and other extreme weather conditions. However, many of them refuse to relate such expenditure to global warming, as per the Associated Press report.

Idaho Governor Brad Little proposed a $150 million budget for fire-fighting programs and additional fire personnel. Arizona Governor Doug Ducey proposed $1 billion for water infrastructure projects for cities and farms.

South Carolina Governor Henry Mc Master has urged lawmakers to allot $300 million of government funds for projects to protect the coastline against flooding, erosion, and typhoon damage.

Read Also: Ancient Oceans Not Susceptible to Climate Change; Human Activities Have Done Many Damages

Budget Allocated To Combat Increasing Climate Change Impact

Several more governors are expected to submit their proposals on how to spend government funds in the coming weeks, at a point in time when many states are generating increased budget surpluses, as well as the damaging outcomes of shifting weather patterns becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

In December, the West experienced a wildfire that ripped through Colorado. A violent tornado has ravaged Kentucky in the same month, while more than 20 hurricanes hit the Gulf Coast last year.

Governor Inslee believes that there is a need to take an aggressive approach to combat climate change as it is something that he and fellow US governors are dealing with "almost on a weekly" basis.

"The climate crisis is not an abstraction," the Democrat governor said.

US President Joe Biden's $2 trillion social and environmental policies packages have stagnated in Congress, putting more federal funding for climate change initiatives in question. During the administration of former Republican President Donald Trump, states, largely run by Democrats, played a prominent part in advancing climate policies.

The incoming winter storm is still on track, with parts of the Carolinas expecting all types of winter precipitation. Winter Storm and Ice Storm Warnings are now in effect, and Winter Storm Watches have been issued further south to include the Columbia Area. #scwx #gawx #caewx pic.twitter.com/8t8zGX3Br4  NWS Columbia (@NWSColumbia) January 14, 2022

US Braces For Blizzard, Winter Storm

Meanwhile, governors of several states have declared states of emergency ahead of a massive winter storm that threatens around 74 million residents of the United States, as per CNN.

In Virginia, outgoing Governor Ralph Northam declared a state of emergency and advised the public to take the approaching blizzard seriously. Earlier this month, thousands of motorists got trapped on congested highways in Virginia.

In North Carolina, reports say that supplies of essential goods, including milk and bread, are running low.

On Friday, the winter storm, moving fast, had already dropped heavy snow across a large area of the Midwest, which resulted in terrible travel conditions and prompted the authorities to close schools.

According to National Weather Service meteorologist Brad Smal, The Des Moines airport has more than 14 inches of snow, and a large section of central and southern Iowa has around one foot of snow, as per NBC.

The National Weather Service has issued an advisory on Twitter indicating that warnings are now in effect in further south.

"The incoming winter storm is still on track, with parts of the Carolinas expecting all types of winter precipitation. Winter Storm and Ice Storm Warnings are now in effect, and Winter Storm Watches have been issued further south to include the Columbia Area," the NWS said in a tweet.

Read Also: Biden's Social Spending Bill Could Face Challenges, Changes in the Senate due to Budget Rules

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COLLEYVILLE, Texas (AP)  Hostages who had been held for hours inside a Texas synagogue were rescued Saturday night, according to Gov. Greg Abbott, bringing an end to a standoff that had lasted nearly 12 hours.

Prayers answered. All hostages are out alive and safe, Abbott tweeted.

Abbotts tweet came not long after a loud bang and what sounded like gunfire was heard coming from the synagogue, where authorities said a man had held people captive as he demanded the release of a Pakistani neuroscientist who was convicted of trying to kill U.S. Army officers in Afghanistan.

The hostage-taker was later declared dead, according to a law enforcement official who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. Details of the rescue or the man's death were not immediately released.

At least four hostages were initially believed to be inside the synagogue, according to three law enforcement officials who were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation and who spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity. The synagogue's rabbi was believed to be among the hostages, one of the officials said. One of the officials said the man claimed to be armed but authorities had not confirmed whether he was.

The Colleyville Police Department said one hostage was released uninjured shortly after 5 p.m. Saturday. The man was expected to be reunited with his family and did not require medical attention. A law enforcement official said the first hostage who was released was not the rabbi.

Authorities are still trying to discern a precise motive for the attack. The hostage-taker was heard demanding the release of Aafia Siddiqui, the Pakistani neuroscientist suspected of having ties to al-Qaida, the officials said. He also said he wanted to be able to speak with her, according to the officials. Siddiqui is in federal prison in Texas.

The officials said investigators have not positively identified the man and cautioned that the information was based on a preliminary investigation.

A rabbi in New York City received a call from the rabbi believed to be held hostage in the synagogue to demand Siddiquis release, a law enforcement official said. The New York rabbi then called 911 .

Police were first called to the synagogue around 11 a.m. and people were evacuated from the surrounding neighborhood soon after that, FBI Dallas spokesperson Katie Chaumont said.

The services were being livestreamed on the synagogue's Facebook page for a time. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that an angry man could be heard ranting and talking about religion at times during the livestream, which didn't show what was happening inside the synagogue.

Shortly before 2 p.m., the man said, You got to do something. I dont want to see this guy dead. Moments later, the feed cut out. A Meta company spokesperson later confirmed that Facebook removed the video.

Multiple people heard the hostage-taker refer to Siddiqui as his sister on the livestream, but Faizan Syed, the executive director of Council on American-Islamic Relations in Dallas Fort-Worth Texas, told The Associated Press that Siddiquis brother, Mohammad Siddiqui, was not involved. Syed said CAIRs support and prayers were with the people being held in the synagogue.

Texas resident Victoria Francis told the AP that she watched about an hour of the livestream before it cut out. She said she heard the man rant against America and claim he had a bomb.

He was just all over the map. He was pretty irritated and the more irritated he got, hed make more threats, like Im the guy with the bomb. If you make a mistake, this is all on you. And hed laugh at that, she said. He was clearly in extreme distress.

Francis, who grew up near Colleyville, tuned in after she read about the hostage situation. She said it sounded like the man was talking to the police department on the phone, with the rabbi and another person trying to help with the negotiations.

Colleyville, a community of about 26,000 people, is about 15 miles (23 kilometers) northeast of Fort Worth. The synagogue is nestled among large houses in a leafy residential neighborhood that includes several churches, a middle and elementary school and a horse farm.

Congregation Beth Israel is led by Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, who has been there since 2006 as the synagogues first full-time rabbi. He has worked to bring a sense of spirituality, compassion and learning to the community, according to his biography, and he loves welcoming everyone, including LGBT people, into the congregation.

Anna Salton Eisen, a founder and former president of the synagogue, said the congregation has about 140 members and Cytron-Walker has worked hard to build interfaith relationships in the community, including doing pulpit swaps and participating in a community peace walk. She described Saturday's events as surreal.

This is unlike anything weve ever experienced. You know, its a small town and its a small congregation, Eisen said as the hostage situation was ongoing. "No matter how it turns out its hard to fathom how we will all be changed by this, because surely we will be.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki tweeted Saturday evening that President Joe Biden had been briefed and was receiving updates from senior officials.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said he was monitoring the situation closely. We pray for the safety of the hostages and rescuers, he wrote on Twitter.

CAIR, the nations largest Muslim advocacy group, condemned the attack Saturday afternoon.

This latest antisemitic attack at a house of worship is an unacceptable act of evil, CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said in a statement. We stand in solidarity with the Jewish community, and we pray that law enforcement authorities are able to swiftly and safely free the hostages. No cause can justify or excuse this crime.

Siddiqui earned advanced degrees from Brandeis University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before she was sentenced in 2010 to 86 years in prison on charges that she assaulted and shot at U.S. Army officers after being detained in Afghanistan two years earlier. The punishment sparked outrage in Pakistan among political leaders and her supporters, who viewed her as victimized by the American criminal justice system.

In the years since, Pakistan officials have expressed interest publicly in any sort of deal or swap that could result in her release from U.S. custody, and her case has continued to draw attention from supporters. In 2018, for instance, an Ohio man who prosecutors say planned to fly to Texas and attack the prison where Siddiqui is being held in an attempt to free her was sentenced to 22 years in prison.

___

Tucker and Balsamo reported from Washington, D.C.; Associated Press writers Jennifer McDermott in Providence, Rhode Island; Michael R. Sisak in New York; Holly Meyer in Nashville, Tenn.; Acacia Coronado in Austin, Texas; and Issac Scharf in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
UK counter-terrorism officers are working with authorities in the US after a British hostage-taker was shot dead after an hours-long stand-off at a synagogue.

The man has been identified as 44-year-old Malik Faisal Akram, orginally from Blackburn in Lancashire.

He was killed in a shooting incident after the FBI entered the building at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, on Saturday.

All four hostages were unharmed in the incident which President Joe Biden described as an act of terror.

President Joe Biden speak to the press about the Texas synagogue hostage incident (Patrick Semansky/AP)

During the incident  which saw police first called at 11am and ended with the release of the final hostages at around 9pm  the man could be heard ranting on a livestream in what appeared to be a British accent.

On Sunday, the Foreign Office confirmed he was British and the Metropolitan Police said counter-terror officers were in contact with US authorities and colleagues from the FBI.

Mr Biden said, in an update to the press, that he did not have all the details but it was believed Akram had got the weapons on the street, adding: He purchased them when he landed.

He said there were no bombs that we know of, and that Akram is thought to have spent the first night in a homeless shelter.

Akrams family said they are absolutely devastated and do not condone any of his actions, according to a statement shared on the Blackburn Muslim Community Facebook page.

It stated: We cant say much now as their is an ongoing FBI investigation. We would like to say that we as a family do not condone any of his actions and would like to sincerely apologize wholeheartedly to all the victims involved in the unfortunate incident.

The statement, attributed to Akrams brother Gulbar, said the hostage-taker was suffering from mental health issues.

It added: We would also like to add that any attack on any human being be it a Jew, Christian or Muslim etc is wrong and should always be condemned.

It is absolutely inexcusable for a Muslim to attack a Jew or for any Jew to attack a Muslim, Christian, Hindu vice versa.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss condemned the act of terrorism and anti-semitism, while the British Ambassador to the United States Karen Pierce said British authorities are providing full support to Texas and US law enforcement agencies.

My thoughts are with the Jewish community and all those affected by the appalling act in Texas. We condemn this act of terrorism and anti-semitism. We stand with US in defending the rights and freedoms of our citizens against those who spread hate.    https://t.co/36Eb8lRQTV  Liz Truss (@trussliz) January 16, 2022

Akram is said to have demanded the release of a Pakistani neuroscientist who was convicted of trying to kill US army officers in Afghanistan.

Speaking to reporters after the incident, FBI special agent in charge Matt DeSarno said they believed the man was singularly focused on one issue and it was not specifically related to the Jewish community, and added they will continue to work to find motive.

Confirming that the hostage-taker had died, he said there would be an independent investigation of the shooting incident.

He said the FBI had been in contact with their legal attache offices in London and Israel for an investigation with global reach.

A spokesman for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said: We are aware of the death of a British man in Texas and are in contact with the local authorities.

One hostage who had been held was released during the stand-off and the three others got out when an FBI Swat team entered the building, authorities in the US said.

The Metropolitan Police confirmed officers from counter-terrorism policing are liaising with US authorities and colleagues from the FBI regarding the incident.

In a statement issued by Greater Manchester Police, Assistant Chief Constable Dominic Scally for Counter Terror Policing North West confirmed the suspect in the incident was Akram, originally from Blackburn.

He said: Police forces in the region will continue to liaise with their local communities, including the Jewish community, and will put in place any necessary measures to provide reassurance to them.

Ms Truss tweeted: My thoughts are with the Jewish community and all those affected by the appalling act in Texas. We condemn this act of terrorism and anti-semitism.

We stand with US in defending the rights and freedoms of our citizens against those who spread hate.

Ms Pierce said: The UK & US stand shoulder to shoulder in defiance of terrorism and in defence of the fundamental rights and freedoms of our citizens.

The UK & US stand shoulder to shoulder in defiance of terrorism and in defence of the fundamental rights and freedoms of our citizens. 3/3  Karen Pierce (@KarenPierceUK) January 16, 2022

Earlier, US law enforcement officials said the man had demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist suspected of having ties to al Qaida, who is in prison in Texas.

The officials revealed that he said he wanted to be able to speak to her.

While a number of people were reported to have heard the hostage-taker refer to Siddiqui as his sister on the livestream, her brother is said not to have been involved.

John Floyd, board chairman for the Houston chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and long-time legal counsel for Siddiquis brother, said his client was not the person responsible for the heinous incident.

Mr Floyd condemned what had happened as wicked, and said the person involved has nothing to do with Dr Aafia, her family, or the global campaign to get justice for Dr Aafia.
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